His Mission: Jesus in the Gospel of Luke

by D. A. Carson (Editor), Kathleen Nielson (Editor), John Piper (Contribution by), Colin S. Smith (Contribution by), Crawford W. Loritts (Contribution by)

Overview

With contributions from popular Bible teachers, including Tim Keller, Kevin DeYoung, John Piper, D. A. Carson, Crawford Loritts, Gary Millar, and Stephen Um, this collection of eight biblical expositions looks to the Gospel of Luke and its unique portrait of our Savior. Whether exploring the nature of Jesus's divine sonship, his rejection by the religious and political rulers of his day, or his important teaching on the dangers of money, this volume will help readers grasp the overarching message of the book of Luke as they grow more familiar with its main focus: the blameless life, atoning death, and vindicating resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433543784
Publisher:	Crossway
Publication date:	04/16/2015
Series:	The Gospel Coalition
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	404 KB

About the Author

D. A. Carson (PhD, Cambridge University) is Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is a cofounder and theologian-at-large of the Gospel Coalition and has written and edited nearly two hundred books. He and his wife, Joy, have two children and live in the north suburbs of Chicago.

D. A. Carson (PhD, Cambridge University) is Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is a cofounder and theologian-at-large of the Gospel Coalition and has written and edited nearly two hundred books. He and his wife, Joy, have two children and live in the north suburbs of Chicago.

Kathleen Nielson (PhD, Vanderbilt University) is an author and speaker who loves working with women in studying the Scriptures. After directing the Gospel Coalition’s women’s initiatives from 2010–2017, she now serves as senior adviser and book editor for TGC. She and her husband, Niel, make their home partly in Wheaton, Illinois, and partly in Jakarta, Indonesia. They have three sons, two daughters-in-law, and five granddaughters.

  John Piper is founder and lead teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. He served for thirty-three years as a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is the author of more than fifty books, including Desiring God; Don’t Waste Your Life; and Providence. 

COLIN S. SMITH is the senior pastor of The Orchard Evangelical Free Church in Arlington Heights, IL, where he has been since 1996. He is the author of The 10 Greatest Struggles of Your Life and can be heard on his Unlocking the Bible broadcast with Moody radio.

Crawford W. Loritts Jr. (DDiv, Biola University) is the senior pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, Georgia. He has served as a national evangelist with the American Missionary Fellowship and the Urban Evangelistic Mission, and as associate director of Campus Crusade for Christ. He is a frequent speaker at professional sporting events, including three Super Bowls and the NCAA Final Four Chapel, and has spoken at conferences, churches, conventions, and evangelistic outreaches throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the United States. He is the author of six books, including Leadership as an Identity, Lessons from a Life Coach, and For a Time We Cannot See.

Kevin DeYoung (PhD, University of Leicester) is the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte. He has written books for children, adults, and academics, including  Just Do Something;  Impossible Christianity; and  The Biggest Story Bible Storybook. Kevin’s work can be found on clearlyreformed.org. Kevin and his wife, Trisha, have nine children.

Stephen Um (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is the author of Micah for You and 1 Corinthians in the Preaching the Word series. Stephen and his wife, Kathleen, live in Boston, Massachusetts, with their three daughters.

Gary Millar (DPhil, Oxford) is principal of Queensland Theological College in Australia. He also served as a pastor in Ireland for seventeen years. He has written several books, including  Now Choose Life: Theology and Ethics in Deuteronomy, and contributed to the  ESV Men’s Study Bible and the ESV Expository Commentary series.

Timothy J. Keller (1950–2023) was the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York. He was the bestselling author of The Prodigal God and The Reason for God. 

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

JESUS THE SON OF GOD, THE SON OF MARY

Luke 1–2

John Piper

Only in one place in the Gospel of Luke does the author speak in the first person, referring to himself. He does this three times in the first four verses of the book:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1–4)

Never again does Luke refer to himself as "me" or "us" in this Gospel. And the reason he does it here is plain: he wants to come right out and be crystal clear about why he is writing this book. He is writing this account, he says, "that you [Theophilus, or John Piper, or add your name] may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught" (v. 4).

To Have Certainty

My focus in this chapter is on the first two chapters of the Gospel. We are not left wondering why Luke wrote these chapters. His purpose (that Theophilus will have certainty concerning the things he had been taught) is so explicit and so prominent at the beginning of the Gospel that I want to linger over it for a moment to clarify where this chapter is going.

Behind the translation "that you may have certainty" is the idea of knowing the "security," "safety," or "stability" of what you've been taught. The Greek word Luke uses, asphaleian (here translated as "certainty"), is used in two other places in the New Testament. One is Acts 5:23 (AT): "We found the prison locked in all security [asphaleia]" — usually translated "securely locked." The other is 1 Thessalonians 5:3: "While people are saying, 'There is peace and security [asphaleian],' then sudden destruction will come upon them." The same word is used nineteen times in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament), where it almost always means "safety."

So the idea behind "that you may have certainty" in Luke 1:4 is that you may know not just the things you've been taught, but also something about them: their locked-down, secure, unshakable, solid, stable, immovable reality.

The Kind of Knowing That Lasts

I stress this not only because Luke puts it first, but because we live in a day when many Christians — perhaps like Theophilus — have been taught things, but they do not know those things this way. They know them the way one knows a cloud, not the way one knows a mountain. Viewpoints about God and the Bible, and right and wrong, float in people's minds, ready at any moment to be blown away by the slightest resistance and replaced by another cloud.

Luke does not want Theophilus — or you — to know these things that way. He wants us to know the asphaleian of the things — not just the things, not just the doctrines, but also the asphaleian of them. They are the kind of reality that is locked-down, secure, safe, stable, unchanging. I write my Gospel, says Luke, that you may know "the safety — the bolted-down security — the asphaleian" of what you've been taught. These things are safe from being stolen, safe from being changed, safe from ceasing to be what they are, safe from becoming unimportant or irrelevant, safe from not being reality anymore. These things, Theophilus, will always be.

This is the kind of knowing that caused the church to survive through three centuries of frequent and terrible persecution. This is the kind of knowing that is immovable in the face of disease, abandonment, disillusionment, grief, and martyrdom. Luke has tended Paul's body through countless beatings and imprisonments (2 Cor. 11:23). He knows what kind of knowing lasts and what kind doesn't.

Most Excellent Danger

Luke knows the kind of knowing that tempts "most excellent Theophilus" (1:3). He writes about "most excellent Felix" in Acts 24. He writes about "most excellent Festus" in Acts 26. Luke tells us that most excellent Felix had "a rather accurate knowledge of the Way" (Acts 24:22), but he was alarmed at Paul's preaching, sent him away (v. 25), and then hoped for a bribe from him (v. 26). This is the kind of "accurate knowing" that destroys churches, leaves courageous Christians in jail, and brings the whole Christian movement into disrepute.

When Paul preached to "most excellent Festus," the governor said with a loud voice, "Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind" (Acts 26:24). And Paul said, "I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words" (v. 25). It is dangerous to be a "most excellent" anything. Locked-down, secure, unchangeable knowledge has a way of troubling the rich and powerful. You can't buy truth with your riches. You can't control it with your power. It's just too risky to know things that way. It doesn't give you enough wiggle room.

But this is what Luke is after for "most excellent Theophilus." He is saying: I am writing not just that you may know the things you've been taught about Jesus, but that you may know the asphaleian of them — the locked-down, unshakable, unchanging, absolutely secure reality of them. That you may know they are — like mountains, not clouds.

Weaving Together Jesus and the Baptist

How does Luke help Theophilus (and us) in Luke 1–2 know the securely locked-down, unchangeable nature of the reality of what he's been taught? He does it by weaving together the stories of Jesus and John the Baptist — the announcements of their births, the ways they were conceived, the ways they were born, the songs their parents sang over them, and even an encounter between them while they were still in the wombs of their mothers.

And in telling these stories of John and Jesus, Luke makes clear and solid the most important realities in the universe: God, Christ, salvation, and faith. That's my outline.

1. The Certainty of God

First, Theophilus, I want you to know the asphaleian of God. "Zechariah was serving as priest before God" (Luke 1:8). Gabriel appeared to him and said, "I stand in the presence of God" (v. 19). Zechariah's son, Gabriel said, "will turn many ... to the Lord their God" (v. 16). Later, "Gabriel was sent from God" to the Virgin Mary (v. 26) and said: "You have found favor with God" (v. 30); "The Lord God will give [your son] the throne of his father David" (v. 32); "The child ... will be ... the Son of God" (v. 35); and "Nothing will be impossible with God" (v. 37). Then Mary sang, "My spirit rejoices in God" (v. 47). When John was born and Zechariah's mouth was opened, he worshiped, saying, "Blessed be the Lord God" (v. 68). When Jesus was born, "a multitude of the heavenly host [praised] God" (2:13), saying, "Glory to God in the highest" (v. 14). When Jesus was presented in the temple, Simeon took him up "and blessed God" (v. 28). Old Anna gave "thanks to God" (v. 38). And Jesus as a boy "increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man" (v. 52).

In case Theophilus misses the point about God, Luke makes the same point about the Lord. Zechariah and Elizabeth walked "blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord" (1:6). There appeared to Zechariah "an angel of the Lord" (v. 11), who told him his son would be "great before the Lord" (v. 15). The angel said he would "make ready for the Lord a people prepared" (v. 17). When Elizabeth conceived, she said, "Thus the Lord has done for me" (v. 25). The angel came to Mary and said, "The Lord is with you!" (v. 28). She responded, "I am the servant of the Lord" (v. 38). When Elizabeth met Mary, she said, "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" (v. 45). Then Mary sang over her son, "My soul magnifies the Lord" (v. 46). All the friends of Elizabeth heard "that the Lord had shown great mercy to her" (v. 58). When her son, John, was born, "the hand of the Lord was with him" (v. 66). His father prophesied over him, "You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord" (v. 76). When Jesus was born, "an angel of the Lord" came to the shepherds (2:9). They spoke of "this thing ... which the Lord has made known to us" (v. 15). And in the temple, Mary and Joseph presented Jesus "to the Lord" (v. 22), according to what was written "in the Law of the Lord" (v. 24).

Where "God Centered" Comes From

Sometimes people wonder where phrases such as "God saturated," "God besotted," and "God centered" come from. They come from Bible stories like this. This story is mainly about God. God is the main actor in this story. He is central, dominant, and all-pervasive. And if you stretch your view out over the whole Gospel, it's still true. Matthew uses the words God and Lord 59 times, but Luke 194 times — three times as often — even though the two Gospels are almost identical in length. Luke also uses the terms three times as often as Mark and about twice as often as John.

Most excellent Theophilus, here is the first locked-down, unshakable, secure, mountainlike reality in everything you've been taught: God is real. God is active. God is unstoppable. God sent his angel. God struck Zechariah dumb. God made the barren Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary conceive. With God, nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37).

And when we get to the end of the story, Luke tells us that Jesus was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23), and that "Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, [were gathered] to do whatever [God's] hand and [God's] plan had predestined to take place" (Luke 4:27–28).

Theophilus, mark this one down. God is the main reality in the universe. God is the main reality in history. God is the main reality in this Gospel. He is all-planning, all-pervasive, all-powerful. Know the asphaleian of the doctrine of God — the locked-down, unshakable, never-changing, ever-relevant, mountainlike reality of God.

2. The Certainty of Jesus

Second, Theophilus, know the secure, solid, unshakable reality of Jesus:

"And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."

And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?"

And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of God." (Luke 1:31–35)

The first clue for Theophilus that something really extraordinary is happening in history is the word of Gabriel that Jesus will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end (v. 33). A king is about to be born, Gabriel says, whose kingdom will never be overthrown. It will outlast every other kingdom, and therefore it is a universal kingdom, not just a Jewish kingdom, though it clearly fulfills all the Old Testament Jewish hopes. This king will reign over the house of David.

But God could raise an ordinary man from the dead and make him an eternal messiah-king. So God did something at this birth to make clear that Jesus was no ordinary man. God himself, by the Holy Spirit, brought into being a man who was infinitely more than a man. The "therefore" in the middle of verse 35 links the work of the Holy Spirit in this conception with the title Son of God: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of God."

An Utterly Unique Sonship

This is not sonship like the sonship all believers have with God. We are born according to the flesh and then reborn by the Holy Spirit. Jesus was not born by the union of a man and a woman, but by the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit replacing the seed of a man. Born of Mary, Jesus was fully human; the Holy Spirit so united the eternal second person of the Godhead with Jesus's human nature that Jesus was and is simultaneously truly human and truly God, with a human nature and a divine nature united in one person.

There are two more pointers to this in the context. When pregnant Mary went to visit pregnant Elizabeth, John the Baptist leapt in his mother's womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, crying out a blessing that included these words: "And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke 1:43). The word Lord is used twenty-eight times in Luke 1–2. All of them refer to God. Even here Elizabeth was speaking by the Holy Spirit, and in the same breath said, "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" (Luke 1:45). So she used the word Lord for the God who spoke through Gabriel and for the child in Mary's womb.

The Lord's Christ and Christ the Lord

Similarly, we get the double use of the title Lord in relation to the title Christ. Luke says that it had been revealed to Simeon "that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ" (Luke 2:26). And the angels said, "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11). This Jesus is the Lord's Christ, and he is Christ the Lord.

So, Theophilus, the second reality that is locked-down solid, safe, and sure like a mountain range of glory is that a king has been born who fulfills all the dreams of Israel, who will reign forever until every kingdom is his kingdom, and who is the one and only Son of God by virtue of his two natures, one fully divine from eternity past and the other fully human as he was made flesh. This Jesus, Theophilus, is the Lord. This Jesus is God.

3. The Certainty of Salvation

Third, Theophilus, know the unshakable, locked-down, never-to-be-altered reality that this Jesus saves his people from their sins by dying in their place.

At his birth, the angels said, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior" (Luke 2:11). Zechariah said, God "has raised up a horn of salvation for us" (1:69). And how would this salvation come? From what do we most need saving? Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit (v. 67), said of his son John, "You will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins" (vv. 76–77).

Theophilus, you are a sinner. You need a Savior who can deal with your sins and forgive them. This Jesus, this God-man, is your Savior. He dealt with your sins and forgave them. How did he do that? He set his face to die for you. He said, "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised" (Luke 9:22). This was his plan, his mission.

New-Covenant Blood

Why? How could this save anyone? It saves because his blood is the blood of the new covenant in which God promised to forgive the sins of his people: "I will make a new covenant. ... I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jer. 31:31, 34). And at his Last Supper, Jesus took the cup and said, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:20).

That is how sins are forgiven. That is how he is a Savior. That is how Zechariah's prophecy was ultimately fulfilled (Luke 1:76–77). In the old covenant, animal sacrifices were offered over and over again. In the new covenant, Jesus "suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Pet. 3:18).

So, Theophilus, know the asphaleian — the locked-down, absolutely secure, never-changing reality of your God, of the God-man Jesus Christ, and of your salvation in the forgiveness of your sins by the shedding of his blood. Know these things like you know mountains, not like you know clouds.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "His Mission"
by .
Copyright © 2015 The Gospel Coalition.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Copyright,
Preface D. A. Carson,
1 Jesus the Son of God, the Son of Mary Luke 1–2 John Piper,
2 Jesus Despised Luke 4:14–30 Colin Smith,
3 Jesus's Transforming Power on Behalf of the Afflicted Luke 8:26–56 Crawford Loritts,
4 Jesus's Resolve to Head toward Jerusalem Luke 9:18–62 D. A. Carson,
5 Jesus and the Lost Luke 15:1–32 Kevin DeYoung,
6 Jesus and Money Luke 16:1–15 Stephen Um,
7 Jesus Betrayed and Crucified Luke 22:39–23:49 Gary Millar,
8 Jesus Vindicated Luke 24 Tim Keller,
Appendix: Did Jesus Preach the Gospel? Conference Panel D. A. Carson, Kevin DeYoung, Tim Keller, John Piper,
Contributors,
General Index,
Scripture Index,