Luke 4 Study Notes

4:1-2 When Jesus returned from being baptized by John (see note at 3:21-22), he was full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Spirit to his encounter with the devil in the wilderness. The role of the Holy Spirit here is significant for at least three reasons: (1) the Spirit’s role in driving Jesus to the wilderness shows Jesus’s face-off with the devil was ordained by God; (2) the Spirit’s activity is a repeated emphasis in Luke’s Gospel; (3) the Spirit’s involvement in Jesus’s life highlights Jesus’s genuine humanity. The filling (Eph 5:18) and leading of the Spirit (Gl 5:18) are key aspects of empowerment for the Christian life. The wilderness is where Israel failed its test of faith before God (Nm 14). Jesus would pass the wilderness test that Israel could not. Also, Jesus was being tested as “the last Adam” (1Co 15:45), the one who would succeed where the first Adam failed.

4:3-4 Satan tested Jesus at the point of his physical weakness—hunger (“tell this stone to become bread,” v. 3). The phrase if you are the Son of God expresses no doubt that Jesus is God and is best understood as, “Since you are the Son of God.” The devil tried to bait Jesus into satisfying his extreme hunger by exercising his divine powers. Jesus’s duty, however, was to suffer and patiently endure hardship as a perfectly obedient human who waited for God’s deliverance and empowerment (v. 1). Jesus answered by citing the written Word of God (Dt 8:3). The context of this citation deals with Israel’s needs being met in the wilderness for forty years, physically through the manna and spiritually by the presence and Word of God.

4:5-12 The order of the second and third tests is reversed in chap. 4 from Mt 4. The obvious reason would be that the wider structure of the Gospel of Luke depicted Jesus moving toward Jerusalem, with the final test in Luke taking place on the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem.

4:5-8 As Messiah, Jesus will rule over all the kingdoms of the world at the end of the age (see Rv 11:15). The devil tried to entice Jesus with a shortcut to that kind of worldwide authority. Even though Satan is called “the ruler of this world” (Jn 12:31), his claim that the world was given over to him and that he can give it to anyone he wants is untrue. The devil is a usurper of God’s realm. It is no surprise that he did not tell the truth here, for he is “a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44). Jesus quoted Dt 6:13 to make clear that only God is worthy of worship, a point that echoes the first of the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:3).

4:9-12 After two failed tests (vv. 3-8), the devil attempted to catch Jesus off balance by quoting Scripture. In challenging Jesus to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple (from which the fall may have been over one hundred feet), the devil referred to Ps 91:11-12, claiming that angels would rush to the rescue if Jesus jumped. Jesus did not deny the truth of the Scripture the devil quoted, just the application he gave it. In clear contrast, he cited Dt 6:16, which recalls the tragedy of Israel’s complaining and testing God at Meribah and Massah (Ex 17:1-7).

4:13 Only three tests are recorded in Mt 4 and Lk 4, but the wording every temptation may imply that there were more. The devil was thwarted this time, but he departed from Jesus only to wait for the right time (Gk kairos, “time”—as an occasion or opportunity) to try again.

4:14-15 The same power of the Holy Spirit (see note at vv. 1-2) by which Jesus countered every test thrown at him by the devil was present in his teaching in the synagogues, bringing initial acceptance by virtually everyone.

4:16-17 Jesus lived (was brought up) in Nazareth in Galilee from the time he was a small boy (2:39,51) until he began his public ministry, when he was “about thirty years old” (see note at 3:23). When Jesus lived at his family home in Nazareth, he always worshiped in this synagogue on the Sabbath. From what is known about synagogue services of that era, the reading from the Mosaic law (Hb torah) was usually prescribed, while the person chosen to read from the books of the Prophets (Hb nebi’im) had the latitude to choose any passage he wished. When Jesus was given the Isaiah scroll, he unrolled it and began reading from Is 61:1.

4:18 Jesus’s ministry throughout Galilee demonstrated that the Spirit of the Lord was on him (v. 14). As Messiah, he was anointed as the rightful king of Israel. But here the anointing was as a prophet (to preach good news). Even though the message Jesus preached was first to those who were captivated by sin, the mention of the poor . . . the captives . . . the blind, and the oppressed is in keeping with Luke’s emphasis on the poor and downtrodden.

4:19-21 Jesus stopped reading from Is 61 in the middle of v. 2 and sat down (the normal posture for reading Scripture was standing; teaching was done while sitting). He ended the reading precisely at the phrase to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor because this is exactly what his preaching proclaimed: the season of God’s grace had come in Messiah’s ministry. The very next phrase in Is 61:2, which Jesus did not read, is “and the day of our God’s vengeance.” This refers to the second coming of Christ and his judgment of the world (Rv 19:11-21). Thus Jesus read in the synagogue the part of Is 61:1-2 that was being fulfilled at that time but held off on reading the portion that would not be fulfilled until the time of judgment.

4:22 The immediate response to Jesus’s message in the synagogue was mostly positive, as it had been elsewhere in Galilee (see note at vv. 14-15). But knowing Is 61 was a messianic prophecy, it greatly troubled the people that the young preacher whom they thought of merely as Joseph’s son (see note at 3:23-38) was claiming to be the long-awaited Messiah.

4:23-24 The people in Jesus’s hometown of Nazareth, motivated by curiosity rather than genuine spiritual interest, expected to see him heal, as they had heard about him doing in nearby Capernaum. Instead of satisfying them, Jesus illustrated a principle that often proved true in OT times: A prophet (see 4:18; Is 61:1) is not accepted in his hometown.

4:25-27 Jesus’s first example of a prophet being rejected by his own people was Elijah, who was so unpopular in Israel during the three years and six months of a drought that he had to seek refuge in the home of a widow in the Gentile town of Zarephath in Phoenicia, on the Mediterranean coast, northwest of Galilee (1Kg 17:1-24). The second example was the prophet Elisha, who skipped over all the lepers of Israel in his time and only cleansed . . . Naaman the Syrian, a Gentile general (2Kg 7:1-19).

4:28-30 The crowd in the synagogue was enraged because Jesus’s examples implied God’s acceptance of Gentiles and his rejection of Israel. Jesus foiled their attempt at mob violence by walking right through the crowd, an odd circumstance that may imply a miracle. Alternatively, it may only indicate that Jesus’s presence was so forceful that the people, though angry, willingly stepped aside and let him through.

4:31-32 Luke does not elaborate on the exact nature of the authority that Jesus demonstrated through his teaching in Capernaum on the Sabbath. Most likely the authority derived from the fact that Jesus’s message was directly from God, not merely from the religious authorities of earlier generations whom Jewish teachers typically cited.

4:33-36 This is an example of the far-reaching authority Jesus displayed in Capernaum. He cast out an unclean demonic spirit that had possessed a man in the synagogue. Jesus did this simply by the rebuke, Be silent and come out of him. The crowds wondered about Jesus, his message, and his power over the demonic realm, but the demon knew exactly who Jesus was—the Holy One of God—a title that Simon Peter also used of Jesus (Jn 6:69).

4:38-40 Jesus’s authority also extended to physical illness. As he had done with the demon, Jesus rebuked the fever, and Simon Peter’s mother-in-law was immediately healed. As a result, word of Jesus’s authority over sickness spread through Capernaum. He laid his hands on many people with various diseases, healing all of them.

4:41 As he healed the physical diseases of many people in Capernaum, Jesus also cast out more demons. This leaves the strong impression that demons were able to cause some diseases. As with the demon in the man in the synagogue (vv. 33-36), the demons identified Jesus as divine. Jesus rebuked the demons for revealing that he was the Christ because they were attempting to assert control over him by revealing who he was before the appropriate time.

4:42-44 This is the first of more than thirty times that the kingdom of God is mentioned in Luke’s Gospel. A full-blown concept of the kingdom includes: (1) the King (ruler), (2) the rule itself (sovereignty to rule), (3) the realm being ruled (this world), and (4) those ruled (individuals who believe the good news of Jesus Christ). In addition, some passages in the Gospels present the kingdom of God as already present in at least some senses (Mt 12:28) while others speak of it as being still future (Mt 6:10).