From the opening chapters of Scripture, the narrative of humanity is marked by the presence of a tree. At the heart of Eden stood two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life offered the promise of ongoing life, while the other was strictly off limits, carrying the warning that eating its fruit would bring death. When the first humans chose to take what God had forbidden, they inherited not blessing but a curse—banishment from paradise and the inheritance of death. Since that fateful day in Eden, we have lived beneath the shadow of that curse outside of Eden, our lives marked by its consequences.
Throughout this series, The Tree, we have traced God’s answer to the problem introduced in Eden. We have seen a promised Seed spoken of in the garden (Gen. 3:15), a promise preserved through judgment in the days of Noah (Gen. 6–9), narrowed through Abraham’s only son (Gen. 22), carried forward through broken families and deeply flawed people, guarded through exile and deliverance, and entrusted to kings who both reflected God’s purposes and failed to live up to them. Again and again, the message has been unmistakable: God’s promise advances not because His people are faithful, but because He is.
And then, in the fullness of time, the promise took on flesh (Gal. 4:4-7). The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). God did not merely speak again—He stepped into the story Himself (Heb. 1:1-2). Yet Luke 4 marks a decisive moment. Jesus is no longer simply the child of promise or the quiet presence of Immanuel. In Luke 4, Jesus stands up, opens the Scriptures, and for the first time publicly declares who He is and why He has come.
It is no mystery that we humans are a mess. Scripture does not flatter us, and history confirms the diagnosis. We are fallen creatures living under the curse of sin. We are born spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1), enslaved to desires we cannot master (Rom. 6:16), inclined to distort what God has called good (Rom. 1:21–25), and we live beneath the shadow of death—both physical and spiritual (Rom. 5:12). Though humanity still bears the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27), that image is no longer reflected as it once was. Our thinking is darkened, our lives disordered, and our relationships fractured. We were made for communion with God, yet we live far from Him.
This brokenness did not occur in a vacuum. Scripture is equally clear that there is an enemy in the story—real, personal, and malicious. Satan is the great antagonist of redemptive history, a murderer from the beginning who traffics in lies and delights in death. Jesus said of him, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him… for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Yet even in judgment, God spoke hope. To the serpent and the woman He declared that a descendant would come—One who would be wounded, yet in being wounded would crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). Death would strike, but it would not have the final word.
From that moment forward, the Scriptures move with expectation. God promised His people a Deliverer—someone greater than Moses (Deut. 18:15; Heb. 3:1–6), someone greater than David who would reign with justice and peace forever (2 Sam. 7:12–16; Ezek. 37:24–28), someone who would not merely rule but redeem. Through the prophets, God revealed that peace would come through suffering, that the One who would heal the world would first bear the curse Himself. Isaiah saw it clearly: “But He was pierced for our offenses, He was crushed for our wrongdoings… and by His wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5).
This is why the announcement of Jesus’ birth was not sentimental but staggering. When angels appeared to shepherds living in darkness, they did not proclaim a teacher or a moral example, but a Savior: “For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). As the apostle Paul later wrote, “For all the promises of God are “Yes” in Christ” (2 Cor. 1:20; BSB). Jesus is not one promise among many—He is the fulfillment of them all.
It is against this backdrop that Luke 4 unfolds. Jesus returns to His hometown of Nazareth, enters the synagogue, and is handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He reads words every faithful Jew knew well:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18–19; Isa. 61:1–2).
After reading, Jesus sat down and declared, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). We are then told that the immediate response of those in the synagogue that day was that of admiration: “And all the people were speaking well of Him, and admiring the gracious words which were coming from His lips; and yet they were saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” (v. 22). Now listen (or read) what Jesus said next:
And He said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! All the miracles that we heard were done in Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’” But He said, “Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown. But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a severe famine came over all the land; and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many with leprosy in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” (vv. 23-27)
Jesus mentioned two different people who had no biological connection to Abraham nor were they Jewish. A prophet called to speak on behalf of God by the name of Elijah went to Zarephath under the direction of Yahweh, to a town full of Gentiles during a time that a famine also affected Israel, and yet Elijah went to a Gentile widow who God miraculously fed and protected during that famine (see 1 Kings 17:8–24). Listen, the point Jesus was making is this: The widow of Zarephath was a Gentile outsider—poor, desperate, and forgotten—yet she received the mercy Israel assumed belonged to them alone.
A second example Jesus gave was that of Naaman the Syrian who served as a commander of the enemies of Israel. Jesus said, “And there were many with leprosy in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian” (v. 27).
Listen to what we are told concerning Naaman in 2 Kings 5, “Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in the view of his master, and eminent, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man was also a valiant warrior, but afflicted with leprosy” (v. 1). And yet, God healed him! How was Naaman healed? He was only healed after he humbled himself in obedience to the word of God delivered by Elisha the prophet (see 2 Kings 5:1-14).
What was Jesus’ main point? He was showing that the promise of a Deliverer and redemption was never exclusive to Israel, but it was intended for all nations. When Jesus read from Isaiah and proclaimed, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21), He wasn’t simply interpreting the passage—He was revealing Himself as its fulfillment. In that moment, Jesus was announcing His mission, His authority, and the inclusive nature of His kingdom. He declared Himself as the promised Deliverer—the greater Adam, the greater Abraham, the true Israel—and made clear that through Him, blessing would extend to every nation, not just one people.
In Luke 4:25–27, Jesus reminds His hometown that God sent Elijah to a Gentile widow in Zarephath and healed Naaman the Syrian—an enemy commander—making clear that God’s mercy is received through Jesus by faith to all who will receive it, not where privilege assumes it.
There are four facets of Jesus’ ministry that is described in these verses:
- Jesus Came as Good News to the Poor for All People
Jesus clarifies the kind of poverty He has in view when He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). This poverty is not merely economic. Scripture and experience alike tell us that not all who are materially poor long for God. The poor in spirit are those who recognize their spiritual bankruptcy before Him—those who know they have nothing to offer God but their need. Jesus is good news to such people precisely because it is only through Jesus that one can have God. Those who believe themselves rich in righteousness will feel no need for a Savior, but those who know they are empty will discover that Christ is everything.
- Jesus Came to Set Captives Free Out from the Nations
Scripture declares, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Every human being is born enslaved to sin—any violation of God’s holy standard. Human experience confirms what Scripture teaches: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Apart from Christ, every one of us stands under judgment (Rev. 20:11–15). This is why Jesus came. As John the Baptist proclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). When Jesus read Isaiah 61 in the synagogue, His hearers assumed He was announcing political liberation and national restoration. What they did not understand was that their deepest captivity was not Roman oppression but spiritual bondage. Jesus came to proclaim liberty to captives whose chains were forged by sin.
- Jesus Came to Give Sight to the Blind Who Make Up All Humanity
While Jesus healed physical blindness throughout His ministry, His greater work was opening spiritually blind eyes. This blindness is not learned—it is native to us. Scripture teaches, “The hearts of the sons of mankind are full of evil, and insanity is in their hearts while they live, and afterward they go to the dead” (Eccl. 9:3). Like a blind man standing in bright sunlight, the human heart may sense that something is there yet remain unable to see it. The apostle Paul explains this condition plainly: “But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Only Jesus can open blind hearts to see the truth and beauty of God.
- Jesus Came to Bring Salvation and Redemption as Far as the Curse is Found
Isaiah 61 was understood as a promise of a new age—an age in which broken people and a broken creation would be restored, an age without tyranny, injustice, suffering, or death (Isa. 11:6–9; 65:17–25). When Jesus read that passage, He claimed to be the One who would inaugurate that renewal. His miracles—healing the sick, restoring the lame, opening blind eyes, and raising the dead—were not merely acts of compassion; they were signs pointing to a greater restoration still to come (Matt. 11:4–5). Jesus’ redemption is both spiritual and physical. Though believers continue to struggle with sin and weakness in this life, there is coming a day when resurrection will make us whole: “For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53), when “what is mortal will be swallowed up by life” (2 Cor. 5:4).
How far reaching is the salvation and redemption Jesus was born to bring? Oh, let the anthem of Isaac Watts’ great hymn ring true in your heart:
No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make
His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found
How far Christian?
As far as the curse is found!
Far as, far as the curse is found
This is the gospel Jesus declared in Nazareth. It is comprehensive, gracious, and costly. It confronts sin, heals blindness, breaks chains, and promises restoration. And yet Luke tells us that this announcement did not lead to repentance—it led to rejection (Luke 4:28–30). What Jesus proclaimed as good news, His hometown soon heard as an offense. They wanted a Messiah of their own making, not one who exposed their sin and need of a redeemer! They wanted deliverance on their terms, not salvation on God’s terms. And when Jesus made clear that God’s grace could not be claimed or secured by their religious deeds alone, admiration turned to rejection.
Luke 4 reminds us that the greatest danger is not rejecting Jesus outright but rejecting Him after we think we know Him. The Promised One stood before them, opened the Scriptures, and declared fulfillment—and they refused Him. And that leaves us with the same question this passage presses upon every hearer: “Will we receive Jesus as He truly is, or will we reject Him because He refuses to be the Savior we want Him to be?” He is still good news to the poor, freedom for the captive, sight for the blind, and restoration for the broken—but only for those willing to receive Him on His terms.
The people rejected Jesus because He did not fit their mold of what the Messiah should be. He was not the Savior they wanted, even though He was exactly the Savior they needed. Jesus fulfilled God’s promises, but He refused to conform to human expectations. And Luke 4 presses the same question upon us today: will we receive Jesus as He truly is, or will we reject Him because He will not become the Messiah we want Him to be?
