The Benedictus

In Luke 1, the father of John the Baptist praises God in song. He cries out, Yes, Zacharias had much to sing about.

Here's Dr. R.C. Sproul teaching from Luke chapter 1. We've already looked at some of the other songs of the infancy of Jesus, the magnificence of Mary, the glory in excelsis Deo of the heavenly chorus outside of Bethlehem. Later on, God willing, we will look at the nunc dimittis, the song of Simeon.

But the other great hymn that is contained in Luke's gospel is this one sung by Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. And in this song, there is both celebration and prophecy of what is to come. But the central theme, I think the most important theme, is expressed at the very beginning of this song, and it has to do with God's visiting His people. And I'd like to take a few moments this morning to focus our attention on that idea because as I said in the case of Mary's Magnificat, it's also true here that the content of this infancy song is filled with references to the Old Testament that we don't want to miss as we give our attention to it. And so the song begins, Blessed is the Lord God of Israel. Why is Zacharias attributing a beatific view of God at the beginning of the hymn?

He answers that for us clearly. The reason why he is blessing God is because God has visited and redeemed His people and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David. Now I think what's somewhat unusual that we don't see when we read the English version of the text that is in the original is the language that is used for such divine visitation. The verb that is translated visited here is the verb form of an extremely important noun in biblical categories. The noun is the noun episcopas. Now I'm sure that word sounds at least somewhat familiar to us because we think, for example, of the Episcopalian church, and the Episcopalian church is called the Episcopalian church because of its form of government.

It is a church that is ruled by bishops, and when we talk of that which is episcopal, we're talking about that which has to do with bishops. And indeed, the English translation of the noun form of this verb, if you're following me on this tack, is the word bishop. An episcopas in Greek is translated by the word bishop in English. And again, I want to just take a moment to drill down a little bit into the meaning of that word. The Greek word episcopas is made up of two parts, a prefix and a root. The root is the word scopus. Now that comes right over into English. It's the word we use for a mouthwash.

No. It's the word that we translate in English by the word scope. Long-range rifles have scopes mounted on them. We have microscopes. We have telescopes. And you get the idea that the scope is something that is used to look through. A microscope is used to look at tiny things, small things that would be invisible to the naked eye.

The telescope is used to see things far off in the distance. But the idea here is one of vision, of looking. And as I play with this word a little bit, think of the relationship between the word vision and the word visit. They're very closely related.

When I come to your house to visit you, it's because I want to see you. And therein is the connection, going back to the Latin woodere. Both words come from that Latin root. But in any case, you have the root of the word bishop being scope, or scopus, with the prefix epi attached to it.

And all that epi does is intensify the root. In Latin, the corresponding concept is the idea of super woodere, super looking. And again, in our culture, on the job, we have people who do their work, and while they're doing their work, there's somebody watching them, and the person who watches them is called what? The supervisor. Now when we have a supervisor, the supervisor is not just a visor. He's not just a looker.

He's a super looker. And what that means is, he's like Santa Claus. He's watching you closely, making a list to see how you've been behaving, whether you've been good or bad. So in other words, the supervisor, or the bishop, is not a casual observer.

The supervisor is one who looks at things deeply, and carefully, and fully, so that he sees and perceives every single detail of what is going on. Well, the reason I labor this point is that this title of episcopus is in the New Testament given to Jesus, that Jesus, we are told in the book of Hebrews, is the Bishop of our souls. And that title that is given to Jesus is merely a transfer of the understanding of the nature of God Himself to His Son, because ultimately the Supreme Bishop is God Himself, who observes totally, comprehensively, everything that takes place in this world. Jesus tells us that there's not a single bird that ever lands on the ground that our heavenly Father doesn't see. He tells us that the very hairs on our head are numbered. David exclaimed, Where can I go from Your Spirit? If I ascend into heaven, You're there.

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there, before a word is formed on my lips, O God, You know it all together. And so this has to do with God's all-seeing eye and knowledge of everything that happens in this world. Now, related to this is another word that we have in our theological vocabulary that's critically important for the Christian to understand, and that's the concept of divine providence.

Well, where does that come from? Again, we have a root and a prefix, and it's the same root here, voire, has to do with vision, and providerie, providerie is God's seeing things beforehand. But it's more than that. It's not just that the providence of God refers to His knowledge of things before they happen. But more importantly, it has to do with His sovereign plan of things that will come to pass. It is His provision for His people. The first time that we discover this concept of divine providence in the Bible is back in the book of Genesis in the twenty-second chapter of that book on that occasion where God came to His servant Abraham, and He said to Abraham, after Abraham had waited all those many years for the promise that God had made for an heir to come to place, that now he and Sarah finally have a son, God comes to Abraham, and He says, now Abraham, take thou thy son, your only son, the one whom you love, and go to the mountain that I will show you, and there I want you to sacrifice him to me. We've looked at that text before, and I remind you that if God come to Abraham and say, take now your son to that mountain and sacrifice him to me, and that's all the information God would have given to Abraham, Abraham would have headed straight for Ishmael, and he would have taken Ishmael to Mount Moriah, and he would have sacrificed him there. But God was very specific. He said, no, Abraham, take your son, your only son, the one whom you love, Isaac, and take him to that place where I will show you, and there you offer him to me.

And you know the story. Abraham got up early in the morning. He chopped wood for the sacrifice, and he mounted his beast of burden and took his son, his only son, the son whom he loved, Isaac. And as they were moving along the road with Mount Moriah in the distance, Isaac looked at his father, and he says, Father, I see the wood for sacrifices. But where's the lamb? Aren't we supposed to have a lamb to offer as a sacrifice? I think that's one of the most poignant moments in the history of redemption. What's going on in Abraham's mind?

What's going on in his heart? Is he going to say to his son, Isaac, don't worry about the lamb. You're the lamb. Instead, Abraham said to his son, Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide. We are going to trust in the provision of God.

We are going to trust in the providence of God. And you know the rest of the story of how when they got to the top of the mountain, Abraham took his son and bound him with the ropes and placed him on the altar and raised the knife above his head, and at the last second, as he was about to plunge that into the heart of his son, God spoke. He said, Abraham, Abraham, lay not your hand upon your son because now I know that you trust me. And behold, off to the side there was a ram caught by his horns in the thicket that could be used as a substitute for the sacrifice God had provided. Jehovah Jireh had provided the lamb to be slain as a substitute.

Do you realize that two thousand years later at that same mountain it was now not called Moriah, but now it was called Calvary? If God took His Son, His only Son, the Son whom He loved, Jesus, and put Him on the altar of sacrifice, only this time no one shouted, stop. The ultimate provision was made. Now all of that is incorporated, dear friends, in this concept of divine visitation. In Greece, the bishop was like a general who from time to time would come to the armies and inspect the troops to see if they were battle ready or whether they had been negligent and had grown rusty and lazy and incompetent during the absence of the general. And if he found the troops battle ready, then he would pronounce his benediction on them. But if he found them ill prepared, then the general would bring judgment. And again, the verb form of bishoping is visiting.

And so the troops never knew when the general would pay them a visit. And in the Old Testament, you have the idea of the supreme providential Lord who will visit His people. And those visits can be either wonderful and redemptive or tragic as they bring His judgment. The people of God in the Old Testament look forward to the promised day of the Lord. And in the beginning, the day of the Lord was this future day when God would come and redeem His people and bring peace and justice to them and redeem them from their enemies and fulfill all of His covenant promises. But as the people of Israel grew cold in their hearts and they became hard-necked, they were warned that the day of the Lord might not be so good. The prophet Amos said to them, the day of the Lord is a day of darkness, and there is no light in it.

And so you have this two-edged sword in the Old Testament. On the one hand, the looking forward to the bright dawn of the day and the day of God's visitation, and yet at the other hand, the fear that that day might be a day of judgment. And beloved, the ultimate visit from on high was the entrance of Christ into the world. And for those who received Him, to them He gave authority to be called the children of God.

To those who received Him, it was the day of the Lord of redemption. But for those who reject Him, it is the day of darkness for no light in it. Dear friends, it is impossible to be neutral with respect to Christ.

There's no neutral territory. Jesus said, He who is not with Me is against Me. You're either a disciple of Christ or you're His enemy, which is… only you know in the deepest chambers of your heart. Again in the Old Testament, in the beginning of the formation of the Jewish nation, when these people were in their darkest hour being enslaved by the Pharaoh of Egypt, and they were given quotas to fulfill, and they were given no straw for their bricks, and they cried, and they groaned, and they were in despair and hopeless. And then one day God heard their cries. He said, the groans of My people have come up to Me. And He called Moses, and He said to Moses, you go to Pharaoh, and you tell Pharaoh that I say, let My people go.

And if He doesn't want to let them go, you tell Him that I'm going to visit Him, and I'm going to visit My people. And the exodus was the supreme visitation of God to His people in the Old Testament. It looked ahead to the ultimate visit, the incarnation of Christ Himself who would deliver His people from the bondage of sin. Finally, we think through Christian history how many times the great saints, and we ourselves, the lesser saints, have felt at times the absence of God. We wonder where He is. We don't sense His nearness to us. I think of Luther at Worms the night before his trial, praying his heart out in his monastery cell, crying out, God, where are You?

Where are You? Send help. I need You. This isn't my cause. This is Your cause.

The cause is Yours, and I am Yours. Oh, He's not gone. He's just hiding. And Luther prayed that on the morrow God would visit him and give him strength. And the next morning the Lord God, omnipotent, visited his servant and upheld him. And so he visits Zacharias and Elizabeth, and he's about to visit the whole nation with the birth of his son. That makes Zacharias sing. Bless the Lord, the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people. And that's a song we can repeat with great joy and praise. Thanks for listening to Renewing Your Mind on this Lord's Day.

I'm Lee Webb. We've heard a message from Dr. R.C. Sproul's series from The Gospel of Luke, and as you heard today, he goes into incredible depth in this series. It's interesting that he covered only 18 words from Luke in our message today. That's the kind of detail that's so helpful in Bible study. And when you contact us today with a donation of any amount, we'd like to send you a digital download of R.C. 's commentary on this gospel. In nearly 600 pages, he covers every verse of Luke's history of Jesus' life.

R.C. 's commentaries are easy to read, and we hope this one will enhance your study of Luke. Our offices are closed today, but you can give your gift and make your request online when you go to renewingyourmind.org. Your generosity is the fuel that allows this ministry to continue producing programs like this one, so we are grateful for your support of Ligonier Ministries. Well, next Sunday, Dr. Sproul continues his study of Zacharias' song from Luke chapter 1, and we hope you'll join us for Renewing Your Mind. We hope you'll join us for Renewing Your Mind.