Preparing for dawn
(Luke 1:5–7)

by Matt Privett

As the era of the Gospels dawned, Israel had been existing in prophetic silence for about four centuries. God had not turned His back on Israel or withdrawn any of His promises (God doesn’t do that), but there had been 400 years without a prophet in the land. 

Israel was looking for the Prophet (Deut 18:18), the King to reign on the throne of David forever (2 Sam 7:12–13), the One upon whose shoulders the government would rest (Isa 9:6), the One who would proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh and the day of vengeance of Israel’s God (Isa 61:1–2). Israel was awaiting their Messiah.

However, the last of the prophets to this point had been Malachi, through whom Yahweh announced He would send His messenger [lower case] to prepare the way for His Messenger [upper case] (Mal 3:1). Elijah the prophet would come before “the great and awesome day of Yahweh,” and he would “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Mal 4:5–6).

Then… nothing… prophetic silence… for 400 years.

In God’s sovereign and eternal plan He chose Luke to be the One to most completely chronicle the breaking of that silence. Luke not only gives us the most information about the birth of Jesus, but his Gospel is the only place we find information about the birth of the one who would prepare His way, John the Baptist. 

“In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abidjan, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and righteous requirements of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both advanced in years.” — Luke 1:5–7

Luke introduces us to Zachariah and Elizabeth, a husband and wife, through whom we are shown God has not forgotten His people. 

THE WORLD OF ZECHARIAH AND ELIZABETH

Near the end of this first chapter of Luke Zechariah speaks about “the tender mercy of our God with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us” (Luke 1:78). The our and the us of that statement is Israel, the people chosen by God, the people to whom promises and covenants were made. Yet, they had not heard from Him in quite a while.

The English theologian and historian Thomas Fuller is credited as being the first to record the words, “The darkest hour is just before dawn.” If you consider Jesus, the Messiah, is the Sunrise of whom Zechariah was prophesying, the the times in which he lived could certainly qualify as some of Israel’s darkest days. This first chapter of Luke gives us what amounts to Israel’s last hour behind the rising of the Sun.

Darkness seemed to cover the land because since their return from exile Israel had never had their kingdom restored, and seemed to be engulfed in endless conflicts, both from within and without, and subjugated to several different powers. Not only were they still beholden to the Persian Empire when they were returned to their land, but before long the Greek Empire conquered them, and then the Romans, who were still in control in the day of Zechariah.

Malachi had written the words of God, saying, “for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings” (Mal 4:2). Then… silence. Far from healing, Israel was tortured and frustrated by rulers such as Antiochus Epiphanes, who served as a preview of the kind of judgment Israel will endure during the day of Yahweh when he played the part of proto-Antichrist, defiling the temple and essentially proclaiming himself to be a god. 

The events of Luke 1 take place later, “in the days of Herod, king of Judea” (Luke 1:5). He was the first of several Herods in the Gospels and Acts, a Herodian dynasty. Julius Caesar appointed Herod’s father, Antipater, to be procurator of Judea. Then Antipater had his son put in control of Galilee, and by 37 BC Herod was named King of Judea — the King of the Jews.

Ironically, Herod was even a Jew, but was from Idumea, making him an Edomite, a historical enemy to the Jews and a people cursed by God (Obad 18). Herod married a woman from a prominent Jewish family in an attempt to endear himself to Israel, and for the next three decades proved to be a great political leader. When the government ran a surplus on tax receipts he gave money back to the people.

Notwithstanding his political acumen, Herod was a ruthless and violent ruler, and a man very suspicious and jealous for his own throne. He’d had his own brother-in-law, a priest, drowned. Herod had his own wife killed, then her mother, two of his own sons. Finally, just before the time of John and Jesus, a third son was murdered. And of course, Matthew 2 tells us that when Herod the Great heard about a King who had been born in Bethlehem, he sought to destroy that King by having all the male toddlers in Bethlehem killed. Herod the Great had no problem slaughtering innocent people to solidify his own stranglehold on power.

Thus, a Jew in those times might be asking the question, “Where’s the sun of righteousness God promised? Where’s our day of Malachi 4:3, when we’ll tread down the wicked and they will be ashes under the soles of our feet on the day God is preparing? Where is that day, God? Where’s the sun, because Israel looks mighty dark?”

It was dark indeed. The revival amongst the people after they returned from exile had devolved over the course of four hundred years. Judaism had become a religion of works righteousness, dominated by man-made traditions and rules which were, in the end, considered even weightier than the word of God. The faith of Israel had become a legalistic religion in which the people, in the later words of Jesus Himself, honored God with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him.

The darkest hour is indeed just before the dawn. But the Sunrise was coming. In Malachi 3:1 God said, “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming.” The “sun of righteousness” would be the Lord God Himself, but before Him there would be a messenger.

God’s messenger would prepare the way for Himself, the Messiah. Isaiah spoke of this messenger as well: “A voice is calling, ‘Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God’” (Isa 40:3).

Therefore, when Luke saw fit to compile a thorough account of things fulfilled, he had to start with the man we call John the Baptist. John connects the Old Testament to the New, a fulfillment of prophecy showing the accuracy of the prophets of Old and the legitimacy of what was to be New. Yahweh had not spoken by prophets in four centuries, but as the reader sees, His silence was broken by the announcement John was coming. Luke takes us right to where God’s voice left off, right to where God spoke again.

This account establishes John as the prophesied forerunner of Jesus Christ, and their birth stories are woven together by Luke to show the legitimacy of both. John and Jesus verify one another.

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF ZECHARIAH AND ELIZABETH

Israel was in a state of spiritual and political darkness, but Luke tells us in verse six that Zechariah and Elizabeth “were both righteous in the sight of God” (emphasis mine). In contrast to the evil Herod, Zechariah was an average priest whose faith was in Yahweh. The sons of Aaron were put into twenty-four priestly divisions, the eight of which was named for Abijah, the division to which Zechariah belonged (1 Chr 24:10).

Zechariah seems to have been a very devout priest, one who took his responsibilities before Yahweh on behalf of the nation of Israel very seriously, so seriously it may have influenced his choice of a wife. Elizabeth was also a Levite, from the daughters of Aaron, the brother of Moses. Thus, she would have grown up with a priest for a father, and thus been very familiar with that life. Elizabeth even bore the same name as Aaron’s wife (cf. Exod 6:23).

Zechariah and Elizabeth were both righteous in the sight of God, a significant statement considering the spiritual condition of Israel and the state of the priesthood in those days. The Gospels reveal to us a priesthood largely corrupt and apostate, having defected from God in practice, if not in name. Instead of salvation based upon faith in Yahweh demonstrated by walking in the Law and the sacrificial system God provided, most priests and Israelites were believing they were saved on the basis on their Abrahamic lineage. And since many Jews believe they were in God’s favor on the basis of their Jewishness, the entire religious system became one in which people worked to be righteous and approved in the sight of men.

For Zechariah and Elizabeth to be marked out as righteous, then, demonstrated they were living by faith in Yahweh. They were righteous in the sight of God. Like their ancestor Abraham, Zechariah and Elizabeth believed God, and it was credited to them as righteousness (Gen 15:6). They held firm to what they knew the prophet Habakkuk had written a few centuries prior: “But as for the proud one, his soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith” (Hab 2:4).

A believing Israelite would have been holding tightly onto the promise that Yahweh would send them a Savior, a Messiah. Zechariah and Elizabeth believed God would raise up from David a righteous Branch who would reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land, and they believed this One to come would be the One through whom Judah would be saved, through whom Israel would dwell securely, and His name would be called, “Yahweh our righteousness” (Jer 23:5–6).

Because Zechariah and Elizabeth believed God, and thus believed His word, they were living in a state of expectation for the One who would come. They were waiting for the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 who would justify the many. They would have know from Daniel the seven and sixty-two weeks revealed by Gabriel were drawing to a close, so the time was nigh (Dan 9:24–27). And, of course, Zechariah and Elizabeth would have been anxiously awaiting the “sun of righteousness” of whom their most recent prophet had spoken (Mal 3–4).

They knew themselves to be sinners and unworthy, but they believed Yahweh would provide for their righteousness in the One who was coming. They knew if they believed God they would be counted righteous in His sight. Zechariah and Elizabeth knew the righteous live by faith.

Zacharias and Elizabeth knew they themselves were sinners, they themselves were unworthy. But God would provide for their righteousness in the One who would come. They knew that if they believed God they would be credited with righteousness from God. They knew the righteous live by faith.

THE BLAMELESSNESS OF ZECHARIAH AND ELIZABETH

Consider again, “And they were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and righteous requirements of the Lord” (Luke 1:6).

This addition by Luke is one of the reasons the reader is on solid ground understanding righteous to refer to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s faith in Yahweh, because when we see righteous and blameless together, there is a bit of redundancy if Luke is just talking about how they lived. Luke seems to use righteous to describe who they entrusted their lives to and walking blamelessly to describe how they lived.

And note the order. Salvation comes before walking blamelessly. The Jews of Zechariah’s day tended to have it backwards, but this couple walked blamelessly because they were righteous. They were faithful Israelites living among unfaithful Israelites because they were saved. One author I can’t recall (sorry) put it like this: holiness of life begins with holiness of mind and heart (righteousness in the sight of God), then holiness of hands and feet (walking blamelessly). If the root is holy, the fruit will be holy.

For example, Genesis 6:9 describes Noah as “a righteous man, blameless among those in his generations.” God saved him, and because He did Noah lived in according with what God had done in him. So did Zechariah and Elizabeth, righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. The clear idea laid out here, and self-evident when one let’s the Scriptures speak for themselves, is that those whom God saves in any generation will live in accordance with what God has decreed for that generation.

Walking blamelessly does not mean walking in sinless perfection. Noah was righteous, but debased himself after getting off the ark. Abraham was righteous, but didn’t trust in God’s protection and lied about his own wife to preserve his earthly life — not once, but twice. Moses was righteous, but doubted God when he struck the rock. David was righteous, but that didn’t stop him from committing adultery and having the husband of his lover put in a position to be killed in battle. 

Being saved by God didn’t stop any of these Old Testament heroes from sinning, even sinning egregiously, while they lived. Neither would it mean Zechariah and Elizabeth were perfect (Zechariah will doubt the messenger of God in the following verses). Walking blamelessly in the commandments and requirements of the Lord does mean, however, that those who are made alive by God are to consider what the Lord has done for them and walk worthy of their calling (Eph 4:1). As this study of Luke presses on in the next few articles, the student will see that Zechariah and Elizabeth were walking worthy in a faithless environment.

THE CHILDLESSNESS OF ZECHARIAH AND ELIZABETH 

“But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both advanced in years” (Luke 1:7, LSB).

While Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in the sight of God, they were probably not seen as righteous by men. Elizabeth was barren and well past the age of bearing children. Few things carried more of a negative stigma in ancient Israel than that of not having a child.

This stigma can be seen in the life of Rachel. Jacob loved Rachel, but due to trickery he married Rachel’s sister, Leah, first. Eventually Jacob also married Leah, but she wasn’t bearing any children. Meanwhile, her sister Leah was giving Jacob sons left and right. Rachel’s heartbreaking plea to her husband was, “Give me children, or else I die” (Gen 30:1).

An Israelite in Zechariah’s day who knew the Scriptures would have remembered Psalm 127, looked at Elizabeth, and perhaps determined that if children are a gift from Yahweh and the fruit of the womb is a reward, then either Zechariah, Elizabeth, or both of them must be guilty of some serious sins. Childlessness was a reproach in Israel, so while Zechariah may have garnered some respect as a priest, he and his wife were more likely to be viewed by their brethren as cursed by God, rather than blessed.

Luke is clear, however. The certainty of Elizabeth’s barrenness was not due to her is or that of her husband, but because it was the will of God. They didn’t have a child because it was God’s plan for how He was doing to deal with sin — ultimately.

As the reader will see in the following verses, and as will be featured in future articles, this aged couple would be given one son, and he would, in the words of Jesus, be the greatest man ever born of a woman (Matt 11:11). John the Baptist would be Yahweh’s chosen messenger from Isaiah 40 and Malachi 3–4, the prophet to make straight the way for the Sunrise from on high, the “sun of righteousness,” the long promised Messiah, Jesus.