Demonstratio evangelica: text

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Of the Reading from the Prophecy by Our Lord in the Jewish Synagogue.

Now this prediction our Lord Himself claims to be fulfilled in Himself, when He came to Nazareth, where He was brought up: - 173 -

"He entered, as his custom was on the Sabbath day, into the synagogue, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon (c) me, because he hath anointed me, to preach the gospel to the poor: he hath sent me to proclaim deliverance to the captives, and giving of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened upon him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears."

Our Lord and Saviour is clearly shewn in this passage to (d) have been anointed with another and a better unction than the priests of old days, who were externally anointed, not with oil manufactured, nor by men, as were those others, but with the Divine Spirit of His God and Father, whereby as sharing in His unbegotten Godhead He is called God and Lord by the Holy Scriptures.

And in harmony with the prophecy before us He is introduced by Matthew preaching the Gospel to the poor when—

"Seeing the multitudes he went up into a mountain, and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

And it is recorded that He gave sight to many that were (443) blind, not only enlightening them that were deprived of bodily vision, but also causing them that were before blind in soul to receive spiritual vision and the knowledge of God. And, moreover, He preached freedom and release from their bonds to the prisoners bound and constrained by the unseen daemonic powers, and hampered by the chains of sin, if they, too, would believe His preaching, and run to Him as their Ransom and Saviour, and trust His promises.