Verse 47 says, “That repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name.” This verse indicates that Christ as the One prophesied in the Old Testament is for the believers to receive through repentance for forgiveness of sins.
In verse 46 the Lord Jesus said to His disciples, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise up from the dead on the third day.” This indicates that it is in Christ’s death and resurrection that we receive Him as the One prophesied in the Old Testament.
The Gospel of Luke does not seem to contain much theology. However, this book covers two mysterious items in theology-Christ’s birth, which involves the divine incarnation, and Christ’s resurrection. No one can explain fully the incarnation and resurrection of Christ. Christ is God incarnated, and He is a man resurrected. Both the incarnation and the resurrection are necessary for Christ to be Christ. Christ is Christ because He is God incarnated and a man resurrected.
The conception and birth of Christ are a great mystery. The Bible reveals that the very God in His reaching element, the Holy Spirit, came into a human virgin and was born in her and of her. Concerning this, the angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the holy thing which is born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). As the conception was of the Holy Spirit, so what was born of that conception was a “holy thing,” something intrinsically holy. This was Jesus our Savior.
Luke 1:35 seems to indicate that the Holy Spirit would be upon Mary only as the power for her to conceive the holy child. However, Matthew 1:18 and 20 tell us that Mary “was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit” and that “that which has been begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit.” This indicates that the divine essence out of the Holy Spirit had been begotten in Mary’s womb before she delivered the child Jesus. Such a conception of the Holy Spirit in the human virgin, accomplished with the divine and human essences, constituted a mingling of the divine nature with the human nature which produced a God-man, One who is both the complete God and the perfect man, possessing the divine nature and the human nature distinctly, without a third nature being produced. This is the most wonderful and most excellent person of Jesus, who is Jehovah the Savior.
The conception of the Savior was God’s incarnation (John 1:14), constituted not only by the divine power but also of the divine essence, thus producing the God-man of two natures-divinity and humanity. Through this, God joined Himself to humanity that He might be manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16) and might be a Man-Savior (Luke 2:11).
In addition to the mystery of Christ’s incarnation, Luke also speaks concerning Christ’s resurrection. He is the incarnated One and He is the resurrected One. As God He was incarnated to be a man. As a man He was put to death, and then He rose up from among the dead. Now He, the incarnated and resurrected One, is in resurrection. As the incarnated one, Christ brought God into man; as the resurrected One, He brought man into God. Today we receive Him as such a One, and we experience and enjoy the transaction whereby God comes into man and man is brought into God.
Christ, the incarnated and resurrected One, is our Savior. For our experience and enjoyment, this Savior is revealed in the Gospel of Luke as the rising sun, the light, the glory, a moneylender, a Samaritan, a sheep-finder, the best robe, the fattened calf, the kingdom of God, and the One prophesied in the Old Testament. This wonderful One is everything in God’s salvation.
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