LUKE 1:5 – 25, 67 – 79: ZECHARIAH
© Rosemary Bardsley 2025
A. INTRODUCING ZECHARIAH
Luke begins by giving us information about the birth of John the Baptist.
Read Luke 1:5 – 7. What do you learn about:
When this happened in history?
The ancestry of Zechariah and Elizabeth?
The faithfulness of Zechariah and Elizabeth in conforming to the ritual requirements of God’s law?
The events Luke reports here occurred when Herod was king of Judea. This was Herod the Great. His ancestry was not Jewish, but Idumean – he was an Edomite. (The Edomites were the descendants of Isaac’s son Esau.) He is the same Herod whom the wise men questioned about the birth of Jesus, and who ordered the slaughter of all little boys in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1 – 18). (Note that the anticipated Messiah/King would be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and David, and would thus constitute, in Herod’s mind, a real threat to his continuing in his position.)
Both Zechariah (through Abijah) and Elizabeth traced their ancestry to Aaron, whose descendants bore the responsibility of priesthood. Only Aaron’s descendants could serve as priests in the temple.
Their adherence to the commandments and regulations made their childlessness difficult, because children were considered God’s blessing.
Verses 8 – 10 refer to the way priestly duties were allocated. The priests were grouped into twenty-four divisions, each of which took turns in serving in the temple. You can read about that in 1Chronicles 24:1 – 19. As a descendant of Abijah, Zechariah belonged to the eighth division. But there were so many priests that not every individual priest had a turn at serving; for that they were chosen by lot.
Leon Morris comments about what this would have meant for Zechariah:
‘The offering of incense was regarded as a great privilege. A priest could not offer incense more than once in his entire lifetime..., and some priests never did receive the privilege. Thus the time when Zechariah offered the incense was the most important moment in his whole life ... he would go into the Holy Place with other priests, but they would retire, leaving him alone. When the signal was given he would offer the incense. The worshippers waited in the outer court until the priest discharged this duty.’ P76, Luke, IVP, 1974, 1988.
For Zechariah, this once-in-a-life-time privilege/duty, turned out to be even more amazing than he had ever anticipated!
Note: You can read about the altar of incense in Exodus 30:1 – 10 and 37:25 – 29. The twice daily ritual of offering incense was an active symbol of the prayers of God’s people, and Luke tells us that while Zechariah was in the Holy Place offering the incense, the people outside were praying – 1:10. It is highly likely that much of their prayer was focused on God’s age-long promises of the coming Messiah. Little did they realize that inside, the angel Gabriel was announcing to Zechariah the conception and the birth of the one who would prepare the way for the Messiah, Christ, the Lord.
B. GABRIEL’S MESSAGE
Read Luke 1:11 – 17. Answer these questions:
Suggest why Zechariah was terrified, and why the angel’s first words were ‘Do not be afraid’?
What was God’s response to Zechariah’s prayer?
What did the angel say about the baby that would be born to Zechariah and Elizabeth?
In the angel’s message the two quite different prayers – the prayers of Israel for the coming of the Messiah and Zechariah’s prayer for a son – are united in this one answer. God’s answer to the latter, smaller prayer is the beginning of God’s answer to the former, larger prayer. Note that the name ‘John’ means the gift, grace or mercy of God (a mercy that Zechariah praises after John’s birth).
About this child, John, the angel told Zechariah:
About the joy he would bring to both Zechariah and to ‘many’ (verse 14).
About his greatness in God’s sight (verse 15).
About the law of abstinence that was to apply to him (verse 15; compare Numbers 6:3, 4, where abstinence was commanded of those making a Nazarite vow).
About his life-long empowerment by the Holy Spirit (verse 15).
That he would bring many of the people of Israel back to the Lord their God (verse 16).
That, empowered by the same Spirit as Elijah, he would prepare the way for the coming Lord by moving people to genuine repentance (verse 17). In this, the angel’s message links in with Isaiah prophecy in Isaiah 40:3 – that someone would cry out ‘In the desert, prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God’ – which Luke quotes in chapter 3, when he reports John’s ministry.
C. ZECHARIAH’S RESPONSE
Zechariah’s response was one of doubt: he asked ‘How can I be sure of this?’ or, literally, ‘how can I know this?’ The obvious physical impossibility of what the angel promised didn’t give Zechariah any reason to be confident that it would happen. The angel points out that doubt, that absence of belief: ‘you did not believe my words’ – verse 20. From what immediately happened to Zechariah – that he became silent, unable to speak – certainly proved that what the angel said would happen actually would happen. Zechariah’s silence provided the proof that enabled him to know. His doubts were removed, so that when his period of service in the temple was over, he went home to Elizabeth, and she became pregnant.
D. ZECHARIAH’S SONG – LUKE 1:67 – 79
Luke 1:57 – 66 reports the birth of John the Baptist, and the miraculous return of Zechariah’s speech. Praising God – verse 64, and empowered and inspired by the Holy Spirit (verse 67), Zechariah burst into a prophetic song, in which he proclaims the word of God. Most of what he said in this song goes way beyond what the angel had told him over nine months earlier. Much of it is not even about his own recently-born son, John, but about another person through whom God would work, one who had not yet been born, yet about whose work Zechariah speaks as if it had already been accomplished. Zechariah’s song contains truth about Jesus Christ that Zechariah himself could not have known, knowledge that the Spirit of God spoke through him. Although Jesus is not yet born, Zechariah proclaims that his own new-born son, John, will be his herald, going before him, preparing the way for him.
Read Luke 1:67 – 79. Answer these questions:
From verses 68 to 75 what do you learn about the salvation God accomplished through Jesus Christ?
From verses 76 & 77, what do you learn about the work/ministry of John the Baptist?
From verses 76 – 79, what do you learn about who Jesus Christ is and what he came to do?
Zechariah points ahead to Jesus Christ and what God would accomplish through him:
Verses 68 – 70: God has come to us. God has redeemed his people. God has raised up ‘a horn of salvation’ for us. This has been accomplished by someone from the house of David. This immediately links God’s saving, redeeming work with the Son of David, the King in David’s line, whose kingdom would be an everlasting kingdom. Zechariah here reaches back to God’s covenant with David, and forward to Christ, the Son of David, the stump of Jesse, the Branch, the Lion of Judah.
Check out these Old Testament anticipations:
Genesis 49:8 – 11
Isaiah 9:7
Isaiah 11:1
Note that Zechariah said that God ‘has come’, and that is exactly what happened in the incarnation of Jesus Christ – God has come to us, and done his saving work.
Verses 71 – 75: In these verses, Zechariah connects the work of God in Christ, the descendant of David, with God’s promises to Abraham, to the Abrahamic covenant. Here, in Christ, the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant and the Davidic Covenant come together. Much of what he says here sounds purely physical – salvation from enemies is mentioned twice. But, beyond and greater than the physical, is the deep spiritual meaning contained in these words and embedded in those two covenants:
That there is a deeper bondage than bondage to physical enemies – the bondage to sin, death and Satan in which all people are held captive.
That there is a deeper rescue – a rescue from the law of sin and death and from our inescapable guilt, a rescue that enables us to stand in his presence ‘in holiness and righteousness ... all our days’, and ‘to serve him without fear.’
What do these verses say about that?
Genesis 15:6
Genesis 22:18
Romans 1:17
Romans 3:19 – 24
Romans 4:22 – 5:1
Romans 8:1 – 4
Colossians 1:19 – 22
1John 4:16 – 18
Verses 76 – 78a: Here Zechariah addresses his infant son, telling him about his future ministry.
He will be a prophet of the Most High – a prophet of God. He will go ahead of ‘the Lord’, preparing the way for him. Note that the one John prepares the way for is ‘the Lord’ – that is, John prepared the way for God. (This attests the divine identity of Jesus Christ – the one John prepared the way for. We will see more about this in Luke 3.)
As part of that preparation, John will give the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins. We will see later that John called people to a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
All of this, and the coming of Christ that would follow, is ‘because of the tender mercy of our God’.
Verses 78 & 79: Zechariah returns to the identity and work of the one for whom John will prepare the way. Because of the tender mercy of our God ‘the rising sun will come to us from heaven’ – this is Jesus, the Son of God, sent from God the Father.
Check what Jesus himself said about his coming from heaven:
John 3:17
John 6:33
John 6:38 – 40
John 6:51
Zechariah says that Jesus, the rising sun, will come ‘to shine in those living in darkness and in the shadow of death’. The whole idea here is that of light – Jesus comes as a light shining in the darkness of our ignorance of God and separation from God. Both the Old and New Testaments testify to this:
What do these verses say about this rescue from darkness?
Isaiah 9:2
Isaiah 29:18
Isaiah 49:6, 9
Isaiah 60:1 – 3
Isaiah 61:1
Matthew 5:13 – 16
John 3:19 – 21
John 8:12
2Corinthians 4:4 – 6
Colossians 1:12, 13
STUDY CHALLENGE:
Zechariah mentioned three concepts that deserve further attention, but are not covered in detail in this study.
[1] ‘the knowledge of salvation’
[2] ‘the forgiveness of their sins’
[3] ‘the tender mercy of our God’.
John the Baptist spoke of these things, as Zechariah said he would. But the ultimate expression of each is accomplished in and through Jesus Christ. To study these concepts further go to these studies on Salvation and the Work of Christ, especially those on God’s eternal grace, Justification-Righteousness, Forgiveness and Assurance of Salvation.