Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1604
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, June 19, 1881
“He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted.” Isaiah 61:1.
THIS text receives great luster from the fact that it was one of the passages which the Savior read when He entered into the synagogue at Nazareth and preached on the Sabbath. It is as fresh as ever and we may still say of it, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” It is no small privilege that we poor under-shepherds should be permitted to take the same text as “that great Shepherd of the sheep.” Our care must be to point to Him in it. I intended to have preached from these words in Luke 4:18, but when I looked at the Revised Version and found that the words were not there at all I was somewhat startled. I began to ask whether the emission was a correct one or not and, without making pretense to scholarship, I feel convinced that the revisers are acting honestly in leaving it out.
It was not in the original manuscript of Luke, but probably some pious person added it with the intention of making the quotation more complete. Whatever the intention may have been and however natural the added words may appear, it is a pity that the unknown Brother ventured to improve that which was perfect from the beginning. After resolving in my mind the fact, which I accept, that the passage was not written by Luke in his record, I have, I think, discovered the reason. When our Savior unrolled the Book of Isaiah, He read from it, but we are not certain that He read any one passage through. According to the Jewish Law it was allowed in the Prophets for the reader in the synagogue to skip, as we call it, to make selections and read here a passage and there a passage, as he aimed at bringing out his subject. As the words are given in our Authorized Version you will notice that the portion of Scripture is not exactly like the prophetic words in Isaiah 61 and that one sentence, at least, must have been taken from another part of the prophetic Book.
The Savior did read from Isaiah 61, but He also quoted other portions of Isaiah, probably taking a verse here and a verse there and blending them in one, just as sometimes, when I wish to give you a connected narrative, I read on in a chapter, say to verse eight, and then miss a piece to verse 16 and again run on to verse 24 and miss a few verses again. The Savior gave a resume of texts which stood near each other upon the roll and Luke records those upon which our Lord dwelt in His sermon. “But,” you say, “why, then, if it is so, did He omit the words which describe Him as sent to bind up the brokenhearted?” It may possibly have been His intention to leave out all allusion to healing. They were all looking for Him to work miracles of healing that day and, therefore, He either omitted the sentence for the moment or else He did not dwell upon it, for I take it that Luke is not giving us exactly the Scripture, but the sense of it, and those points in the Scripture upon which the Savior enlarged.
He probably gives us notes of those sentences which were both read and expounded and the Lord may have purposely refused to expound even if He read the sentence before us—“He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted.” I say they were looking to Him to work miracles of healing and He did not mean to gratify them. We are told that, “He could not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” He did not intend to exhibit Himself as a mere wonderworker and, therefore, but lightly touched upon the sentence about healing till further on, when He saw, as He read their hearts, that they noticed the omission and He, therefore, said to them, “You will surely say, Physician, heal Yourself—which, being paraphrased, may run thus—“You either did not read that passage, or else you lightly treated it and yet a part of the Messiah’s business is to heal the sick.”
He perceived that by His own silence He had called their attention to the Scripture and that they were ready to quote it against Him by the challenge, “Physician, heal Yourself. Do for Your own family and city what You are said to have done at Capernaum.” Our Lord paid no attention to claims based upon His dwelling in the place, for He knows no claim but that of mercy. He intended to exercise His Sovereignty and, therefore, He reminded them that healing was not sent to the lepers that were in Israel, but was sent only to Naaman who had nothing to do with Israel, but was one of that Syrian
nation which opposed and oppressed Israel! Possibly He gave them nothing about healing that day because He knew that they were not brokenhearted.
He who reads men’s hearts knew that they were captives to their unbelief, blinded by prejudice and fettered by sin and, therefore, He said, “He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” But the most tender part of the Gospel being inapplicable to their case, He would not mention it in their hearing at that time. He would not cast it like a pearl before swine, but reserved it until they should lament their sin and adopt another mood. This, it strikes me, is the reason why the passage is not mentioned in the original Gospel of Luke and, if so, the omission is most instructive. Take heed lest you, also, should miss the sweetest Word of the Gospel through being in an unfit state to receive it!