Luke 1:15, commentary and pictures

The angel foretold to Zacharias in the temple that his son John would be great in God's sight, would abstain from wine and strong drink, and would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. His greatness was not wealth, rank, intellect, or appearance, but moral worth in love, purity, unselfish service, humility, and obedience in directing people to Christ. His abstinence marked his consecration as a Nazarite from birth, requiring a lifelong abstemious life of simple food and dress and pure water. Filled with the Spirit from before birth, he preached with power without compromise to turn many to repentance and make ready a prepared people. His divinely appointed work of temperance, reform, and preparing the way for Christ's first coming models the work of preparing people for Christ's second appearing.

Announcement in the Temple

The foretelling was given to Zacharias in the temple at the time of incense, while he stood before the golden altar in the holy place as the cloud of incense with the prayers of Israel ascended before God. The angel stood on the right side of the altar as an indication of favor. The message declared that his son John would be great in the sight of the Lord, would drink neither wine nor strong drink, and would be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb.

It answered prayers offered through many years for pardon for the people's sins and for the coming of the long-expected Redeemer. The prayer of Zacharias and Elisabeth was kept in God's record book to be answered in His own good time, after long years of disappointment in which hope seemed buried, so that the birth would best glorify His name. That delay revealed a tender, kind, loving and compassionate heart of infinite love that had not forgotten His servants. Zacharias met the joyful assurance with fear and self-condemnation, taking no note of the favor shown because the mercy seemed too great to credit. He questioned how this could be because he was old and his wife well stricken in years, and because he did not believe he was made unable to speak until the prediction was fulfilled.

John's birth and prophetic mission were attested by miracle and prophecy and marked by a manifestation of God's Spirit. The news spread abroad and the birth announced that Christ's coming was near. Through thirty years of tumult and change those circumstances were in great measure lost sight of. When John appeared as a prophet with authority and stirred excitement, the revelation in the temple and the events of his birth were remembered and helped explain his power. Mary also remembered the prophecy given at his birth, and John's stirring of Israel renewed her hope that Jesus was the Messiah.

Great in God's Sight

To be great in the sight of the Lord is not to possess wealth or status, rank or ancestry, intellectual gifts or impressive outward appearance, but to receive a God-appointed life and work and fulfill it. God's measure of greatness is moral worth, especially love and purity and unselfish service, with humility of heart and obedience. John displayed that greatness by refusing to seek honor for himself and by directing people to Jesus as the Promised One. Human wisdom judges by outward appearance and finds nothing great in such a life, but Infinite Wisdom measures true greatness by the work God appoints, not by the short measure of human judgment.

His greatness lay in being appointed to hold a high place in God's work, going before Christ to prepare the way for the first ministry of the gospel. Through him light from heaven would shine in clear, distinct rays, for he was no ordinary person but one set apart for that purpose. His message was clear-cut, reproving sin and all hypocrisy, and that preparation was watched with intense interest by all the universe of heaven. Such humility and obedience lead to good works, and a Christlike example inspires others to value obedience and humility.

That greatness is confirmed by Christ's word that among those born of women none greater has risen than John the Baptist. It was joined to wisdom from above rather than being shaped by the mass of Jewish tradition taught by the teachers of his day. He would turn many in Israel to God and go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, abstaining from wine and strong drink and filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb.

Abstinence and Temperance Command

Before his birth John was set apart and consecrated to God for His work as a Nazarite from birth, and his consecration began before birth and from his mother's womb. The restriction to drink neither wine nor strong drink marks that consecration, as it did for a child appointed to be a Nazarite from birth. He made that vow his own in a lifelong consecration. That consecration joined abstinence from wine and strong drink with being filled with the Holy Spirit, teaching temperance from a Christian standpoint and supporting the physical, mental, and moral strength needed for his mission.

His abstinence was absolute, forbidding both wine and strong drink. It barred even sweet unfermented grape juice and sour wine, though pure unfermented juice in itself is good and harmless, and stood as a danger signal and an example for self-preservation. He drank only pure water from the hills. The direction for him to abstain came from Christ Himself.

The command meant an abstemious life, given by an angel from the throne of heaven as a lesson of temperance to his parents that he should live without intoxicating drink. It meant simple wilderness food of locusts and wild honey and plain dress like that of the ancient prophets, a garment of camel's hair confined by a leather girdle, in order to stand as a reformer rebuking the excesses of his time. Those excesses were widespread greed for riches and love of luxury and display, with sensuous pleasures and feasting and drinking with wine and rich food causing physical disease and degeneracy, weakening people physically and morally, benumbing spiritual perceptions and lessening sensibility to sin.

Abstaining was part of his preparation for service to God, because wine and strong drink hinder such service. His example shows that refraining from them is necessary because they harm judgment and fitness for responsible service. His calling as forerunner to Christ to rebuke sinful practices required strict temperance, and he was to be raised in true temperance with his habits carefully regulated to control appetite and passion.

Filled With Holy Spirit

The promise was that he would be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb, from before birth and from birth itself. That filling gave power to his preaching in the wilderness, so that he spoke with power and made no compromise with sin. By it he turned many from unrighteousness to repentance, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

The great work appointed to him required the Lord to work with him, and the Spirit of God would be with him and work through him as he heeded and obeyed the angel's instruction. His abstinence and strict temperance were to secure the physical, mental, and moral health and strength his mission needed, with control of appetite and passion and a plain, abstemious life that rebuked indulgence, intemperance, and extravagance and helped prepare the people to turn to God. The Holy Spirit rested upon him and kindled zeal for his mission, and his wilderness life of self-denial, meditation, and prayer formed the firm, discerning character needed to call people to repentance and guide them toward righteousness.

His being filled from birth shows that even a baby may be under God's protection through a praying mother's faith. Parents who live in communion with God may expect the Spirit to shape their children from their earliest moments, for through a mother's prayerful communion the divine Spirit may shape the child from its earliest moments. Elizabeth, as mother of the Saviour's herald, bears out the lesson that a mother's life imparts mental and spiritual influences that help shape her child's mind and character.

Forerunner Mission to Israel

He was assigned by God a special work as messenger to announce the coming of Christ and to go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah. That work was to turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, to call sinners to repentance, and to make ready a prepared people to receive and believe in Christ. It was announced with the promise of joy and gladness, and that many would rejoice at his birth. Even though he was a son of old age and a child of miracle, his parents were to cooperate faithfully with God to form in him a character fit for competent work in that calling.

His calling demanded not only the highest qualities of mind and soul but physical energy and endurance. Therefore his physical training was an important part of preparation for his work and was addressed in instructions sent to his parents before his birth. His habits were to be carefully regulated from infancy and from birth for the great work committed to him.

He fulfilled that trust as a steady ruler for his special work, turning many from sin to righteousness. Empowered by the Spirit, he called sinners to repentance, rebuked the sins of the religious leaders, and urged them to live out their professed obedience. His mission was to prepare the way for Christ and prepare a people to receive Him, so that rejecting his warning hardened the people and helped prepare them to reject Christ.

He was a child of promise, filled with the Holy Spirit from birth and ordained by God for a special work as a reformer. As such a reformer he was to call the people to repentance and prepare them to receive Christ.

Childhood Training in Wilderness

John was a son of old age and a child of miracle, yet his parents were not to leave him for God to care for alone but were to cooperate faithfully with God to form in him a character fit for competent work in his special calling. To do their part they moved to a retired place in the country where he would not be exposed to the temptations of city life or drawn away from their counsel and instruction. They sacredly fulfilled that obligation so that by no careless neglect on their part he would fail to become good and wise.

His mission was made known to him from childhood, for his God-fearing parents often repeated to him the angel's words to Zacharias and kept that trust continually before him. He accepted it as a holy trust, and the divine Spirit illuminated his understanding as he studied people and learned how to reach their hearts with heaven's message. To fulfill that mission God did not send him to teachers of theology to learn interpretation of Scripture but called him to the desert to learn of nature and nature's God. There among barren hills, wild ravines, and rocky caves he forewent the enjoyments and luxuries of life for stern wilderness discipline, where simplicity and self-denial and freedom from the world's clamor favored study of nature, revelation, and Providence.

Distrusting his own power to withstand temptation, he separated from friends and relatives lest natural affection prove a snare. He would not needlessly enter temptation or accept luxuries or even conveniences that would lead to ease and gratification of appetite, lessen physical and mental strength, dull conscience, and cause his mission to fail. He chose privation and solitude in the wilderness to preserve the sense of God's majesty, to keep the fear of the Lord before him, to study nature to know God's character, and to avoid evil conversation and corrupting influences lest sin appear less exceedingly sinful. His simple food, self-denial, and control of appetite, with meditation and prayer, formed the firm, discerning, self-controlled strength of character needed to call people to repentance and a holy life.

The angel's direction gave his parents a lesson in temperance and parental responsibility, for a mother's habits and appetites affect her children, so mothers should value strict habits of temperance. Parents' example and training in temperance, self-denial, and self-control from early childhood affect their children's welfare and future capacities, and his own habits were to be carefully regulated from infancy because his work required physical soundness with the highest mental and moral strength. Serving wine or beer can cultivate in children an appetite for strong drink. His plain, abstemious life and simple food and dress stood as a reformer rebuking the widespread excesses of his time. Those excesses were greed for riches and love of luxury and display, with sensuous pleasures, feasting and drinking with wine and rich food, which caused physical disease and degeneracy, weakened people physically and morally, benumbed spiritual perceptions, and lessened sensibility to sin.

Pattern for Final Preparation

John was set apart for God's work before birth to abstain from wine and strong drink and to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and his temperate life was to give him the physical, mental, and moral strength his mission required. By controlling appetite and passion he was to lead reform by his own example, and his plain, abstemious life was a living and stern rebuke to indulgence, intemperance, and extravagance. That indulgence in wine and rich food weakened men physically and morally and dulled moral perception, so his habits and his preaching sternly rebuked sinful indulgence and were suited to his reforming work of preparing the way for Christ and helping prepare the people to turn to God. The Spirit of God was to be with him and work through him as he heeded and obeyed the angel's instruction.

Obedience to that temperance instruction, if followed by parents and children, creates and preserves the vigor, skill, and excellency needed for God's work. His abstinence was a strict temperance requirement intended to secure the physical, mental, and moral health needed for his mission to turn Israel to God and make ready a people for the Lord. His divinely appointed life of temperance, simplicity, and reform, with habits regulated from birth, prepared the way for Christ's first coming. That same life of temperance, simplicity, and health reform represents and models the work of those entrusted with sacred truths who warn the world and prepare people for Christ's second appearing. His temperate life served his reforming mission and stands as an example for those preparing people for Christ's return.

The prohibition to drink neither wine nor strong drink was set as a danger signal and an example for self-preservation. Christ gave it because He foresaw thousands upon thousands perishing from wine and strong drink in the close of the world's history, when the world would become as in the days before the flood.