Description

Benedictus
Sunday, January 4th, 2026
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Luke 1:68–80

Prayer

O Father, we thank You that in this world that is full of broken promises, You are the God who cannot lie. You are the God who always keeps His Word, who always keeps covenant, and who loves to show mercy to those who desire peace. Grant us Your peace now and forever, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

In the year 110 AD, about 80 years after Christ’s ascension on high, a Roman governor named Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan. And in this letter Pliny asks the emperor what the policy should be for prosecuting alleged Christians. Already Pliny had executed some Christians for their refusal to burn incense to Caesar and curse Christ, but he says that if he were to keep prosecuting them in this way, “Many persons of every age, every rank, and also of both sexes are and will be endangered. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms.” Just two generations after Jesus died and rose again, and the Roman empire is full of Christians, young and old, rich and poor, male and female, country folk and city folk, all spreading their religion according to Pliny, like a contagion.

• In this same letter we also have one of the earliest descriptions (outside of the New Testament) of what a Christian gathering looked like. Pliny says, “They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not to falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food–but ordinary and innocent food.”
• And so here you have an unbelieving Roman official attesting that Christians would gather together for a potluck. They would meet early in the morning before the sun rose, and swear oaths to keep God’s law, and during their gathering they would sing to one another, “a hymn to Christ as to God.” Of course, this should not surprise us since Paul commands the church to do this in Ephesians and Colossians, he says, teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord (Col 3:18, Eph. 5:19). From the beginning Christianity has been a religion of singing. Singing to one another. Singing unto Christ as God.
• Now as far as we know, the 150 Psalms of David were the original hymnbook of the Christian church. But as time went on and the gospels were published and circulated, the church also started to put to music the inspired words of the New Testament as well, especially some of the first “hymns to Christ as God.” So by the time of the 6th century, Mary’s Magnificat was being sung in the liturgy, and also the text we have before us this morning, which is Zacharias’ song, now known as the Benedictus.
  • That word Benedictus is just the Latin word for Blessed, and it is taken from the first line of Zacharias’ prophesy, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel (Benedictus Dominus Deus Israël).
  • And so my hope for you this morning is that by understanding a little more the meaning of these words, these lyrics, you may be moved like Zacharias, moved by the Holy Spirit, to bless the God of Israel. For what we have before us in our text is an inspired New Covenant example, of what Psalm 103:2 tells us to do, Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits.
  • The Benedictus is all about blessing God for His many saving benefits. And it is those benefits we shall call to mind again this morning.

Outline of the Text

We are focusing in on verses 68-79, which is prophetic poetry. And this poem divides into two basic sections:

• In verses 68-75, Zacharias extols The Mystery of the Incarnate Lord.
• In verses 76-79, He extols the The Mission of John to Prepare People for that Lord.
  • So we have 1) The Mystery of the Incarnation, followed by 2) The Mission of John the Baptist, so let us walk through this text together.

Verses 68-69 – The Blessed God Blesses Us

68Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; For he hath visited and redeemed his people, 69And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David;

• What does it mean to bless God?
  • To bless God is to confess with your mouth praise. And more specifically to praise God because He is most blessed (He is most happy). Blessedness is God’s very nature.
  • What makes a person perfectly happy is the perfect possession of a perfect good. And this God alone possesses in Himself, and He has created us to share in the happiness that He is.
  • So whereas you and I have a happiness that fluctuates according to the goods we have or do not have, and how permanent they are or are not, God is the only permanent and perfect good, and in this life we can only possess Him by faith, but in the next life we shall enjoy Him by sight. And this is what Jesus calls in John 17:3, eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
  • And so because God wants you to share in His own abundant happiness, He chooses to come down to us in the most personal way, not as an angel, not as a voice in a cloud, or a fiery mountain or a burning bush, or an invisible force, but rather in the man Christ Jesus, to visit and redeem us from our sins.
  • This is the reason why Zacharias blesses the God of Israel: For he hath visited and redeemed his people And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.
  • Here in these opening verses are contained three momentous actions of God.
    • 1. First, He has come down to visit us. This refers to the mystery of the incarnation, that the unborn child growing within Mary’s womb, is none other than the God of Israel in human flesh.
    • 2. Second we are told that the purpose for this divine visitation is, to redeem His people.
      • Just as the nation of Israel was in bondage in Egypt, slaves to Pharoah, treated as Pharoah’s property, just so the whole world was in bondage to Satan and sin, subject to death and in need of someone to pay our debt and purchase us out of slavery.
      • This is the new and greater Exodus Jesus comes to bring. Jesus is the Passover lamb, the New Moses. Baptism becomes our Red Sea crossing. Jesus is our new High Priest, of whom Hebrews 9:12 says, by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
      • And it says likewise in Colossians 1:13-15, that God the Father, hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.
      • So already before Jesus is born, Zacharias is prophesying the purpose for his birth, He was born to die, born to redeem us from our sins.
    • 3. Third, he extols the victory of Christ’s kingdom saying, And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.
      • This raising up of the horn refers to Christ’s resurrection and enthronement as king. It says in Psalm 132:17-18, There [in Zion] I will make the horn of David grow; I will prepare a lamp for My Anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, But upon Himself His crown shall flourish.”
        • What is a horn but an animal’s crown. A vessel for pouring out oil (1 Sam. 16:1), an instrument to make the walls of Jericho crumble (Josh 6:5). The horn signifies power and beauty, strength and glory. In the book of Daniel, a horn signifies a king and the extent of his kingdom. And so who is Christ but the king of kings, who says after his resurrection in Matthew 28:18, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. And as we heard earlier from Psalm 72, his dominion shall be from sea to sea.
        • In Revelation 19 it says of Christ, And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
        • So who is Jesus? He is The Triumphant Horn of salvation. The reason we bless the God of Israel is because He joined to Himself our humanity to save us from the wrath to come. Jesus was born to die, He died to redeem, and He did not stay dead but rose victorious as king. All of this so that you may share in His blessedness, so that you can share in the eternal happiness that God delights to give.
        • So dear Christian, Does your soul bless the Lord? Can you say with Psalm 104:33-34, My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
        • Or have you forgotten His many benefits?
        • God gives you His word, and gives you these songs to help you remember what we are so prone to forget.
• This brings us to verses 70-73 where we are told that all of these benefits were promised by God in times past.

Verses 70-73 – Prophets Since The World Began

70As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, Which have been since the world began:

71That we should be saved from our enemies, And from the hand of all that hate us;

72To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, And to remember his holy covenant;

73The oath which he sware to our father Abraham,

• So here Zacharias takes us back to the beginning of the world and the patriarchs of Genesis.
• Who was the very first prophet and martyr for the faith? According to Jesus it was Adam and Eve’s son, Abel.
  • Jesus will say later to the scribes and Pharisees in Luke 11:49-52, Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
• It is interesting that this name Zacharias which means “God remembers,” is also the name of the last prophet who was martyred in the Old Testament canon (2 Chronicles 24:20-22), and now the son of Zacharias, John the Baptist will become the last prophet to be martyred before the death of Christ.
  • And so what exactly has God remembered that martyrs like Abel and Zacharias foretold and which John the Baptist will also proclaim.
  • It is nothing other than God’s coming judgment. The day of the Lord. God’s punishment of sin both temporal and eternal. John says in Luke 3:17, His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.
  • According to Genesis 4, the blood of Abel cried out to God for vengeance, for the making right of Cain’s murderous wrong.
  • Likewise in 2 Chronicles 24:22 it says, And when [Zacharias] died, he said, The Lord look upon it, and require it. Require what? Require justice.
  • And so for those who refuse to plead the blood of Jesus, all that is left for them is Divine judgment, the receiving of what they deserve, God’s vengeance for every sin.
    • It says Hebrews 12:24 that Christ’s blood, speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, namely forgiveness. So for those who refuse the price of redemption Christ offers upon the cross, they are choosing instead to receive the wages of sin, namely eternal death.
    • If you do not repent of every sin and plead the blood of Jesus, you are as those who condemned Christ to death, calling God a liar and saying, His blood be upon us, and on our children (Matt 27:25).
    • The message of the prophets from the very beginning is that God is just and God is merciful, and if you do not fall upon His mercy seat, only justice remains. Well Jesus is that mercy seat, the only safe place to hide from the wrath to come. So who is your shelter? Who are you trusting in?
• Zacharias goes on in verse 71 to say that one of the results of Christ’s judgment is, That we should be saved from our enemies, And from the hand of all that hate us.
  • Who are those who hate the church? Who are those enemies from which we shall be saved? They are all those people and powers, spiritual and physical, human and angelic, political and ecclesiastical, who would oppose Christ and his people.
    • This includes men like Cain, who envy, hate, and murder their own brother. This includes women like Potiphar’s wife, who would try to seduce the righteous and then falsely accuse them. It includes evil rulers like Ahaz and Jezebel, who persecuted Elijah and enticed the people into idolatry.
    • It includes Satan and his demonic hordes. It includes our own sinful flesh and perverse desires. Anyone or anything that does not love and serve Jesus is counted an enemy of God, and all such enemies shall be defeated.
    • Some of those enemies were defeated 2,000 years ago. Some of those enemies God permits to remain for a time to test us, try us, and increase our faith. All of us who now love Jesus used to be His enemies, and so aren’t you thankful that Christ conquered you?
    • The gospel promise is a promise of deliverance from everything that hinders our happiness in God.Some of those enemies Christ destroys immediately, some he deals a death blow but allows to live on for a time, some of them await the final judgment and the lake of fire.
  • So while Jesus Christ the God-man is presently reigning over heaven and earth right now, that same Jesus is very patient, very kind, and as it says in 1 Timothy 2:4, God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, and that is why He tarries, that is why He permits so many enemies to continue for a season, that we may be converted to Him and bow the knee willingly before judgment day.
• So God has performed in Christ the mercy He promised to Abraham and our fathers. And when God’s mercy encompasses a person, it changes them from the inside out. It transforms us to desire what is truly good for us. In verses 74-75 we see what that truly good life looks like.

Verses 74-75 – The Good Life

74That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies Might serve him without fear,

75In holiness and righteousness before him, All the days of our life.

• Recall this was our fifth diagnostic question last week. Do you desire from God nothing more and nothing less, than to serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness forever?
  • Because that is the desire of someone who has received God’s mercy.
  • Why did God save us from Satan, sin, and death? To bring us to a loving service of Him, in holiness and righteousness all our days.
  • Does not your heart yearn for this rest? This perfect peace? This freedom from all fears and doubts, liars and deceivers? Where there is secure tranquility and tranquil unity amongst the joy of myriads upon myriads of angels and saints more numerous than we can count?
  • This is the rest God promises to those who will not rest until they rest in Him. Is this the desire of your heart?
    • It says in 1 John 4:18, There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear. And so while in this life our love for God is very small and imperfect, and our capacity to receive His love is constantly assaulted by sins and fears, a day will come when we may cast aside this body of death and embrace in full the glorious love of our Redeemer.
• But in the meantime, He gives us a taste of these gifts in varying degrees. At present the church in our region is not suffering overt persecution, we may gather freely and worship God according to His Word. This is a great freedom, a hard-won freedom, that many Christians have never enjoyed.
  • But how have we used this freedom? Have we used it to grow in holiness and righteousness? Have we made every effort to become holy as He is holy, keeping ourselves unstained from the world, hating even the garment that is stained by the flesh?
  • When God gives His church a measure of liberty and then we abuse that liberty, He often removes it to teach us what that liberty was for. Do we want to be free so you can worship God? Or do you want to be free so you can just do what is right in your own eyes?
  • The freedom God gives is a freedom to become conformed into the image of His Son.Is this what you are doing with the freedom you have?
• If not, you are not alone, you are like many of the Jews in Jesus’ day. And God knows how slow we are to hear, and how dull our understanding is, how forgetful we are. And so from His mercy he sends a messenger to prepare people for what He intends to do. And this is what Zacharias extols at the end of this song.

Verses 76-79 – The Mission of John the Baptist

76And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord To prepare his ways;

77To give knowledge of salvation unto his people By the remission of their sins,

78Through the tender mercy of our God; Whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,

79To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.

• Notice that we are not born walking in the way of peace. Someone needs to guide us there. And here we see how God guides His people, first through John, then through Jesus.
• What does John do? It says in verse 77 he gives knowledge of salvation unto God’s people, and that that knowledge consists in the remission of sins. The knowledge that you are a sinner and need to repent.
  • Remember that John is the son of a priest.  And it says in Malachi 2:7, For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, And they should seek the law at his mouth: For he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.
  • And so John prepares people by preaching the truth. In Luke 3:3 we are told, And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
• And then Jesus comes, and what does Jesus do?
  • Jesus comes and forgives sins. How? It says in verse 78, Through the tender mercy of our God. Jesus is the fullest expression of God’s mercy. He is mercy in the flesh.
  • To show mercy is remove a person’s misery (their defects) insofar as you are able. But how able are we to heal ourselves? How able are we to change a person’s heart and all our own personal defects? How able are we to pay the debt for our own sins, nevertheless another person’s sins? We are totally unable. We are those who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death.
  • But who is Jesus? Jesus is God. Jesus is God’s mercy. Jesus is the one says, I came to seek and save the lost. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance (Mark 2:17).
  • Jesus is God’s mercy come to heal you of your misery by His infinite power.
  • Paul says in Romans 8:3-4, For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
  • Jesus gives what no mere man can give. Jesus gives the Spirit of God. Jesus gives a transformed heart. Jesus gives a complete forgiveness, so that Romans 8:1 may become true of us which says, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. So what are you walking in?
• Jesus is the light of the world, the dayspring from on high, who guides our feet into the way of peace. That way of a peace is what Paul calls, “walking in the Spirit, minding the things of the Spirit and not the things of the flesh.” So do you have this Holy Spirit? Do you have God’s peace?

Conclusion

What will make Christianity spread like a contagion again? What kind of people will convert the Empires of our day, even as the Roman Empire was eventually conquered by Christ?

• It will be those who walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. It will be those who want to serve God without fear, in righteousness and holiness all their days.
• It will be those who refuse to bow down and burn incense to all our American idols, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” Mammon, Pornography, Feminism, Technology. These are all idols to help us idolize ourselves. We want people to serve and worship us. We are our own gods. We want God to serve and worship us. This is what Satan wanted, and it is what he seduced Eve into grasping for, the fruit that will make us like God.
• What Satan offered with a lying tongue, God now gives freely and truly to all who believe on His Son.
• For Jesus Christ was hung like fruit upon the tree. And by grasping for Him you may take hold of eternal life. Your eyes will be opened to know true right and true wrong, and you may become like God sharing in His blessedness.
• For what does Paul say in Romans 8:29? He predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his Son. And in 2 Peter 1:4 it says that by trusting in God’s promises, we may become partakers of the divine nature.
• So while the world is busy exalting itself, worshiping itself trying to play god and rule others, the true God came down and humbled Himself, died for our idolatry, to make us partakers of His blessedness. To make us share in His divine life.
• If you know these saving benefits, then may you bless the God of Israel, now and forever, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.