*CORNERSTONE TEXTS

Luke 4:18–19 (NKJV) “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”

Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

*INTRODUCTION

• Luke places these two encounters back-to-back to establish Jesus’ identity, jurisdictional authority, and the nature of the Kingdom of God breaking into fallen human history.
• In Levitical law, two things were strictly outside the scope of normal priestly remedy:
• the cure of systemic leprosy,
• the absolute, absolution of moral guilt before God.
• Priests inspected leprosy; they could not cure it.
• Priests offered sacrifices for sin year after year; they could not definitively wipe the slate clean through an authoritative declaration of their own will.
• Here, Christ demonstrates that He is not an ordinary rabbi.