God’s Promise to Zacharias

KEY VERSE: “The angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.” —Luke 1:13

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Luke 1:1-25

THROUGH MALACHI, the last of the Old Testament prophets, the Lord declared, “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me.” (Mal. 3:1) This prophecy is quoted in Mark1:2, and applied to John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus. John is identified (vs. 3) as the one fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 40:3, which speaks of “the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high way for our God.” The Apostle John applies this latter prophecy to John the Baptist.—John 1:28

The Lord’s statement, “Behold, I will send my messenger,” is significant, for John’s birth was a direct result of the overruling providences of God. The account of this is found in Luke 1:5-25. The circumstances parallel to some extent the experiences of Abraham and Sarah in connection with the birth of Isaac: Zacharias and Elizabeth, who became the parents of John, “both were now well stricken in years,” and Elizabeth was “barren.”

The miracles associated with the birth of John convinced Zacharias, his father and a priest in Israel, that momentous things in the plan of God were beginning to happen. This was confirmed when Mary, his wife’s cousin, visited them and they learned of the Angel Gabriel’s announcement to her that she was to be the mother of Jesus, the king promised by God to sit on “the throne of his father, David.”—Luke 1:32

Zacharias said concerning his son: “Thou child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”—Luke 1:76-79

The miraculous circumstances associated with the birth of this ‘more than a prophet’, his manner of life, and the general expectation that someone great was about to appear, caused many to be attracted to him. (Matt. 3:5) He called upon his hearers to repent, and those who did he immersed in water as a symbol of their cleansing from sin.

Jesus said to his disciples, referring to John, that “Elias is indeed come.” (Mark 9:13) This was again expressed to his disciples in Matthew 11:14, where Jesus is quoted as saying, “If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.” This means that to those who repented under the ministry of John, and were prepared to accept Jesus, he was the promised Elijah, for he had accomplished the foretold work of reformation in their hearts and lives.

Jesus also indicated that there would be a future, greater fulfillment of the Elijah prophecy when he said, “Elias truly shall first come and restore all things.” (Matt. 17:11) This will be accomplished during the time of Christ’s kingdom. Under the typical Elijah, the people of Israel were led to repentance and to a return to the worship of Jehovah—the true and living God. Under the administration of Christ’s kingdom the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth, and as a result of that enlightenment, all people of earth will “call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent.”—Zeph. 3:8,9; Isa. 11:9

Malachi’s prophecy described this time as “the sun of righteousness rising with healing in his wings [beams]” (Mal. 4:2), and as a time when “he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”—Mal. 4:6

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