Is Zechariah confused? What is singing about in Luke 1: a political, sociological, national deliverance, or a spiritual deliverance? On the one hand, he prophesies about “being saved from our enemies and all who hate us,” and on the other hand he speaks about John giving the “knowledge of salvation in the forgiveness of sins.” Maybe Zechariah is still trapped in the thinking that the Messiah would come as a military leader to deliver Israel. But wait, he also speaks about the forgiveness of sins. Can it be both?
Zechariah’s song resonates with the song of Moses after Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Words such as “visited,” “redeemed,” and “remember” all have echoes of the Exodus. Phrases such as being “saved from our enemies” and being “delivered from the hand of our enemies that we might serve him without fear” all point to Zechariah understanding what is happening with the birth of his son and of Jesus as being a new exodus.
In the Exodus, God saved his people with many signs and wonders. He destroyed the entire old creation world of Egypt, burying Pharaoh and his armies in the Sea. Zechariah sees that God is doing this again.
Was this a “political deliverance” or a “spiritual deliverance?” You might hear that Pharaoh and his armies are a “picture” or “representative” of the problem that each of us has with sin. The Pharaohs of the world are not the problem. Sin is the problem. When Jesus comes, he will deal with sin of which Pharaoh was only a picture. This leaves at least the strong implication that the Pharaohs of the world–the wicked rulers and systems of the world–will be untouched by Jesus while he does some sort of internal work on us.
Zechariah wasn’t confused. He knew exactly what salvation from sin would look like when it happened. Sure, the indwelling power of sin in each of us would be a target of Christ’s work of forgiveness. But that is not where salvation would end. Salvation from sin would reach as far as the curse is found.
The Pharaohs of this world–the oppressive governments in China and the Middle East, for example–are expressions of sin in the world. Before Jesus came, Pharaohs would be destroyed, but the power behind Pharaoh continued to live its deathly existence. Jesus came to deal with the power behind the powers. Once the empowering sin is dealt with, then the structures that they support will eventually fall.
Jesus didn’t come merely to work on your individual heart to make you a better person and give you a ticket to heaven when you die. Jesus came to bring the whole world order down by striking at the foundations built by Adam, tearing down kings and kingdoms animated by sin. He came to break the power of sin that rules over individual lives and the power of sin that corrupts societal structures. Salvation touches every part of our human existence, which means that salvation touches everything in the world.
Our Advent hope anticipates the day, not only when we will be freed from the power of indwelling sin, but also when nations will be freed from unrighteous, ungodly rulers. These two aren’t antithetical. This is the salvation that was promised of old and is coming to pass in Christ Jesus.
