all strife I need only point out that, here, He endorses the belief
that prophetic utterances, however they may have had, and did have,
a lower and immediate meaning, were only realised in the whole sweep
and significance in Himself. So He presents Himself before His
acquaintances in the little synagogue at Nazareth, and before the
whole world to all time, as the centre-point and pivot on which the
history of the world, so to speak, revolves; all that was before
converging to Him, all that was after flowing down from Him. 'They
that went before, and they that followed after, cried, Hosanna!
blessed be He that cometh in the name of the Lord.'

He claims to possess the whole fullness of the divine Spirit: 'The
Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.' That is a reminiscence, no doubt, of
the experience by the fords of the Jordan, at the Baptism. But it
also opens up a wondrous consciousness, on His part, of a complete
and uninterrupted possession of the divine life in all its fullness,
which involves an entire separation from the miseries and needs of
men. He claims to be the Messiah of the Old Covenant, with all the
fullness of meaning, and loftiness of dignity which clustered round
that word and that thought. He claims not only to proclaim, but to
bestow, the blessings of which He speaks. For He not only comes to
'preach good tidings to the poor,' but 'to heal the broken-hearted,'
and 'to set at liberty all them that are bound.' He is the Gospel
which He utters. He not merely proclaims the favour of heaven, but
He brings 'the acceptable year of the Lord.'

This, in barest outline--which is all that your time will admit--is
the summary of what Jesus Christ, in that first sermon in the
synagogue at Nazareth, asserted Himself to be.