<p>4:18 <i>The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those that are bruised</i>- The Lord began His ministry by proclaiming a freedom from burdens through Him (Lk. 4). And He concludes it by telling the disciples to proclaim the same deliverance (Lk. 24:47). Consider how He brings together various passages from Isaiah in His opening declaration in Lk. 4:18: <i>&ldquo;</i>The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,&nbsp;&nbsp; and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach proclaim Heb. &lsquo;call out to a man&rsquo; the acceptable year of the Lord&rdquo;<i>. </i>This combines allusions to Is. 61:1&nbsp;(Lev. 25:10); Is. 58:6 LXX&nbsp;and&nbsp;Is. 61:2.<i>&nbsp; </i><br />Is. 58:6 AV: &ldquo;To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free (cp. Dt. 15:12 re freedom of slaves, s.w.), and that you break every yoke&rdquo; is in the context of an insincerely kept year of Jubilee in Hezekiah&rsquo;s time, after the Sennacherib invasion. Is. 58 has many Day of Atonement allusions- the year of Jubilee began on this feast. We are as the High Priest declaring the reality of forgiveness to the crowd. Hence Lk. 24:47 asks us to proclaim a Jubilee of atonement. The Greek for &ldquo;preach&rdquo; in Lk. 24:47 and for &ldquo;preach / proclaim the acceptable year&rdquo; in Lk. 4:19 are the same, and the word is used in the LXX for proclaiming the Jubilee. And the LXX word used for &lsquo;jubilee&rsquo; means remission, release, forgiveness, and it is the word used to describe our preaching / proclaiming forgiveness in Lk. 24:47. It could be that we are to see the cross as the day of atonement, and from then on the Jubilee should be proclaimed in the lives of those who accept it. It&rsquo;s as if we are running round telling people that their mortgages have been cancelled, hire purchase payments written off...and yet we are treated as telling them something unreal, when it is in fact so real and pertinent to them. And the very fact that <i>Yahweh</i> has released others means that we likewise ought to live in a spirit of releasing others from their debts to us: &ldquo;The creditor shall release that which he hath lent&hellip;<i> because</i> the Lord&rsquo;s release hath been proclaimed&rdquo; (Dt. 15:2 RV).</p><p>Isaiah 61 was the Jewish synagogue reading for the Day of Atonement and especially on the first day of a jubilee year, and it could be that the Lord is alluding to this when He said that &quot;today&quot; those words were coming true. Perhaps that day was a day of atonement. He was the means for atonement, on which basis the Jubilee was proclaimed; the good news of Messiah was not so much a political kingdom free from the Romans, but the good news of atonement for sin.</p><p>Christ means 'Messiah', the&nbsp;anointed one. He was anointed in order &quot;to preach the Gospel&quot;; and we too have been anointed insofar as we are in Christ, the anointed one (2 Cor. 1:21). Therefore as He was ordained a preacher of the Gospel to the world, we too share that honour (as we do all His honours, to some extent). He was anointed (&lsquo;oiled&rsquo;) by God in order to give the oil of joy to His people; He shared His experience of anointing with us, and we must go out and do likewise (Is. 61:1,2 cp. Lk. 4:18).</p>