Jesus's Ministry

Fulfillment of the Word of God

Luke 4:21 ESV

And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Authority of the Word of God

Luke 4:32 ESV

and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority.

Rebuke

Luke 4:35 ESV

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm.

Luke 4:39 ESV

And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them.

Luke 4:41 ESV

And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.

ἐπιτιμάω corresponds to the twofold sense of τιμάω, to accord “honour” on the one side, “blame” or “punishment” on the other.

God’s rebuke shakes heaven (Job 26:11) and moves the earth and the sea . He threatens the Red Sea and it dries up to let the people of God pass over (ψ 105:9; cf. Is. 50:2 Σ). His Word of command whips up the storm so that men cry to heaven in their distress; His Word of rebuke stills it again so that the waves subside and the cries of distress cease (ψ 106:29 אac). In Syr. Baruch there is still a fine sense of this twofold character of the Word of God: “With threat and reproof thou commandest the flames … and summonest what is not into being by a Word”. Acc. to Zech. 3:2 the threatening Word of God keeps even Satan within bounds: ἐπιτιμήσαι Κύριος ἐν σοί, διάβολε, καὶ ἐπιτιμήσαι Κύριος ἐν σοί. The Apoc. of Ezra (which was, of course, under Christian influence) gives cosmic and eschatological stature to this soundly Jewish motif. when it describes how God will one day hurl back Antichrist with a dreadful Word of rebuke (φοβερὰἀπειλή). But for the most part God’s reproof is directed against men, against the high and mighty until horse and rider are bemused, against the enemies of God and His people whose raging is like that of the sea (Is. 17:13), but also against the apostate people itself, so that it wastes and perishes. The last judgment itself will be one of rebuke, for then the divine rebuke will fall like a consuming fire (Is. 66:15). The NT maintains the same tradition by 1. forbidding rebuke except as brotherly correction, and 2. treating effective threatening and reproof as the prerogative of God and His Christ alone.