(67) And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, (68) Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: for he hath visited and redeemed his people, (69) And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; (70) As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began; (71) That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; (72) To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; (73) The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, (74) That he would grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, (75) In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. (76) And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; (77) To give knowledge of salvation unto his people, by the remission of their sins, (78) Through the tender mercy of our God; where by the day-spring from on high hath visited us, (79) To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Reader! before you enter upon your observations of Zacharias's prophecy, pause at the threshold, to notice the grace of the Lord towards him, in removing from him his affliction. Well was it for Zacharias: well is it for all the Lord's people, his grace waits not their deservings, but flows from his own free love. And you should observe also, that no sooner is his tongue untied from the consequence of his unbelief, but the Lord loosens both heart and tongue to speak the Lord's praise; and to proclaim the Lord's mercy. And how doth he praise the Lord? Do not fail to observe, it is, as the God of Israel: Israel's God in covenant. All, and every part of redemption is, to perform the mercy, promised. Yes! For the Lord's Christ is the mercy promised: the first born in the womb of mercy; the whole of mercy; yea, mercy itself in the full. For there is no mercy, but in Christ. everything which can be called mercy, must have Christ in it, or it is no mercy be it what it may. It must have its very nature from Christ; its sweetness from Christ, its value from Christ, and its everlasting continuance from Christ. And hence Zacharias harps upon this sweet string; that it was to perform the mercy promised, and to fulfil Jehovah's covenant and oath, in all the blessings of Christ, forevermore. And let not the Reader fail to observe, with what holy rapture the father Zacharias addresses his son, though an infant, under the divine influence of the same spirit of prophecy: and having spoken of the Lord, now speaks of His harbinger. And this, by the way, is no small testimony in what office and character the Holy Ghost, by Zacharias, declared John's commission: (see Malachi 3:1.) as a messenger going before the Lord, of His temple. Who, less than God, can have a temple? Who, but the Son of God in our nature, can be called the Lord of his temple? Oh! the preciousness of those unnumbered attestations, all over the word of God, to the Godhead of Christ, the truth as it is in Jesus!