Scripture Daily

Context No. 4080 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 1:18-25: in context

18Zacharias said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.” 19The angel answered him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God. I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. 20Behold, you will be silent and not able to speak until the day that these things will happen, because you didn’t believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.” 21The people were waiting for Zacharias, and they marveled that he delayed in the temple. 22When he came out, he could not speak to them. They perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple. He continued making signs to them, and remained mute. 23When the days of his service were fulfilled, he departed to his house. 24After these days Elizabeth his wife conceived, and she hid herself five months, saying, 25“Thus has the Lord done to me in the days in which he looked at me, to take away my reproach among men.”

When the angel Gabriel announces that the aged, childless Zechariah will have a son, Zechariah responds not with faith but with doubt: how can I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. And because he did not believe the angel's words, he is struck mute until the child is born, a discipline for his unbelief.

Yet notice: his doubt does not cancel God's promise. Elizabeth conceives just as Gabriel said, and God's word is fulfilled despite Zechariah's failure to believe it. Two things are worth holding together. There is a real cost to unbelief. Zechariah, a righteous priest, doubted God's clear word because it seemed impossible by natural reckoning, and his months of silence were a sobering consequence. And yet, God's faithfulness is not undone by our unbelief. He kept his promise to Zechariah anyway; the child was born as foretold. The warning is not to doubt God's word simply because his promises seem impossible to us; the comfort is that even when our faith falters, God remains faithful to his word.

Do I doubt God's promises when they seem impossible, as Zechariah did, and can I take comfort that even when my faith falters, God remains faithful to fulfill his word?

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