Luke 1:68

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for, etc. - Zacharias praises God for two grand benefits which he had granted to his people. 1. He has visited them. 2. He has ransomed them.

1. He speaks by the spirit of prophecy, which calls things that are not, as though they were; because they are absolutely determined by the Most High, and shall be all fulfilled in their season. God visits his people in the incarnation of Jesus Christ; therefore this Christ is called by him, Κυριος ὁ Θεος , Jehovah the God of Israel. Here the highest and most glorious character of the Supreme Being is given to Christ.

This God redeems his people: it is for this end that he visits them. His soul is about to be made a sacrifice for sin: he becomes flesh, that he may suffer and die for the sin of the world. God, by taking upon him the nature of man, has redeemed that nature from eternal ruin.

He hath - redeemed - Εποιησε λυτρωσιν , he hath made a ransom - laid down the ransom price. Λυτροω signifies particularly to ransom a captive from the enemy, by paying a price. The following remarkable passage from Josephus, Ant. b. xiv. c. 14, sect. 1, fully illustrates this meaning of the original. "Herod, not knowing what had happened to his brother, hastened λυτρωσασθαι , to ransom him from the enemy, and was willing to pay λυτρον ὑπερ αυτου , a ransom for him, to the amount of three hundred talents." Sinners are fallen into the hands of their enemies, and are captives to sin and death. Jesus ransoms them by his own blood, and restores them to life, liberty, and happiness. This truth the whole Bible teaches: this truth God has shown in certain measures, even to those nations who have not been favored with the light of his written word: for Christ is that true light, which enlightens every man that cometh into the world.

How astonishing is the following invocation of the Supreme Being, (translated from the original Sanscreet by Dr. C. Wilkins), still existing on a stone, in a cave near she ancient city of Gya, in the East Indies!

"The Deity, who is the Lord, the possessor of all, appeared in this ocean of natural beings, at the beginning of the Kalee Yoog (the age of contention and baseness). He who is omnipresent and everlastingly to be contemplated, the Supreme Being, the Eternal One, the Divinity worthy to be adored - Appeared here with a Portion of his Divine Nature. Reverence be unto thee in the form of ( a ) Bood-dha! Reverence be unto the Lord of the earth! Reverence be unto thee, an Incarnation of the Deity, and the Eternal One! Reverence be unto thee, O God, in the form of the God of mercy; the dispeller of pain and trouble, the Lord of all things, the Deity who overcometh the sins of the Kalee Yoog; the guardian of the universe, the emblem of mercy toward those who serve thee - ( b ) O'M! the possessor of all things in Vital Form! Thou art ( c ) Brahma, Veeshnoo, and Mahesa! Thou art Lord of the universe! Thou art under the form of all things, movable and immovable, the possessor of the whole! and thus I adore thee. Reverence be unto the Bestower Of Salvation, and the Ruler of the faculties! Reverence be unto thee, the Destroyer of the Evil Spirit! O Damordara, ( d ) show me favor! I adore thee, who art celebrated by a thousand names, and under various forms, in the shape of Bood-dha, the God of Mercy! Be propitious, O Most High God!" - Asiatic Researches, vol. i. pp. 284, 285.

(a) Bood-dha. The name of the Deity, as author of happiness.