"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free."
Luke 4:18 (NIV)
Our Lord stood up and declared His "manifesto". Because the Lord Jesus is the Eternal Word, His manifesto is from Isaiah 61. The question that theologians debate is: is this freedom for prisoners and the oppressed, and sigh for the blind a physical mission or a spiritual mission? We could say that the answer to that question is both - both spiritual and physical, as long as we keep them in that order - spiritual first and physical second. Spiritual first, physical second.
God works from the inside out. Paul describes the bondage that our sin nature has over us in Romans 7. We are by nature, spiritual prisoners, spiritually blind, and spiritually oppressed. In a word, we are prisoners of our sin nature. The Lord Jesus came to set us free. We hear the gospel; we we believe and the Holy Spirit enters us, putting our sin nature to death and creating a new person in Christ. We don't have to obey our evil impulses and thoughts. We can now clearly see the spiritual issues at stake. We don't have to act in such a way that brings death, destruction and oppression into our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Spiritual first, physical second.
The places in the world where human rights abound, where women are the freest, where freedom reigns, where oppression is now defined as "bullying", and where people are the healthiest, are the places where the gospel has had influence the longest. Spiritual first, physical second.
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