to give to His people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,
77. To give knowledge of salvation Zacharias now touches the principal subject of the gospel, when he says that the knowledge of salvation consists in the forgiveness of sins. As we are all “by nature the children of wraths” (Ephesians 2:3,) it follows, that we are by nature condemned and ruined: and the ground of our condemnation is, that we are chargeable with unrighteousness.
We have here the song wherewith Zacharias praised God when his mouth was opened; in it he is said to prophesy (Luk 1:67), and so he did in the strictest sense of prophesying; for he foretold things to come concerning the kingdom of the Messiah, to which all the prophets bear witness. Observe, I.
Commenting on Luke 1:67-80
To give knowledge of salvation,.... This is still said of John, and belongs to his work and office; though the Syriac and Arabic versions read, "that he may give"; as if it was spoken of the Lord, before whose face John was to go, and whose ways he was to prepare: by "salvation" is meant, not a temporal salvation, or a deliverance from the Roman...