JMac - Christmas 2007 - on usa 2

← Previous Post

It's a Boy! →

December 25, 2007

JMac - Christmas 2007 - on usa 2

God, the Savior of Men
Luke 2:11
Luke 2:8-14: "And in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you, you will find the baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.'"
Seven hundred years before this baby was born a Hebrew prophet named Micah was inspired by God to write that when the Messiah did come 700 years later He would be born in of all places an obscure small town called Bethlehem, house of bread. It's recorded in Micah 5:2. God's Word is always accurate and true.
It wasn't the parents of Jesus that assured the fulfillment of this prophecy. We don't know whether Joseph was aware of Micah 5:2. Nothing indicates that either Joseph or Mary played any role in planning to be in Bethlehem for the birth. Human nature would be that Mary would want to be near her mother, near her family, in her hometown, certainly not in a stable in the middle of a group of strangers overpopulating a small village because they were all there trying to get through a census registration that had been demanded by the Roman government.
They were in Bethlehem because God planned to have them there. And the way God orchestrated the plan to have them there had nothing to do with them. It was all orchestrated by, of all people, Caesar Augustus, a pagan. He arranged it. He was the supreme ruler of the Roman Empire for 45 years. He was a powerful, formidable man. And I took you through a whole, a whole lot of information about the man himself, and the nature of his life and leadership. It was that man, Caesar Augustus, who knew nothing about the true and living God, knew nothing about the Old Testament, never heard of the prophet Micah, couldn't care less about the Messiah. It was that man who did exactly what was necessary to assure the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
He required a census to be taken for the purpose of registering everybody in the Roman Empire with a view towards taxation. So he made a decree, during the first tenure of a man named Quirinius in the area of Judea which was part of the Roman Empire. Everybody had to go to their ancestral town. Now the Romans didn't require that. As I told you before, that was likely required by Herod. This was the first census that ever had been taken by the Romans so there wasn't a traditional way to do this. But apparently Herod or the Jewish leaders had decided they needed to go back to the home of their forefathers where they kept all the records of their ancestry. So let's assume that God moved the heart of Caesar Augustus exactly the right time, exactly the right moment to get this thing in motion so that the census would be being taken...would be taking place at the very time of the birth of Christ.
We also know that the census was authorized in 8 B.C. As you work out the chronology it would be about 8 B.C. when Caesar Augustus made the first census. Remember he had them at 14-year intervals and the second one was at 6 A.D. so backing up fourteen years would be 8 B.C. We also know that Jesus was born by all historical accounts somewhere around 6 and 4 B.C. So the census was called for in 8 B.C., it wasn't complied with in Judea until between 6 and 4 B.C. so there was a two to four year time when Judea didn't comply. We can assume that other countries who were part of the Roman Empire complied, Judea didn't comply probably because of the resistance of Herod. Herod was not a Jew, he was a despised Edomite...Idumaean, he was called, and he was a vassal king under Rome ruling in Judea or in Israel.
Herod wasn't anxious for another king to arrive and massacred all the babies when he heard that a king had been born. Herod wasn't trying to do anything to help the Messiah fulfill a prophecy. We can't assume that Herod even knew anything about Micah 5:2. And yet Herod put up the appropriate resistance, to stall off the census the necessary years to be sure that Jesus was born at the right place, the right time in God's plan.
I can't comprehend the power of miracles, but I can understand that God can do miracles. I can understand how history goes along, a natural life goes along in the created order and God just invades with a miracle. I can understand how God just stops the natural process and does something supernatural...that's comprehensible to me. It's even simple to me. You just stop what is natural and do what is supernatural.
What I find so unfathomable in my own thinking is how God works not miraculously but providentially. And providence is a term that has to do with God not interfering with the normal processes of life but orchestrating all of the factors, thoughts and actions to bring about exactly what He wants, when He wants, with whom He wants, where He wants. Now that is amazing. But that's what you have here.
You have a decree by a Roman Caesar who knows nothing about Messianic hope and prophecy, or the Bible, the Old Testament. You have a stalling off or a delay by a Herod who is against doing anything that would bring about a new king, or give credence to His claim by being born in Bethlehem. Neither of them knew anything about it. And yet every single thing they do, every independent choice they made, every willful act ignorantly they made worked to the effect that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
It is possible, we can't say dogmatic, but it is possible that the reason Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem, and that would be...my tendency to believe that because the impetus of the text is they were there because of a census. It never says anything about they were trying to get there so they could make sure they fulfilled biblical prophecy. That's not there. It was the census that drove them which implies that they were up against a deadline. I mean, it would have been a lot simpler if they could have waited until the child was born at some later time, then maybe gone down and done the registration. Why would they go at such a crucial time unless they were under pressure to go an April 15 kind of deadline. So whoever was setting dates, and whoever was setting deadlines, and whoever the Romans were who were going to be there at that time to take the registration, all of that God orchestrated to effect perfectly His will.
David Gooding writes, "Of course Augustus knew nothing about this effect of the census and the last thing he or his vassal, Herod, would have done would be to strengthen the credentials of a messianic claimant to the throne of Israel. For Augustus, the taking of censuses was one of the ways he employed to get control over the various parts of his empire. But...and here is the irony of the thing...in the process as he thought of tightening his grip on his huge empire, he so organized things that Jesus, Son of Mary, Son of David, Son of God, destined to sit on the throne of Israel and the throne of the world was born in the city of David, His royal ancestor. Fulfilling all unknowingly the prophecy of Micah, Caesar Augustus established this particular detail in the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah."
And Gooding goes on to say, "When John the Baptist was conceived, God turned back the processes of nature." That was a miracle because Zacharias and Elizabeth were old and barren. "When our Lord was conceived in the womb of Mary there was introduced into nature something which nature had never known before and which nature by herself could never have produced, namely a virgin conception. That is miraculous. But when God's Son and destined ruler of the kings of the earth entered the world of men, there was apparently no interference with men's will or freedom of action whatsoever. Augustus had his own completely adequate reasons for his action and he did exactly what he wanted to do...and we could add Herod was the same way. Yet Augustus did what had he known he would not have wished to do, he established the claim of the royal Son of David. He did in fact what had been predetermined by the counsel and foreknowledge of God."

Jesus' Birth in Bethlehem, Part 1
Luke 2:1-7

Two thousand years ago the creator of the universe, the eternal God, entered human society as a baby. The creator of the universe put on humanity. The Lord of heaven came to live on earth. On a night like every other night in Israel with no fanfare, no celebration by anybody, a child was born. It was a night like any other night but it wasn't a child like any other child. This child was the Lord Jesus Christ, God and man fused together in indivisible oneness. This birth was so monumental that it became the high point of history, the peak, the apex. All history before this birth is B.C., Before Christ. All history since is A.D., Anno Domini, Latin for "the year of our Lord." The birth of God in human form then is the most important moment in all of history.
"Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all were proceeding to register for the census everyone to his own city, and Joseph also went up from Galilee from or out of the city of Nazareth to Judea, the city of David, which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and family of David in order to register, along with Mary who was engaged to him and was with child. And it came about that while they were there the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firs tborn son and she wrapped Him in cloths and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn."
The story of Jesus is familiar to anybody who knows anything about Christianity and many people who know very little about Christianity. Sadly the worldwide celebration of the birth of Christ, which is called Christmas, has become so cluttered and confused with paganism and personal indulgences as to obscure the simple clear reality of the birth of God in human form.
About the middle of the fourth century right at the time of the establishing of the great world empire of Rome under Constantine, the Bishop of Jerusalem wrote to the Bishop of Rome and he asked him to determine the actual date of Christ's birth. Well, no one knows the actual date of Christ's birth, the fact of the matter is we don't even know for sure the actual year of His birth. But the Bishop of Rome sent word back to the Bishop of Jerusalem that it occurred on December 25. By the end of the fourth century that had been accepted by the church, was really put into church fiat, or church law, it became the regularly accepted day to celebrate the birth of Christ.
December 25 is purely arbitrary. But the Bishop of Rome didn't do it for purely arbitrary reasons. For centuries before Christ was born, most pagan revelries were celebrated in December. It marked the winter and great celebration was held in anticipation of the coming spring. Everything around was dark and dreary and trees were without leaves and things didn't grow. And in the midst of winter they put on these great celebrations for the hope of the return of the sun, the return of the strength of the sun to bring back the spring and make things grow and warm up the cold. Feasting and parties were part of it. Adorning your house with evergreens anticipating those deciduous trees and plants that would soon bloom, they even adorned their houses with mistletoe. The exchanged gifts, there was a general merry making held at that time of the year held by the pagans. This was all a part of their traditional pagan celebration.
The bishop's idea was to take the birth of Christ and put it around the same time as all the ancient festivals to bring a sanctifying influence and draw the attention of the people into more spiritual pursuits and start making them think about the fact that God came into the world in human form.
To sanctify these celebrations by imposing on the same day a celebration of the birth of Christ was a nice thought, but the heathen festivities never missed a beat. They kept on going and the church which frowned on them finally accepted them and let them be assimilated into the celebration of Christmas, so that today Christmas is a conglomeration of all that is distinctively Christian and biblical and all that is distinctively pagan.
To the Romans, this winter/December festival, this feasting and orgy was called Saturnalia, named after Saturn who was the god of agriculture. It was he who presided over the planting of crops. During the celebration of Saturnalia, gift giving was the most popular custom. The most common gifts were small replicas of the Roman gods made out of clay, marble and sometimes silver. Candles were used extensively in their idolatrous celebration and evergreen branches were given to friends to hang on their houses and sometimes trinkets were placed hanging on those evergreen branches...forerunners for what we know today as Christmas decorations and trees.
In the really barbaric north lands among the Norsemen, a similar winter festival was held and it was called Yule, or Yuletide as we refer to it. It was in honor of the gods Odin and Thor, it involved feasting and music, drinking to drunkenness from horns.
In Persia fires were kindled to the god Mithras. If you know anything about legend you know Mithras was believed to be the god of light. And so at this time of year when the daylight was briefer than another time and winter was on them, they would pray and celebrate the god of light in anticipation of the sun and the spring and summer.
In England there was the Druids who gathered sacred mistletoe and made live sacrifices to their many gods. Mistletoe was venerated by the Druids, it was venerated by a lot of pagans in pre-Christian times. It was supposed to be an emblem of peace and good fortune and whenever an enemy passed under the mistletoe you had to embrace the enemy and it was supposedly a little ploy to try to help people reconcile. Hence kissing under the mistletoe which is some deviated form of that original embrace.
Adding to that you have the drama of the crib, or the creche, the manger scene which was popularized by St. Francis in the thirteenth century. Three hundred years after that Martin Luther, of all people, brought a tree into his house at this season of Christmas and decorated it with candles. He said he put the candles on it to simulate the starry skies glittering over the stable where Christ was born...but long before pagans had used bows of evergreens decorated with trinkets to celebrate their own pagan holidays.
In Holland there was a favorite saint by the name of St. Nicholas. This white-bearded bishop of Asia Minor was believed to have appeared around December 6 riding a white horse, leaving gifts for good children and leaving switches for the parents of bad children. And he would leave one or the other on the porch. The Dutch called St. Nicholas Cinderclaus from which we get the derivative Santa Claus.
Carolling started in the fourteenth century along with jesters and musicians and mummers and there's still a mummers parade, I think it's in Philadelphia. People wearing all kinds of masks and crazy garb, eight-hour feasts...that all comes from fourteenth century partying.
Now stockings, where did they come from? Well, it was believed in Holland that St. Nicholas when he was dropping his switches and good stuff on the porch on some occasions threw coins down a chimney. And they just happened to land in some stockings hanging there to dry. Out of that came the whole idea that Santa Claus comes down the chimney and fills your stocking.
Christmas cards were first printed in London in 1846 at the request of Sir Henry Cole who was owner of an art shop. And the Christmas cards first printed all showed merry drinking scenes. About that same time, about middle nineteenth century, the celebration of Christmas was accepted by the church in the United States and became a regular part of church life.
While the old bishop might have had a good motive for what he did, but it didn't help. Putting the birth of Jesus Christ on the same day as all the rest of this only served to clutter the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ with a whole lot of unrelated pagan elements.
Let's look at the historical setting of Christ's birth. "Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census that was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria and all were proceeding to register for the census, everyone to his own city." Little did Caesar Augustus know that he was being moved by the Spirit of God to do exactly what he did on time, on schedule to effect exactly the result God wanted.
"In the days of Herod king of Judea," in those days. Herod, by the way, was still on the throne and he was on the throne when Jesus was born and for a little while afterwards. We know about his animosity toward the birth of one who might take his throne and how he slaughtered all the babies in that region hoping that he would kill a rival king who had been born.
Caesar Augustus was a wise man and he gave the nations and the provinces under the authority of Rome in the Roman Empire some freedom to operate their own government to lessen the tension a little bit and that was the reason Herod still had some authority in Israel.
These were the days though of Roman occupation in Israel. These were the days not only of Roman occupation but that dreaded Roman taxation. Those two things really bothered the Jews greatly. They hated Rome and occupation because Romans were Gentiles. They didn't like Gentiles. They felt that Gentiles were outside the covenant. They felt that Gentiles were unclean. A Jew rarely if he was committed to his Judaistic tradition wouldn't go into the home of a Gentile because he would be defiled by even entering that place. He wouldn't eat on utensils prepared by Gentiles because they would be unclean and defiled. If he had to leave the borders of Israel and travel in a Gentile land, he would come back and he would do what's become a familiar phrase, he would shake the dust off before entering Israel lest he bring Gentile dirt in and pollute his nation. They had no love for Gentiles.
They had no love particularly for the Romans because they had these many gods and they were polytheistic, they had all these idols which, of course, were distasteful to the Jews at that time as well...and had been ever since the Babylonian captivity many years before. They brought their idols in on the banners that they wave, on the suits of armor and they had the image of Caesar. They brought their idols in when they put Caesar's image on a coin and they believe Caesar to be a god, so they saw the coinage of Rome as idols. They hated those expressions of idolatry in Gentile disbelief in the true God.
And secondly, they despised Roman taxation. They didn't think the Romans had any right to be in their land, they certainly didn't think they had any right to exact taxes from them. And mostly they hated more severely the Jews who bought franchises to collect taxes for Rome, they were the ultimate outcasts, the ultimate defectors, the ultimate traitors, people like Matthew and Zaccheus...you meet them in the New Testament. When somebody really wanted to call you an outcast, he would call you a tax collector.
Luke says, "in those days, a decree went out." This edict that came out of Rome from the reigning Caesar of the day, Caesar Augustus. Caesar is a title like king, or emperor, or pharaoh...it is not a name. Augustus is not a name. Augustus is an adjective to describe somebody. Augustus means august, revered, highly esteemed, highly regarded, honored.
Who is this Caesar Augustus? This versatile, able ruler of the Roman Empire was born September 23 of 63 B.C. His name when he was born was Gaius Octavius. Now Gaius Octavius born in 63 B.C. His mother, Atia, was the daughter of Julia the sister of Julius Caesar. Now this made Gaius Octavius the grand-nephew to Julius Caesar. So he was born in high places. For whatever reasons Julius Caesar took a tremendous affinity to this boy. He adored little Gaius Octavius. He lavished him with gifts and he honored him.
Gaius Octavius had reached the age of twenty. Julius adopted him as his own son and declared him to be the heir to the throne of the Roman Empire, literally established his future at that point. One year later, it was one year later that Julius Caesar was murdered and when he was murdered at that point Gaius Octavius learned of his choice as Julius Caesar's heir. At that point he changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar in honor of his adopted father. So he's really got a silver spoon in his mouth, he's headed for the throne. Caesar, you remember, was murdered by his friends, namely the familiar Brutus. One of his sisters married Mark Antony. Mark Antony is a dominant figure in Roman history as you know.
So here he was, the grand-nephew of Julius Caesar, adopted as a son and heir. His sister married to Mark Antony who was a powerful person. At the death of Julius Caesar three people reigned in Rome. It wasn't...it wasn't that immediately Octavian was pushed into that place, there were three...there was Lepodus, there was Octavian and there was Mark Antony, a triumvirate who ruled Rome. It wasn't long until Lepodus fell out and the rule of Rome was left with Octavian and with Mark Antony. They ruled together for a while until Mark Antony began to do things that bothered Octavian. First thing he did was he left his wife and his wife, as I told you, was the sister of Octavian. He didn't like that. He left his wife because he became infatuated with the legendary and bewitching Cleopatra, queen of Egypt who really is legendary as to her powers of seduction and ability to bewitch. Well she bewitched Mark Antony successfully.
Mark Antony was drawn to Cleopatra. Eventually he began to show more concern for Egypt and the successes of Cleopatra, more concern for her personally and his own welfare than he did for Rome. And so the irritation to Octavian began to escalate. After all, he had divorced his sister and now he was turning his heart away from Rome. The result of all of this was tremendous conflict between Mark Antony and Octavian which ultimately brought them to a great battle, a battle that the Egyptians never should have gotten involved in because it was a sea battle, or it was a battle on water in which the Egyptian navy tried to fight the great Roman navy and was soundly defeated in 31 B.C. and at that battle Octavian literally devastated and destroyed the power of Mark Antony and Cleopatra and became sole ruler of the Roman Empire, 31 B.C. is when that occurred. Both Mark Antony and Cleopatra soon after that committed suicide together and Octavian was left to rule.
Officially then his rule ran to 14 A.D....45 years this remarkable man was the absolute monarch to the Roman Empire. With his great military skill, great political skill, great social skill, he put an end to all civil wars, and he literally extended the Roman Empire from the west of Europe deep into the Middle East, as far east as the desert region of Iraq today, vastly dominating the entire inhabited known world at that time.
He brought in the amazing Pax Romana, the Roman Peace which was often called the Pax Augusta in tribute to this man. He literally not only conquered the world, as it were, but he brought peace to all that realm by the skill that he had as a leader. This Roman Peace literally made soft borders everywhere. Then he built massive Roman roads and affected transportation systems in all directions for the extent of this great power of Rome in the world. And what it did was it facilitated the easy spread, the rapid spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was perfect timing. Galatians 4 says, "In the fullness of time God sent His Son," one of the elements of the fullness of time was into a world where you had the most rapid, easy-access to take the gospel everywhere. And because Rome controlled it all, there were no borders, there were no points to stop, there was just fluidity and facility and the gospel spread rapidly and fast and it went largely along Roman roads and Roman trade routes by sea and by land. The Pax Romana brought an unheard of in human history, an unheard of period of peace at the hand of this great, great leader.
In 14 A.D. he died. He was succeeded by Caesar Tiberius, a familiar name to anybody who studies the New Testament because Tiberius taking the throne in 14 was the Caesar through the latter life of Jesus Christ. He is the Caesar that we read about in the gospels during the ministry of Jesus Christ. He ruled Rome during that time.
Now in the year 27 B.C., the Roman Senate gave him the title of Augustus which means majestic one, highly honored one, as I said. From then on he became known as the Caesar who was called Augustus, thus Caesar Augustus. It actually...august one could mean holy one, it was a term reserved for the gods. It was used to refer to the gods and always referred to the gods before this man but now it was being used to refer to him because he was viewed as if he were a god, then it began to be used for Julius Caesar who himself had wanted to be treated as a god. But it was after that 27 B.C. titling of Caesar Augustus that the idea that the Caesar was a god took root.
At the time Luke wrote, which would have been long after this time, at the time Luke wrote by that time many Greek cities had identified September 23 which was the birthday of Caesar Augustus in 63 B.C., they had identified September 23 as such an important holiday that they made it the first day of the new year. So their year actually started on his birthday...and this decades after he had died in celebration of this great man. He became known and even during his reign was known as the savior.
There is a place called Halacarnasis(?) in the Mediterranean. Halacarnasis was the hometown of Heroditus, a famous Greek writer. That Halacarnasis there is an inscription, it is inscribed to Caesar Augustus and it says, "Caesar Augustus, savior of the world." At the very time a false savior of the world was riding high on the throne of his own glory the true Savior of the world was born in obscurity. The false savior was on the world stage. He dominated it in full honor and privilege. The true Savior was born without honor, without privilege in humble obscurity. The false savior was sitting on the highest pinnacle of the highest throne in the dominant city of Rome. The true Savior was born in the humble non-descript village of Bethlehem. The false savior made it clear who he was. The true Savior couldn't even speak.
But this man, Caesar Augustus, was a remarkable man. He literally created the world that facilitated the spread of the gospel. Not only did he do that in general but in specific he made an edict that caused Joseph and Mary to have to go by a certain date to Bethlehem where they would have their baby and fulfill prophecy.
To sum up the character of this man we could say once you look at him in the beginning of his rule, he was ruthless. I suppose he had to be to effect what he did. He mellowed out later. He became a wise administrator, a famous organizer, specially confident in the organization of the military and his own bodyguard which are referred to in Philippians 1:13. He chose his general wisely, consequently he won many, many great battles. He had many generals. He had tremendous skill in dealing with his subjects. He gave them autonomy. He gave them freedom. He allowed the conquered provinces...Rome had conquered them all...he allowed them to retain some of their own independent rule and self-rule. He respected their customs, their religions, all of that. He stimulated the arts. He encouraged cleaning up literature and making it more noble. He was a great builder. Amazing man humanly speaking.
Let's look at his edict. He made an edict and this was the edict. The census was to be taken of all the inhabited earth. All the inhabited earth would be another way to say all the known world which would be all the Roman Empire which covered the known world in that area. A census, apographe, simply a registration, to write something. This was done for two reasons. It was done to draw people into the military service, to find out who all the military-age young men were. But the Jews had been exempted from that. In wisdom, as I said, Caesar Augustus had given a little in to some of these nations and some of their quirks and religious convictions and the Jews were freed from providing military forces to Rome. The census on this occasion was not for that, we know what it was for because Joseph and Mary were involved in it. It was for the registration of a census for the purpose of taxation. This was the other reason they took a census. And they were to go and register their name, their occupation, their property, their family...enter it into the Rome IRS agency for the purpose of taxation. This was to happen everywhere in the entire Roman world.
Now I want to give you some history on this, very important. This census is called "the first census" in verse 2. Now that's important because Caesar Augustus didn't just call for one census, he called for a series of censuses apparently at 14-year intervals. Now you can track these series of censuses every 14 years, all the way, I think it's to the year 270 A.D. Every 14 years there was a census. And he was big on this. He was very careful, very thoughtful and very statistical. When he died he left in his own handwriting rather copious statistics on taxation which were derived from the census that had been taken during his reign. We do read some literature that's existing today from antiquity out of Egypt that indicates that Egypt was committed to census every 14 years. And so that supports the idea because Egypt at the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra came under the power of Rome and apparently went on to carry out these every 14 year census events. That would have been similar to what Syria would have done. Syria was the region in which Judea exists. So when it says Quirinius was the governor of Syria, that would include Judea was a component of Syria large.
Well Rome then passed this edict on that everybody had to go and register because of the census. The Jews hated this. It was alien to them. It was a pagan thing. It was intruding into their life distastefully. They wanted nothing to do with it. But God was at work. Just like He had been at work in the decree of Cyrus that liberated Israel, send them back to reestablish their nation after the captivity, just as He was at work in the case of Nebuchadnezzar who ended up doing exactly what God wanted him to do for His own purposes, God takes pagan kings, pagan rulers and uses them as His own servants for His own purposes.
Verse 2 says this was the first census...the first of the cycle of 14-year censuses which Caesar Augustus had set in motion. Now we get a further input here. When was the first one? Well it was taken while a man named Quirinius was governor of Syria. Now the reason Luke is telling us this, to help us pinpoint the time of the birth of Christ. This is a historical event. This isn't a figment of somebody's imagination.
A well-known census was taken in Palestine in A.D. 6. Josephus, the great Jewish historian, records that it sparked a violent Jewish revolt which is mentioned by Luke who quotes Gamaliel and it's mentioned by Luke in Acts 5:37. So Luke even refers to this census which provoked a revolt which occurred in A.D. 6. Quirinius was responsible for administering that census. He also paid a major role in quelling the subsequent rebellion. However, that census can't be the census Luke has in mind here because it occurred about a decade after the death of Herod. I have a note on that in Matthew 2:1. It's much too late to fit here.
So we know there was a census in A.D. 6. So if that one occurred in 6 A.D. and they were normally at 14-year intervals, all we need to do to find the first one is back up fourteen years, which would take us to 8 B.C. Now in my note I say in light of Luke's meticulous care as a historian, it would be unreasonable to charge him with an obvious anachronism or an error. Indeed archeology has vindicated Luke. A fragment of stone discovered at Tivoli, which is near Rome, in A.D. 1764, contains an inscription in honor of a Roman official who it states was twice governor of Syria and Phoenicia during the reign of Augustus. Now we're starting to make sense. Somebody was governor twice. That could be just what we need. Once in A.D. 6 to 9 and another time previously back in the B.C. time when that first census took place as what Luke says. The name of the official is not given on that fragment, but among his accomplishments are listed details that as far as is known can fit no one other than Quirinius...and we do have some historical records about him.
Isn't that wonderful? We had to wait until 1764 to have the Bible verified. The Bible is true. Whenever there is something found like that, it always verifies it. Thus he must have served as governor of Syria twice. He may have been a military ruler or leader at the same time that history records Varus was the civil governor there. With regard to the dating of the census taking it a step further, some ancient records found in Egypt mention a worldwide census ordered in 8 B.C. That would be exactly right. Now we've got Egyptian material saying there was one in 8, that fits the fourteen-year pattern exactly.
That has some problems though because when you put all the chronology of the book of Christ together, you can't have it any earlier than 6 B.C. and probably even 4 B.C. is better. How do you solve that problem? Pretty simple really. Augustus probably made the decree in 8 B.C. but Judea didn't comply with it until two to four years later. It was actually carried out in Palestine two to four years later, most likely because of political difficulties between Rome and Herod.
Why else would Joseph and Mary go down to Bethlehem at the very end of her pregnancy unless there had been a deadline dropped ala April 15? It must have gotten to the place where perhaps non-compliance on the part of Israel had reached its limit and Caesar had said...that's it, this is the deadline and you have to be there by then. Otherwise it would seem reasonable that they would have waited until the child was born at some later time, Joseph could have gone on his own and taken care of the matter. It may be an indication that there was some extremity that had been perpetuated by the reluctance of Israel to comply.
And after all, Judea was a faraway land from Rome and certainly loved to exercise its independence. Therefore the precise year of Christ's birth can't be known with certainty. We don't know. The people who read Luke originally probably had a good idea, may have known exactly. It was probably no earlier than 6 B.C. and certainly no later than 4 B.C. by our dating. As I said, Luke's readers would have known.
The Romans would normally register people in their own place of residence. They didn't make them go back to some initial homeland. That must have been a Jewish custom or something that Herod required.
This was the world setting. This was how God was controlling the world events crucial to the birth of Christ. It set everything in motion for what for that little couple must have been a miserable trip physically, distressing her to go far from home, far from her mother, far from her family, far from everybody who knew her and loved her and cared about her to have a baby on the road, as it were, in an obscure place.
There are no accidental occurrences in the realm of the Holy Spirit. Had the Emperor Augustus made his decision three months earlier, or three months later, or one month earlier or one month later, or maybe one week earlier, or one week later, Jesus wouldn't have been born in Bethlehem. But He was. God knew how long it would take to get the registration machinery in place. God knew how long Herod would resist it. God knew how long it would take for that little couple to trek those 85 to 90 miles. God knew exactly how long it would take so that they would be there for just a few days, but in those days the baby would be born. Every single detail was in the hand of Almighty God. And God still directs history and He still holds every king, every monarch, every ruler in His hand for His own purposes.
Jesus' Birth in Bethlehem, Part 2
Luke 2:1-7
"Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria and all were proceeding to register for the census, everyone to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee from the city of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and family of David and in order to register along with Mary who was engaged to him and was with child. And it came about that while they were there the days were completed for her to give birth and she gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped him in cloths and laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn."
That last statement, "there was no room for them at the inn," has become a very familiar part of Christmas lore. And it really is not legend, it is fact as that text indicates. As far as Joseph and Mary were concerned, their circumstances made the "no vacancy" sign in Bethlehem all the more severe since Mary was about to deliver a baby.
And when they came to Bethlehem, it says in verse 7, there was no room for them. Nine months pregnant, in a matter of a few days to deliver a baby, and no place to stay. No relatives awaiting with a warm home. It was late fall or early winter. Nobody to care for this little couple, no room for them. And that note certainly is symbolic of the future for Jesus. It seems to me that as far as Jesus is concerned there's still a "no vacancy" sign hanging on the world.
It's amazing how God orchestrates everything. Whether He has a willing or unwilling subject, whether He has a knowing or unknowing subject, part of God bringing together the details and all the components of the birth of Messiah, right time, right place, was to move on the mind of a pagan, godless Caesar who knew nothing about the Old Testament, nothing about the coming of Messiah, nothing about God whatsoever. He was in every sense a pagan and yet he paid a critical role in the fulfillment of prophecy at the birth of the God/Man, the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And it was because he made a decree.
Caesar didn't know anything about this. Herod didn't know anything about the purposes and plan of God. But God was working all the details on a world setting. From Caesar's standpoint he was taxing. It was at a time when a man named Quirinius was governor of Syria. It was the first of two periods in which he exercised some official duty. He was also a ruler at the second census that came along in 6 A.D. Now we don't know anymore than somewhere around 6 to 4 B.C. is when Jesus was born. The people who read Luke originally would know more specifically. But we don't have any records as to anything more specific than in that general time frame when Jesus was born. So He wasn't actually born in say zero A.D., but rather somewhere between 6 and 4 B.C., six at the earliest, four at the latest He was born and He was born literally in Bethlehem as a result of the political strategies of a godless, pagan Caesar.
Verse 3, everybody had to register for the census and it says, "Everyone to his own city." Now that was not a Roman stipulation as far as we know. The Jews decided that everybody should go back to the place where the records were kept. They were fastidious about keeping genealogical records. By the way, the Romans in 70 A.D. when they destroyed Jerusalem, they destroyed all the Jewish records, all of them. But at the time that the census were taken, those records would have been carefully kept by scribes in all the local areas. And so I'm sure by Jewish demand they were to go back to the place of their original ancestry.
Let's turn to the second setting, the national setting. This gets us into the context of the land of Israel. We're out of the Roman Empire. God gave to the Jews the Scripture. And the Scripture was specific about where the Messiah was to be born. There was a prophet by the name of Micah and in Micah 5:2he prophesies and"But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are little among the clans of Judah, but from you one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel." You're going to give birth to a ruler.
You say, "How do you know it's the Messiah?" Because the next line says, "His goings forth are from long ago from the days of eternity." He is an eternal being. There will be a ruler born in Bethlehem who has been alive forever. That is a very specific prophecy. His appearances are from long ago, from eternity. An eternal existing one will become ruler born in Bethlehem.
So, Joseph went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth to Judea. He went up to the city of David, it says. Up to the city of David. Judea is the southern region. The city of David is called Bethlehem, it says. But here he tells us the city of David he's referring to is called Bethlehem, the city where David was born.
Now it's important then since Micah said the Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem. And so, God uses Caesar Augustus, uses Herod, all the political machinations work together and here comes Joseph down to the city of David which is called Bethlehem and he goes there because he was of the house and family of David. As we learned earlier in chapter 1 verses 25 and 26, he was a descendant of David. As we'll find out in chapter 3, Mary was also a descendant of David. And that's important through Mary and Jesus got royal blood through His father, Joseph, who was His...who was not His physical father but was His earthly father, He got the right to be the ruler. And so they went down to register because they were supposed to register in the house of their ancestors.
And again I remind you, all of this is perfect in the plan of God. Providentially getting them exactly where they need to be because the Messiah was a son of David and was to be born in the city of David. The prophet said so. In order to fulfill that prophecy, that couple had to be there and God made sure they were.
Historians have struggled over this issue of "along with Mary." We don't know whether she needed to register or not. But we do know this, that upon being pregnant she knew there was only one person in the world who would understand her condition. One can only imagine the gossip which must have gone on, a certain amount of shame that she must have had to bear.
We also know that she perhaps went to visit Elizabeth for those three months as a way not only to connect to somebody who would understand a conception miracle because she had been allowed to conceive John in her old age, but to get her out of that environment where she was exposed to so much potential shame because she was pregnant. If in fact she had gone to be with Elizabeth for the three months and now she was so obviously pregnant and having arrived in her ninth month she would have been exposed to more gossip, more scorn...I don't think there's any way in the world that Joseph who had to make the trip to register would ever have gone without her. I mean, it was a way for him to take her out of that environment which was very difficult for her and it's also for certain that he wanted to be there when that little life came into the world.
He knew what was going on. He knew she was pregnant with the Son of God. He wasn't about to say, "I've got a business trip, you might have the Son of God while I'm gone." I think this is one you don't want to miss. He knew this was Jesus to save His people from their sins because the angel told him that. He knew this was Immanuel, God with us. They had to go, worldly conditions pressed them to go. There wasn't any way he was going without her.
So a forced journey to Bethlehem was necessary for the Word of God to be fulfilled. Bethlehem was the place because that was their lineage, that was the place they needed to be cause that was the home of David the great king. And that again would insure by virtue of Scripture not only the decree of Caesar but by virtue of Scripture God moved them there to fulfill the clear statement of the prophet Micah.
It says Mary was engaged to him. That's interesting because in Matthew 1:24 it says they had married. He took her as his wife. What that indicates is there was a marriage ceremony. It think he actually married her at that point, it's pretty clear in that text. That would have been the right thing to do. That would have quelled a lot of questions, at least you could introduce her as your wife and not...this is my betrothed who is with child. He covered her in kindness by going ahead with the ceremony. So they were actually...there actually was a ceremony, there actually was a wedding, I believe a marriage did legally take place.
But what Luke tells us here is quite interesting and it's very, I think, carefully put together where you have the marriage indicated in Matthew and yet here it says "who was engaged to him." And what Luke is telling us by backing off from that marriage and there was a fine...there was really only a thin line between being betrothed and being married. The betrothal was a binding contract. Luke is telling us...yes, there was a ceremony but they were conducting themselves as though they were only engaged. And it says in Matthew 1:25 that he kept her a virgin until the child was born.
So both Matthew who identifies the ceremony which would have been the right thing to do because she did have a child in her womb and Luke who tells us that they were in a relationship that in effect was a betrothal or an engagement, give us both sides so that we can understand the situation. She was with child.
So the world setting and the national setting. All fitting in with Roman strategy and Old Testament prophecy. Now we come to the personal setting, and this is where the charm of the story comes. It doesn't tell us exactly where they were. But it does tell us at the end of verse 7, "There was no room for them in the inn. They were homeless. There were public shelters, but you can be sure that the Roman soldiers, the Roman registrars who were doing the registration of the people, all the Roman dignitaries, occupied whatever few guest rooms existed in a little tiny place like Bethlehem.
So they were there and the days were completed for her to give birth. Nine months were up. Absolutely nothing said about the details. In the fullness of time God sent forth His Son born of a woman, Immanuel, the God of eternity stepped in to time and space. The Lord of immensity, the Lord of omnipresence was confined to a body about ten pounds in weight and under two feet in length. That little life came out into the arms of that young father. And neither of them could fathom what was going on. And they had been told by an angel. And everybody around them had absolutely no idea.
And then some simple details that I find amazing. "She wrapped Him in cloths." That was normal, that was routine. This is just a birth like every other birth. And a Jewish mother did this typically. You can find this in all the indications in history about babies that are born, they would wrap them in cloths. The Greek word is "She swaddled Him." Swaddled Him. That's why we talk about swaddling cloths. Swaddling is an Old English word to describe wrapping. And here's what they would do. The custom was, take long strips of cloth and wrap the arms and wrap the legs and then wrap the little body tightly. This was for warmth. This was for security. I mean, that little baby in the womb is in there all cuddled and nestled tightly in there and all of a sudden comes out into this stark hospital room, nothing touching it, his little extremities flailing in every way. No wonder they're screaming. This is a violent experience.
They would just take that little baby immediately and they also believed that wrapping up those limbs and wrapping up that little body protected that little child. Also believed that it helped to keep their bones straight when they grew in early life. The point is, she treated the baby like any other baby. This is just a normal little baby. This is just a baby like other babies. Physically looked like any other child. Physically treated like any other child. No royal robes, no fancy clothing, didn't come out with a little halo over His head. He came out like everybody else comes out, same exact way. No doubt kissing that little boy as she wrapped him tightly and warmly and caressed Him, nursed Him.
And then it says, most interestingly, "And laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn." Manger is the word phatne...phatne in Greek, it means a feeding trough. By the way, it never says in the Bible Jesus was born in a stable or in a cave. All it does say is He was laid in a manger and from that we can deduce that it was a stable because that's an animal feeding trough and it says there was no room for them in the inn. And that indicates that they couldn't get in to the facility for people and so in every facility for people in ancient times there was an adjacent facility for the animals which they had with them when they traveled. You see a motel and immediately outside a motel what do you see? A parking lot. Well the means of transportation in ancient times was animals and so they carried goods on their animals. If you were a traveling salesman, you had a beast of burden to carry your goods. That's how it was. If you were a traveling family, you had a beast of burden to carry the women and children. So there would be adjacent to every place to stay, a place for the animals and a feed trough as well. The indication was there was no room for them in the guest house and they were outside and the little one was laid in a feeding trough.
When the shepherds finally came to see Him, they found the baby as He lay in the feed trough. Now that is pretty good indication that it was a stable. There was no room in the inn. Traditionally we hear things about the poor inn keeper but as far as we know there wasn't one.  Inn is the word kataluma. But it's not the normal Greek word for inn. There's a different word for inn in Greek that simply means shelter.
It's very unlikely that there would have been an actual commercial inn in this little village. But they would have some kind of public area. Typically they would build it on four sides, two floors. It would be like a shelter, the top part being like a loft in a barn. One part of it might even be inclosed, or it might have some rather primitive ability to close the doors but it would be very, very primitive kind of places where people in transit could stay and they would perhaps have four sides and in the middle the animals would be kept where they would be protected and kept from people who would steal. And then their goods would be kept there as well. And perhaps such a caravan stopping station or a public guest facility would have as well places on the second floor and the first floor for the people to stay where they could keep their animals close by.
This would have been an overcrowded situation, I already told you the Romans would have probably taken up most of the spots, as well as some Jewish officials. And then the people coming back to their hometown to register, the place became very crowded. The rooms were all taken. Again it was probably, as I said, public shelter. They wound up, this little couple, just staying with the animals outside the appropriate quarters. So there probably wasn't any kind of inn keeper who shut them out. It was just the nature of the situation.
His little cloths wrapped and His little body must have collected the smell. It would have been the smell of animals, the stench of animals, the smell of fires burning there to keep people warm, the smell of the humanity that milled around in that place, the filthiest place imaginable. It was an unthinkable entrance into the world for God's Son...sweat and pain and blood and coldness and manure and straw and odors...but He came all the way down to the stench of sin to bear in His own body our sins on the cross. And this was a picture and metaphor of the condescension of God. He came all the way down to the smell of a stable, all the way down to the smell of a sinner like you and like me. They had no room for Him then, they still don't have any room for Him.
The writer John says He was in the world, the world was made by Him, the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, His own received Him not. But He came for sinners. He came all the way down to bear in His own body the wretched, wicked sin that belongs to us. The smelly stable was simply a metaphor for sin and its wretchedness. What a picture.
Well, it was in some ways a sad moment because of the obscurity of it all. But that didn't last. At that same time some angels began to tell what was going on to some shepherds, and we'll look at that next time.
Father, thank You for this wonderful, wonderful portion of Your great Word. We grieve that as the centuries have passed, the Savior has been treated pretty much in the same way. But we're also glad, Lord, that He came all the way down, all the way down to the wretched, smell of a stable and even farther...far farther down to the wretched smell of a sinner. He came into the world, He came to the lowly and the humble and the base and the wicked, the vile to take our place on the cross and bear Your judgment on our sins. O what a wondrous scene it is. You control the great movements of history, You control the fulfillment of prophecy. You brought Your Son all the way down to touch the lives of wicked sinners. Thank You for this grace, this condescension, this salvation. Amen.
The Announcement of Jesus' Birth, Part 1
Luke 2:8-11

Luke 2:8, "And in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men with whom He is pleased.' And it came about when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds began saying to one another, 'Let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.' And they came in haste and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as He lay in the manger. And when they had seen this they made known the statement that had been told them about this child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them."
The proclamation of good news
If you were a PR agent designing a campaign to announce that the Savior of the world had been born, the last people you would go to is a bunch of shepherds. You might say...we want to go to the influencers. We might consider going to the high priest, the chief priests and the scribes who were the teachers. We might be going to the Sanhedrin who were the ruling body of Israel, to the Pharisees because they were the religious fundamentalists. They were fastidious about prophecies and we might want to go to them because they search the scriptures. They were looking for the Messiah. And we might want to go to somebody who had some influence. Might even want to send a memo or a press release to Caesar Augustus to let him know that the true Savior had been born. Shepherds? Not on your life.
Isaiah 61 tells that when the Messiah comes He's going to touch the outcasts. As Jesus went through His life, He attracted to Himself the outcasts of society, the tax collectors and nobodies and prostitutes and sinners and drunkards and you know all that because the Jewish elite, the aristocracy of religion in Israel criticized Him for that and they said He hangs around drunkards and prostitutes. That's what messianic prophecy said, the Messiah would come to the poor. He would come to the outcasts, come to the lowly and shepherds qualified for that.
It doesn't mean to say that being a shepherd was a somehow an illegitimate profession, somehow some thing that ought to be despised for its own sake. Abraham, Moses and David were all shepherds. It was a lowly profession. Shepherds were uneducated. They were unskilled. It was work given to children because it was so simple.
Because of the necessity of caring for sheep seven days a week, they lived in some level of violation of Mosaic law. They couldn't maintain the Sabbath of the manmade regulations that had been added. So they were looked on not only as low socially but as living in general violation of religious law. They began to be seen as unreliable, untrustworthy, unsavory characters who were largely suspected of stealing sheep and doing all kinds of illegal things.
Isn't that the point? Isn't that the point? Isn't that just like God to disdain the religious elite, to disdain the "spiritual establishment," to disdain the hypocrites who thought they were good enough to achieve relationships with God by their own self-effort? And to make the announcement, the greatest announcement that's ever been made in the history of the world to the lowest of the low, the humblest of the humble...shepherds. And by the way, lest you demean being a shepherd, Jesus Himself was happy to call Himself the Good Shepherd. So there's nothing wrong with the task in itself. But in society, they were the lowest and commonest nobodies of Israel's society and culture.
Now I would believe, and I can't be dogmatic about this, but I would believe that the shepherds that the Lord picked for this announcement were probably shepherds who believed in the true and living God, they were probably devout. They may have been among those who in verse 25 are described as looking for the consolation of Israel, that is they were looking for the Messiah, they were looking for the redemption of Israel, looking for the Redeemer. Because in verse 20 when they had gone and seen the child, realized what happened, verse 20 says they were glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It must have been that they were living in anticipation of that. It's very likely that though they were socially on the lowest level, they may well spiritually been on the highest level. They may have been devout. They may have been the ones looking for the redemption of Israel, why else would the Lord tell them this. And, of course, when they heard the message they were so filled with excitement they went immediately to Bethlehem.
Shepherds would stay out in the fields on the elevated plain of Jerusalem, the mountain area near Jerusalem from April to November. The sheep at that time would roam the fields and then they would have a little lean-to fold made out of stones or wood gathered together, something to enclose them. At night they would bring them in, keep them in the fold and the shepherd would lie across the entrance. That's why it literally says in John 10, Jesus says, "I'm not only the Great Shepherd, I am the door." You might think He's mixing His metaphors, He's not. The shepherd is the door. The shepherd would put his bed and lie across the entrance to the fold. No sheep could get out without walking across him and he would make sure it didn't happen. And Jesus calls Himself the door because He wants us to know that once we're in His sheepfold, He'll never let us out. That's the doctrine of eternal security.
By the way, the Mishna, which is the clarification of Jewish law, and the Talmud which is rabbinic teaching required that flocks be kept only in wilderness areas. Flocks couldn't be kept in the populated area so they were out there in that wilderness area.
Bethlehem is about six miles south of Jerusalem. The rabbis had made a rule that any animal found between Jerusalem and a certain spot in Bethlehem was subject to be used as a sacrifice in the temple. Now there were sheep grazing in that area purposely to be used as sacrificial animals. But the rabbis reserved the right in the event that there were more people than available animals to literally commandeer any animals in the area and take them and use them as sacrifices. And if we remember history, we remember there could be as many as a quarter of a million animals slain around the Passover season. The rest of the year there were thousands upon thousands upon thousands of animals slain. So they went through sheep rather rapidly and they had the right to go into that area, between Jerusalem and a certain spot, and take any sheep if necessary to be used as a sacrifice in the temple.
These shepherds may well have been caring for sheep that would be offered as sacrifices. How interesting that the announcement of the final and full sacrifice, the Lamb of God slain from before the foundation of the world, the Savior of the world, was made to shepherds who very likely who took care of sheep who were offered as pictures of that coming sacrifice.
Now I've been telling you all the way along in our study of Luke, nobody saw angels. There hadn't been any account of anybody seeing an angel in 500 years, half a millennium. And now, all of a sudden, we start seeing angels. Gabriel, not just any angel, but Gabriel appears to Zacharias and then Gabriel comes back and appears to Mary. And very well this angel of the Lord could have been Gabriel back for his third visit. Perhaps the most likely candidate is Gabriel. And it says here he comes, the Greek verb is ephistemi, it literally means to stand near somebody. So there shepherds are there checking out the fold, doing whatever they do and all of a sudden here's Gabriel standing there. And it's evident that he's not one of the guys.
It's a dark night to whatever degree, it's all of a sudden emblazoned with the highest of all created beings standing in the midst of the lowliest of all earthly folks. And the sequence is the same as always. When Gabriel appeared to Zacharias, when Gabriel appeared to Mary, or when he appears, this angel of the Lord appears to the shepherds, the sequence is always the same...appearance, fear, comfort, message, sign. That's always the sequence...appearance, fear, comfort, message, sign. And that's exactly what we see here.
The angel of the Lord suddenly, instantaneously, immediately with no anticipation is standing near them. Now if that's not enough, the text adds, "And the glory of the Lord shone around them." Now we read that and we've heard that and we perhaps haven't thought about it very deeply. Folks, I can't even describe to you what a significant statement that is. That is one of the high points of all of history.
If you go back and study the glory of the Lord. That is simply defined the manifestation of the presence of God in light. Now God is not corporeal, He doesn't have a body, He doesn't have a form, a physical form. He's the invisible God. But when He reveals Himself He reveals Himself as light, some kind of...some kind of glowing, brilliant, shining, incomprehensible manifestation of light. In fact, if He revealed Himself fully in light, in Exodus 33 it would be enough to incinerate anybody. And that's why God said to Moses, "I can't show you My full glory, you'll go up in smoke." So God tucked Moses in a rock and just let a little bit of His afterglow shine so that Moses could see it.
But if you study the glory of God, you start in the Garden of Eden and God is there with Adam and Eve and there's no sin so there's nothing to fear so that the presence of God is not something that consumes them because there is no sin. So they're walking and talking with God in the cool of the day and they're in the presence of the Lord. They're walking with the glorious, shining Shekinah manifestation of God. Then sin comes in and immediately God says, "I can't have fellowship with you anymore," and He throws them out of the garden and puts an angel with a flaming sword there...and that wasn't because He didn't care about them, it was because He did care about them and should they enter the garden and come into His presence they would have been immediately destroyed. So God put the angel with the flaming sword there in a sense as protection.
Here was man walking and talking in the presence of God with the glory of God. All of a sudden he's alienated from the glory of God completely. It's a long time before the glory of God appears again. In Exodus chapter 40 they finished building the tabernacle. The tabernacle is where they're going to be where they worship the Lord and there's a place in the tabernacle called the Holy of Holies where God is going to take up residence and when they finished that, according to Exodus 40, the glory of God came out of heaven and came down. And the glory of God came and just filled that place, just the great shining Shekinah presence of God came down and filled that place and the glory of the Lord had come back and God was manifesting His great presence and His great glory. It was a monumental moment. It was the establishment of worship. It was the establishment of the place of worship. There was an establishment of that place where sacrifices were to be made in order to give people access to God, where once a year the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the high priest would go into the holy place and then into the Holy of Holies and he would sprinkle blood on the mercy seat and there sins would be atoned for. And God signified the great importance of that when His glory came down.
And His glory, you remember, came out of the tabernacle and went up into the sky during the day as a cloud and led them, and as a pillar of fire at night and led them. And they saw the glory of God, the great light manifestation of God. Later on when they build the temple, the same thing happened. The temple was completed in Solomon's day, the glory of God came down and God again said I'm taking up residence, I want to be a focus of your worship, I want you to give your attention to Me to worship and glorify Me. It wasn't very long, however, until they turned against God and you can read in Ezekiel 8 to 10 the glory of God left, it departed and went away from the temple. A sad moment. The prophet stands and he watches the glory of God go up over the temple and go up over the door and up out over the mountain and it disappears and God leaves Israel.
And the glory never came back till this night in a long time, before David even, until this night and the glory of God appears on earth again. This is not just a small event, it signified in the Garden the presence of God. It signified in the tabernacle the presence of God. It signified in the temple the presence of God coming into the world. And it signified this night the presence of God had come into the world. The presence of God had come not in a building, not in a tent, this time it had come in human flesh in the Messiah.
Later on in His life, Jesus took the disciples, and Matthew 17 records it, up in the mountain and He pulled His flesh back and they saw the glory of God. He was transfigured before them. Some day, the glory of God is going to come back. We haven't seen it. It hasn't happened since this earthly time. Nobody has seen it since those shepherds and those disciples, but some day the glory of God is coming back, Matthew 24 and 25, when Jesus returns and when the glory comes back it won't just be Israel and it won't just be a few shepherds, and it won't just be some apostles, when the glory comes next time the whole world is going to see it because God is going to blacken the sky, the stars are going to go out, the sun's going to go out, the moon is going to go out, it's going to get pitch black and then the full universe is going to be filled with the blazing glory of God. It won't be His back parts, it won't be His afterglow, it will be the full face and when man, sinful man confronts the full glory of God he will be incinerated. And that is the final glorious judgment of God when He establishes His Kingdom of glory on the earth where He reigns forever.
This is not just some small event. This is the glory of God coming down. But of all people, to shepherds, to the lowliest of the low the glory comes. And we know this is a monumental moment in redemptive history. And it says they were terribly frightened. Well I understand that. That was the same reaction everybody else had. The glory of God is terrifying.
When Isaiah saw God in a vision, he was terrified. He pronounced a curse upon himself and expected to be immediately incinerated. When Ezekiel in chapter 1 of Ezekiel saw the glory of God in a vision, he fell on his face in a coma. When John the Apostle saw the glory of Christ, the Shekinah glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in Revelation 1 it says he rolled over as a dead man and went into a coma. Terror is the result of seeing the presence of God. Even the veiled presence of God. People who saw Jesus and understood that He was God were terrified. A woman was healed by Jesus and it says she was absolutely terrified when she realized He had to be God because He had just healed her. The disciples had Jesus in the boat, it says they were afraid because of the storm. Jesus stopped the storm and it says they were exceedingly afraid. They were more afraid of having God in their boat than having a storm outside their boat. I understand that. Even a veiled presence of God was enough to terrify a sinner because a sinner knows...if I can see God, if I'm in the presence of God, He can see me. I see holiness, He sees sin, I'm in trouble.
So this is the normal reaction. These are common guys. They probably haven't had any very interesting experiences in life, certainly nothing could even come remotely close to this. And would they have ever expected that God would have showed up? But He did. This signifies the importance of this event. This is not just any life here, being born in Bethlehem. This is not just another example of religious virtue. This isn't another good man. This is something monumental here. God Himself has come down out of heaven in shining light. And they were terribly frightened. They were in a state of absolute panic, terrified.
"And the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid.'" Ohhh, easy for you to say. Do not be afraid, or stop being afraid. By the way, it's the same sequence to Zacharias and Mary. And I like that "do not be afraid." You know there's a time to fear God? The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. "Fear God" is repeated many times in the Bible. The sinner ought to be afraid of God.
These men didn't need to be afraid to fear God which again indicates to me that they were righteous, that they were true believing Jews, devout who loved the true and living God and were waiting for the Savior to come. You have nothing to fear...he said. Now the only way that could be true is if your sins had been forgiven.
That's a very common phrase. If you want to have a good Bible study, start in Genesis 15:1 where that phrase first appears, "don't be afraid," and follow it all the way through Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles. You find it in Nehemiah. You find it in Daniel. You find it in Zachariah. And then you find it in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts, Hebrews, 1 Peter and Revelation 1:17. Just follow that whole phrase and you have times when you ought to be afraid of God but there are those times when God says don't be afraid. And every time it is when God is going to reveal grace. Listen, if God shows up and He's not come for grace, be afraid, but You don't need to be afraid in the presence of God when He brings a gracious purpose.
The angel says, "Don't be afraid, the news is good." In fact, it's good news that will produce great joy. This is not news of judgment, punishment, cursing or death that will come to the world and that does come to sinners. "I bring you good news" is from the verb euangelizo from which we get transliterated the English word evangelize which simply means to tell people the good news. It's good news we have a saving God, it's good news He sent a Savior. It's good news there's One who's come to take away sin. It's good news all your sin is forgiven forever
You know, you can't contemplate the gospel without joy, can you? Without laughter and hilarity...good news. Boy, these guys went from absolute sheer terror to hilarity upon the instruction of this angel, perhaps Gabriel. The highest and best joy is for those who receive salvation. This is great joy. This is the highest joy. This is the joy that comes to those who receive the grace of salvation...I bring you good news of great joy, there has been born a Savior.
There's no greater joy than that, is there? Against that matter every other matter pales in importance. The highest and best joy is for those whose sins have been forgiven, those for whom the Savior has died and paid the penalty for their sins. The news is good, folks, and this is what we tell the world, isn't it? Go into all the world and proclaim this good news.
The pervasiveness of the good news
"I bring you good news of a great joy, which shall be for ALL the people for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior." How widespread is this good news? Verse 10 says it's good news of great joy which shall be for all the people. Now THE people, primarily the word laos in the Greek, primarily from which we get the word laity in the English meaning the people, the word primarily refers to Israel. Luke uses it a number of times to refer to Israel, for all the people, of course, the angel is saying, first of all, for Israel, salvation is of the Jews, the message of salvation comes to Israel, the New Covenant is being delivered and ratified to Israel and the fulfillment of Davidic promise and Abrahamic promise with it. But is Israel...Israel the primary recipient of this wondrous reality to all the people...and he knows that the shepherds would understand it as Israel because they understand God as the redeemer of Israel, and God is the God of Israel and they being the covenant people. But it doesn't end with Israel. They are the primary people. They are the ones that would be understood by those shepherds as the people. They're the ones that Luke intends us to understand as the people.
But it doesn't stop with them. Go over to verse 31 where you have Simeon picking up the baby Jesus in the temple and he realizes that this child is the Savior and he says that He's been prepared in the presence of all peoples a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel. So we've got to go beyond just Israel. Israel is the primary but the secondary is He goes to the world, to the Gentiles. And that is exactly what Isaiah the prophet said there in Isaiah chapter 60 in that wonderful...and by the way, the promise of the gospel to all nations is in Isaiah 9:2, Isaiah 42:6, Isaiah 49:6 to 9, Isaiah 51:4...it's not just isolated to one verse...but listen to Isaiah 60, "Arise, shine, your light has come, the glory of the Lord has risen upon you," that's the Messiah, and it says, "The Lord will rise upon you, His glory will appear on you and nations will come to your light."
From the very beginning this good news of the forgiveness of sin would go to Israel and through Israel to the nations. In fact, all peoples in verse 31 is plural, all the peoples. That's why it's translated that way with an "s" at the end, whereas back in verse 10 it's singular, "the people," Israel. But the message of forgiveness extends to all the peoples, all nations. And so we are to make disciples said Jesus in Matthew 28 of all nations.
So this good news extends to all nations. That's the collective picture. Look at the individual picture in verse 11. "Today in the city of David there has been born...look at this, what are the next two words?...for you a Savior...for you." That's right, you guys standing right here. You...you...you shepherds, the angel standing right with them says "for you...for you." You could say it this way, "The Savior has been born and He will be the Savior of everybody, and the Savior of anybody who comes and believes." The humblest, the most ignorant, the most uneducated, the most lowly and unskilled, even despised, even the chief of sinners, even the lowest of low, He is the Savior of everybody who is saved, from every people and tongue and tribe and nation on the face of the earth and anybody who chooses to come. He's the world Savior and He's your Savior.
So the proclamation and the pervasiveness. Now next time we're going to talk about the person with the good news and look specifically at the titles given to Jesus.
The Announcement of Jesus' Birth, Part 2
Luke 2:8-14
The beautiful old Christmas carol asks the question, "What child is this who laid to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping?" The angel says, "A Savior who is Christ the Lord." The word "savior" implies that we need to be saved from something. Saved is a synonym for rescued. It's a synonym for delivered. And it implies that there's some kind of threatening, dangerous, desperate, deadly condition from which we need to be rescued.
Today when you hear people present the gospel, very often you get the idea that we need to be rescued from our unfulfillment; something in life that just isn't complete, there's some great level of disappointment with which we live.
We get the idea that Jesus will come and deliver us from an unfulfilled life. Jesus will fix your marriage. And Jesus will knot you up a few lashes on the career ladder. He'll deliver you from this sort of unfulfilled life, this sort of purposelessness, this kind of frustration or disappointment or even despair and this kind of hopelessness that you're never really going to get it, it's not going to ever come to pass. All the dreams that you dreamed for so long have really turned in to nightmares and that's the way it's going to end. And Jesus will come along and fix you. Jesus is the one who rescues you from being unfulfilled.
Secondly, the gospel takes a tone that Jesus will rescue you from debilitating habits. Things you can't get control of, Jesus is going to cause you to be able to get control of your life. You look at your life and not only are you unfulfilled but you find yourself literally overpowered by lusts and desires and passions. You're out of control whether it's in the case of alcohol or whether it's in the case of drugs or medication or whether it's just some kind of other habit. Jesus will deliver you from drives and desires that destroy life, your life and the lives around you.
There are people who would look at the gospel and they would see it as that. Jesus will fill up the empty holes in your life. Jesus will give you victory over those things that tend to destroy your life. There's a sense in which the gospel secondarily does make an application to those things because when you come to Christ and you are genuinely saved. You are genuinely converted and you become a new creature. You belong to God and the Holy Spirit takes up residence in your heart and you have a new reason to live and the hope of eternal life and the promise of heaven. It does have a dramatic effect on the lack of fulfillment in life and you do receive the power of the Holy Spirit over the debilitating habits and passions that your sinful nature generates. This is true. But those are not the primary issues in salvation.
There is another issue that is primary and singular. There's a reason for that. Not everybody in the world is unfulfilled. In fact, I think the unfulfillment very often goes with our western culture. There are people in the world and third world countries who don't have any expectations so they don't experience any unfulfillment. And not everybody in the world is discontent with their condition in life. There are a lot of people even in a materialistic environment like ours that are very happy to perpetuate permanently the condition they're presently in. They're really very content.
Unfulfillment is not a universal problem. If we have a Savior who came to save the world, and is the Savior of the world, then it can't be dealing with just unfulfillment. That can't be the main issue. On the other hand, not everybody is driven to a point of danger and disaster by their passions. Not everybody is to the same degree dominated by those things. There are people who have a certain measure of self-control. Those aren't the universal problems.
The universal problem from which the Lord sent a Savior to deliver us is the problem of sin and guilt. Everybody falls in to that category. I don't care whether you're a person living in a third-world country with no expectations of anything, or whether you're a person who isn't particular consumed by lust and evil desire, you have a certain desire of self-control and you live life on a certain moral even keel...you still have the same problem. You have broken the law of God and you are on your way to eternal hell and you need to be rescued from sin. That's the issue of the gospel.
The person of the good news
Who is this child? Already we have noted that He is the Savior who saves His people from their sins. But beyond that, this One who is born that same day, today, the day...a very day of the birth of Messiah, the day is the same day as the angelic announcement to the shepherds that came that evening, that same day one was born in the city of Bethlehem which is the city of David, actually the village of Bethlehem, the Savior who is identified. Here is the identification, who is Christ the Lord. He is both Christos and ha kurios, He is both Christ and the Lord.
Christ is an exalted title. Back in Daniel 9:25-26 there's a prophecy concerning the coming Messiah, which is the Hebrew word for anointed. In the Greek Old Testament that is Christos, it simply means the anointed one. First of all, the Messiah is anointed because He is God's King. He is in the line of David, and would sit on David's throne and He would establish a Kingdom and then He would reign forever and ever. He is the ultimate, eternal King. He is the King of kings. Later on in His life, you know, when Pilate confronted Him, he said, "Are You a King?" He said, "You said it, but My Kingdom is not of this world...at least not yet." There will be a day when He reigns over a Kingdom on this world forever and ever as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Priests were anointed. Messiah, the one who is the anointed one will not only be anointed King but He will be anointed because He is the great high priest. There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus...Paul said in his letter to Timothy. And this is the anointed High Priest, the final High Priest, the glorious High Priest, the great intercessor between God and sinners, the One who can truly take sinners into the presence of a holy God, the One who alone can give them access, the One who by His death literally severed the veil that separated men from God. He is therefore the great Priest, the great High Priest who takes us into the presence of God.
He also is the great prophet. And prophets were anointed as well because they were God's spokesmen. God never had such a spokesman as Jesus. God at sundry times and diverse manner in time past, Hebrews 1 says, spoke according to the prophets but in these last days he's spoken unto us by the Son. And His Son, of course, is the greatest of all prophets, the greatest preacher that ever lived, the One who spoke and out of His mouth came only the truth of God. The little child in the feed trough was the greatest King the world will ever know, the greatest Priest the world will ever know, the greatest Prophet the world will ever know, all summed up in one person. It's amazing to think about that the condescension of the second member of the trinity was so great that He submitted Himself to the conditions of being an infant.
When it says this is the Savior who is Christ the Lord, you'll notice and it will be true every time it's used in the Bible to speak of Jesus Christ or of God, it's a capital "L". To say that this child is Lord is to say that this child is God. Lord is intended to imply in the Greek all that is implied by the Hebrew word Yahweh, the tetragrammaton, the Hebrew name for God. To say that Jesus is Lord is to say that Jesus is God first and foremost. Without that you don't have Christianity.
The angel doesn't tell the shepherds to go look for the child assumes they will though which is another indicator that they were probably devout and really believed in the true and living God and were looking for the Messiah. And that's why they were selected for this announcement even though they were the humblest of the humble and the lowest people on the socio-economic ladder were shepherds, as I told you last time. But the angel says to them, "This will be a sign for you, you'll find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Well, that would be a sign to some degree, but any baby they found would be wrapped like that and there might have been more than one. So there's a further indicator that will really narrow it down, "You'll find this baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." It's a feed trough for animals. That would limit it to the right baby.
So they were going to have to go looking to find the baby who is the Savior of the world, who is the anointed King and Priest and Prophet of God who is God Himself, Yahweh in human flesh. And they would find Him wrapped like any other baby without any distinguishing marks with the exception that He was lying in a feed trough. This is a very normal looking baby, nothing to distinguish this baby from any other baby except the place its laying. The person of the good news is introduced to us in starkly contrasting terms. And that leads us to the fourth point, the purpose of the good news.
The purpose of the good news.
"And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.'"
We have here come to the highest point of thought and action, the highest truth of all truths. What is it? It's the glory of God. What you see here is the highest thing that can occur in the universe, the created universe. The highest thing that can occur in the created universe is that God is glorified by His creatures. And that's exactly what you see the angels doing. This is the purpose of the good news.
You say, "Well wasn't the good news to save sinners?" The good news is to save sinners so they can join angels in giving glory to God. The ultimate is always to glorify God. The highest transcendent pinnacle of all thought and action, the reason for everything is to glorify God.
How many angels were there? The word murion which is ten thousand is the highest number for which there is a word in the Greek language, so there isn't a word for any higher number. Multitude refers to a large group. Those shepherds have never seen an angel and they saw an angel. Now they see who knows how many angels in manifest visible form. They were panicked. They were literally in phobic reaction, the Greek word phobeomi used there, when it says they were terribly frightened, one angel scared the daylights out of them, you can imagine what this group did to them.
And the angels appeared and what were they doing? They were doing what angels always do, praising God. That's all they do is praise God, praise God, praise God, praise God. Well what were they praising God about? Well they were saying, "Glory to God, glory to God, glory to God, glory to God in the highest, and I know, with peace among men with whom He's pleased."
What were they praising God for? They were praising God because Jesus was born. They were praising God because the Savior had come. They were praising God for the Savior who is Christ the Lord. You see, they knew what was going on. They knew Jesus as the second member of the trinity, they knew Christ before the incarnation. They had been associated with Christ in heaven before the incarnation. They knew of His glory, they knew of His riches, they knew of His majesty. They were also aware of the fall of man. They had been informed also that God had provided a way of salvation for man. They knew that prophecies had been made that a Messiah would come, a Savior would come, a sacrifice would be made. They understood the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. They understood that all those animals had to be offered and they couldn't take away sin but they would picture one who would come and die and would.
They understood that. They had given the report to Joseph, "You shall call His name Jesus for He'll save His people from their sins." They knew what was going on. They knew the work of saving man. They knew that there would come a Savior who while maintaining perfect righteousness and holiness would also bear sin. They knew that God would not spare His own Son but give Him up for sinners. They knew that the Son though rich would become poor for the sake of undeserving sinners. They knew that He would vicariously bear their curse and take their punishment. They knew that the Holy Spirit would condescend to convict sinners and bring them to salvation, regenerate them and then take up residence in that sinner's heart. They understood the birth of Christ. They understood that He would enter in to a condition of poverty, that He would become poor so that sinners could become rich. They understood this and they were praising God because they were seeing God's grace on display. They were seeing God's mercy. They were seeing the salvation plan come to its glorious fruition. They were thanking God for His undescribable gift. They were looking in to the things that Peter says angels desire to look in to but cannot fully comprehend because they can't experience grace and mercy and forgiveness because holy angels are sinless.
They were doing what angels always do, they were praising God. If you turn to Revelation 4 and Revelation 5 you will see them doing it there. That's what they do. They were saying, "Glory to God in the highest." The highest is heaven...the highest is heaven. And this is contrastive language, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth," that's the lowest. Glory to God in heaven, on earth peace among men with whom He's pleased."
On earth peace...what kind of peace? Salvation peace. He's not talking about comfort of the mind, rest of the spirit, he's talking about salvation, peace with God. The war is over, the battle has ended. No longer is God our enemy and we His enemy but reconciliation has come. In the highest is glory to God. In the lowest on earth is peace among men. And they're praising God for that. They're praising God, giving Him glory in heaven because He's brought salvation to earth. Glory to God in the highest. The adoration of the angels over the good news of the Savior's birth. This is pure, perfect, holy praise given to God alone because He is supremely worthy because He has sent Jesus to save sinners. He has sent Jesus to bring peace among men on earth. In the highest place, glory to God. In the lowest place, salvation to sinners.
Verse 14 ends with an interesting statement, "With whom He is pleased." That can be very misleading. It sounds like He's going to give salvation to those who earn it. The King James Bible says, "On earth peace, good will towards men." That also sounds like God is going to bring peace and good will toward those who earn it, those who deserve it. But the Greek literally says, "Peace among men of His good pleasure." Or to put it another way, "Peace among men of His good will." It's God who has given it because it's His pleasure to give it.
There are some in whom God chooses, in whom He wills salvation. It's not the result of what good men have done. Angels are not rejoicing and glorifying God for what men have done or will do. Angels are not rejoicing that some men will merit salvation. They're glorifying God because though none can merit salvation, God is pleased to give it by His own good pleasure. And there will be salvation peace among men of His good pleasure.
If you are a person who has been given the gift of salvation, you are a person of His good pleasure. It's incredible, incredible truth. Men to whom He extends His good pleasure. He gets all the credit. He gets all the glory. We couldn't devise a plan of salvation. We couldn't earn a plan...we couldn't earn salvation so if we're saved it's because God designed it and God was pleased to give it. Saying it another way, there is salvation peace, peace between man and God, among those whom God has chosen to delight in. And so the angels are praising God because He has chosen to delight in bringing salvation peace to sinners.
That's what's going to go on in heaven forever. Both the angels and redeemed souls in glorified bodies of men and women are going to spend forever glorifying God in heaven, glorifying God in the highest, which is heaven, because He brought peace to the lowest, which is earth, and granted it to those in whom He chose to delight. He gets all the credit. Revelation 4 and 5 you have the angels starting out to glorify God for salvation, and then you have all of redeemed humanity chiming in. That would be a good place to end. "The four living creatures...Revelation 8:9...the 24 elders...representing the church...fell down before the Lamb, they sang a new song, 'Worthy art Thou to take the book and break its seals for You were slain and did purchase for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, You made them to be a kingdom and priest to our God, they will reign over the earth.'" In other words, that's praising God for salvation, praising the Lamb for salvation.
"And then I looked,I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures the elders," that's everybody, the redeemed saints, the angels, "the number was...there's the murion times murion and thousands of thousands, all the angels, they're all saying, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing,' and every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea and all things in them I heard them saying to Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, 'Be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever and ever.' And the four living creatures who were angels kept saying, 'Amen.' And the elders fell down and worshiped." And that's heaven, and that's what we will be doing and what we saw that multitude of heavenly host doing there in the field in Bethlehem was just a foretaste of that preoccupation of eternal heaven.
The purpose of everything then is that God will be glorified and forever and ever and ever we will glorify Him. We could sum it up by saying the purpose of salvation was to bring glory to God in heaven from angels and from saints and we will see that and participate in it when we get there.
The Announcement of Jesus' Birth, Pt. 3
Luke 2:15-21

Next, let's look at the shepherds' response. The details show us by illustration form what happens when someone comes to Christ.
"In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the field and keeping watch over their flock by night, and an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid for behold I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.'"
Jesus saves you from the eternal wrath of God. Jesus came to save His people from the penalty of their sins, first of all, which is eternal hell, the wrath of God, and the power of their sins by giving them the Spirit of God so they can be victorious over their sins even in this life. And finally the presence of sin, when we leave this world and enter His glory.
And you remember then the shepherds said to one another, "We've got to go see Him." That's where we're going to pick up the narrative today. We've gone through the fact that after this announcement all of a sudden a multitude of the heavenly host showed up in verses 13 and 14. This was a very rare glimpse of heavenly worship brought to earth. There's the more familiar one in Revelation 4 and 5 where we're literally taken in to the throne of heaven and we can see the worship of heaven going on. This is another one of those very rare glimpses, only in this case we're not caught up in a vision of heaven, but heaven comes to earth in the presence of these very lowly shepherds out in the evening in a hillside in the region near Bethlehem. A whole host of angels came down to do on earth what they do all the time in heaven. They praise God and say, "Glory to God in the highest."
And what were they praising God for? Because He had brought on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased. He had brought to earth salvation peace. It's a salvation peace that will belong only to those that God pleases to give it to. This is a great and gracious eternal decree. This involves the great doctrine of election, predestination. Before the creation of the universe God chose to save some just because He was pleased to do it. Angels, you see, are not rejoicing or glorifying God for what men have done or will do, but because of what God has done and will do. It's not that God's salvation is a reward for those who have good will toward men. as the old translation says. But salvation is a gracious gift to those to whom God chooses to have good will. On earth, the Messiah, Savior, the Christ, the Lord will bring salvation peace to those whom God pleases to save.
Imagine you're in the situation of the shepherds. Your life has been pretty plain and mundane, and all of a sudden all heaven has broken loose. You've just had an angelic messenger tell you that the Messiah has been born, the Christ, the Savior of the world, God in human flesh. That angel has been accompanied by a whole heavenly host of angels who have come down and given you a taste of heaven and they are glorifying God and praising God for the salvation that He's brought on earth through the birth of the Messiah.
How did they react? "It came about when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds began saying to one another, 'Let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.'"
We don't know how long the heavenly host was there. It certainly was more brief perhaps than the shepherds would have liked. They probably would have enjoyed it had it lasted a long, long time. But it was over, all of that praise and glory to God was done. They were praising God in the highest, that is in heaven and on earth they were realizing that God had brought salvation to those whom He pleased to choose. And then the angels went back to heaven to take up their place around the throne as described in Revelation 4 and 5 and keep doing what they they're always doing, what they're doing right now even as I speak in heaven...doing exactly right now in heaven what they were doing there that day on earth in the shepherds' field, praising God for the grace of salvation.
The shepherds were terrified when one angel appeared.  We can only imagine how frightening it was when all the rest showed up. But after the angels left they were able to gather their senses because it says in verse 15, "It came about when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds began saying to one another..." They were all continuing to say over and over to one another, "We've got to go, we've got to go."  Nobody needed to lead them, nobody needed to sort of get them to comply. Everybody had exactly the same response. Nothing intervening, nothing distracting, we are going immediately. "Let's go straight to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us."
Let me talk about that word "thing" because I think you need a little more definition. It's literally the Greek term rhema and it means a word, or a reality. Let us see this reality. They now understand that they have heard the word from God, that there's a reality and the reality is that the Savior has been born.
The shepherds had a revelation from God and they believed it. That is how people come to Christ. They have a revelation from God and they believe it. The revelation from God is that the Savior has come and they believe it. That's step one and step two in the whole movement toward salvation. They believed that heavenly message. They believed that the Savior had come.
it's critical that we understand that the first step in the process of someone being converted is they have to hear the message. The revelation comes first. They heard it and they believed it, the Spirit of God obviously having prepared their hearts. These men chosen to be the recipients of this divine message were probably true Jews, that is they were believing Jews not just secular Jews. That they truly believed in the true and living God, that they were no doubt among those looking for the redemption of Israel, waiting for their Messiah, who had been genuine believers in the true God who had repented of their sin and had come to God and sought His grace. All of that because their hearts were so ready and their responses were so right. And they heard the heavenly revelation and they believed it. They believed the fact that Messiah, the Savior, the Christ, the Lord had come.
Their faith in the word of God then caused them to pursue Christ. And that's the third step in coming to Christ. First you know the revelation, secondly you believe the revelation, and thirdly you come to Christ. You ascend to that. You embrace Christ. "They came in haste." Again, this idea of enthusiasm and eagerness that the language indicates that they're in a hurry and their enthusiasm is great. And they came in haste and found their way to Mary and Joseph.  First the revelation, then the faith and then the action to pursue Christ.
Now what followed after that is also normal as an analogy or an illustration of behavior of someone who comes to Christ, it's witness. Someone who has heard the truth of the gospel, someone who has believed that someone has come and found Christ then witnesses. "And when they had seen this they made known the statement which had been told them about this child."
These scruffy, grubby shepherds coming in the middle of the night into this stinking stable, finding Joseph and Mary and the baby lying in a manger. And they're all overwhelmed with what's happened, so Joseph and Mary must have had some response, saying greetings...how can we help you? And then they unfold the saga. I can just hear them all vying to tell the story their way as Joseph and Mary tried to sit quietly and listen. And it must have been wonderful confirmation for them as well, for any malingering doubts that might have been raised in their minds. And they told the story of how an angel came and an angel described one who had been born, good news of great joy, a Savior. He is Christ the Lord. And on and on, they told the whole story. And a whole host of angels came and there were angels everywhere, and they were bright and they were shining and they were praising God and thanking God.
And as that story unfolded I think Joseph and Mary probably began to unfold some of their side of the details. Well isn't that wonderful because, you know, an angel came to me...Joseph might have said. And he told me not to worry about the fact that my virgin betrothed bride-to-be Mary was pregnant because the baby that was in her womb was put there by the Holy Spirit. She was not sinful, she was not unfaithful to me. That she was going to have a child who would be Immanuel, God in human flesh and that He would be named Jesus because He would save His people from their sins. And this all happened to me when I was deciding whether to divorce her or stone her to death. And I had a dream and in that dream an angel of the Lord came to me and told me the whole thing.
And then Mary might have quietly said...And, you know, I had a visit from Gabriel and Gabriel came to me even though I am just a young girl and a virgin and said you're going to have a baby and that baby is going to be Son of David, Son of the Most High God, He's going to rule over a Kingdom that will last eternally. And it all is beginning to come together. And these shepherds, talk about being in on the scoop, they're in on it.
And what is their immediate response? After the whole thing unfolds when they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Christ. They went everywhere and said the Savior's been born, the Savior's been born. Christ the Lord has been born. They told the story. The most aggressive faithful people in proclaiming the gospel are the newest Christians. Because the joy runs so high, the excitement is so great, the enthusiasm is so profound.
And so these shepherds become the first New Testament evangelists. And they repeated the astounding revelation from God, as well as their own personal meeting of Joseph and Mary and the baby lying in the manger. They couldn't restrain themselves. This was the greatest news the world would ever know. This was the greatest news they ever heard, far beyond anything they could have ever imagined. I mean, there isn't anything in their humdrum life that could equal this. And I might suggest to you that the true spiritual commitment is determined by the quality and the tenacity of one's long-term joy over salvation. You can say you're committed, you can talk about the commitment you have to Jesus Christ, but it really comes down to how much joy you have and how eagerly you share that.
When we stop doing that, when we stop having that kind of zeal and that kind of passion, when we betray a heart that is no longer overwhelmed by joy, when we betray a heart that is no longer unrestrained in its compulsion to tell others we betray a sinful heart because indifference and ingratitude is a sin.
The shepherds told the news far and wide. "All who heard it wondered of the things which were told them by the shepherds." The word "wonder" is the word thaumazo, and means to marvel, to be amazed. It's common in Luke's gospel. I mean, the things that Jesus did caused people to be amazed, caused them to wonder, caused them to marvel. There's no question about it. He was an amazing person. They had never seen anybody like Him. But being amazed by Jesus is not enough. Widespread reaction was amazement, curiosity not commitment.
I don't think that would have restrained them because they were so internally compelled to tell the story. I mean, angels, revelation from God, miracle conception in a virgin, Son of God, Son of the Most High God, born in a stable, laid in a feed trough, I mean, the whole thing was some kind of story.
And, you know, people would be pressed to believe it. They would be pressed to believe it because the angel comes and the angel says you will find Him wrapped in cloths and lying in a feed trough. If God wasn't working all of that, how could that all have happened? It had to be divine. The child was exactly where they were told by angels. And if angels are involved in this and angels know the whole situation, this has got to be from God.  Wouldn't it have been good if it said, "And all who heard it went immediately to the manger?" It doesn't say that. They just wondered and went on with their life.
The next little comment is interesting as well. It takes us into the heart of Mary. It says, "But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart." This is just mulling them over, contemplating them deeply. Mary must have wondered, "When is He going to start saying profound, theological things? Tomorrow? Is He going to do miracles? What's going to happen here? What am I to expect out of this child? Will I have a normal relationship with this child that a mother has to a baby? Will I nurse this child as mothers do? Will I raise this child as mothers do? What will this child be like? And when will He enter into His glory? When will He take His Kingdom? When will that all happen? And how am I going to be a mother to a child that is God?"
She must have wondered all those kinds of things. Must have wondered even about discipline, setting an example. How do you set an example for God? I mean, anything that would come into a mother's mind must have come into her mind. She just pondered it. She just thought deeply about it. And she thought deeply about God's redemptive purpose and how God had promised a Savior and a Savior had finally come.
And later on in verses 34 and 35 of this chapter, Simeon comes up to Mary and says...I hate to tell you this, Mary, but this child is going to pierce your heart like a sword. It's not all going to be wonderful for you. This is going to be very painful having this son. A sword is going to go right through your own soul.
Being the mother of the Son of God is a painful thing. She loved Him. She must have loved Him like no mother has ever loved a child because He was perfect. And yet she saw Him suffer. She saw Him suffer so profoundly and so unjustly. And eventually she was there when He was nailed to the cross. I mean, all kinds of suffering. She must have been thinking about a lot of things.
And isn't that analogous somewhat to the Christian experience? Just following the little illustration first there at the revelation of the truth, the gospel, then there's faith like the shepherds put in what God said. And then there's action, to go and to find Christ. And then there's witness, the exuberance and the joy. And then comes pondering. After those initial days of euphoria, as you grow in your Christian life you begin to think more deeply about the realities of who He is. Here I am, you know, as a Christian a long time, after many, many years of ministry and I continue in my reading...I never get enough. I have an insatiable desire to know more about my God and my Christ just to plumb the depths of all there is to know and to ponder those things.
When somebody is truly converted, I think there's never enough. There never comes a point of satisfaction. As Paul said, "That I may know Him," and somebody might say, "You know Him, you know Him, you know Him better than anybody else." Yeah, but I don't know Him like I'd like to know Him. Mary illustrates that hungry heart that wants to understand the depth of this great salvation.
When you become a Christian and you've had the greatest imaginable transformation and you heard the revelation from God, you believed it and you've embraced Christ and you've begun to witness, when all of that has happened and you begin to think deeply about the profound realities of who God is, who Christ is and what the saving purpose of God is unfolding in the world. When you've come to that point you still have to go back to work. Life goes on.
You go back. Only you go back with a different attitude. You go back glorifying and praising God. That's what they did. They went back glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen just as have been told them. It was exactly the way they were told by the angel, every detail was exactly accurate. And they went back with a whole new attitude.
I don't know what their attitude was like before they had this incredible encounter with the revelation of God. But it certainly wasn't like it is now. They may have been hopeful. They may have been worried and wondered and doubted and questioned and been wearied and all of that. But not anymore. They went back glorifying and praising God. And that too is analogous to what happens when a conversion takes place. There's a revelation. We hear the revelation of God, we believe it and we go and we embrace Christ. There's witness that follows. There's a deep pondering about great divine truth as we deepen our knowledge of the Word of God. And there is also a life attitude of praise and worship to God that marks a believer.
They knew that this child would be the Savior, the Christ, the Lord, fulfilling Davidic promise, Abrahamic promise and the promise of the New Covenant. They couldn't restrain themselves, their lives were just filled with praise.
So at first the shepherds were afraid, but at last they were filled with overwhelming joy, overwhelming joy. If you don't know Jesus Christ, you better fear God, because you're imminently on the brink of eternal wrath. You see, Jesus Christ is still the only foundation upon which real fearlessness can be built. The child of God, the invisible and eternal no longer has any terror because Christ has come out of the invisible and eternal world and dwelt among us, provided our salvation and then returned to the invisible and eternal world to prepare a place for us. That's the good news.

← Previous Post

It's a Boy! →

Comments (1)

Pingback: “Don’t worry about tomorrow, I have already been there!” Jesus Christ via Glennwood Cronin | Ravings from Tokyo

Comments are closed.

Ravings from Tokyo

December 25, 2007

JMac - Christmas 2007 - on usa 2

Comments (1)

Post a Comment

usalapinhazzer

I can't find it, either!