Spiritually Appraised

We have this funny tendency to
think of Christ’s life as portioned out into two great periods. Those
are the birth accounts which we have just read. With which
were relatively familiar and really we touch on only a Christmas
time and the rest of the gospel ministry, which picks up really
at the beginning of Jesus ministry. But there are those cloudy areas
that were very unfamiliar with and we come to one of those passages
today. Where we’re not in the birth
accounts necessarily. Jesus has been born, he’s been
visited by the shepherds, he’s been visited by the Magi. With
those sections of scripture, the angels visit to Mary, the
angels visit to Zacharias, the birth of John the Baptist. With
those, we’re very familiar. And well, we should be. I think
that should form the core of what individuals and families
do around Christmas time is remind themselves of the real nature
of the Christmas story there in Matthew’s first two chapters
and Luke’s first two chapters. But the story doesn’t end abruptly
here in Luke two with the visit of the Magi, the visit of the
shepherds in Luke two. It doesn’t end there and then
pick up dramatically with the temptation of Satan. In the wilderness. There are some very subtle, obscure
passages that are really rarely considered, especially in the
context of the Christmas message, and we come to one of those today.
It’s easy, I call him gimme’s used to call him in seminary
sugar sticks, those passages that are just they’re almost
easy to preach. But there are these other passages,
these obscure passages, that really a study of them enriches
us. Those early chapters where we have
the classic accounts of the manger scene, it unfolds really into
from perhaps an unofficial welcome by the shepherds. And in Matthew’s
gospel, an unofficial welcome by these magi to the official
welcome of the Son of Man here in the gospel of Luke. We pick
up in verse 21. For the official welcome of the
Son of Man. Where Luke records and when eight
days had passed before his circumcision, his name was then called Jesus. The name given by the angel before
he was conceived in the womb. And when the days for their purification,
according to the law of Moses, were completed, they brought
him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written
in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male that opens the
womb should be called holy to the Lord. And to offer a sacrifice,
according to what was said in the law of the Lord, A pair of
turtledoves or two young pigeons. The official welcome of the Son
of Man. We have a very intimate perspective of
the Christ story in these Gospels in Matthew and Luke. The Son
of Man coming in, born in this obscure little place with only
a few visitors, only a few of the village people even knowing
of him. Even though the testimony of
Christ had been given for centuries. As we’ve begun to see the entirety
of the Old Testament referred to Christ and spoke of Christ
and pointed to Christ, but so often people could not, did not
grasp that. We come in here to a section
of Scripture that repeats the word law, the law of the Old
Testament five times, pointing back to the Old Testament Scriptures
that testified of the Lord Jesus Christ. And even though Jesus
Christ in his mission would come to deliver those from the bondage
of the law, he first had to pass through it. Jesus did not come
to destroy or to do away with the law, but he came in order
to fulfill it. And that essentially is the purpose
of the official welcome of the Son of Man. In this brief section,
four verses, we come across three religious formalities, some which
were relatively familiar and some which were very unfamiliar. religious formalities that ultimately
are illuminated or clarified by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. First of all, glance down at
your passage there in verse 21. The first religious formality
that was illuminated by the Lord Jesus Christ was the ritual of
circumcision. In verse twenty one it says,
when eight days had passed before his circumcision. Now he’s setting
this up to tell us about the naming of the child. The contrast
between here and John’s circumcision is striking. There it’s a very
big deal. Here it almost garners very little
information or very little mention rather. There aren’t any friends
and neighbors gathered. Only Mary and Joseph. These poor
strangers who are away from home. And it says that. The name of
the child was given with regards to this right, and that seems
to be Luke’s main point, and even mentioned he’s not even
really playing up the right R.I.T.E. of circumcision. He’s really
telling us about the day that Jesus received his name. And
I take that to be the eighth day in concert with the right
of circumcision. If you look at the passage, when
eight days had passed before his circumcision, his name was
then called Jesus. It wasn’t a legal requirement
to tie the naming of the child. The law of God didn’t speak about
tying the name of the child to the act of circumcision, but
it did become customary over time. And so when we hear Joseph
and Mary doing this, they were doing what was very common in
those days after the eight days had passed. We’ll talk about
those eight days in a moment. They named the child Jesus, just
as the angel had directed. As we have seen, naming the child
was the legal right of the father, but Mary had also been instructed. They were both told the name
of the child. Mary was told first. that the
child was to be named Jesus. And then Joseph, also by the
angel, was told that the child’s name would be Jesus. The Greek
form of Joshua. God is our help or savior. And that name was crucial. They
dare not name him just anything. They dare not name him after
the father. They dare not name him after
some God had designated specifically. what he was going to be named
because that was a constant witness of his ministry. What was his
ministry to be? The name of Jesus Christ. His full name. Jesus the Savior,
the Messiah. That is the very unique and particular
office into which Christ came into this world. God was sovereign
in his purpose. God was sovereign in the mission
that Christ had, and God essentially named the Savior himself. Jesus would save his people from
their sins. Now, note, though, that it does
say that when eight days had passed,
And that was the time which must elapse before circumcision. When
eight days had passed before his circumcision, and I take
that to mean immediately before this right was performed, just
prior to his being circumcised, whether it was part of the ceremony
or not by the law. Joseph and Mary enjoyed the child
pondered all the things that were taking place. And as they
advance towards the Jewish law, the custom of the right of circumcision. They now put in place what the
angels had announced to them and named the child. But they
proceeded also with this right. The religious right of circumcision. That right, that ritual was given
in Genesis chapter 17. It is the mark of the Abrahamic
covenant. In Genesis 17, God said to Abraham,
as for you, you shall keep my covenant. You and your descendants
after you throughout all their generations. This is my covenant,
which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants
after you. Every young male among you shall
be circumcised. And he points to the fact that
it would be a sign between God and others of the covenant between
himself and this nation. And he goes on to say that every
male. This wasn’t just a suggestion. Every male among you who is eight
days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations.
A servant who is born in the house. or brought a bought with
money from any foreigner who is not of your descendants. A
servant who was born in your house or who was bought with
your money shall surely be circumcised. So strict was this rule that
even your slaves, even those who weren’t by birth, Jews would
be circumcised. Thus shall my covenant be in
your flesh and everlasting covenant. And so strict was this law, that
to not do so was to make you an immediate outsider. Verse
14 of chapter 17, but an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in
the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from
his people. He has broken my covenant. This was an important right.
An important right for Joseph and Mary to observe. Now, Circumcision. According to the covenant that
God made was supposed to be much like our baptism, an outward
sign of an inward reality. They weren’t just receiving this
right, the right itself didn’t save them. I know a lot of times
when I interview young people for baptism, I’ll ask them, will
baptism make you more safe? And you could have asked the
same thing about circumcision will circumcision. And I think
it would have been a good question. In fact, there are probably too
many Jews that didn’t ask that question. It was an outward supposed to
be an outward sign of an inward reality, a circumcised heart,
if you will, a humble, repentant, righteous heart. Sadly, for most
Jews, circumcision had just become a meaningless ritual. There are
a number of questions that arise in connection with Jesus Christ
and this particular rite. Some people, if you’re not familiar
with the setting, why eight days? Well, I’m not going to get too
graphic here, but the Levitical law laid out very specific laws
for exactly what is spoken of here. It had all kinds of laws
pertaining to uncleanness and all kinds of laws regarding washings. Leviticus 12 talks about this
particular right. The Lord spoke to Moses saying
speak to the sons of Israel saying. When a woman gives birth and
bears a male child, she shall be unclean for seven days. On the eighth day, the child
would receive this rite of circumcision. But the question has to be asked,
why on earth Jesus? Because this is also a mark of
acknowledgement of one’s sinfulness. And we know that Jesus Christ
was sinless. Jesus Christ being circumcised
didn’t indicate in the least an acknowledgement that there
was any tendency of sin or corruption of any kind in him. This was no confession on behalf
of Joseph and Mary that Jesus had been born into sin like every
other child ever born. In need of God’s grace, God’s
saving grace. I love the way J.C. Ryle lays
it out so clearly. Circumcision for Christ was a
public testimony to all of Israel. That he was first and foremost
born in the flesh. And that having been born in
the flesh, he was born a Jew. And that he was born of a woman
and he was born under the law. See, because without circumcision,
he would not have been recognized as the son of David. He would
not have been recognized as the seed of Abraham. That’s the fact
that circumcision was absolutely necessary was because no teacher
in Israel would have been received without it. You would have no
place to stand up in a Jewish assembly, no right to address
any Jewish body, no right to participate in any Jewish ordinance. Jesus Christ, by submitting,
by his parents submitting him to circumcision, yielded him
up as a Jew. He bore the mark of the nation
of Israel. Otherwise, he would be regarded
completely as an uncircumcised heathen. Now, Paul declared very
clearly God’s purpose in doing this. In chapter four of Paul’s
epistle to the Galatians, he addresses it straightforwardly
when he says, when the fullness of time came, God sent forth
his son, born of a woman, born under the law. Jesus Christ,
in order to come and to pay our Penalty of sin had the first
come under the same law under which not only Israel, but all
mankind. Had come. Born of a woman born
under the law. Why so that he might redeem those
who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as
sons? Why did Jesus receive circumcision?
Because it was in order to subject him to the law. It proved that
he had been placed under the law and Jesus Christ had done
this willingly. Jesus Christ in taking on flesh. He didn’t vote for the right
of circumcision, but he knew that by being born into the home
of Jewish parents, he knew that he would receive this right.
This didn’t catch him or God the Father off guard. He had
to be He had to take on human flesh. That human flesh was Jewish
flesh. And he was the son, the true
son of Abraham, made under the law and he had come to fulfill
it. But not only had Christ come
to fulfill this law of circumcision, Christ came to complete circumcision. The whole rite of circumcision
had always been a very foundational celebration for the Jewish nation
ever since it was instituted during the wilderness wanderings.
It did fall into disuse. Where it wasn’t recognized, but
then it was reinstituted and in time it became something about
which they were very proud. And they would refer to themselves
as the circumcised and everybody else as the uncircumcised. It
was a mark of derision. Unfortunately, though, by the
time Christ comes into the world, born in the flesh, this whole
circumcision thing, this whole rite, this ritual, which at one
point meant so much to the people who wanted to uphold the covenant struck between Abraham and God.
That it had become just a meaningless ritual, empty, void of its original
intended meaning. We pick up some of. The demise
or the completion really of circumcision when we come into the book of
Acts, just listen. In Acts, It’s spoken of as a continuing
element of. Expectation, even though the
gospel was now being preached. Jesus Christ came under the law,
but in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the rites and rituals are done,
they’re set aside. God has fulfilled them in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the whole wrestling match
with the early church was, what do we do with these rituals and
how do we blend them in with the gospel? Here’s what transpired
in Acts chapter 15. Some men came down from Judea
and began teaching the brethren, unless you are circumcised according
to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And so they wanted
to blend these two, the gospel and the Old Testament ritual.
Well, Peter spoke first, Paul and his band, they go back, they
bring the issue to the Jerusalem Council and and Peter for a while
sits and listens to these men debate back and forth. And then
Peter speaks. In verse seven of chapter 15,
it says, after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and
said to them, Brethren, you know that in the early days God made
a choice among you. that by my mouth, the Gentiles
would hear the word of the gospel and believe. This is his argument. He’s saying this is why we know
that the right of circumcision has been completed by Christ
or in Christ. And he goes on and he says, God,
who knows the heart, testified to them, giving them the Holy
Spirit, just as he also did to us. And he made no distinction
between us and them cleansing their hearts by faith. Here’s
what he says. They received the gospel, they
received salvation, they received the Holy Spirit in spite of the
fact that they had not submitted themselves to this right. Peter
concludes now, therefore, why do you put God to the test? By placing upon the neck of the
disciples, a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been
able to bear. Now, what he’s talking about
specifically is not just the right of circumcision, but it’s
the law, because the whole purpose of circumcision was to say, I’m
prepared to follow the law and its entirety. Well, we know that we know how
difficult that is because we know our own hearts. We know
that we can’t obey the law perfectly for one minute. Certainly not
for an entire day, not for a year, not for our life. That’s the
whole point. The whole point harkens back
to that lawyer that came to Christ to put him to what must I do
to gain eternal life and Jesus answer a rather lengthy one.
The parable of the Good Samaritan was one of this incredible, impossible
standard of the law. All you have to do is go live
it. Go live out the law perfectly and you will have life. What
Peter says here when he says neither are neither we or our
fathers have been able to bear, we couldn’t do it. We acknowledge
we couldn’t do it and thank God for the gospel that came in and
told us of Christ and his payment of our penalty on the cross,
that it’s finished. Christ came not only to submit
Himself under the law, but He came to put an end to it. This
attempt to live according to the dictates of the law, even
the law of God. And He concludes by saying, but
we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ in the same way as they also are. But let me take you to another
illustration, a rather lengthy one, and I’ve never never preached
the book of Galatians, so we’re going to do it in about four
minutes. The book of Galatians, if you
would. A lot of times When I’m taking
different people to different books, you know, a lot of times
I’m trying to teach that some books just have a different tone,
if you will. There’s a different atmosphere.
There’s certainly a different atmosphere between the book of
Philippians and, you know, Paul’s happy and everything’s joy, joyful,
I rejoice, you rejoice, we all rejoice, you know, kumbaya, and
they all, you know, it’s just a happy book. There’s some intense
moments in there. But it’s generally a joyful book. This book, Galatians, is just
heavy. It’s intense. I mean, you can
cut the tension with a knife in this book and it starts almost
immediately. Look at chapter one, verse six.
I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you
by the grace of God for a different gospel. Paul’s not one to beat
around the bush ever, but he gets right at them. You are abandoning
the gospel of the grace of God for what he calls another gospel? Look at verse 9. As we have said before, so I
say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary
to what you received, he is to be accursed. I mean, those are
the strongest words I would argue in all of the New Testament. Well, we don’t even know what
the issue is, but we know Paul is exercised. Look at chapter
two in chapter two, verse sixteen. Paul centers back on the gospel,
verse sixteen of chapter two, nevertheless, knowing that a
man is not justified by the works of the law. Nobody, nobody has
ever been saved by adherence to the law. Do you hear that?
I’m not just embellishing it. That’s what Paul says. A man is not justified by the works
of the law. It’s not that he couldn’t be
if he could live up to the works of the law, but nobody ever has. And so he states the obvious.
Man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith
in Christ Jesus. That is the gospel. So we no
longer live according to the law in an attempt to secure our
salvation. Now that righteousness is laid
before us. It’s given to us. And all we
have to do is believe. Even while we have believed in
Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ
and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law,
no flesh will be justified. Paul there is not saying that
it’s not possible. He’s already acknowledged in
many places that it is entirely possible that if you live up
to the law, you live it out perfectly, not just for a minute, but for
a day, for a life. You do this and you shall live.
That was the testimony of the law. Go to chapter three. Paul is
drilling down, he’s putting the screws to the Galatians, he’s
driving this point home, and now he comes to them and he asks
them direct questions. This is the only thing I want
to find out from you. Did you receive the spirit by the works
of the law or by hearing with faith? And he knows the answer.
Paul knows that if you are in Christ, if there is any testimony
of the Holy Spirit in you, convicting you of sin, teaching you about
righteousness, leading you in that path towards glory, the
only way that you possibly could receive that, because of the weakness of our
human flesh, the only possible way is by faith in Christ, by
hearing. And then he asks another question.
Are you so foolish? He’s not just being rude. Look
at what’s at stake here. People’s lives, people’s souls
are at stake right here. And there in the Galatian region,
whatever that is, however far that extends, there are people
that are hearing a false gospel. And the false gospel is just
do this and you’ll live. It’s not true. He says, Are you
so foolish having begun by the Spirit? Are you now being perfected
by the flesh? In other words, you started by
believing, but now you’re adding to that and you think that you’ve
got to do something in order to be saved. Paul says, Have you lost your
minds? Are you a fool? Jump down to verse 22. Where Paul gives the gospel,
he reminds them of the gospel, but the Scripture has shut up
everyone in sin. There isn’t hope for any one
of us to be able to live according to the law. Thousands of years
had proved it. They had tried and they couldn’t.
Scripture has shut up everyone under sin so that the promise
by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law. We were in jail. We were imprisoned
by the law. Being shut up to the faith, which
was later to be revealed, therefore the law has become our tutor
to lead us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith
But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tour.
In other words, what he says is, look. The whole purpose of
the law was to get us to see the impossibility of living up
to it and what we ought to do rather than say, like the lawyer,
what do I need? What else do I need to do to
gain eternal life? What other ritual can we add
in in order to cap off our salvation? Paul says, forget it. Forget
it. Nobody is ever going to be able
to do that. That’s what the law was schooling
us to do all along, was to give up, and to fall on our knees,
and to plead for mercy, and to realize that that mercy had already
been granted in the Lord Jesus Christ. He had already accomplished
it all. Only Jesus had lived up to the law. And that’s what
Paul says. Chapter 5, verse 1. It was for freedom that Christ
set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm
and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Don’t come
under this slavery to the law all over again. Behold, I, Paul,
say to you that if you receive circumcision. All of a sudden,
we’re back there. That’s what he’s been talking
about all this time and not just the right of circumcision, but
all that it stood for the law. If you receive circumcision,
Christ will be of no benefit to you. Because now you’re going
back to dabble in what must I do to be saved? Salvation. Salvation is only
by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. That’s
that was the great this rediscovery of the Reformation. And fifteen
hundred years of wrong thinking had glossed it over to the point
where people didn’t even know what the gospel was anymore. The Church of Rome had heaped
all kinds of regulations on top of people to the point where
they couldn’t even see justification by faith in the pages of Scripture. As one pastor said, justification
is not of works, it is never of works. The whole world is
guilty before God by the works of the law. No flesh living can
be justified. To be justified by faith, therefore,
is to be justified in the ground of trust or confidence in God’s
provision of the provision of the Savior’s sacrifice on the
cross and nothing more. What Jesus Christ did in receiving
circumcision was, in essence, put an end to circumcision. Because
now that Christ had come, now that he had submitted himself
to the law, only Christ now living according to the law perfectly,
and then dying on our behalf, only Christ put an end to that rite. But there’s another religious
formality here that we have to acknowledge. It was the service
of dedication. The service of dedication look
again at the passage. Verse 22 and when the days for
their purification according to the law of Moses were completed,
they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as
it is written in the law of the Lord. Every firstborn male that
opens a womb should be called holy to the Lord. Now the days
were these. When it says when the days for
their purification is pointing to very specific time period
seven technically plus thirty three. Remember Jesus was circumcised
on the eighth day that seven days was the period of impurity
following birth. Leviticus twelve she shall be
unclean for seven days and then following that there was another
period of purification of 33 days and strictly speaking, the
child was never purified. That’s not this is not a right
pertaining to Christ. It’s only contextual. It’s mentioned
in the context of what they were doing with Christ. They were
coming up to present him to the Lord. But it’s in the context
of these days of purification that Mary found herself in. We’ll
talk more about the purification in a moment, but I want to first,
I want to zero in on this idea of presentation. We don’t do
them anymore. We used to do them, you know,
in Baptist churches, they call them dry baby dedications, right? Or dry baptisms. Where we dedicate
the babies to the Lord, we come up and we you know, one time
the pastor gets ahold of babies and we pray over them and pray
over the parents. Specifically, we just don’t know
what that really is. There’s nothing in Scripture
that indicates we need to do that. It tends to confuse more
than anything. Suggesting that in some way,
shape or form, this child has been sanctified in some way. And so we set that aside a long
time ago. But in this particular case,
You have a very similar. Image, but this was this was
dictated by God, this was very clear. They brought him up to
Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as it was written in the
law of the Lord. Now, the presentation is very
distinct, I want to try and I want to try to keep these two points
apart, the law of presentation was very distinct from the law
of purification. It’s only mentioned because Mary
couldn’t go up because of the law of purification until then.
But they’re going up as they were commanded to present Christ. We don’t know exactly what they
did. But there is an explanation for the why. Stated in the book
of Exodus, and that’s what’s quoted here, Exodus 13, 2. It’s
kind of a blend. There are some ideas that are
in both verses. Exodus 13 to says this sanctify,
which is a fascinating word, isn’t it? Just to be set apart
for the Lord, that’s what we’re in the process of. If we’ve come
to Christ, we are in the process of being set apart, sanctified. You hear me refer to you all
the time. I hope you think of me likewise, the saints, right? That’s what you are. You’re the
saints. We don’t have to wait until we’re
dead. Wait 50 years and have some church rubber stamp. OK,
now so and so is a saint. In fact, I want to steal it back.
It’s not just St. Paul, it’s St. Fred, right? It’s St. Diana. Whoever the case may be, whoever
we come across, if they name the name of Christ, they’re saints
because they’re sanctified. They’re already set apart for
the Lord’s use. And that’s exactly what this
idea is. sanctified to me every firstborn, the first offspring
of every womb among the sons of Israel, both of man and beast.
It belongs to me. And so there was this. There
was this command of God where the firstborn, whether it was
boy or cow or sheep, whatever the case may be, was set apart,
sanctified for special use by God himself. Exodus 1312 later
in that same chapter, you should devote to the Lord, the first
offspring of every womb And the first offspring of every beast
that you own males belong to the Lord. And then the commandment
was repeated. First, it’s given, and then it’s
repeated in Exodus 34. The first offspring from every
womb belongs to me. And it goes on and on again,
repeating this very commandment. Now, as the Levitical law develops,
those firstborn were essentially drafted into the ministry. They
would be the priest. They would be the Levitical priest.
They would be servants before the Lord. And the only way to
get out of it was to pay five shekels. And so there was this whole big
process that the service itself or the ceremony was called the
redemption of the firstborn, where you could buy your son
out of that particular service. But it was an honor to have him
in there. And so many would just present their child in that fashion. The whole situation was reconstituted
in the Book of Numbers for the Levitical priesthood. The firstborn
were drafted into service as it were. Here’s the interesting thing. Here’s the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Joseph and Mary are taking him up and they are presenting
him to the Lord for service. But I want you to remember who
this is. This isn’t just a boy. It’s not just a boy in a cradle. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ, the
creator of the universe, the mediator between God and man,
the Messiah himself, who would one day pay our penalty on the
cross. This isn’t just anybody being
presented before the Lord. I want you to just get this image.
Imagine the next day, Tuesday, right? This family decides to go up. They’re going to present their
child to the Lord for service. And we want our little son to
go to seminary. We want him to serve the Lord. And it’s a noble endeavor. But
can you imagine following in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus
Christ himself, the king of kings, the great high priest, the one
that would go almost every ministry now is completely unnecessary
because of what Christ accomplished. Every endeavor of the priest
from this point forward is just going through the motion. Because
Jesus Christ, the high priest, is going to complete it all.
This is the conclusion, if you will, of dedication. When Jesus
Christ was dedicated, God doesn’t need any other servants. God
doesn’t need any other priests. God doesn’t need anybody else
in that regard to go as mediator between God and man. Jesus Christ
and his sacrifice His once and for all sacrifice of perfect
sinless Savior. Concluded it all. Finished it
all. As one pastor said, Joseph and
Mary brought Jesus to the temple to present Him to the Lord to
consecrate Him to the service of God. Now, Jesus Christ knew.
Jesus Christ knew before He took on flesh that this was going
to be part of the process. And he knew that his consecration
was the end, the conclusion of this dedicatory right. But there was a third. There’s
a third religious formality that is illuminated by the Lord Jesus
Christ, not only the ritual of circumcision that is the completion
of that right, not only the service of dedication, which is the conclusion
of that ritual. But the ceremony of purification,
we mentioned it already, the ceremony of purification. Look at verse 22. And when the
days for their purification, according to the law of Moses,
were completed, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present
him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord. Every
firstborn male that opens a womb should be called holy to the
Lord. and to offer a sacrifice. There’s a great division there,
isn’t it? Before the sentence is even completed. Verse 22 gives us the context
when the days for their purification, according to law, Moses were
completed, and then it gives us these two purpose statements.
To present it to the Lord. And to offer a sacrifice. That’s
why they went up two things. But they’re very distinct. To
present Christ very distinct from dealing with the purification
process, which was the law of Moses. It wasn’t just to present
Jesus. But it was to offer sacrifice.
Why? Why have all people, Mary had
been confronted face to face by an angel. And told she was
bearing the Messiah and she knew who he was. Why would Mary? Why would Joseph? go through
with this. Is this something that they came
up with that they were just so thankful that they have been
included on this whole program that we’re going to go offer
a sacrifice. Not at all. This is the law.
This was submitting themselves to the law. Leviticus twelve,
again, the Lord spoke to Moses, speak to the sons of Israel,
saying, when a woman gives birth and bears a male child, she shall
be unclean for seven days. We started that and it unfolds
from there, but it concludes with the completion of her purification.
When the days of her purification, we already laid that out at seven
plus thirty three, forty days for a son or for a daughter,
she shall bring the priest to the doorway, the tent of meeting
a one-year-old lamb for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon
or turtle dove for a sin offering. That was specific. In order for
you to be purified as a young woman after giving birth, you
were commanded to bring these things. Then he shall offer it before
the Lord. and she’ll make atonement for her. She should be cleansed
from the flow of her blood. This is the law of her who bears
a child, whether he’s male or female. But if she cannot afford
a lamb, then she’ll take two turtle doves or two pigeons,
one for a bird offering and the other for a sin offering. You
see, Mary didn’t come up with this idea. This wasn’t just magnanimity
on her part that she was unclean and The only way, you know, this
was the law of God that stipulated these things. God made it clear
to her as a member of the human race that she didn’t have a guilt
complex and overactive conscience. She knew the word of God and
the word of God said she was unclean. And this was how that
was absolved. And it really in the in the Old
Testament, you go back and look, there are essentially four ways
of becoming unclean in the matter of matter of food, or remember
all those dietary laws, the clove of the hoofs and all that. Animals,
fish, birds, insects, and then there were the functions of reproduction,
which were very explicit, and then the connection with leprosy,
where there was this whole big protocol that you had to follow
if you had leprosy and you had to go about crying out that you
were unclean as you came into a village. And then the whole
association with death or touching a dead body, a dead animal. There
were different ways and there were different laws for those
purification. We’re talking about this pertaining
to birth. And the mother specifically,
it’s not like she had to lock herself in the room. She just
couldn’t touch holy things. She couldn’t touch the tithe.
She couldn’t touch any offerings that were to be offered. She could go about her own home. She could begin to care for the
child as she was able. She would do, you know, things
in and around the home, but she couldn’t go to the temple. She
couldn’t enter the temple. She couldn’t participate in religious
ceremonies. Forty days. And now this is time
for Mary’s purification has nothing to do with the presentation of
Christ. And it mentions these two different
offerings. It mentions the burnt offering and it mentions the
sin offering, a burnt offering was a dedicatory offering that
was declared by God. To be pleasant, it was a sweet
aroma. In other words, it was acceptable,
pleasing to God. But these were. Acceptable, these
were only acceptable if expiatory offerings had already been made,
and that talks about the sin offering. The sin offering was
done on these occasions. It was done for ritual cleansing,
it was done after accidentally sinning, it was done after Jewish
festivals, Passover, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Booths, New Moon
Festival, the Festival of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement. There were
regular times when you were to bring a sin offering. It’s very
similar, if you will, the stopgap for us at the Lord’s table. To
give pause, to think, to not just wonder whether we’ve sinned,
but examine our hearts as to how and to bring the offerings
before the Lord. Well. There’s only one problem. Mary
Joseph were poor and the offering they mentioned was a rich person’s
offering, but the law has made provision for that. As one commentary
described it, the offering was a yearling lamb for a bird offering.
And a young pigeon or a turtle dove for a sin offering. They
were brought and the priest would take them and he would make atonement.
And then the woman would be purified. But because of the poverty of
the land, the law of Moses took in took that into account, and
it required only the young mother to bring two turtle doves. If
that’s all she could afford, two small little basically pigeons. And it was called the offering
of the poor, which really points back to what we’ve already said.
Christ born into this impoverished setting. As one pastor said,
poverty, it is manifest was our Lord’s portion upon Earth from
the days of his earliest infancy. And this is just another market.
But his parents couldn’t even afford a rich man’s sacrifice. He was nursed, tended as a babe
by a poor woman. He passed the first 30 years
of his life on earth under the roof of a poor man. He ate poor
man’s food. He wore poor man’s apparel and
worked in a poor man’s work and shared in all poor man’s troubles. Do you know what else Christ
did? Christ is the finality of purification. No woman ever has to go through
this again. No sinner has to go through this again. Because
the penalty has been paid. As the old confession says, the
Lord Jesus Christ did most willingly undertake and undergo the punishment
due us, which we should have borne and suffered. All we like
sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his
own way. Isaiah 53, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us
all to fall on him. And in that and in that alone
are we purified and not just occasionally, not just once to
be repeated here and then repeated again and repeated at the next
festival. As we can continue to stand and
we continue to bring forth more burnt offerings. It’s this one offering which
was good for all time that purifies not just a woman, following her
birth, but it purifies the center. Any center. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. In his coming. Brought about
a finality to this whole ritual of purification. Spurgeon said
it this way in the in one word, the great fact in which the Christian
hope rests is substitution. Jesus Christ dying for you and
I. The vicarious sacrifice of Christ
for the sinner, Christ suffering for the sinner, Christ being
made sin for us, that we might be made righteousness of God
in him. Christ offering up a true, proper
substitutionary sacrifice in the place of as many as the father
gave him who are recognized by their trusting in him. This is
the central fact of the gospel. Jesus Christ. came to offer justification
by faith, the purification paid for with his own blood. So, when we come to Luke chapter
2, verses 21 through 24, we don’t
come across meaningless, mundane, unimportant verses. We come across,
essentially, the introduction of the very gospel itself. that
the Lord Jesus Christ, in his official welcome as the Son of
Man, did away with these three formalities. He did away with
these religious observances. He completed circumcision. He
brought a conclusion to this rite of dedication, and he brought
finality to this ritual of purification. It’s only through Jesus Christ.
Did you bow before? Our Lord, our merciful King, we humble
ourselves in your presence. And Lord, as we get just a glimpse
and for us, it is just a glimpse. Of the overwhelming nature of
the law. We’ve never really known it in
our life, we knew that we were sinners, we discovered that purely
by your grace. But we’ve never known the overwhelming
nature of the law, even raised in some religious circles, that
he burdens upon man can hold nothing to what Judaism had done,
nothing to what God in his own design had done. in laying forth
this law, this law of God, even if it were just the Ten Commandments,
they were overwhelming. Who could ever live up to them
even a single day? Lord, that was the schoolmaster. That was the tutor that taught
us that we could never live up to the law. We can never do by
our own deeds, by our own efforts. We could never do anything in
order to earn salvation, and how foolish it is to try. An
echo of Paul’s thoughts to the Galatians. No wonder that in
Jesus’ coming, Jesus’ business of serving God as the Messiah
did not start when He was 33. Jesus’ business as the Messiah
started the moment he was born. And the moment he was born, he
began to put away all of these Old Testament rituals. He completed
this ritual of circumcision. He ended the others. He ended
the need for them. Not immediately, but eventually. And Lord God, we humble ourselves
before you that we stand on the other side. We stand on the side
where these have already been accomplished. And we rejoice
before you, those of us who know Christ, we thank you for sending
your son. The final. Piece of redemption. Lord, for any who do not know
him, for any who are here attempting in their goodness or in their
duty to live up to what you have laid out, thinking that we can
someday do enough. If God somehow grades on a curve,
we get in just barely. Lord, if there are any here with
that mindset, draw them to faith in Christ. as the only means
of salvation. Help them to give up this idea
of effort and doing good and to submit themselves to what
Christ has already accomplished on the cross. Lord, we thank
You and we praise You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.