A Historic Birth #1

And that's why we dwell on these historical things for just a moment, that we would have a heart of reverence toward God's Word that is reflected even in the way that we try to understand the history of God's Word, that it refers to.

We bow before this Word. The birth of Christ, which we celebrate this time of year, is about a lot more than Christmas trees, gifts, and lots of great food. It's about an event grounded in history, the coming of an actual Savior in a real way. And on this edition of The Truth Pulpit, Pastor Don Green will help you better appreciate its significance. Hi again, I'm Bill Wright, and we're continuing our series, The Most Blessed Birth, with part one of a message titled, A Historic Birth. And Don, what do you want us to come away with? Well, Bill, I think the thing that I would have everyone come away with from this broadcast is the importance of the historical facts of the birth of Christ.

This was a real baby that was born to a real mother in real time and space. And it shows forth the uniqueness of Christianity. It's not a philosophy, not a moral code. It is truth that is based on things that happened in real history. We'll explore it together today if you'll stay with us on The Truth Pulpit.

Thank you, Don. And friend, let's get started right now in The Truth Pulpit. Beloved, every time that we come to Scripture, and every time we speak about the Lord Jesus Christ, it is imperative for you. It is imperative for the well-being of your soul. It is imperative for your spiritual confidence and your trust in the things that are revealed in the Bible to realize that they are accurate, that they are true, that they conform to what really actually happened. Luke says from the very beginning that that was his purpose in writing. And unlike some, perhaps in our day, who treat spiritual truth and the truth of Scripture in a haphazard way without real regard for defending it or proclaiming it, Luke said that his intention was to write something accurate and that it wasn't simply a matter of historical curiosity to him, that he did it for his readers so that you would know with certainty that what you are reading is the exact way that it happened. So we have the privilege some 2,000 years later to be able to read an account of the time when God became flesh in the form of a baby in Bethlehem and to know exactly what happened. We are not left in a fog of history that covers it up and makes it opaque to us as if we can't know what really happened.

We utterly reject those scholars and writers which would diminish the historical accuracy of the Scripture. We gladly stand against them and oppose them because we believe what God has said in his Word and we trust it. And not only that, it's not just that we have a Word from God on written page in front of us, beloved. It is certified to us by the testimony of the Holy Spirit to our hearts that what we are reading is true. And so we are in a position of great privilege to remember the greatest event that has ever happened in the course of the universe when God stepped down from heaven to walk on earth and to have the privilege of remembering and understanding why he did that. That he did it because men and women, boys and girls like you and me, were sinful, separated from him under judgment and in desperate danger of eternal perdition. And that what we read about here is not simply a story of a baby being born. What we read about is the profound outworking of an eternal plan of God to send his own son into the world to save sinners like you and me from that very perdition of which we were most deserving. Isn't it a wonderful thing to be gathered together as believers on Christmas Day? To be able to remember things like this and to know that we're hearing and seeing the truth laid out as God has recorded for us in the Scriptures?

And there's something about the nature of the narrative. There's something about the historical detail that Luke gives us that lends authenticity to it, that testifies to us that we're reading things that really happened and therefore our salvation is rooted in things that are real, not in our own imagination. Our salvation is based on that which actually has happened in time and space, not a story that someone told just to entertain people around the campfire. And for those of you that are here that are not in Christ, would you please, I beg you, would you please recognize today that God in his great mercy has brought you into this room so that you could hear the very words of truth that are necessary for the salvation of your soul, so that you would not go to hell when you die, so that you would be prepared to meet a holy God when the time of your departure from this life comes, that in his death and resurrection the Lord Jesus Christ has made a way for you to be clothed in perfect righteousness, not of your own but of his, that you might be reconciled to a holy God. These are the most wonderful words of all. These are the wonderful words of life from Scripture. This is the greatest thing that we could contemplate on a Christmas morning.

What a blessing it is for us to be able to contemplate it together. Well, Luke describes our Lord's birth and sets it in a very particular historical context. Look at Luke chapter 2 verse 1.

What we're going to do is just kind of walk through this historical narrative and just draw a couple of principles for our hearts at the end. Luke chapter 2 verse 1 says, Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. Now right from the beginning, perhaps if you're new to Scripture and you're perhaps used to only to modern writings, one thing might stand out to you is that Luke dates and places his story in a historical context not in the same way that we would today. We would date things by referring to a number on a calendar.

That wasn't the way that they did it in ancient days. Luke following the practice of the days established the time of our Lord's birth not by referring to a calendar but by referring to the reign of a political leader. And his reference is to Caesar Augustus, the Roman emperor from approximately 29 BC to AD 14, reigning for a period of over 40 years, one of the great Roman emperors of all time, and it was into that realm of his reign that our Lord Jesus Christ was born. And it's very interesting when you think about the historical nature of it, as I like to say, to put ourselves in the sandals of those who were there at the time, there would have been no greater man on the face of the earth than Caesar Augustus. But as you follow through the course of the history that followed, as you follow the revelation of God, a baby born in humble circumstances to displaced Jews was actually the greater one on the face of the earth at that time. Now today we realize the greatness of Christ.

We see the greatness of God incarnate, and by comparison to perspective that we have now, Christ is high and lofty and exalted. Caesar Augustus is not much more than a footnote in history, and yet at the time it was completely reversed. Now there is uncertainty regarding the precise year of Christ's birth. It's generally, it's kind of funny, you think of BC being before Christ, the birth of Christ historians are generally placing in the range of the year 6 to the year 4 BC.

That was because of some calendar changes and recalculations that were made in subsequent centuries after the dates were initially established. But we know that Christ was born, we know the general time frame based on a certain eclipse that occurred and by the fact that Herod died at a particular time, we're able to narrow the window of the time where Christ was born to about that particular time. There's a little bit of uncertainty about the year that he was born. Let me say something about the day in which he was born as we're gathered here on December 25th. If, beloved, the year of Christ's birth is somewhat uncertain, not with the usual measure of precision that we might like, if the year is uncertain then it's not surprising to us as you study it more closely that the day of Christ's birth is also a little bit uncertain. One source says that of those that have tried to determine the day of Christ's birth, says that there are advocates for almost every month of the year to determine who make different cases for different months of the year in which our Lord may have been born. Now some, and I want to kind of maybe put your heart to rest on something that sometimes troubles people, some people speculate that December 25th comes from a Roman pagan holiday that was established in the third century. I'm not going to go into a lot of explanation about this. If that's something that you're interested in, I have a number of sources that I'd be happy to share with you.

Just email me and I'll be glad to let you know that and share those things with you. But what you need to know as you hear those stories, so that you're not overwhelmed by stuff that doesn't need to disturb your soul at all, there is actually even earlier Christian tradition that would attribute the December 25th date to the birth of Christ that precedes these Roman pagan holidays that some people like to whip up a storm over. And so what we need to realize is that there's a little bit of uncertainty on the exact dates on which things happened, but to realize this, that Scripture itself doesn't make a big deal about a precise year or a precise date. Scripture is doing something different, dating it by the historical method that was used at the time. For us, I think the best way for us to think about it is this.

December 25th is the date that we inherited from long history, and it's a good opportunity year by year for us to preach and to remember the birth of Christ without getting hung up on dates and numbers in unavoidable chronological uncertainty with the passage of such time. And so with those things said, with that little bit of disclaimer, we gladly return to the biblical text to see what God has given for us. Look back to Luke chapter 2, if you would. Luke tells us that at some point during the course of his reign, Caesar Augustus established a system of taking a census for the entire empire.

It was an advance in the operation and the administration of the empire, a census that would provide a basis for subsequent taxing and raising revenue for the empire. And Luke further specifies the timeframe of the census in verse 2, when he says this was the first census taken while Carinius was governor of Syria. And so Syria being another region in the area, a smaller subunit of the empire, and there was a time when critics accused Luke of historical inaccuracy in his reference to Carinius, saying that Carinius couldn't have been the governor at this time because he didn't come until later, until after this time. Now, in like manner, we're not going to go into this controversy except to say this.

And I say this, I say this simply to kind of give you some protection as you do maybe future reading or things that you have questioned in the past. We're not going to go into this controversy except that I want you to understand that the questions that people raise and that scholars attack Scripture with on these two verses of Scripture have been more than adequately answered. And sure, we could spend an hour going through a lot of dry history, in one sense dry, going through to establish the point, but I don't think that's necessary for today. There's reason to believe that Carinius served at two different times, and that perhaps Luke is referring to an earlier time than what the critics have in mind.

You could also take the language of Luke chapter 2 verse 2 to indicate that this sense is preceded, came first before Carinius was governor in Syria, whatever the case may be. My only point in even raising this and saying these brief statements to you is that if you ever come across those kinds of attacks on God's Word and start to wonder what's really going on here, you just need to know that many godly men over many years have answered these questions to more than a satisfactory conclusion. And so don't let the whole point of this is not really when did so-and-so reign at such-and-such a time. My point here this morning is to just give you a measure of protection, you might say, that when you read things for the first time that you've never heard before that make you question things that you didn't question before, just know that there are answers to these things that are there for the finding.

And if ever I have opportunity to share those things with you, you want me to share something with you, I'm delighted to do that for you to be able to pursue things at a depth that would satisfy your own heart. The point in understanding Luke's narrative, going back to his opening statement at the very start of the gospel, was that he wanted his readers to know with precision the truth about Christ that they had been taught. And understand this, oh please understand this, these kinds of things are just so very vital, basic fundamentals to understanding the Scripture. While it might seem odd to us here in the 21st century, it might seem weird to us to set time by referring to a political leader, you know, for us to say, you know, we don't talk that way. We wouldn't say, well you know, it was during the time of the 10th president of the United States, John Tyler, that such-and-such happened. We don't talk that way. We just say, well it was in 1842 Tyler was president, but that was the time when this happened. We don't do it that way.

We don't do it this way by referring to prior leaders. Here's the thing that you need to understand, and there's a point of understanding Scripture that's at stake here, and this is why I belabor the point a little bit. When Luke wrote his gospel, this would have made perfect sense to the people that received it. When Luke said Caesar Augustus and Carinius was governor of Caesar, his readers would have known instantly.

It would have placed the time instantly, and they say, okay yes, I'm perfectly oriented to what's happening. The fact that now 2,000 years removed, we're a little bit more distant, it's a little bit more hazy to us, doesn't say anything about Luke's accuracy or about the historical method with which he wrote. It says something about us that we don't have the information that they did, that we don't have the perspective we did, and so what do we do?

What do we do? You do what you should do every time you come before Scripture. You adopt a position of humility, and you say let this word teach me rather than sitting in judgment on it. That's how you approach the Bible, and that's why we dwell on these historical things for just a moment, that we would have a heart of reverence toward God's word that is reflected even in the way that we try to understand the history of God's word, that it refers to. We bow before this word.

We bow before the God who gave us this word, and we receive it as truth even if there are sometimes questions that we don't have full and complete answers to that we might like. Well, Caesar's census required extensive travel by the population. Look at verse 3 as Luke tells us and recounts the outworking of this census. He says everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. It would seem as though people went back to their ancestral homes even if that was a distance away from where they were presently living. This would have the effect of making it easier to group people by families. Those of you that have ever done any kind of any interest in genealogical research into the past of your family realize that when people move away from their homelands, it becomes more difficult to find them in subsequent records.

If, you know, you have a group of family that all lived in one area and then suddenly one guy moved away for reasons unknown to us now, hard to find that guy. And so it becomes much easier if the census requires everyone to go back to their home area where their family found its source and origin and thereby being able to more closely group people and account for where they came from. All makes perfect sense even if it's different than the way we do things today.

I'll say it again, beloved. There's just something really important you need to realize. There's a very real and difficult presupposition that you don't even think about when you come to God's Word. You come to God's Word thinking that you just assume that the way that you are used to things being done is either the way that they always have been done or that they always should be done.

In our days, the census is taken in a completely different fashion and we don't move. Well, that doesn't mean that they had to do it that way back then. That doesn't mean that they did do it that way back then. That doesn't mean that it was a bad way to do it back then.

The only reason we would think such things is because we're not recognizing the presuppositions and even a little bit of pride with which we say the way we do it is the best. So we put all of that aside and we just bow our knee before Scripture and say, what happened? Give us understanding, help us to know what happened, and not pollute our understanding of the Scripture by imposing our modern day thought and processes on simple things of administrative politics on the way that we read the Scripture. And so Luke says everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city.

You see, we're not just looking at the history of what happened, are we? This text gives us a great opportunity to think about the way we read God's Word and the way that we regard God's Word. If you regard and you revere the Word of God, you're going to want to read it and to know it. If you revere and regard the Word of God, what's going to happen is it's going to sink into your heart. You're going to learn from it.

It's going to shape you. Those of you who are not Christians, it will convert you because the Word of God is perfect converting the soul. Those of you who are Christians and love God's Word may be having your confidence strengthened in God's Word in this way.

The more that you humble yourself, the more that you read God's Word, the more that you study God's Word, the more it is going to shape you and change you and make you like Christ. Beloved, these are the most important things in the world. When all of your labors are done, when all of your families have come and gone, you raise your family, they scatter to the winds maybe, when the flower of health starts to fade and wither, you lose the use of your limbs or lose the use of your lips as just happened to me. Beloved, don't you understand, especially on a day like this, that everything that we give our lives to, everything that we give our hearts to in this life is ultimately passing? We cherish it, we love it, we thank God and we enjoy it all as a gift from God. Maybe we enjoy our work, we enjoy our families, we have great opportunities and relationships that the Lord has given us. But at the end of the day, beloved, you have to realize and remember that these things are passing, that this life is temporary and there will come time where it's your opportunity to exit stage right.

You know what's going to matter to you then? You know what the only thing that is going to be the anchor for your soul is going to be what God has revealed in His Word and how it is testified to the Lord Jesus Christ and how He saves people like you who believe in Him. And just as He passed through death into eternal life with His resurrection, so those who belong to Him, He will take and bring them safely through because they're united to Him in Christ. And so what we remember on Christmas Day and the coming of our Lord is that a transcendent God entered into time and space in a way that is going to enable us who believe in Him to transcend time and space and to return to heaven with Him. This is what we remember. And only when you have a settled confidence in God's Word are you anchored in these kinds of truths. That's why we take our time on these things. Well we'll pause there for today, but Pastor Don Green will bring you part two of his message, A Historic Birth, next time on The Truth Pulpit.

Be with us then. Meanwhile we invite you to visit our website, thetruthpulpit.com. There you can download podcasts or find out how to receive CD copies of Don's radio messages for your personal study library. And if you want to go even more in-depth, you'll also find the link Follow Don's Pulpit. That will take you to Don's full-length weekly sermons, not subject to the time editing we need for radio broadcasts. And by the way, if you'd like to learn more about service times at and directions to Truth Community Church, you'll find that info at our website as well. That's thetruthpulpit.com. Visit today. I'm Bill Wright and we'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit.