Welcome to Truth for Life where we are beginning a new series called Good News, Great Joy. We'll be taking a close look at the purpose and truth behind the celebration of Christmas.
It's not just a fun holiday to brighten the dark winter nights. Today, Alistair Begg helps us consider the historical evidence for the birth of Jesus and we begin in Luke's Gospel. Luke chapter 2 verse 1. In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
Luke recognizes that there was a second, more famous registration which is referenced in the Acts of the Apostles, and by this means he's distinguishing between that and this. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.
And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. In the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. Thanks be to God for his Word.
Father, with our Bibles open before us, help us, we earnestly pray that in familiar territory that we might meet with you afresh in the person of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Luke records the birth of Jesus in just seven verses. What a staggering thought, isn't it? That such a momentous event should be covered in such an economical fashion. In fact, it's not only the brevity of the announcement that has struck me again this week. It is the fact that there is nothing particularly remarkable about it. It is remarkable in that it is so unremarkable that what is striking is that there is nothing particularly striking. It seems to be reported in a manner that is devoid of certainly histrionics or any of the attendant manifestations that we might expect if somebody were concocting a story. The delivery of the baby was entirely normal. There was nothing particularly interesting about it.
That's why there is nothing mentioned about it. It was the conception of the baby that was out of the ordinary. And the juxtaposition between the natural and the supernatural, which is there in verses 6 and 7 and in the background to it, will be the focus of our study this evening. But for this morning, we're only going to look at the first five verses. In these verses, Luke—who was the companion, of course, of Paul on his journeys—provides us with observations that cover the political, the social, the geographical, and the historical.
I'm going to spend most of the time on the historical, but let's just note for a moment what he says to us in setting the story of Jesus in its political context. This brief introduction is, says Michael Wilcox, a little jewel of economic storytelling. Some of us take an awful long time to say very little. It is a wonderful gift to be able to say a lot in relatively short order.
And for those of you who cherish brevity, Luke is your man. Well, first of all, politically, look at what we're told. In those days—that's a time frame—a decree went out from Caesar Augustus. Caesar Augustus, as many of us know from school, ruled the Roman Empire for a period of some forty-four years. From approximately 30 BC to 14 AD, he was in charge. And by all accounts, he did a terrific job. His organizational skills established the communities of Rome in a period of peace, which extended beyond his rule but certainly began within it, giving to us what we refer to in historical terms as the Pax Romana, the Roman peace which, interestingly, was largely contributing to the way in which Christianity developed in the early years after the resurrection of Jesus. If you like, Augustus was responsible for setting up the thoroughfares down which the good news would travel. It is also a strange providence that the way in which the arrival of the Messiah would take place in Bethlehem—which, of course, is prophesied in Micah chapter 5, but you, Bethlehem, though you be least among the rulers of Israel, out of you will come forth who will be the ruler of my people Israel.
You will remember that. You can find it in your Bible when you look for it. So the promise of God, the prophecy of God, six hundred years before the arrival of Jesus, was that when the Messiah came, he would be born in Bethlehem. How were we going to get the right person in Bethlehem at the right time? Well, interestingly, Caesar Augustus was the man. It's not that God used him as a pawn on the chessboard. Caesar Augustus was Caesar Augustus. He decided it was time for a decree. The decree was such that everyone had to go. And in the course of events, that involved Joseph and Mary too.
The Jewish community was exempted from military service but was not exempted from the responsibilities of revenue for taxation. And Quirinius is identified here by Luke as the individual who was responsible for overseeing that registration process. Somebody had to do it, and Quirinius was the one appointed. Now, when you read this—and I hope you will pause on it and just look at it, it's really just the first two verses, isn't it?—we're struck by the fact that it really is quite mundane, isn't it?
It's not exactly the way you would expect the whole thing to unfold. After all, we're writing about the birth of the Messiah. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. King James' worship. And it all went, including Mary and Joseph. Well, you see, Luke does this. And it's important that we understand that he does. If you turn over a page to chapter 3, you will realize how committed he is to making it clear to his readers that this Jesus story, which is the story that he's telling, does not exist in a vacuum.
It is not something that is plucked out of space, as it were, and settled into time. But rather, the story that he tells concerning Jesus, because he's writing biography but not really only biography, that story, that biographical narrative, is set within a political framework. And he likes to do this. And in chapter 3, which, if you regard chapters 1 and 2 as his introduction to the gospel, then you could say that the whole thing really gets going in chapter 3.
And how does it get going? In the same way as chapter 2. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being the tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip and so on. Now, for those of us who did history at school, we'd probably look at this and say, Well, that's just what we used to do. We used to pad it up as best we could, because we didn't really know what we were going to say after we got through some of the facts. But that's not what he's doing at all. And I want to point that out to you as we proceed.
He is setting the story of Jesus, the narrative of Jesus, as having taken place in real time and in a real place. Politically. Secondly, socially.
Socially. This registration process wasn't optional. You will notice that Caesar Augustus wanted all of the world to be registered. He means there the whole Roman world, the world over which he had jurisdiction.
And what Caesar Augustus wants, Caesar Augustus gets, as verse 3 makes clear. And all went to be registered. I want everybody to be registered. We're all going to be registered, Caesar, just as you said. And so the picture is of households preparing for these journeys, and they're all going back to their place of their birth, to where they came from. That's the way they organized it. It's not that they were just showing up, as it were, at particular registration stations willy-nilly, but that the organizational strategy was that everybody would return to the place of their birth for the context out of which they had come, ethnically and sociologically.
It's a good plan. And consequently, it is in that context that we discover Mary and Joseph making their journey along with the others. Now, you will notice that it tells us here—and this is a little social note as well—that Joseph went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David Bethlehem, because he was of the house of lineage of David, and he was going to be registered with Mary his betrothed. His betrothed. We're not going to delay on this, but it's important to notice that the relationship that he enjoyed was not yet marriage in all of its fullness.
But it was certainly something more than our contemporary notions of being engaged. Betrothal at this time could only be ended by formal divorce proceedings. And part of the reason, presumably, for Joseph determining to take Mary with him on this occasion is in recognition of the fact that had he left her behind, she would have been absent his support when confronted by the angry glances glances and the cynical statements concerning the bump on her tummy. Because she was already expectant.
But Joseph had never slept with her. And also, it would make sense for him to keep her in close proximity in order that, as a dutiful lover and friend and husband-to-be, he would care for her at the time of her birth. There was no requirement for the ladies to go, in a very patriarchal society. It was only important that the head of the household went.
It's a bit like when you fly into the United States and you complete the immigration forms. You know that they say, Only one necessary for each family. So that one member of the family can complete it for everybody else. So you put your name, you put your date of birth, you give your information, you give your passport number, and one of the first questions you're asked is, How many family members are traveling with you? And you speak on their behalf. That was the way it worked.
It was to Joseph that the responsibility would be so that the registration would take place as planned. And presumably they would have asked questions like your name, where are you from, your date of birth, do you have any children, what is your occupation, do you own property, and how many bathrooms do you have? And do you have a vacuum cleaner? No. That is to pitch the twenty-first century back into the first century. That's our contemporary census.
Do you have an outdoor fireplace? None of your business. But thanks for asking anyway. So, in other words, they were not standing back from the demands of the political and social context. The point, again, is that Luke is making it clear that if one had wanted to, one could have gone to the record of public registration and looked up the name of Joseph.
Joseph, from the house and lineage of David, looked up and discovered that he was betrothed to a lady, Mary, to look up and discover that his background was built in Bethlehem, although he had proceeded from Nazareth in order to engage in the registration. What's the point? In order that people could make it absolutely clear in their own minds that they were dealing with real people in a real place. Real people in a real place. Not imaginary people in a creative place.
Keep that thought in mind. He sets the context politically. He sets the context socially. He sets the context geographically, telling us that they have gone to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem. Those of us who know our Bibles will have certain thoughts immediately triggered.
Others of us won't have any thoughts triggered except the ones that I'm trying to trigger in your mind as I speak to you now, which may then trigger you to go and find out whether what I'm telling you is actually in the Bible, which would be a good exercise, especially on a cold afternoon like this, when you don't have the opportunity to listen to the string quartet. Bethlehem. Bethlehem was stirred at the arrival of a lady who had left with a husband and two sons. Her name was Naomi.
They had gone in search of bread from the town of Bread, because of the famine. She'd lost her husband. She lost both her sons.
With a triple bereavement, she returns with only one of her daughters-in-law, a bright girl called Ruth. And when they reemerged in Bethlehem—when you read the record there in that other wonderful short story, you discover that particularly the female population of Bethlehem was stirred up at the arrival of Naomi after this time. Bethlehem. The fields surrounding Bethlehem, where a shepherd boy, David, looked after his father's sheep. Bethlehem. The place where Samuel arrived, in obedience to God's Word, to look for a replacement for King Saul, who had blotted his copybook and had been sidelined by God.
Bethlehem, where Samuel asked Jesse, Bring your sons out. One of them's going to be the king. And they all came, none of them chosen.
Is there anyone else? Well, we got one more. But he just looks after the sheep.
Bring him in. And the suntanned, handsome, youngest member of the sons becomes the shepherd king of Israel. A thousand years have elapsed. And now, once again, in Bethlehem, presumably in that same surrounding property, in those same fields, there is to be a stirring all over again, as the skies are filled up with angelic visitation and as the skies echo to the songs of salvation. This is what Luke is telling us.
I say to you again that I think it's fairly routine. The details are in keeping with his stated purpose. The reason that he does this—let me remind you of it again—but this time turn you back a page rather than forward a page. If you turn back a page, you come to the opening verses of the gospel, verses 1–4, which is, incidentally, just one long sentence in Greek. It's an amazing sentence. It shows how skillful Luke is with language. We know that Luke was a physician.
And may I say it kindly? We know what physicians are like. At least the good ones. They do these case studies when you go and see them. They ask you all kinds of questions. Don't they?
Don't they? They say, Why do we have to do this? Give me this stuff. No, no, no, no, no, no.
We're not going to prescribe before we diagnose. We need to know who you are and what you are. Do you sleep? Yes. How much do you sleep? Not as much as I would like. Do you snore? Is it important? Yes, it is.
Do you keep your wife awake? Mind your own business. And so it goes on. Now, why do they do that?
Well, actually, it's very clever, isn't it? Because what they're actually going to do is finally put within the framework of all of that investigation their analysis of the presenting facts, and then their deduction on the strength of those facts, and then their diagnosis on the basis of that which they have gleaned. Luke brings that kind of mentality to his writing of this gospel.
That's what he's really doing. And when you look at this and we won't unpack it, you will see that he says that he has compiled this narrative—he says, I have compiled this narrative not on the basis of my ability to witness it with my own eyes, but on the basis of my ability to interview those who were eyewitnesses of these things. And what he discovered was that those who had become the preachers of this good news discovered that when they told the good news, people were changed by it. And Luke determined that if he took that same good news and he routes it down, then when people read what was written down about what had been preached back then, then other lives would be changed by it too.
And that is exactly what happens. That's why many of you are able to testify to the impact that the Bible has made in your life. How strange is this, that this ancient book is a book that not only do we seek to understand but a book that so clearly understands us? You see, Luke is not providing a philosophy or an idea or a theory or even a religion. He is providing, he says, an honest account of actual events. An honest account of actual events. There is nothing in the Gospel of Luke—indeed, there is nothing in the Gospels at all—of our contemporary fascination with vagueness and with simply possibilities.
This is an age in which it is kind of trendy to be seeking, but it's absolutely taboo to say that you were found. It's okay to have a concept, to have an idea, to have a construct, but the one thing that you mustn't do is say, I'm absolutely certain about this. Because certitude is the one thing that we need to stand out back from. Luke is not concerned. He says, the reason I'm writing this stuff down for you, Theophilus, and all the other Theophiluses and people like him, is in order that you might know with certainty the things that you've been taught.
You're not satisfied with anything less than that. You see, a Christian believer is certain about certain things. For a Christian believer to say that they are certain about certain things does not mean that they're certain about everything. It doesn't mean that they know everything about everything. It doesn't mean that they have settled every question that exists in the universe. It just means that they are certain about certain things. And the certain things about which Luke wants Theophilus to be certain concern the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of this character, Jesus of Nazareth. And all of this was taking place in real time. In other words, he is addressing history. Real people in a real place at a real time. We're looking at the historical evidence of the birth of Christ along with Alistair Begg on Truth for Life.
We'll hear more on the subject tomorrow. As followers of Jesus, our desire is to live each day in a way that brings glory to him. All of our daily activities and interactions, even those we might think of as routine or boring, can be acts of worship. We want to recommend to you today a book called Every Moment Holy Volume 3, The Work of the People. This is a book written to help ordinary people like us as we go about our workday inviting us to stop and give thanks and glory to the God who makes every minute of every day possible. When you think about your routine events like dropping off a child at school or heading to work or exercising, writing a letter, or working on a challenging project, every one of those activities is under God's providence and we're called to come before him in gratitude to seek his guidance and help. This third volume of the book Every Moment Holy presents more than 120 prayers you can pray during similarly routine events. It's designed to draw you close to God all day long and help you both acknowledge his goodness and see him in your times of need. Ask for your copy of the book Every Moment Holy Volume 3 when you donate to the Ministry of Truth for Life. Go to truthforlife.org slash donate. Thanks for listening. Did you know that the Bible teaches it's not natural to believe in Jesus? Tomorrow we'll find out why. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
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