The Lowly Birth of Jesus  pt.1		Lk.2:1-7	12-15-2002

1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to his own town to register. 

Scholars have puzzled over this verse, because it doesn’t seem to fit with what we know of history.

The critics have claimed:
(i)	there was no general census ordered by Augustus
(ii)	Quirinius became governor in 6 AD (over ten years after Jesus was born)
(iii)	the account, in requiring Joseph to report to Bethlehem, goes contrary to Roman census practice
(iv)	and is wrong in implying that Mary, too, needed to be present for the registration. 
And the reason this has been so mystifying to historians is the fact that normally Luke, whenever he comments on Roman history (which is often) is so extremely precise and accurate. 

In fact, there is a consensus among even secular historians that of all the history writers of ancient times, Luke is the most accurate, most precise, and most vindicated of all of them – including Pliny, Heroditus, Josephus, etc.
Even to secular scholars it just seems very odd that Luke would be that accurate all the way through Luke and Acts, and get it so far off in this one passage.

Those criticisms surfaced in the mid-1800s, but modern scholarship has made some interesting discoveries.

Regarding the last two, it turns out the critics were just wrong.  Archeologists have unearthed plenty of evidence that in a place like Palestine the most likely procedure for the census was exactly like Luke describes.

As for the issue of when Quirinius was governor, there are a couple of possibilities.  One is that he served an earlier term as a co-governor that is not recorded in any surviving document.  
We have found documents that give strong evidence that he had very high positions in the government prior to 6 AD.  The evidence is incomplete, but there is something there.

Another possibility is that Luke 2:2 should be translated This was the census that took place before Quirinius was governor of Syria. (WBC, Marshall) – so protos would be translated “before” instead of “first.”

The Greek in that verse is awkward no matter how we translate it, and that translation is very possible.  

And that would make sense.  It would also explain why Luke throws that comment in.  He mentions a census, but right away wants to let you know that it’s not the big, famous one under Quirinius – it was before that.

And regarding the problem of no Empire-wide census decree, it turns out that the decree Luke is talking about was not about a specific census, but a census policy that required all the various client kingdoms in the entire empire to carry out censuses on a regular basis.  

And we know that Augustus did set that in motion.  

Augustus was the first Emperor to establish an empire wide census and taxation, and that’s what Luke is talking about here.

So there is no necessary contradiction with what we know from other sources.  And Luke tends to be more reliable than the other sources we have anyway.

The only difficulty that remains is the fact that the census information we have from Rome shows that they took place every 14 years, and there was one in 6 AD.  

That would mean this one would have to have been in 9 BC, which seems a bit early for the birth of Jesus.

Dating Jesus’ Birth
So let’s explore that a little bit – when was Jesus born?

We only have records for the censuses from 6 AD on.  Starting in 6 AD it was every 14 years.  Prior to that, though, it seems to have been less regular (Keener).

What other information do we have that would help us date Jesus’ birth?

•	Obviously Herod the Great was still alive with Jesus was born, since he tried to kill Jesus.  Herod the Great died in April of 4 BC.  So the absolute latest Jesus could have been born was very early in the year 4 BC.

There has to be enough time for Jesus to be born, for the Magi to come later, for Herod to kill all the boys under 2, for Jesus’ family to flee down to Egypt, and then for them to be in Egypt a while before Herod dies in April of 4 BC.

For that reason, most scholars date Jesus’ birth in either 5 or 6 BC.

And that fits with the rest of what we know about Jesus’ age.

Luke 3:1-3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar-when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene- 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert. 

•	So Luke is very careful about dating the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry - in the fifteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius.  He then baptizes Jesus, and Jesus starts His public ministry.

Depending on which method Luke was using to count the first year of Tiberius’ reign, that would put the beginning of Jesus’ ministry around A. D. 27-28. 

Now turn to Jn.2.

Shortly after being baptized, during the first Passover of His public ministry, Jesus drove the people out of the Temple with a whip.

The Jewish authorities were outraged, and…John 2:18-20  Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"  19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."  20 The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?"

So they had been working on building the Temple for 46 years.  We know that project started around 20 BC, so that would place Jesus’ first Passover around 27 or so (again, depending on how they figured the first year of building).

At this point he was "about thirty years old" (Luke 3:23).  So if Jesus was born in 5 or 6 BC, He would have been 31 or 32 in AD 27 when He started His ministry.  That fits will all the data we have.

John mentions three Passovers during Jesus’ ministry, and possibly a fourth (John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55).   

So if Jesus was born in 6 BC, it may be that the census began in 9 BC, and didn’t reach Joseph and Mary’s area until 6 BC.  

Or perhaps the various rulers of the client kingdoms had some discretion as to when to begin, and because of various tensions in Palestine, Herod may have decided to wait a little while.  (Augustus was known for giving a lot of latitude to individual rulers).

Or maybe the rigid 14 year interval was not yet in place (we have no evidence at all that it was).

So it all fits.  Keep in mind - Luke isn’t trying to date the birth of Jesus here – he’s just explaining how Joseph and Mary happened to end up in Bethlehem.

But isn’t it amazing that in doing so he mentions things that can fit into what was recorded in secular histories, and the dates all match up with off the cuff remarks like “It took us 46 years to build this Temple” recorded in another gospel at another time.

****************************
The Significance of Bethlehem

I wanted to explain all that to you, because you will run in to critics who are still 150 years behind the times in scholarship, and they will try to tell you that this is an error in the Bible.

The point of significance that is of interest to us, thought, is that Caesar Augustus, the greatest of all the Emperors, completely unbeknownst to himself, issued a decree that brought about the fulfillment of messianic prophecy – the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem.

In order for you to appreciate that we have to take a moment to sort out the different kinds of messianic prophecies. 

The people who write the prophecy books tend to get carried away with finding prophecies about Jesus.  There are some people who see a prophecy about Jesus in every verse of the OT (illustrate by randomly flipping to a verse and making it messianic).

There are three valid ways of thinking about Jesus as the fulfillment of the OT.

1.	THEOLOGICAL FULFILLMENT
The important: the theological themes of the OT prefigure the work of the Messiah.

The OT teaches about the need for a substitutionary sacrifice in order for us to have forgiveness.

The OT teaches about the need for redemption.

The OT makes a whole lot of promises about restoration from the curse and from sin.  That restoration is the Messiah’s job.

The OT teaches about reconciliation between man and God.  Again – the Messiah’s job.  

When Jesus said He is the fulfillment of the law, His point was that all those grand theological doctrines taught in the OT are fulfilled in Him.

He’s the sacrifice for our sin, He’s the one who restores all things, He’s the one who redeems us and reconciles us to God, etc.

2.	DIRECT FULFILLMENT
There are intentional, specific statements about the coming Messiah.

These are statements that the writer intended to be about the Messiah, and the original readers would have understood as being about the Messiah.

3.	COINCIDENTAL FULFILLMENT
The word that Paul used for this kind is tupos (“type” or “pattern” or “illustration”).  In Ro.5:14 we read that Adam was a tupos of Christ.   

That is, there is one sense in which Adam was a pattern that illustrates what Jesus is like.  

Just as Adam’s sin effected the entire human race, so Jesus’ work on the cross effected the whole human race.

So the two are analogous in that way, so one can be used to illustrate the other.

So when you see something in the OT that was not specifically intended to address the issue of the Messiah directly, but that serves as a point of comparison that illustrates something about Jesus, that is a type or coincidental fulfillment. 

The way to tell if something is a coincidental fulfillment is if you can only see the point of comparison with hindsight after you already know about Jesus.

The coincidental fulfillments don’t teach us anything about Jesus.  You have to already know the information about Jesus before you can even see the point of comparison. 

So they are helpful for illustrating truth about Jesus, but they don’t teach about Jesus.

There are statements that were written about something other than the Messiah – they weren’t talking about the Messiah at all, but the wording that is used is especially fitting for describing or illustrating something we now know about Jesus.

Example: Abraham and Isaac

For example, let’s take the incident where Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac to God.

Is there a theological fulfillment? 

The principle taught in that passage is that someone with genuine faith is someone who trusts God so completely, that he will give up anything, he will obey any command, and will continue to believe God’s promises.

The theological fulfillment of the Messiah is that Jesus Christ has been revealed as the object of that faith.  

You trust and believe and obey Jesus Christ in the same way Abraham trusted Yahweh.

Is there a direct fulfillment?  No.  There is nothing in that passage that the original readers would see and say, “OK, I can add that to my list of expectations of what the Messiah will be like.” 

The Messiah is not mentioned, and there is nothing in the passage to lead the reader to believe that anything about the Messiah is intended.

What about the third kind?  Is there a coincidental fulfillment?  Lots of them!

Just as Abraham endured the agony of sacrificing his own son, so did God the Father.

Just as Isaac carried the wood that would be the means of his own death, so Jesus carried His own cross.

Just as Isaac was the son through whom the promise would come, so was Jesus. (that one is also a theological fulfillment).

************************

So when you read the prophecy books, they mix all those together and say, “Here’s a list of 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled.”

The problem is, if you try to use those to demonstrate to someone that the Bible is true, and you show them lots of examples of coincidental fulfillments, they aren’t going to be too impressed.

You could do the same thing with any book and any man.

So a lot of times people want to know, “What are the category 2 prophecies about Jesus?  What are the direct fulfillments – announcements that any objective reader would agree – ‘yep, that’s an announcement about the coming Messiah’?”

One prophecy that is definitely in that category is Micah 5:2. (TT)

Micah is in the middle of all those little, short prophets that end in “ah” at the end of the OT.
Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah. 

Micah is kind of like a miniature book of Isaiah.  It’s exactly the same message: “Jerusalem and Samaria, you are going to get it…”

“You are disobedient.  You are apostate.  You have turned away from God and will not repent, and so now devastation is coming.  Get ready for bloodshed.”    

But, also like Isaiah and the other prophets, Micah has a restoration message.

“You will be destroyed, but then restored.”

“Jerusalem will fall.  Your capital city Samaria will be smashed.  But let me tell you how deliverance is going to someday come…”

“You’re not going to believe this, but deliverance is going to come from itty bitty, teeny tiny little Bethlehem.”

Mic 5:1-
Marshal your troops, O city of troops, for a siege is laid against us. They will strike Israel's ruler on the cheek with a rod. 

They are going to humiliate your king and smack Him on the face with a rod.

2 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times (eternity)." 

There is no reasonable way to interpret that other than a prophecy announcing a supernatural being.

This leader who will come out of Bethlehem, His origins are from of old, from eternity."

If you try to say, “It just means his ancestry goes way back to ancient times” then you make the verse meaningless – everyone’s ancestry goes way back.

Both the Hebrew term for “from of old” and “from eternity” are used in Pr.8:22,23 to describe the eternity preceding the creation of the world – the time when wisdom existed before anything else was made.

So the restoration promise is, “Out of you, tiny little insignificant Bethlehem, will come that final ruler, the Great Davidic king who will restore the kingdom of Israel.  And He will be from eternity past.”

3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. 
4 He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.   5 And he will be their peace. 

Some people try to point to one of the Israelite kings who supposedly fulfilled this promise already – like maybe Zerubbabel.

But not only were none of those kings from eternity past, but there has never been a time when the King of Israel had a greatness that extended to the ends of the earth – this is a promise that is still future. 

8 The remnant of Jacob will be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among flocks of sheep, which mauls and mangles as it goes, and no one can rescue. 9 Your hand will be lifted up in triumph over your enemies, and all your foes will be destroyed. 

Those people who try to say the restoration promises to Israel have already been fulfilled – I would like to know when it was that all Israel’s enemies were destroyed.

The great promise of Micah 5 is that right at the time of Israel’s deepest degradation, the ruler in Israel will arise out of Bethlehem, and will not only secure deliverance from their enemies…

but raise them into a beneficent and yet dreaded domination over all nations, founding a kingdom of peace, and glorifying Israel into a holy nation.

That promise was not a minor, obscure little detail of end times prophecy.  This was Israel’s great hope.  

They looked for this like we look for the Second Coming. 

Not everyone in Jesus’ time was a Bible expert, but everyone knew the Messiah would come from Bethlehem.  

When the Magi came from the east wanting to know where the new King of the Jews had been born, Herod called the chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “

Oh that’s easy! 5 In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written: 6 "'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'" (Mt.2:4-6)

John 7:40-42
On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely this man is the Prophet." 
41 Others said, "He is the Christ." Still others asked, "How can the Christ come from Galilee? 42 Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?"

It was common knowledge that the Messiah would come out of Bethlehem.  And so it’s no accident that in the passage where Matthew describes Jesus’ birth, the word “Bethlehem” appears 5 times.

And Luke highlights it too.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.

It was crucial that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem, and God saw to it.

I hope you appreciate the wonder of the doctrine of providence.  

Jesus was born in the tiny, obscure little town where the Christ had to be born – not because Mary and Joseph put their heads together and said, “If we are going to have any shot at having the Messiah be one of our kids, we better move to Bethlehem.”

It wasn’t the conscious effort of any man.  It was through sheer providence.  God manipulated the political process of the Roman Empire to get this done.

Notice that Luke calls the Emperor by the titile “Caesar Augustus.” 

The term “Augustus” means “holy” or “revered.”  

Prior to this time was reserved only for the gods – not the Caesars.  But this Caesar was so great the Roman senate voted for the first time to give a Caesar the title “Augustus.”  

There are a few other ways Luke could have referred to this Caesar, but he chose the most exalted possible title – Caesar Augustus.  

The point is that the greatest ruler on earth is just a pawn in the hands of the King of heaven.  

God will move world-wide kingdoms just to fulfill one detail in His plan.

That detail is that the birthplace of the Messiah was to be Bethlehem.  

Piper: “God wields an empire to bless His children.”

Pr.21:1 says: "The king's heart is a watercourse in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He will." 

And if God will move world-kingdoms just to see to it that a birth takes place in the right city, what will He do regarding His other promises?

What world leader will He manipulate to see to it that all things work together for good for you who are called according to His purpose?

What government will He move to keep His promise that we will be conformed to the image of His Son?

What laws will He have enacted to make it certain that you will never be confronted with a temptation that is beyond what you can handle?

If He goes this far out of His way to see to it that Mary and Joseph were in the right village at the right time for prophecy to be fulfilled, what level of certainty does that guarantee regarding the rest of the promises of Micah 5?

If you think God’s plan is dependant in any way upon our get out the vote efforts, you need to re-read the historical literature in the Bible.

That’s one reason we obey the governing authorities.  The Bible calls us to be submissive to them – not just because it’s a good witness, but because they are God’s servants.

The promise of Micah 5 was fulfilled because this guy Joseph was willing to pay his taxes to Rome. 

He was rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar’s.  You have to wonder if that’s a principle that Joseph taught Jesus when He was a boy.

If you are under someone’s authority, don’t worry about the intelligence or competence of the one you are submissive to – only worry about the intelligence and competence of the One who controls that authority.

God will move heaven and earth just to situate you where He wants you.  

That’s a great comfort – even thought it often comes in the form of hardship.  

I’m sure it was a royal pain in the neck to have to take however many weeks off work, take a several-day journey each way, on foot (or at best riding an animal) about 200 miles total…

At a time when your wife is 9 months pregnant, and it’s not like there are hospitals all long the road going down there.

All that for what?  So you can register to pay a tax to the government that has defeated and occupied your country and is oppressing you?

I’m sure it was tough for a guy to have a good attitude about something like that.

Don’t think, because you experience terribly adversity, that somehow you are being bounced off the track of God’s plan for you.  It is the track.

It is not our prosperity God seeks but our holiness.

We always assume something is amiss if we are suffering.  And that’s the time when we tend to question Him the most. 

But it ought to be the time when we are most astonished and amazed at His trustworthiness.

Let me show you why – 

Imagine Joseph and Mary, after having been on the road for days, finally approaching the little town.

So they see the sign and get off the main road that goes down toward Hebron, and they begin to make the climb up toward Bethlehem.  

As they pass through the fields on the outside of the town, maybe they walked by where Rachel had been buried almost 2000 years prior. (Gn.48:7)

As they were walking along perhaps they wondered if they were walking through the very field where Ruth gleaned the fields of Boaz.

They see a shepherd boy watching his sheep, and they talk about how that must have been what David was like when he was a shepherd in this very place.

As the road got steep and they struggled to get up in their weary condition after traveling for so long, perhaps they wondered..

 “How on earth did David’s mighty men of valor break through the Philistine guard here and get to the well to bring David that drink of water he longed for from his home town?”

It was a town with a rich heritage up to David’s time.  After that it was basically forgotten.  

Nothing had really happened there for the last 1000 years – except for when they had the census of Ezra’s time and counted 123 men (Ez.2:21). 

6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 

Mary had never been through this before – probably hadn’t even been to Lamaze class. 

So she didn’t know exactly what to expect.  But soon after their arrival the pains started.

It’s not hard to imagine the tears of this girl in her early teens enduring all this in a stable with no anesthetic – or the humiliation, shame, frustration and fear of Joseph, who was powerless to do much of anything for her.

No doubt they had both known a lot of women who had died in childbirth.

7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.  She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

The wrapping in cloths was not for the purpose of clothing.  

It was a custom they had for trying to make sure the baby’s limbs grew straight.  They would wrap the arms and legs individually, to keep them from becoming crooked.  

The point is that they took the normal measures they knew about for the health of the baby.

If Mary and Joseph had lived today, they would have made sure to get baby Jesus His shots.

They knew it was God’s Son.  They knew it was the Messiah.  They knew He would be a great man who would restore the Kingdom of Israel.  They knew and fully believed all God’s promises…

But they still did what was in their power to care for Him.

The manger, as you know, was a feeding trough for the animals (although there is nothing in the text that indicates there were actually animals present).

The word translated inn is not the normal word for a inn. (pandocheion, to which the Good Samaritan took the robbery victim (10:34)  It’s a word that can refer to an inn or to a guestroom.

It’s only used two other times in the Bible (Mk.14:14, Lk.22:11), and both times it means “guestroom” and not “inn.”  (Jesus and His disciples had the Last Supper in the upper room, not the upper inn).

In fact, it’s questionable whether a little, out-of-the way town like Bethlehem would even have a commercial inn.

Either way the picture is of poverty and rejection.  There was no room for them in a normal room.  They had to stay in a stable.  

And if you are picturing a sanitized county fair stable freshly swept clean, you’re missing the point.  It was a stable with all the normal smells and flies dirty conditions of any stable.

It was wretched – scandalous that anyone should be born under those conditions.  The ground was hard and cold, the lighting was poor, there was no privacy…

Then into the trembling carpenter’s hands – clumsy with fear, came the Son of God – slippery and messy with blood…

…little tiny arms flailing around as falling through space – a perfect illustration of the free fall the Lord took from His glorious throne in heaven down to that dirty, smelly feed trough in ancient Bethlehem. 

As the poet said: “My mother groaned, my father wept.  Into the dangerous world I leapt.” (Hughes)

So there He lies.  From a human perspective we see that and think, “What chance does He have?  What chance does he have to even survive, much less have any kind of meaningful life?  They will never be able to send him to college.”

But contrary to what many Christians seem to think, it’s not college or money that gives a person a meaningful life – it’s obedience to the call of God.

Notice He’s called her firstborn.  In spite of what the Roman Catholic Church teaches Mary did have more children later (which is how Jesus ended up with brothers and sisters).

It’s interesting that Luke mentions that He is the firstborn.  Normally that brings to mind the fact that he would be the heir.

The picture here is that from a human point of view He is heir to nothing but poverty.  What is He going to inherit from these two?

They don’t even have enough power and influence to get a room for Him to be born in.

So as soon as the Savior arrived in this world, there was no room for Him.

Scripture doesn’t place blame on anyone.  We don’t know if the people were just cruel, or if Mary and Joseph didn’t make their need known to very many people.  All we know is that there was no room for them.

What rotten luck, right?  No place to stay.  Let me ask you something – why do you suppose there was no room?  By accident?  

Was God in heaven saying, “Hmmm – next time I’m going to have to think ahead.”?

Is the King of heaven who moves Caesar Augustus like a pawn, who wields the Roman empire at a whim, who sovereignly appoints circumstances and times and epochs for His purposes…is that God’s arm too short to arrange for a room in Bethlehem?  

Could God have kept a room open?  Yes.
And Jesus could have been born into a wealthy family. He could have turned stone into bread in the wilderness. He could have called 12 legions of angels to His aid at His arrest. 

He could have come down from the cross and saved Himself.  But none of that was God’s plan for Jesus. 

Suffering was His plan for Jesus.  

The fact that He has such awesome, universal power, and the fact that He could easily arrange for pleasant circumstances – the knowledge of that should cause us to really sit up and take notices when things don’t work out well from our perspective.

Because if God can so easily make things work whichever way He wants, and He truly loves us and it hurts Him to watch us suffer…then when adversity comes, the only explanation is that there must be some monumentally important reason for it.

It was the knowledge of that that motivated Jesus, even in the midst of incredible pain, to wholeheartedly embrace God’s plan of suffering for His life.

So if we are going to take up our cross and follow Him, our life may very well begin with a “No-Vacancy” sign in Bethlehem and end with spitting and flogging outside of Jerusalem. 

Jesus is the ultimate contrast to Caesar Augustus.  The reign of Augustus was the time when Caesar worship began.  Even over some of his own objections, the people began to give him the status of a god.

Caesar Augustus was a man who, in the eyes of the people, was to become a god.  Jesus was Almighty God from eternity past, and He was becoming a man.

When He was born there was no room for Him, as an adult He had no place to lay His head.  This world didn’t have room for Him.  The only room they found for Him was on the cross.

John 1:10-14
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. 
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 

Benediction: Lk 1:50-55  His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. 51He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. 54He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 55to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers."