JESUS – HIS BIRTH AND CONCEPTION-  

Written By Lynne Dodds

His Birth Prophesied 333 Times       

The birth of Jesus was prophesied 333 times in the Bible, hundreds of years before He was born, but as many prophecies as there have been about His First Coming, there are more about His Second Coming. 

We have a very literal Saviour in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has fulfilled all biblical prophecies.  Therein lies our faith.  Fulfilled prophecy is proof of divine inspiration because the Scripture predictions of future events were uttered so long before the events transpired that no mere human sagacity or foresight could have anticipated them, and these predictions are so detailed, minute and specific, as to exclude the possibility that they were mere fortunate guesses.

Our faith is based on these fulfilments of prophecy and also on what was done to Jesus and about Him, not so much about what He did.    He did many miracles but even though they were spectacular, they still failed to convince many people of the day of the Truth.   

·        His conception,

·        His birth,

·        His death and

·        His resurrection are the physical facts upon which our faith is based.  Without these physical facts our faith would collapse.   They are the foundation for our faith.  He was conceived by the Holy Spirt, born of the Virgin Mary. 

No other birth in history is so widely celebrated as His birthday at Christmas.  It is the most known event of His life.    We celebrate it for weeks before and spend lots of time and money celebrating it but as amazing as His birth was, His conception was much more spectacular. The first miracle happened at His conception.  It was unique and the wonder of His story.

His  Conception        

The birth was miraculous but the real miracle of our Lord’s birth happened 9 months earlier, His conception, but ironically it means that His conception happened in December and probably 25 December.  We will discuss this discovery shortly.   We may be celebrating His conception instead.

What exactly happened in Mary’s womb?  We now know so much about the beginning of life so we can begin to ask what happened to her body. 

Was it a miracle? – that is a natural event with a supernatural cause?  Could there have been a natural virgin birth?  YES.   

There are instances in nature of virgin births known among plants and animals.   What happens?  The female egg is somehow stimulated to begin to divide without being fertilised and it continues to divide (komodo dragons have virgin births) until it has produced another individual.  There have been records of 6 human cases which were possible virgin births, -  the female ova had spontaneously without fertiliser begun to divide but in every case it produced a baby girl.  That is because every egg in the female body is female and it needs the male sperm to produce a male to change that female egg into a male foetus.  It cannot ever produce a little boy, but Mary had a little Boy.  It is absolutely impossible for females to produce male offspring on their own.    Mary does stand unique.  God made her pregnant and she bore a boy.

So what did God do?   There are 3 possibilities:

1.God created within her womb a fully fertilised egg from nothing.  He can create from nothing.   If that is the case, then Mary would not be the mother of Jesus. She would be a surrogate mother, no more than an incubator nursing that fertilised egg.  It would mean that He was fully hers.  He would not be a son of Abraham, a son of Adam, a son of David, but a totally new creature.  It would make Jesus more divine than human.  But rule this out.

2.God took one of Mary’s eggs and did some genetic modification to it. This theory says that all He needed to do was to change the X chromosome into a Y chromosome and that would have created a baby Boy.   If that is the case there is too much of Mary in the baby. The baby is virtually a clone of His mother, except that His sex is different.  Jesus would have been an identical twin of Mary and more human than divine, more son of man than son of God.  But rule this out as well.

3. The only remaining possibility is that God created within her body a male sperm with all the DNA of the Son of God in it, and that sperm fertilised Mary’s egg and produced Jesus, in which case Jesus would be equally divine and human.  He would be Son of Mary and Son of God.  He would be Son of man and Son of God - having a human mother and a divine Father, fully both.  Most heresies have denied these facts.  He was fully human and He was fully divine.  He was both and that is the full Christian truth.

Mary’s Genealogy   -  See Diagram of Genealogy of Jesus.  Both Mary and Joseph come from the House of David.

Luke 1:30-33

30  But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary,

    you have found favour with God.

31  You will be with child and give birth to a Son,

    and you are to give Him the name Jesus.

32  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

    The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David,

33  and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever;

    His kingdom will never end."

His Birth

As a human He had a beginning.  As a divine person He had no beginning.  It means that Jesus was both Creator and creature and if we deny either of these we miss the essential truth about our Jesus Christ.  He was the Creator and became a creature within His own creation.  He had created everything He used, therefore we have a problem. 

When we want to tell the story of Jesus, where do we begin? 

1.     Mark begins when He was 30. 

2.     Matthew’s gospel begins back at the time of Abraham, Son of Abraham.

3.     Luke begins with Adam and

4.     John begins “in the beginning He was already there”.

The real story begins in the beginning – Genesis 1  “in the beginning”  He was already there.  We have an amazing Saviour.  We can’t take in before that.

No other birth is so widely celebrated as His birth  -  Christmas.  This is the best known event of His life, 2000 years ago.  From the procedure aspect it was quite an ordinary birth. 

Before we look at the supernatural side of the story, we will trace the story through at the human level. 

Why has Christmas come what it is? 

History of Christmas    In the northern half of the world, in Europe, fertility cults were common, pagan religions, based on the idea of fertility and reproduction which is right at the heart of our natural life, the world of nature.  In the northern hemisphere there was an annual festival held on 25 December, long before Christ was born.  This festival celebrated the rebirth of the sun on which our whole life depended, crops etc.  The shortest day, (winter time) that is the death of the sun in a way, was 21^st December, so they waited a few days to make sure it had been reborn again and so celebrated the birth of the Roman world called the sun god, Mithraff, on 25^th December every year.  They celebrated with over eating, drinking and sexual activities.  It was a very indulgent festival.  They had songs, carols the sun being born again.  They had bonfires and they would cut down a big tree which they called a yule log and they would burn it.  They would celebrate it with evergreen trees because the deciduous trees would come back with the sun.  Most of what we celebrate at Christmas goes back to the pagan religion of the fertility festivals and we think it is Christian. 

The celebration lasted 12 days.  ‘ On the 12 days of Christmas my true love said to me.’  Every village elected one man to be lord of the festival and for 12 days he had the privilege of being able to sleep with any girl he liked in that community over that period.  It was practised long before Christ was born.

When the Pope sent the first missionary to England he landed in a town called Canterbury and converted many in that town, even the King, but when he reported back to the Pope, he said he was unable to take from them their mid-winter festival.  They were so fond of it that they didn’t want to stop it.  The Pope said ‘well bring it into the celebrations and baptise it into Christ,” so it has been a celebration that has been part of our Christian heritage ever since. ‘ If you can’t beat them, join them’ attitude was taken.  All that came into the Christian faith in England and became “Christ mass”, so instead of celebrating the birth of the sun,  ‘s u n’,   they were now to celebrate the birth of the Son  ‘ S O N’ of God and so it became known as Christ Mass and now it is called Christmas, so this was a Roman Catholic origin.    We are still doing it.    They brought the existing culture into Christmas to get them to come to the Cross.  Christmas is now a commercial opportunity and an overindulgence.  It goes back to that Pope many centuries ago.

Other additions to the Christmas story :    In Turkey there was a Bishop called Nicholas, he was a very good man, full of compassion for others.  In his diocese there was a poor man with three daughters, but they couldn’t get married because the man was too poor and he couldn’t provide a diary to marry them off.  The Bishop secretly put some gold coins in a bag and smuggled the gold into the cottage of this poor man.       So Bishop Nicholas became St Nicholas.  But they didn’t say Nicholas, they said Nicho ‘laus’.   He became known as Santa Claus, so that is the origin of Santa Claus. 

It was America who invented Father Christmas with his robes etc in red and white that has been added.   Ruddolf is a mystery, probably Scandinavia.

Christmas has become a mixture of truth and paganism. 

Real Date of Christ’s Birth    We should take Christ out of Christmas.  He was actually born end of September beginning of October, in the Feast of Tabernacles.    The Feast of Tabernacles is a prophecy about Christ coming to live with us – He came to tabernacle with us. 

Luke’s Gospel 1:5  -  John the Baptist’s father, Zachariah, went into the temple to pray and told God that he had never been presented with a child, and he was told his wife would bear a son.  When Elizabeth was six months pregnant, the same angel  who had spoken to her, spoke to Mary.   He told Mary to go and visit her cousin Elizabeth in her sixth month and Jesus was born 9 months later.  That is the total of 15 months.  If we knew when Zachariah went into the temple to pray, it could be 15 months later was Jesus’ birth. But we do know when he went into the temple.  We know which house of priests he belonged to and the houses of priests took two weeks in the temple in turn and his house was in the third month.  We know that from the Old Testament where the houses of the priests is listed from the Book of Chronicles.  So we know when he was there.   He was there 15 months before the Feast of Tabernacles.   And the 15 month period comes to the 7^th month of the next year, and that is when Jesus was born in the Feast of Tabernacles, and that is when the scriptures always predicted, that Jesus would be born at that time of the year.  Zachariah the Prophet says that. 

Now, let’s get to the story of the Birth.

Begin from the human side of the story.  The Bible is both a human and a divine book but when we separate out the human story it is not all that unusual.   The story starts with a young Jewish couple in their teens who got married in a hurry because of the baby coming.  They travelled a long way to get to Bethlehem.  Premarital pregnancy could have attracted a stoning penalty. 

An emperor ordained a new tax and every citizen had to be registered, so they had to be registered with their relatives in the place of Jerusalem, 70 miles away.  That is where Joseph was born. He couldn’t leave Mary at home as no one would look after her, especially in her late condition of pregnancy.  The ancestral home is full as so many people have travelled there to register for this new tax.  There were no rooms for them for renting, but there is a courtyard in the middle of the inn to provide water for the animals with animal troughs for the food.  In those days inns always had courtyards in the middle where they guests would keep their animals and feed and water them there.  If you couldn’t get a room you could bed down with the animals in the courtyard.  Joseph and Mary had no alternative but to bed down for the night with the animals out in the open air.   Mary had the Baby that night and she wrapped Him in clothes and laid him in the animal trough.  When a baby is born visitors come.  There is no record of any relatives coming to see this baby yet the town would have been full of their relatives.  However, the Baby does get two groups of visitors – the shepherds and the ‘three’ wise men.  Nearby shepherds came and they were the poorest people in those days.  Shepherds were despised -  they were the bottom of the social ladder.   Then high class men came from a long way away with gifts fit for a king.  One group was very poor and one group was very rich. 

The group of men from the wealthy group were both priests and government administrators.  They were called Magi, hence we get the word “magistrate”. The Magian religion was very close to the Jewish religion.  Each depended on the wisdom of the priesthood. 

These Magi were responsible for picking the next king when the king died.  They were the king makers.  It was this dual capacity that these Magi became the priestly cast of the Persian empire.  Daniel while he was in Babylon was the head of the Magi.  There is an assumption that there were three of these men, the Scriptures don’t actually mention the number, because there were three gifts, and so it is assumed that there were three men involved.  It could have been a group of them in possible a military force travelling on a spy mission.  There is a clue that there were quite a few as the whole town knew about their arrival.

They would have known about the prophecy in the scriptures:

Micah 5:2

² “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    though you are small among the clans^[a] 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.”

When they find Jesus, He is in a house, so it must be sometime after His birth.  The gifts were gold, frankincense and myrrh.  These valuable items were standard gifts to honour a king or deity in the ancient world:

·        Gold: Indicating His deity, gold as a precious metal fit His kingly nature

·        Frankincense: indicating His priesthood - as perfume or incense, and

·        Myrrh: indicating His burial :  as anointing oil, but this could have been viewed as a prophetic gift as myrrh was used to anoint a dead body ready for burial. Scholars think that these three were chosen for their special spiritual symbolism about Jesus himself—gold representing his kingship, frankincense a symbol of his priestly role, and myrrh a prefiguring of his death and embalming.

They  were knowledgeable about astrology and the stars etc and were alerted by the star, together with their scriptural knowledge of the coming of the Messiah with the heavens alerting the world.   In Numbers, a prophecy by Balaam, a prophet, whose donkey spoke to him, and he had predicted that the sceptre would arise in Judah and would be signalled by a star.

Numbers 24 is remarkable. It contains a series of prophecies uttered by Balaam as “the Spirit of God came upon him” (v. 2). He tells of a people (Israel) who will achieve victory and prosperity because of their relationship with the Almighty. He then looks to the distant future and amazingly declares.

“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel. And it shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of tumult”(v. 17, ASV).

Only Jews knew that prophecy and be looking for it, and when they saw a most unusual star and they had been waiting for the arrival of this Messiah.  So they went after it in Jerusalem expecting Him to be there but there was the star again leading them, so they followed the star and were not disappointed.  We know that they knew that a star would mark the birth of the King of the Jews.  This was supernatural intervention and faith – amazing combination.

God has appeared several times in the Bible hovering over the earth in some form:

·        Spirit hovered over the waters at the beginning in Genesis

·        In the desert as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night

Aside:   Jesus re-enacted Israel’s history, where the Israelites were 40 days in the wilderness of the desert, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness tempted by satan.  Moses was a ‘type’ of Jesus.

They thought the Baby was most likely to be born in Jerusalem, seeing it was to be a king.  When they arrived in Jerusalem they asked about the Baby so word got to Herod about this new born king.  Herod wanted to know from these Magi where He was born and asked the Magi to advise him of His whereabouts.  He wanted to kill Him as He was a threat to His kingdom because it was written that this Baby was to be a King of the Jews.   When the men did not advise Herod, Herod was furious so ordered the killing of every baby boy under 2 so there would have been a lot of His own relatives.  There was an almighty slaughter.  So His birth caused the death of thousands of babies leaving bereaved families.  Fortunately Joseph was warned by an angel so Joseph and Mary escaped from Herod into Egypt and only returned after Herod died to their own village in Nazareth.    It is easy to believe this part as it was quite normal and acceptable for belief.   

But this was a supernatural birth, and a supernatural conception.  Our faith is based on what was done to Jesus, either by God or man.  How much was missed out.  It is a very incomplete account of His life.  These facts are the foundation for our faith.

The Part of Angels

The angels are a real part of God’s creation and they played a part in this wonderful story.  We are a little lower than the angels.  Angels are the top creatures, we are second and animals third.  Sexual relations between those three groups is perverted and not allowed.   Angels having sexual relations with human women was the trouble before the flood and that is what brought in occultism and perverted sexual appetites and activities to the human race.  We are to stay within our status, and acknowledge that there are creatures above and below us.

·        Angels are more intelligent,

·        more attractive,

·        they are above us,

·        able to move better than we can. 

·        They play a crucial part in the story of our Lord’s birth and all the way through His life. 

·        They are everywhere. 

·        They were there in the wilderness when He was tempted, in the Garden of Gethsemene when He was in crisis. 

·        The only crisis they were not was at His death,

·        but there again at His resurrection and ascension.  

·        They are God’s messengers and were at every critical point of Jesus’ life except at His death. 

·        They were there at the beginning of the story with Gabriel who appeared to Mary and told her the most incredible thing that she had found favour with God and was to bear the Messiah.  It was amazing that she believed it.  She had a bit of a discussion with Gabriel, but He told her God will make you pregnant.  And she was told she would have a son.  He didn’t choose her because she was special.  She chose her and made her special.  The Catholics have made her too special and given too much attention, whereas the Protestants give too little attention to Mary. She disappeared after the birth of Jesus and was very little mentioned.  She retired into the fellowship of believers. 

·        The angels are a vital part of the story.  

·        How did those two groups of visitors hear about the baby?  The shepherds heard about it because the angels told them.  Angels were filling the sky, singing their heads off, and told the shepherds, and they told them where to go. 

Joseph must have been a wonderful man too.  He would have been shocked when he found Mary was pregnant, so he resolved to divorce her privately but the angel told him the circumstances in a dream.  Joseph believed this, which is amazing faith.  As soon as he woke up after the dream, he married her and took the blame of the pregnancy on himself.  God came again in a dream telling him to get Jesus out of harm’s way. 

Jesus Existed Long Before He was Born a Man

John wrote his gospel after knowing Jesus for 60 years.  What was he to call Jesus before He was born – called Him “Logos”.  He called Him “the Word”.  The Word was with God, and the Word was God.  Jesus was only called ‘Jesus’ after He began as Son of man.  John wrote in Ephesus in western Turkey.   His tomb is in Ephesus.  He knew Jesus better than anyone else.  John tells us the inside story.  He is different from the other three.  He chose the word “Logos” for Jesus.  There was a man who was a teacher called Heroclitus in John’s time in Ephesus who was training his students to study everything around them and try and work out why things happen.  He was the man who invented science and told them to observe everything in nature and try and find the reason why.  He called the reason why  ‘whole logos’ and now every branch of science is called something ending in “ology”.  Every branch of science, zoology, psychology, is trying to find the reason why they work as they do, so science is dedicated to find the “logos” and in choosing that word as the name of the pre-existent  Jesus, John is saying He is the supreme reason WHY. 

Astrology looks at the stars, geology look at the earth and science becomes more and more specialised and knows more and more about less and less.  Scientists don’t stop to ask why the whole of nature operates as it does.   Why is it all here?  Jesus is why it is all there.  God made it all for Jesus.  He is going to inherit it all and we along with Him will inherit it too.  The meek shall inherit the earth.  He is the reason “why”.

John went to Alexandria, across the water, where there was the greatest university which was basically Greek, based on Greek thinking and psychology. Just before the time of Jesus there was a Jewish philosopher called Filo in Alexandria who took up this idea of “logos’ as being involved in the creation and tended to make this ‘logos’  the agent of God in creation and said that God created the world by the Word.  So the word has an interesting story.

Jesus is the reason why everything happens as it does.  Jesus was only the name given to Him for His supreme task on earth.  Jesus, means “God saves”.

What John is saying is that Jesus existed long before He was born but He was not known as Jesus until He was the Son of God and Son of Man. 

These are very deep beliefs – we must know that Jesus is fully man and fully God. 

He was and still is the only human being who chose to be born.  None of us chose to be born, we didn’t choose our parents, or our social status to be born into, or the country etc.    Jesus chose very humble parents and in a very humble way and chose a humble life all the way.  He was equal with God and chose to be a man, a servant and He chose to die at the age of 33 for us.

Tell the example of the fish tank.   One fish was causing havoc in the fish tank and attacking all the other fish and stirring them up, sometimes killing them.  The children watching this were very upset and wanted to stop this.  Their father posed a question as to whether any of them would be prepared to go into the fish tank as a fish and help the situation.  They were horrified and would only do it if their father watched and picked them out again if they were in danger.  He said he would but there would be a problem, because from then on forever, they would have to remain as a fish. That horrified them even more.  Jesus didn’t become a man for 33 years and then go back to being God.  He is a man forever.  

He is a Man Forever

The real miracle of our Lord’s birth is that He became a man FOREVER, for the rest of eternity.  His is still a man.  He became one of us for the rest of eternity.  Jesus is still human, He is still a man.  Letter to Hebrews, He understands us as He was tempted like us. He is at the right hand of God and is above the angels and running the universe, and is described as our Pioneer, first man to get above the angels and sit at the right hand of God, having prepared the way so we can do the same in time.  Our destiny will be above the angels.  We will sit with Christ in heavenly places.  He’s a high priest in heaven.  We have a human being at the right hand of God and who is above all the angels. 

In John 1 “in the beginning was the Word” – that tells us about His eternity.  “the word was face to face with God” -  that tells us about His personality.   A personal relationship with God. “and the Word was God”  -  tells us of His deity, and a little further down the chapter the Word comes up again and now John says “and the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us”.  Incarnation means to come into flesh. 

What kind of flesh did Jesus enter?:

1.Physical flesh, flesh like ours.    Jesus had to empty His bladder and bowels every day. He adopted our flesh, He would be hungry, thirst, and tired just like us. 

2. Jewish flesh.  Jesus was and is and always will be Jewish and circumcised on the 8^th day.  He would have been dark skinned and dark eyes.  He had a Jewish nose.  Any anti-semitism is a gigantic denial of His Jewish flesh.

3. Male flesh.   Pontius Pilate said “behold the Man”.   God is the Father, not the mother.  He is the King of the universe.  He is called King of kings and Lord of lords.  He was a normal male.

4. Sinful flesh.  The Bible says that.  Paul says in Romans 8  “born in the likeness of sinful flesh”  Philippians 2 “He was born in the likeness of man”  - not just the appearance, but in the likeness of man.  That means that Jesus was tempted from the inside in His flesh like any man.  It means that Jesus has fought all our battles and He has conquered all.  He inherited sinful flesh from Mary and gained victory over that.  Thank you Jesus for doing all that for us.

It was a voluntary act to be born a man, not for a short period, but forever. 

Now we must grasp the deepest truth of all in His conception.  It was not just that He was bringing divinity into humanity, (if you have seen Me, then you have seen the Father) but the other side of it we tend to neglect – He took humanity into divinity.  For the first time part of God was human.  That is the revolution that happened when Jesus was conceived.  Our humanity was taken into divinity. God is now partly human.  One of the three Persons of the Godhead is human now, just like us.  It is incredible to think of Him like that.

Why was He willing to do all this for the whole universe?  Why was the Creator willing to become a creature?

1.                        To bring God to us

2.                        To bring us to God

So we could know that God was one of us and bring us to Him so that we may be His adopted sons and daughters into His family for ever and ever.

His Dedication and Consecration to God and Confirmation for Mary and Joseph

Not long after His birth they took Him two miles to the temple to be dedicated and circumcised and it was here that they meet two people – a woman prophetess called Mary and another man called Simeon, both of whom recognised the Saviour and had been awaiting Him.

Luke 2:21-38

[21] On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.

[22] When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord [23] (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord"), [24] and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons."

[25] Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts on the very day that Mary and Joseph were there. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon knew at once this was the Child he had been waiting to see.  He took Him in his arms and praised God, saying:

[29] "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace.
[30] For my eyes have seen your salvation, [31] which you have prepared in the sight of all people, [32] a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."

[33] The child's father and mother marvelled at what was said about him. [34] Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

[36] There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, [37] and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. [38] Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

As clear as it may seem, we sometimes forget that Jesus was born into a very Jewish family which kept all the Jewish laws blamelessly. In our attempt to universalize Jesus, we must not make the mistake of isolating him from his cultural context. As the Apostle Paul observes: "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law..." (Galatians 4:4-5). In this passage we get a glimpse of three Jewish ceremonies:

·         Circumcision, performed on the eighth day, for all male children

·         Purification from childbirth for Mary, 40 days after her son's birth, and

·         Consecration of the firstborn, in recognition that the firstborn son belongs to the Lord.

Jesus' Circumcision and Naming (2:21)

·         "On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived." (2:21)

·         We caught a glimpse of John the Baptist's circumcision ceremony in 1:59-66. The Jewish ceremony of circumcision on the eighth day after birth represents placing the sign of the Covenant upon each male child who becomes part of the nation (Genesis 17:11; Leviticus 12:3). At both John's and Jesus' circumcisions, naming is mentioned.

·         Circumcision may have been performed by the village rabbi.

Mary's Purification after Childbirth (2:22, 24)

·         After childbirth, mothers were considered ceremonially unclean for a period of time. The Law reads:

·         "A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over... When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering.
If she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean." (Leviticus 12:2-6, 8)

Presentation of the Firstborn (2:22-23)

·         The third ceremony mentioned in this passage is the redemption of the firstborn.

·         "When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, 'Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord')..." (2:22-23)

·         To understand this ceremony we need a little background. The early Hebrews believed that the firstborn male of humans and animals belonged to God (Exodus 13:1)

Simeon Waiting for the Holy Spirit's Promise (2:25-26)

·         Simeon has been anticipating this day in the temple for some time.

·         "He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ." (2:25-26)

·         The Holy Spirit nudges Simeon, and Simeon is attuned to the voice of the Spirit.  "Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying...." (2:27-28)

·         Simeon's Prophetic Praise (2:29-33)

·         "Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

·         'Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.'

·         Simon's Prophecy to Mary (2:34-35)

·         "Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: 'This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.'" (2:34-35)

·         Simeon now blesses the Holy Family.

Simeon's prophecy to Mary has four elements:

• "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel." How people respond to Jesus and his message will determine their destiny. Many of Jesus' contemporaries receive his message and are saved, but the religious community, by and large, can't bring themselves to believe that Jesus can be God's Messiah. Jesus becomes "a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall" (Isaiah 8:14; 28:16; Luke 20:17-18; Romans 9:33; 1 Peter 2:6-8).

• "and to be a sign that will be spoken against." Jesus is God's sign to his people, but he is rejected. "Spoken against" is the Greek verbantilego, "speak against, contradict someone, oppose, refuse."[18]

• "so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.""Thoughts" is the Greek verb dialogismos, "content of reasoning or conclusion reached through use of reason, thought, opinion, reasoning, design."[19] Here it seems to be used in a negative sense. Those who stumble at Jesus, who reject him and oppose his message, will finally be shown up for what they are. "Revealed" is the Greek verb apokolupto (from which we get our English word "apocalypse"). It means, "to cause something to be fully known, reveal, disclose, bring to light, make fully known" (appearing here and at Matthew 10:26 with a judicial connotation.[20] Jesus himself is to be the judge, sitting on the judgment seat of the Messiah: "This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ" (Romans 2:16; cf. Acts 17:31; 2 Corinthians 5:10).

• "And a sword will pierce your own soul too." Though the Holy Spirit, Simeon can see the deep anguish that Mary will feel as her son is rejected by the nation's leaders and ultimately crucified.

The Prophetess Anna (2:36-37)

Simeon recognizes Jesus as the Messiah, but so does an 84-year-old woman, a pious fixture in the Woman's Court of the Temple.

"There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying." (2:36-37)

·         "Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem." (2:38)

·         We don't hear the words of her prophecy, but it seems, like Simeon's, to consist of (1) inspired thanksgiving and (2) speaking about the child to other believing people who are present. 

We will end this lesson with the wonderful thought that Jesus is still a human and He is sitting on the right hand of God the Father             ......................interceding for us

  

Ten prophecies from the Old Testament, fulfilled in the coming of Jesus:

1.  Jesus will come from the line of Abraham. 

                Prophecy: Genesis 12:3. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:1.

2.  Jesus’ mother will be a virgin. 

                Prophecy: Isaiah 7:14. Fulfilled:Matthew 1:18–23.

3.Jesus will be a descendent of Isaac and Jacob.                                         

Prophecy: Genesis 17:19 and Numbers 24:17. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:2.

4.Jesus will be born in the town Bethlehem. 

               Prophecy: Micah 5:2. Fulfilled: Luke 2:1–7.

5.Jesus will be called out of Egypt. 

Prophecy: Hosea 11:1. Fulfilled:Matthew 2:13–15.

6.Jesus will be a member of the tribe of Judah.

Prophecy: Genesis 49:10. Fulfilled: Luke 3:33. 

7. Jesus will enter the temple. This is important because the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 and was never rebuilt. 

Prophecy: Malachi 3:1. Fulfilled: Luke 2:25–27.

8. Jesus will be from the lineage of King David. 

Prophecy: Jeremiah 23:5. Fulfilled: Matthew 1:6.

9. Jesus’ birth will be accompanied with great suffering and sorrow.

Prophecy: Jeremiah 31:15. Fulfilled: Matthew 2:16.

10. Jesus will live a perfect life, die by crucifixion, resurrect from death, ascend into heaven, and sit at the right hand of God.

Prophecies: Psalm 22:16; Psalm 16:10; Isaiah 53:10–11; Psalm 68:18; Psalm 110:1. Fulfilled: 1 Peter 2:21–22; Luke 23:33; Acts 2:25–32; Acts 1:9; Hebrews 1:3.