The Gospel of Luke: Advent’s Administrative Arrival

Transcript

JRNT 68
10/27/24
The Gospel of Luke: Advent's Administrative Arrival
Luke 2:1-3
Jesse Randolph


We are back in the Gospel of Luke this morning. We've have had fall kickoff, we've had Biblical Blueprints, we've had various guest speakers and at long last we're back. It's been quite a hiatus getting back to Luke. If you want to talk about a long hiatus, though, we'll be back in Esther tonight. I think it's been almost six months, if you can believe that, since we've been in the book of Esther on Sunday evenings. But we'll be back in Luke, Luke's Gospel this morning, starting this multi-week study of Luke 2 and this should, Lord willing, take us right up until the time of Christmas.

Now by way of brief review in the 16 sermons that we've worked through in Luke 1 we saw that the focus of that first chapter of Luke's Gospel was the annunciation of the coming Messiah, the God/Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Luke began with the prologue. In fact, you can turn with me over to Luke 1, we'll get a running start with Luke 1, and in his prologue, he mentions these eyewitnesses, verse 2, these servants of the Word he has interviewed. He describes the account of the birth, life and death of Jesus which were handed down to us, he says, in verse 2. Then in verse 3 he mentions, “It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you, Theophilus, in orderly sequence.”

Luke then takes us into this account of Zechariah, this Israelite priest, and his wife Elizabeth, where we learn in verse 6 that they were both “walking blamelessly in all the commandments and righteous requirements of the Lord.” Then we learn in verse 7 that they had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years. That all changes, of course, when an angel of the Lord appears to Zechariah as he is performing his semi-annual priestly duties and services there at the temple in Jerusalem. When the angel appears to Zechariah, that angel Gabriel says to the aged priest in verse 13, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you will call his name John.” That would be John the Baptist, the forerunner to the Messiah, the one who would later proclaim in John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Zechariah, we know, doubted the angel's proclamation and because of his doubt and as a punishment he was rendered deaf and mute. He then goes home to the hill country, and he now communicates to his once barren wife Elizabeth about what this angel had told him. Elizabeth, despite her age, despite her former condition, conceives.

The scene then shifts in chapter 1 to Nazareth where the same angel, Gabriel, who had visited Zechariah, now visits this young virgin girl named Mary who was betrothed to a man named Joseph. The angel says to Mary in verse 31, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a Son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High and the Lord will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and there will be no end of His kingdom.” Mary asks the obvious question, “How will this be,” verse 34, “since I am a virgin?” To which the angel replies in verse 35, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason the holy child shall be called the Son of God.” Mary's response is equal parts profound and beautiful; her response is the one every one of us should have when we encounter the words of the living God in verse 38. “Mary said, Behold the slave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.” From there Mary visits her relative Elizabeth in the hill country and the two women rejoice over the favor each had been shown by God. Mary then praises the Lord in her Magnificat which is recorded in verses 46-55 and starts with these words, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” That means Mary needed a Savior, Mary isn't divine, Mary is not a mediator between God and man. Jesus is.

Next was the account of the birth of John the Baptist which runs from verses 57-66, and then after that Luke records Zechariah's prophecy over his newborn son, John, when he says this in verses 68-69, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He visited and accomplished redemption for His people and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant.” Zechariah also said this about John in verse 76. He says this directly to John about John, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord to make ready His ways, to give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to direct our feet into the way of peace.” Then we saw in verse 80 that this child, meaning John, the one who would later be called John the Baptist, continued to grow and to become strong in spirit and he lived in the desolate regions until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

So that's where we left off in mid-August when we were all still sweating through our shirts and cicadas were still chirping or doing whatever they do in the trees. Now all these weeks later with just 59 days until Christmas (but who is counting?), we're ready to shift over to Luke 2 where Luke takes us now from the annunciation of the Messiah to His arrival. Now as we're going to see over the next several Sunday mornings, Luke, detail-oriented historian that he is as he walks us through this account of the birth of Jesus, is going to do so through several different perspectives, including that of Joseph and Mary and certain shepherds and an angel and all the heavenly host and everyone else who witnessed and marveled at this event. While we're all used to those aspects of the birth of Jesus and those aspects of the birth of Jesus making their way into our pageantry and our fanfare surrounding our annual Christmas celebrations and the Christmas performances we watch and the carols we sing and the decorations we put out, what we are less used to seeing, what we are less familiar with is the perspective on Christ's birth that Luke is going to give us in the three verses we'll be in today.

Turn with me, if you would, to Luke 2:1-3. That will be our text for this morning and as we're going to see this is not a sentimentalized snow globe version of the Christmas birth account, instead this is a plain spoken matter-of-fact account of the birth of Jesus through the perspective of the ruling authorities of the day, namely the Roman government. In these three verses Luke will show us how God used the machinery of mere men to bring about His perfect plans and purposes in bringing in His eternally begotten Son into the world. Let's take a look at our text, Luke 2;1-3. God's Word reads, “Now it happened that in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus for a census to be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was going to be registered for the census, each to his own city.”

Now the entire account in Luke 2 that we'll be covering over the next several weeks is a remarkable section of Scripture. It's one that even the unbeliever, having watched A Charlie Brown Christmas or having sung Christmas carols as a kid or having attended a handful of candlelight Christmas Eve services has some degree of familiarity with angels and shepherds and a donkey and a manger and a virgin. We've all heard some version of the story; we've all become accustomed to it. What we're also accustomed to, though, when we come to this text is coming to this text with the wrong focus in mind and with the wrong questions in mind with our preconceived notions of 2024 Christmas celebrations in mind. We tend to come to this text with questions about dating. Right? When we come to this text, we tend to come to it with the did I get the date right about Christmas question. Do our modern-day celebrations of Jesus' birth line up with the actual date or time of year that our Lord was actually born? Was Jesus really born on December 25? Was He really born in winter? Does it snow in Israel? Did the shepherds wear snowshoes? We ask those kinds of questions. But when we actually engage with the text and understand its context and put ourselves in Luke's shoes rather than insisting that we stay in ours, what we see is that Luke here isn't focusing on assuring his audience that Jesus was born a certain date on our calendar. Luke didn't write what he wrote here to assure us that we have the date December 25th correct, rather Luke here as he writes is assuring his audience that Jesus was born in a certain place, namely the city of David, the city of Bethlehem.

As we come to Luke's account here of the birth of Jesus, we can't detach the birth narrative from its connection to the Davidic Promise. I read a couple of these examples already. Recall how the angel Gabriel says to Mary in chapter 1, “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.” Or recall how Zechariah, again as he prophesies over his son, John the Baptist, says, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He visited and accomplished redemption for His people and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from old.” See, these references make abundantly clear that the Messiah of Israel was going to come through the line of David. He would come offering salvation and redemption to His people and He would one day sit on David's throne in a future everlasting kingdom. The reality of Israel's Messiah coming through the line of David traces all the way back to II Samuel 7 and that covenant that God made with David through Nathan where he says in II Samuel 7:12, “I will raise up one of your seed after you who will come forth from your own body. And I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” After God made that covenant with David, what is known as the Davidic Covenant, several later Old Testament prophets reaffirmed that the Messiah would come through the line of David. We think of Isaiah 9, a familiar Christmas passage, which says, “there will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.” Then we go over to Jeremiah 23 which says in verse 5, “Behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch. And He will reign as king and prosper and do justice and righteousness in the land.” Then there is Psalm 132:11 which says, “Yahweh has sworn to David a truth from which He will not turn back, of the fruit of your body I will set upon your throne.” In other words what the people of Israel were expecting in the days leading up to Jesus' birth was a Messiah who would come from the line of David and sometimes we forget that, right? Sometimes as Gentiles we can reduce our thinking to Jesus came to take away my sin and to forgive my sin and to secure the hope of eternal life for me and amen to that. If we have trusted in Jesus' death and resurrection as the means by which we are saved, and yes, we are grateful recipients and beneficiaries of those very gospel truths. But let's not forget the fact that Jesus arrived here on earth in fulfillment of a promise, a promise made by God to David, that the Messiah of Israel would be coming through his line. The gospel by which we have been saved today in the church age, the gospel we preach sprang out of the soil of the Davidic Covenant.

In fact go with me if you would over to Romans, the book of Romans, Paul's Magnum Opus, as it is called, this magnificent letter that is all about the gospel of God, and in Romans 1, which we sometimes think of as this is the state of our degenerate world, which it is, but look what he says in Romans 1 and how he gets it started in Romans 1:1. Note the link here to the Davidic origins of the Messiah. Romans 1:1, “Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ called as an apostle, having been set apart for the gospel of God which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning His Son who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was designated as the Son of God and power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” But you see the Davidic link there in Romans 1:3. Years later Paul would again articulate this gospel message and link it to Jesus' Davidic origins in his final inspired letter in II Timothy 2:8 where he says, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David according to my gospel.”

So, Jesus' incarnation, His arrival on earth as the Messiah of Israel, as the Savior of the world was the culmination of promises made to and through David. One of the features of those promises, by the way, and this is important, and it links back to our text, had to do with where the Messiah would be born. That then links us to the prophecy given to Micah, announced through Micah back in Micah 5:2. Micah, by the way, was this prophet to the southern tribes of Judah. Micah 5:2, Micah is a prophet to the southern tribes of Judah, he is a prophet between 735 and 710 B.C., well over 700 years before the birth of Jesus; and he is moved by the Spirit to say these words in Micah 5:2, “But as for you Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.” That is God speaking to the people of Judah through the prophet Micah. Then he says, “His goings forth are from everlasting from the ancient days.” So, the people of Israel and Judah were experiencing a Messiah who would not only be mere man, but God. That's the reference here to everlasting from the ancient days and then here is the tie-in back to Luke's Gospel. The Jews were still expecting this Messiah who would be born in a specific place, namely Bethlehem, a town just south of Jerusalem, the town where David himself, David the king had been brought up when it went by its old name, Ephrathah.

So, getting back to our passage for this morning, Luke 2. Luke's entire purpose in writing what he wrote here was to establish how it was that Jesus came to be born in the town of Bethlehem when Joseph and Mary were from Nazareth. Luke wrote what he wrote here to show how it was that these young Nazarenes, Joseph and Mary, end up in Bethlehem some 90 miles south at just the right time for Mary to give birth to this supernaturally conceived child in direct fulfillment of Micah's prophecy. Now if there ever were a moment for Luke, this brilliant historian with this sharp mind, this keen intellect, this awareness of Scripture and history, this proven wordsmith, to introduce this subject of Jesus' birth with this literary flourish, this would be the time. You know, once upon a time in a land far, far away . . .” This would be that moment that you would expect a guy like Luke to open that way. But that's not what he does. Rather, what he does is he introduces this account of Jesus' birth in really ordinary language as he describes these behind-the-scenes workings of these various governmental players and how this led to Jesus being born in Bethlehem.

I've given this morning's sermon the title, Advent's Administrative Arrival and kind of comes out of ordinary circumstances that Luke announces and records this whole event. Our sermon has three points, each corresponding to the three verses that we'll be in this morning. First in verse 1 we're going to look at The Comprehensive Decree; second, we'll look at The Contested Date in verse 2; and then third we'll look at The Completed Duty in verse 3. The Comprehensive Decree, The Contested Date, The Completed Duty.

Let's start in verse 1 with The Comprehensive Decree. It says, “Now it happened that in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus for a census to be taken of all the inhabited earth.” Now those first few words, “Now it happened,” aren't communicating some form of chance or mystery the way that we think of the words “it happened.” You know, I just happened to be at the grocery when such and such an event took place. That's not what Luke is doing here. No, the words “Now it happened” are Luke's way of saying that what he is about to describe is not mythical, it's not legendary, but instead these events really happened. This is a historical fact; and he uses very similar construction just down the page in verse 6 where he says, “Now it happened that while they were there the days were fulfilled for her to give birth.” He does it again down in verse 15 where he says, “And it happened that when the angels had gone away from them into heaven the shepherds began saying to one another, Let us go to Bethlehem, then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.” In each of those instances, then, Luke isn't speaking in terms of mystery but rather in terms of history, historical development. He starts with these words, “Now it happened,” meaning this is this true account of what actually took place.

Look at this next detail he gives us, he says, “Now it happened that in those days a decree went out.” Which days? Well, his immediate referent is the whole scene of John the Baptist's birth back in Luke 1. We know that Jesus was born soon after the other, John and note here that the dating is quite imprecise when it comes to the birth of Jesus. Luke doesn't give us a year, he doesn't give us a month, he doesn't give us a day. He certainly doesn't say December 25th. But it's not like Luke never wrote precise dates or that he was incapable of capturing exact dates. In fact, look over at Luke 3, just over the page at the beginning of Luke 3. Look at the precision here. He says as he begins to introduce the ministry of John the Baptist, “Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” I mean, that's precise. Luke is able to zero in on an exact time frame for John the Baptist's initiation of his public ministry. But with regard to Jesus' birth back in Luke 2 there is a lot more imprecision. Here Luke simply records that it was “in those days” that the birth of our Lord took place. By the way, that might explain why later in Luke 3:23 Luke will record that the beginning of Jesus' ministry began when He was about 30 years of age. He doesn't say He was exactly 30 years old when His ministry began. He wasn't 30 years and 245 days old. It's not that kind of precision. He says He was about 30 years when He began His public ministry.

So, what are we to make of that, Luke's relative lack of precision related to the date of Jesus' birth? Well, actually I don't think we need to overthink it. All this means is that the Holy Spirit didn't reveal this detail to Luke as He moved Luke to write these words; and while some of us might not like that answer, that's the answer. God the Spirit moving through the pen of Luke chose to withhold the precise date of our Lord's birth from him and from us. Our job here as we come to this text is to keep the main thing, the main thing. The main thing here is not so much the precise date of Jesus' birth but the place of His birth. The date of His birth, again, might be of interest to us as we measure it against our conception of December 25th but the place of His birth is what was crucial for Luke to lay out here because it was the place of His birth that would be that necessary component of prophetic fulfillment.

Now look at what comes next. It says, “Now it happened that in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus for a census to be taken of all the inhabited earth.” What we're going to do next, for the next several minutes actually, is spend some time working through who Caesar Augustus was and the nature of the decree that he caused to have sent out. This will be like history class for us. If you are a history lover, bear down; if you are not a history lover, bear down. Here we go.

For starters, who was Caesar Augustus? Well, as we're going to see in a few moments that was his title, Caesar Augustus. His actual name, his given name was Gaius Octavius, and he was born on September 23rd of 63 B.C. He was the great-nephew of Julius Caesar; his mother was the daughter of Julius Caesar's sister. We remember how Caesar was eventually murdered, we remember the old Shakespeare story, et tu, Brute? Caesar is murdered and then when Caesar is murdered this trio of men rises to power in Rome. One man's name is Lepidus, one man's name is Marc Antony, and the third man is this man, Gaius Octavius. Now an interesting wrinkle here is that upon Julius Caesar's death, Octavius, Gaius Octavius, learned that in Caesar's will he had been named Caesar's son and heir. So, at that point now this son by name to Caesar, he changes his name from Gaius Octavius to Gaius Julius Caesar. So, we have this trio of people in power. Lepidus is the first one to fall, he falls from power around 36 B.C. That leaves Marc Antony and Gaius Julius Caesar in power over Rome. Well, Marc Antony, you might remember the story, famously leaves his wife, becomes infatuated with an Egyptian woman named Cleopatra and Gaius Julius Caesar takes advantage of Antony's distraction, his infatuation with Cleopatra, he defeats Antony at the battle of Actium in 31 B.C. and soon thereafter both Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide. That leaves Gaius Julius Caesar, formerly Gaius Octavius, as solely in power in Rome and in the year 27 B.C. the Roman Senate officially gives him the title Caesar Augustus, which means “most majestic ruler,” or “most highly revered ruler.” This man now called Caesar Augustus would go on to reign over the Roman Empire for 41 years, from 27 B.C. to 14 A.D., which spans that period of time in which our Lord was born in Bethlehem.

Now when Caesar Augustus dies, he is succeeded by Tiberius. Tiberius was his stepson, and he is known as Tiberius Caesar. In fact, we just read of him across the page, over in Luke 3:1. It is Tiberius Caesar's reign that marks when John the Baptist's ministry began. Tiberius is the one we read about in the Gospel accounts recording various aspects of the earthly ministry of Jesus.

Now the story of Caesar Augustus is really a story, as you look at his reign in Rome, of two halves. During his climb to power, for instance in his battle with Marc Antony and others, he was known as being a ruthless warrior. But once in power he mellowed out, he chilled out significantly. He was tactful, he was strategic in his rulership over the Roman Empire. For instance, when he conquered foreign lands, he allowed those under his care now to retain a good amount of cultural autonomy. They were allowed to hold onto their customs, they were allowed to hold onto their religious convictions, which is why the Jews could do what they could do within the purview of the Roman Empire. He also brought in various aspects of morality into his rule, like he outlawed adultery in the Roman Empire during his reign. He brought about cultural advancement, he publicly endorsed and supported arts and literature. He was a master builder, not only of armies but of cities and buildings and temples and libraries and roads and aqueducts. In fact, Augustus himself boasted that, this is a quote from him, he had “built Rome in brick but left it in marble.” His era, his reign was known as a time of peace and prosperity in the Roman Empire. He instituted what is called the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome. He was known as a very benevolent ruler who earned the respect and the trust of his subjects. In fact, by the time that Luke writes his Gospel most in the Roman Empire were celebrating Augustus' birthday, September 23rd, as being such an important holiday that it became the new New Year in the Roman Empire. He was this remarkable man, and he was given much laud and honor and praise, and actually he reached god-like status. Remember, these are still pagans, and he reached this status of being like a god. In fact, archaeologists have discovered this inscription where Caesar Augustus is referred to this way, “Divine Augustus Caesar, son of a god, the benefactor and savior of the whole world.” That sounds like Someone we know. There has been another inscription where it is said that Caesar Augustus' birth marked the beginning of all good tidings for all the world.

Well, what Caesar Augustus was most known for, and this ties back directly to our study here of Luke, were his skills of administration and organization. He was a highly detail oriented and methodical ruler. It was during Caesar Augustus' reign that a comprehensive meticulous system of census taking developed within the Roman Empire. In fact, according to records that have been unearthed during his reign, like clockwork, a census was taken of the entire Roman Empire every 14 years. Not merely to gather population data the way that we think of censuses, but for the purpose of levying taxes. Once you knew where your people were, that's how you got them to pay the tax bill. By the way records have been discovered indicating that a census did take place in Augustus' reign and 14 years forward for hundreds of years. In fact this was a fun part of the study this week, there have been records found of a census taken in 230 A.D., then going back in time every 14 years: 216, 202, 188, 174, 160, 146, 132, 118, 104, 90, 76. 62, 48, 34, 20, 6 A.D. and then 14 years before that in 8 B.C. I bring all that up because I want you to hold those two dates, 6 A.D. and 8 B.C., in mind as we move on with the study.

Now think about this with me, if you would, for a moment. Of all that Caesar Augustus ever said or did, the speeches he gave, the cities he built, the arts he commissioned, you name it, there was only one detail that Luke, this able historian, saw fit to mention and that was this issue, and it is verse 1, of a decree. The Greek word there is dogma, it means an imperial edict or a public ordinance, or an administrative directive. The content of the decree, you see it there at the end of verse 1, was for a census to be taken. The word “census” means registration or recording of some sort and there were typically two reasons why a census or a registration would be taken in the Roman Empire. One would be for military service, to figure out where all the military-aged young men were. Then second was for, and I mentioned this earlier, taxation. Of course, for the Jews they were exempted from military service in this time so the whole purpose of this decree was for taxation. Joseph and Mary were called to go and record their name, their occupation, their property, any assets they had for the purpose of taxation, and it wasn't just the Jewish subjects, by the way, of the Roman Empire who had to participate in this census. You see it there in verse 1, the census was to be taken “of all the inhabited earth.” That could also be rendered all the known world, which from Rome's vantage point that was coextensive with the Roman Empire. This is a Roman Empire-wide decree.

So here is this man, this ruler, Caesar Augustus, who unwittingly found himself playing the central role in the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. He couldn't have known it but while his census was intended to further his control and to strengthen his rule over his reign, his territory, his sprawling empire, what he actually did was organize and orchestrate things in such a way that it brought about the fulfillment of the prophecy of Micah. It opened the door for Jesus, the son of Mary, the son of David, the Son of God to be born in just the right place and at just the right time, arriving just as predicted in this little village known as Bethlehem.

That brings us to the next part of the narrative in verse 2 where Luke, moved by the Holy Spirit, says this, “This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.” Here is our second point if you are taking notes, The Contested Date. Now a few moments ago I said, please file away a couple of dates in mind. Remember the dates? 6 A.D. and 8 B.C. Here is why, and this is going to get technical. I hope I can articulate this clearly and you are able to follow along and pick out the major ideas here. 8 B.C., which was one of Caesar Augustus' every 14-year census dates, the next one being in 6 A.D., 14 years later. So, since the context here is Jesus' birth, the question is, which of those two dates works for establishing when it was that Jesus was born there in Bethlehem. The answer is, it's complicated. Actually, a better word, the heading here is it's contested and that's all because of the mention here of a man named Quirinius. See, Luke is explicit here, he says that the census mentioned in verse 1, the census that was commissioned by Caesar Augustus the Roman emperor, was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Now the historical record is clear. The Jewish historian Josephus reports that in A.D. 6 the powers that be in Rome installed one of their own to be a governor in Syria and this man's name was Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, PSQ for short. They had this man become the governor of the province of Syria, which included the territory of Judea. This man, we'll just call him Quirinius now, ruled over Syria in this governor's role for a very short period of time, from 6 A.D. until 7 A.D. But in this short period of power and rulership that he had, he made a splash because as Josephus notes, he ordered that a census be carried out in the year 6 A.D. That would have been right in line with the broader decree by Augustus Caesar that that census be taken every 14 years. So Quirinius under Augustus does this census or issues this census in 6 A.D., that then leads to violent opposition, this is recorded in Josephus as well, and rebellion among the Jews in that province. This, by the way, is the same rebellion that Gamaliel mentions in Acts 5:37 where he says, “Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew people away after him.” That rebellion was in response to Quirinius' census.

Now getting back to our text here in Luke 2, one thing we need to consider as Luke here is recording those events leading up to Jesus' birth is whether Jesus' birth can be tied directly to that census, the census of 6 A.D. which means that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem in 6 A.D. or some other census. So, was He born in 6 A.D.? Well, we know that can't be so. Why? Because in Matthew's Gospel, specifically Matthew 2:1, we are told that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king. Herod there is Herod the Great, and the verifiable facts of history indicate that Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. and specifically in April of 4 B.C. What that means is that Herod died in April of 4 B.C., then Jesus could not have been born in 6 A.D. Instead, He had to have been born before 4 B.C., before Herod kicked the bucket.

Now if you are wondering, wasn't Jesus born in 1 A.D.? Isn't that why we have our calendar the way we have it set up? Aren't our A.D. and B.C. dates built around the fact that Jesus was born at a specific moment in history and haven't we captured that date perfectly? And don't B.C. dates always reflect before Christ events and don't A.D. dates always reflect after Christ events? No. That whole A.D., anno domini, B.C., before Christ calendaring system was pieced together by a Catholic monk named Dionysius around 525 A.D. The whole reason he did what he did with the calendar was to do away with the dominant calendar of his day, which was called the Diocletian calendar. The Diocletian calendar was based on the number of years that had elapsed since the emperor Diocletian, who by the way was a harsh persecutor of Christians, had come to power in Rome and he came to power in Rome right around the year 284 A.D. So, what Dionysius does in 525 is he replaces the start date of Diocletian's reign as being ground zero on the calendar with Jesus' birth. While Dionysius' efforts were noble, it is now widely recognized that his calculations were off by a couple of years and that Jesus was not born in 1 A.D. but rather somewhere around 6-4 B.C.

That's all well and good but now we have a potential problem on our hands because if Jesus was born between 6 and 4 B.C. and specifically before 4 B.C., before King Herod died, that doesn't line up with Quirinius being the governor of Syria as Luke records here in Luke 2:2, when we know that Quirinius was the governor of Syria in A.D. 6-7. So how do we resolve this? Carefully, carefully is how we resolve this. A number of different solutions have been proposed throughout the centuries, some responsible, some quite irresponsible. On one side of things you have the liberal scholars, the liberals of course are always open to questioning the veracity of Scripture and they've argued that this is just an error. A more radical articulation of that position is that Luke himself was in error, he just messed up. Well, of course that completely undermines and obliterates the doctrine of inerrancy because if Luke made a mistake that means that the Holy Spirit wasn't guiding him as he wrote. Because the Holy Spirit is God and God is a God of truth and God is a God who does not make mistakes, if Luke made a mistake, that means his writings weren't breathed out by God but instead were the writings of a mere man, a flawed man who might have gotten certain things wrong, which of course leads down that slippery slope of if Luke got that detail wrong what other details did he mess up.

Another less radical theory that has been floated around is that it wasn't Luke who got this information wrong, it might have just been some post-canon closing scribe who got the name wrong. He meant to write in the name of the actual governor of Syria at the time in which Jesus was born, and that man's name was Sentius Saturnius, but instead he accidentally wrote in the word Quirinius. But there is just no evidence of that, there is no textual, historical evidence of that. That is just speculation. Another theory that has been advanced is that Luke somehow conflated the census of Quirinius with the date of Herod the Great. The idea is these were two really major events and epic events, and Luke simply mixed them up. I'm not going to so disrespect Luke's scholarship or the Holy Spirit's work in him as to give that one any more credence.

Another argument that has been raised over the years is that here in verse 2, where it says, “this was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria,” that the word “first” should instead be translated “before.” So, it would be this was before the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Now if that were correct, by the way, that surely would give us a really nice and tidy solution. It would settle all the dating issues, it would allow us to say simply that Caesar Augustus issued his decree between 6 and 4 B.C. and that was, in fact, before Quirinius became governor of Syria in 6 A.D. As much as I'd like that to be our winner, the reality is the layout of this sentence, the grammar, the syntax of this sentence in the original Greek language doesn't allow for that interpretation. If we are going to go with that interpretation, that would be the classic case of bending the Bible to fit our own preloaded theological presuppositions.

So how are we to deal with this seemingly problematic textual issue? We have Jesus being born between 6 and 4 B.C. when this edict, this census went out, but then we have this problem of Quirinius not being governor until 6 A.D. What's the solution? The best solution I've been able to track down through research, through study, I spent all day Friday on this one, is to use a reference from U.S. Presidential history. You all know the name Grover Cleveland. I don't mean Grover Cleveland Alexander, he's a Hall of Fame pitcher from St. Paul, Nebraska, by the way. That is not who I am talking about, the pitcher. The President Grover Cleveland. Grover Cleveland was President of the United States from 1885-1889. Then there was a gap, and he was President for a second term from 1893-1897. So, he served two terms but there was a gap between them. Quirinius was like Grover Cleveland, he served two terms there in Syria. There was the later term, which would be the one mentioned by Josephus which ran from 6-7 A.D., where he was actually the chief ruler, the head honcho, in Syria. But then there was this earlier term, one which would have lined up directly with the dating of Jesus' birth between 6 and 4 B.C., and this, by the way, is not just some matter of speculation on my part, this can be shown historically. See, we do know from the historical record that Quirinius had this long, noteworthy political and military career. He was known as being an able administrator and a soldier and we have records of him as early as 12 B.C. moving up the ranks militarily and politically and in government in this very region, taking on more and more responsibility and rulership responsibilities in Syria and this is important. Though we don't have a record of Quirinius serving as the chief ruler in Syria back in the 6-4 B.C. time frame the ways that we would think of how a governor would rule, that actually doesn't matter because the word governor there that you see in Luke 2:2 is a non-technical term. It's not like a “capital G” governor necessarily. That doesn't mean that Quirinius, this word governor, it doesn't mean that he was the #1 man in Syria. The word has a much wider range of meaning than that. The word governor there means leader, ruler, person in authority. The historical record of Quirinius' life, his service fits that. Though he didn't officially grab the reins as the top guy in Syria, the way that we would think of a governor, until 6 A.D., he most certainly was governing in Syria and a governor in that sense in Syria between 6 and 4 B.C., during the very period that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Not only that, but there is also the fact that in 1764 near Rome this stone fragment was discovered. It's called the Lapis Tiburtinus and it contained an inscription in honor of this Roman official who it says governed in Syria on two different occasions during the reign of Augustus. His name isn't listed on this stone, but when you look at the details of his accomplishments, they line up very closely with what we know historically about this man Quirinius.

So in other words the archaeological evidence, the historical evidence, the grammatical evidence all point to Quirinius indeed being in this position of governing authority in Syria between 6 and 4 B.C., which line up with the timing of Jesus' birth, right around the time that Caesar Augustus' decree went out for a census to be taken of all the inhabited earth.

All right, take a breath, history class. We've concluded that the birth events recorded here in Luke 2 could not have taken place in 6 A.D., that second leg of Quirinius' governorship because by then King Herod was dead and Scripture records that Herod was alive when Jesus was born. So, remembering that Caesar Augustus had censuses happening every 14 years, we need to go back 14 years from 6 A.D. back to 8 B.C. as being the date that this census spoken of in our passage, Luke 2:1, was conducted. That leaves us with an 8 B.C. date, meaning Jesus was born in 8 B.C. Right? Wrong. Jesus could not have been born that early and here is why. I'll try to make this one short. If Jesus were born in 8 B.C. that would mean that the beginning of His ministry would be around the year 22 A.D. because again, Luke 3:23 says He was about 30 years of age when His public ministry began. That would mean that His first cleansing of the temple, which John records in John 2 and which took place about a year into His ministry, would have happened around 23 A.D. But here is the thing, a date of 23 A.D. for that first cleansing of the temple, that brings us into conflict with John 2:20 which tells us that the temple, construction of which began in 19 B.C. and which had been in process for 46 years—remember that line from Jesus, John 2:20, it took 46 years to build this sanctuary and you will raise it up in three days? Well, adding 46 years to 19 B.C. would put the first cleansing of the temple at 27 A.D. and then the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry at 26 A.D. Then you go back 30 years from that because He was about 30 years when His public ministry began, that would line up with the date of Jesus' birth being no earlier than 6 to 4 B.C., but not as far back as 8 B.C. That would be too early. So, it has to be between 6 and 4 B.C. is the main idea here.

So how do we resolve this issue, though, because the census was ordered by Caesar Augustus in 8 B.C., not 6 B.C. and not 4 B.C. Well, what seems to have happened is that though the decree for the census was issued by Caesar in 8 B.C. during this era of Quirinius being a governing authority or at least having a governing role in Syria, so the decree comes down in 8 B.C., what seems to have happened is that the Jews of the day under Augustus' rule and reign didn't start acting on the census until a couple of years had passed. We already know going back to the days of Samuel that the Jews had an aversion to censuses being taken so it is completely plausible if not likely that there was some foot-dragging happening before they executed on the order to take the census. That appears to be what actually happened. The census is ordered in 8 B.C., it's dragged out until somewhere between 6 and 4 B.C. to conduct the actual census. That puts us right in the time window in which Mary conceived with child and the very window in which she and Joseph traveled down to Bethlehem.

All that to say there are very good, solid explanations for what at first glance might appear to be problematic, or some would even say a discrepancy in Scripture. There are no discrepancies in Scripture. Going back to Psalm 19, “The law of the Lord is perfect,” or Jesus' own words in John 10:35 where He says, “the Scripture cannot be broken.” I hope what this deeper study this morning has shown us is that we can always approach the Scripture with the firm conviction that all of it, even the hard parts, all of it is absolutely true. Sometimes we just need to work a little harder to untie some of the knots.

That takes us now to verse 3 and our third point for this morning. Verse 3 says, “And everyone was going to be registered for the census, each to his own city.” Here is our third point, The Completed Duty. So, Caesar Augustus issues this decree, a decree whereby the census for purposes of taxation would be taken of all the inhabited earth, meaning the entire Roman Empire. The decree was issued while Quirinius was governor in Syria, meaning earlier in his career as a governing ruler authority in Syria between 6 and 4 B.C., and then here in verse 3 Luke, moved by the Holy Spirit, tells us that in compliance with that decree everyone was going to be registered for the census, each to his own city. Now when we think of a census, we might think of census takers coming to our door and polling us for pertinent information. I had an actual political candidate knock on my door this week and ask me for all my views on this or that and she didn't want to stay very long. But that's not what is happening here under Caesar Augustus. This is not like door knocking. Rather to register for the census people had to register not where they lived, where they present-day resided, but instead they had to register in the place where they were from, their ancestral town, their home of origin. That's what is meant here in verse 3 by the words “his own city.” Everyone was ordered to go to the city of their forefathers to be enrolled and registered for the census. As we're going to see next week when we get to verses 4-5, that's exactly what Joseph and Mary did. In fact, for a little preview let's look at verses 4-5. “And Joseph also went up from Galilee from the city of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary who was betrothed to him and was with child.” Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethlehem. Why? Well, in their immediate context to comply with the decree of Caesar Augustus, since Bethlehem was their own city, the city of their forefathers, the city of David. That's where they needed to go to register. But set against the broader context of what Luke is recording here in his Gospel, Joseph and Mary had to go to Bethlehem so that the prophecy of Micah concerning the birthplace of the Messiah would come to pass and be fulfilled. Remember those words, “But as for you Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth from Me to be ruler in Israel.”

See, all this had to happen to ensure that Jesus, though born to earthly parents who hailed from Nazareth, would actually be born in Bethlehem. All of this had to happen to ensure that all of God's prophetic plans for the arrival of His promised Messiah would come to their full fruition. What we've seen in this account is a familiar story, not only in terms of how it fits with the Christmas narrative, but also in terms of how it fits in with similar accounts of God working in and through pagan rulers all throughout the Scriptures. He does so, God does, not to approve their means or their methods but instead to bring about His own divine purposes. God takes pagan kings and pagan rulers no matter how orange their skin is or how annoying their cackle is, and He uses them as His own servant for His own purposes. He has been doing that now for centuries. He did it with Cyrus back in the Old Testament as He worked in Cyrus' decree which freed Israel to send them back to reestablish their nation after their period of captivity. He did that through Nebuchadnezzar who ended up doing exactly what God wanted him to do for God's own purposes. He does so here in our text as He moves the heart of Caesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor, to issue this decree involving this census as a way to get more tax revenue from his subjects. God is doing so now as He continues to direct all of history. Every king, every ruler, every president, every legislator, every election, every ballot initiative, it's all governed by His sovereign hand. Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of Yahweh, He turns it wherever He pleases.”

So, there we have it, Advent's Administrative Arrival, that series of events by which through emperors and governors and decrees the Lord Jesus came into this world in the city of Bethlehem. Next week we'll pick it up in verse 4 as we look at the Savior's arrival through the perspective of Joseph and Mary as they made their way to the city of David.

Let's pray. Father, thank You for this time of study this morning in Your Word. Thank You for its clarity, thank You for providing means and resources for us to study it, to study it intently, to study it with depth and to mine from it the eternal truths that You've seen fit to communicate, but also to do so with confidence that this is Your Word, that it is perfect, that it is not contradictory, that it does not err, that it will not lead us astray but rather it will lead us to truth because Thy Word is truth. God, we thank You for the perfect set of circumstances by which You sent Your Son the Lord Jesus into the world through decrees, through a census, through a Roman emperor, through a Syrian governor. There are so many details and intricacies of what was happening, but You sovereignly ordained every single one. God, that is a reminder for us even today as we stare down the barrel of election season, as we look ahead to who will be ruling this nation in the future, what ballot initiatives will or will not pass, as we think about who will fill what seats in our state legislature or our U.S. Congress, who will fill the Supreme Court of the federal or state governments. May we be encouraged, may we be strengthened, may we be fortified in our faith as we remember that You govern them all. You sovereignly place, You sovereignly ordain that all who rule in authority are there where they are because of You. You call us to submit to those authorities, to pray for those authorities, to be a light to this darkening world as we advance the message of the gospel. So, God, help us to be wise, help us to be informed by the Scriptures as we navigate what is ahead. Again, even in this account of Jesus' birth, there are governmental components to it, and we would be wise to heed those components, to understand the context there but also to understand how we are to interact with the governing rulers of the day. I pray that as we go to the Word, we will find that wisdom. God, we thank You for Your sovereignty, we thank You for Your Son, we thank You for Your Word. May it be the source of light and guidance for us each and every day. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.