At the same time, I must express my conviction that, while Luke says nothing but what is quite consistent with Matthew's history, he does not mean to give any note of time in the passage. The Spirit's object in Matthew was to show Christ's meeting the fulfillment of all that Jewish scriptures declared of a Jewish Christ, and such a one's rejection. In Luke's Gospel it was quite otherwise. He was showing a Christ who, connected with Adam by His human nature, though He sinlessly fulfilled all looked for in a Jew, opened the door of faith to Gentiles in spirit; who was, in a word, Son of man.
Hence, having shown Him duly accomplishing what the law required, this gospel at once transplants Him, neglecting all else, to the position in which all the Gospels place the Lord, as having given up the Jews, considered as attached to the temple and Jewish hopes as a nation, and laboring in despised Galilee (according to Isa. 8 and 9) in the gathering a remnant by faith. Even if it be chronologically exact, that it was at that moment He returned to Nazareth, as it well may be, still I should judge the object of the Spirit in Luke was not that exactitude, but the moral fact that He did accomplish legal requirements, but, that once done, took His place among the poor of the flock, far from Jerusalem. We find an analogous instance in what follows, in His coming up to Jerusalem at the passover, and being subject to Joseph and Mary, but, His true character coming out, though He was not yet to act upon it: He came to be a Nazarene; He came to be about His Father's business. Luke marks this distinctly before He enters on His public ministry, that it might be seen to be connected with His person, and not to depend merely upon His office. He was the Pastor of the poor of the flock in spirit and character. It belonged to Him. He was the Son of the Father, though He might abide God's time for showing it. This is just as much according to the tenor of Luke's Gospel, as what Matthew recounts is in accordance with the tenor of his. Luke 2:3939And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth. (Luke 2:39) contains the whole moral history of the place the Lord took in Israel. Of course Mr. N. is insensible to these things, because the intention of God in the scriptures is, by the position he has taken, wholly unknown to him.