There is a great interval of time between Luke 1-2 and Luke 3. In the first two chapters we get the Lord in infancy and boyhood. In the third chapter He has traveled on to the age of 30 years. I ask, What sense are we to have of the Lord during that period of 18 years? What apprehension of Him is my soul to take? The answer is intimated in the closing verses of chapter 2, and the intimation is full of meaning. He was all that time under the law, growing up as an untainted sheaf the only untainted sheaf of human fruit. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” This was the proper fruit of fulfilling the law.
By and by He provoked much enmity. But suppose I fulfilled the law and loved my neighbor as myself: Should not I grow in favor with all men? So with the Lord.
There is nothing more interesting than this, and I invite you to consider it. One act of complacency waited on Him from the manger to the cross—perfect complacency in the mind of God. The complacency might change its character but not its quantity. There was not a single flaw in it from first till last. It is delightful to know that one such person has passed before the mind of God. He was equally perfect growing up in subjection to His parents as when the veil was rent.
Eighteen years have passed and now we find Him introduced to His present ministry. He has magnified God under the law, and now He comes forth to walk among men as the witness of grace a vessel about to display the grace of God to a ruined world.
J. G. Bellett (from Notes on the Gospel of Luke)