Turn was the full recognition of the law of the Lord, while the person of Jesus is brought before us with all evidence as the great manifestation of God's grace. This surprises some. They are apt to set law and grace in contradiction to each other. Now for this there is no just reason. It is true neither of the person of Christ nor of His work, any more than of those that are Christ's. In no case does law suffer through the grace of God, but on the contrary, it never receives so important a testimony either to its authority or to its use as through grace. Indeed it is grace alone which accomplishes the law. Other people talk about it and employ it for their own importance; but in point of fact they weaken it, and even teach or allow in their doctrine that God mitigates it under the gospel, instead of maintaining all its real authority. This is very strikingly shown in our Lord's case, but it is equally true both in the cross and in Christianity. Hence in Rom. 3 we read that through faith “we establish the law,” because the believer rests upon the mighty work of Christ on the cross, which gave the most solemn sanction to the law that it ever received or could have. Faith beholds Jesus suffering the curse in all its depth and its bitterness; whereas, in the view I am opposing, God is conceived to depart from the rigor of the law in order to show mercy. The doctrine of the apostle shows, on the contrary, that Jesus underwent the extreme judgment of God for sin and bore all that God could display against our evil when imputed to Him. Therefore nothing but grace remains, so to speak, and becomes the portion of those who believe. Thus faith establishes the law, as legalism undermines it in order to let off the guilty. It is the same principle with the people of God. In Rom. 8 it is written, “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” It is not merely fulfilled in Him, but in the Christian; it was established in the cross and it is fulfilled in us “who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” The reason is because the new nature in the believer always loves the law of God and is subject to it, as nothing else is. This displays itself in the ways of the believer, in holiness, obedience, and love. For he that loves has fulfilled the law; as the apostle says elsewhere, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Hence we find that in the case of Christ who was the proper manifestation of God's grace, there was the fullest homage paid to the law; though personally His own title was above law, yet was He in grace made under law as truly as He was made of a woman, and this fittingly and righteously to accomplish redemption.
“And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.” The law was owned in Jerusalem; grace takes its place among the insignificant and despised and outcast and good-for-nothing in the eyes of men: indeed, not only in Galilee but in a place proverbially obscure even there—Nazareth. What a wonderful witness of the way of divine grace! People when they choose a place are apt to consider what pleases them most and will answer their interests best. What pleased God most and answered the interests of grace best was Nazareth. There His Son spent His earliest days. “And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.” How entirely independent of human culture, of anything that man could bring from without—this child, the Son of God, filled with wisdom; but as it is written, “the grace of God was upon him.”
“Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.” It is this, their yearly visit to Jerusalem, which accounts for their being at Bethlehem when the magi came up from the east. Certainly their arrival was not immediately after the Babe was born. It can hardly be doubted that it must have been on one of their regular subsequent visits, when they not only went up to Jerusalem, but, as we can understand, they turned aside to Bethlehem which had now more than ever the deepest interest in their eyes, as the birth-place of the Child that had been given them—the Messiah. On the occasion of this visit, at least a year after His birth, the Magi came up and found the young child with Mary His mother and presented unto Him their gifts. And this accounts for the fact that, when Herod found it out, he ordered the children to be killed from two years old and under. He would scarcely have done this, cruel a man as he was, had the child been just born; but because at least a year had passed or more, to make sure of his purpose, he orders all to be killed from two years old and under “according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.” This causes at first sight a difficulty, because the child is again seen in Bethlehem, whereas we are told that they lived at Nazareth. But there is really nothing to perplex the weakest believer. Luke supplies the link by telling us of the annual return to Jerusalem, while Matthew gives us the additional scene of the visit of the magi to Bethlehem according to prophecy. Nothing would have been easier than, when they were at Jerusalem, to have turned southward to Bethany—nothing more natural than that they should revisit the scene of the most important event in their lives. Indeed never had anything in interest approached the birth of Jesus since the world began. It was to be eclipsed, or at the least outshone by the greater and altogether incomparable work of His cross. But this was not yet come.
We are next given to see that, when He was twelve years old, a remarkable illustration of His youthful days takes place. “When they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions.” (Ver. 43, 45, 46.) A more attractive sight morally there is nowhere even in God's word. Just at the ago when there is apt to be neither the simplicity of the child nor the exercised good sense of the man, we find Jesus thus engaged. Others of like age were, no doubt, bent upon their play, or the indulgence of curiosity in such a city, frittering away the most valuable time, that never can return, before the bustle of human life begins and the great struggle in which so many lose themselves continually. But Jesus was found lowly, and at the same time filled with wisdom, using the golden opportunity, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them (a proof of His humility), and asking them questions, a proof of His interest in the scriptures. It was not enough that the Lord wakened His ear morning by morning to hear as the learned: it was not enough that He gave Him the tongue of the learned that He might know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. But here it is the ear and tongue of the learner in the use of the means at the command of any child in Israel. However taught of God He might be immediately, here He was none the less sitting in the midst of the doctors of Jerusalem, both hearing them and asking them questions. It was not teaching them, though perfectly competent and personally entitled to do so as the Son of God. No doubt His very questions were most instructive, such as never had been heard in this world before. Still, this beautiful picture displays the perfect propriety of the child Jesus. For though He was God, He was man; and not only man, but in this special stage of His manhood, as a youth, He shows all deference to those who were older than Himself. Had He acted upon right, He was the Lord of that temple, He might have taken up the word of Malachi, which bore witness to His coming there in power and glory. He might have claimed as Jehovah “suddenly [to] come to his temple: and who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” But no. He, the Master, is found there as the disciple of the word of God, as one that does not for Himself dispense with, but, on the contrary, would seek the profit of that word which was in the lips of these doctors. It was, after all, His Father's word: so He hears them and asks them questions. “And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.” Thus His questions led to the manifestation of divine truth; so yet more His answers, as it is evident from this that they also put questions to Him.
And when His parents “saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?” Thus from early youth our Lord had the consciousness of being the Son of God above all earthly claims. But exactly as grace acknowledges the law, so the eternal Son acknowledges His human place as the child of Mary. He asserted and proved that He was really the Son of the Father in His own consciousness and that consequently He must be about His Father's business. It was not open to, or possible for, Him to set aside His Father's will. This was the first object before His heart. But spite of all this devotedness as Son of God, spite of His parents not understanding what He said, He comes down with them “to Nazareth and was subject unto them,” while His mother keeps all these sayings, little understood, in her heart.
“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” Thus we have this fresh notice of the Lord's growth outwardly as well as inwardly. How can we reconcile such intimations with His being God Himself, though man? Most evidently He was always perfect, but then He was the perfect babe, and the perfect youth, as we shall also find Him to be in due time the perfect man. At any given moment He was absolutely perfect, and yet He grew. He advanced from a babe to a youth and from a youth to a man. And so it was, that, as He grew up, the perfection was in exact harmony with His growth, and proved itself to be so both to God and man. If the immaculate and holy Babe was precious in the sight of God, yet more as youth, and most of all the developed maturity of a man.
It is thus therefore that, while all was perfect and always so, still that perfection admitted of progress; “and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” But all this, we may observe, is in precise accordance with the spirit and design of our evangelist, and in fact found in this gospel alone.