Read Luke 2:1-22; Matthew 27:45-66; 28:1-10
These three scriptures, taken together, give us the birth, the death, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Ponder it one moment—the birth of the Son of God, the death of the Son of God, the resurrection of the Son of God.
Why this birth, this death, this resurrection? Because nothing could save you or me but this. Nothing! There was no possibility of man being redeemed and brought to God—saved, and delivered from eternal judgment—but by the wondrous means which these scriptures unfold.
I do not wonder that heaven goes into a perfect ecstasy the moment it is promulgated that man can be saved. And how can he be saved? Only by the coming down of the Saviour! And surely, dear reader, if God has been loving enough to provide a Saviour, What does He expect from the sinner? That the sinner shall have wisdom enough to avail himself of the Saviour God has provided. It is the grandest news that ever fell on mortal ears—a Saviour for ruined sinners!
Let the shepherds of Bethlehem show the way to the Saviour. They are the best illustration of good gospel listeners that I know. They are men who hear the gospel, receive it, embrace it, enjoy it, act upon it, tell their neighbors all about it, and then go home with hearts brimming over with praise and worship to God because of it!
Luke 2 opens with the birth of the Saviour.
Did you ever notice that God only tells the story of creation once, and in few words; but twice He tells, with every particular, the wondrous tale of the birth of His Son; and four times over the Holy Ghost records the death of the Saviour, and His resurrection.
Why is this so? Because it is of very little matter if you know about creation or not; but it is of great matter if you know about Him who is the Creator.
The death and resurrection of the Son of God is what alone avails to bring the sinner to God. On the actual knowledge of Him who was born, and Him who died, hangs the eternal salvation of your precious soul and mine.
It is important to see what comes out in the commencement of the chapter, for we live in infidel times. The Roman Emperor, in his pride and folly, wants to know how many subjects he reigns over, and not only so, but their nationality, and also their city; and so Joseph and his espoused wife Mary go up to Bethlehem, their native city, to be enrolled.
The pride of the Roman Emperor was the means God used for the fulfillment of the scripture, that the King of Israel, God’s Messiah, should be born in Bethlehem. (Micah 5:2.) See the manner of His birth: Joseph and Mary come up, and there is no room for them in the inn. “Oh,” you say, “that was a coincidence.” Ah, do you think so? Supposing Joseph had been a rich man, do you think there would have been room for him? I think so! But the world never did like the poor, and the Lord loved them intensely.
They generally make room for the rich in the hotels. The Lord comes as the poor man, though He comes into the world His own hands had made, content to be reputed the son of a carpenter.
He took His place down here at the outset as a poor man; God came into the world in this gracious way to win man’s heart. In grace He came, content to be cradled in one man’s manger, and buried in another man’s tomb.
Do you still say it was a coincidence that there was no room in the inn? Then I ask you—Is it a coincidence that there is no room for Christ in the heart of every unconverted man? There is room for friends; room for folly, for vanity; room for pleasure, but no room for Him!
Though there was no room for Christ in man’s world, He sends out the message that there is room for man in His world; that is, heaven! “Yet there is room.” Luke 14:22.
Look at these shepherds; they are at their business, and the Lord sends an angel to preach the gospel to them. Here is a message from heaven for sinners on earth; God visits them with a message for eternity. There are two lovely points in the way the message comes; not only it comes right down to the men where they were (God, as it were, interrupting them in their business to show them there is something better than their business, even the salvation of their souls), but there is more than this: they are sensible of the presence of God with the message— “the glory of the Lord shone round about them.” I covet that! The holy, solemn, searching sense of the presence of God Himself with the gospel message. God is there, God is dealing with those shepherds, and they are sore afraid, and rightly so; they are properly solemnized before God, and I maintain this is the first effect of the gospel; the sinner begins to feel he is in the presence of God, and that he is unfit for that presence.
But you will find, the moment the right kind of fear is produced in the soul, God comes in to remove the fear. The mark of the unregenerate man is this, “no fear of God before his eyes.” He sports with God’s grace, risking His terrible judgment. The first thing a soul knows when God is dealing with him is fear and trembling. A man sees the glory of God, and his own unfitness for it. Romans 3 gives us the unconverted man unfit for the glory of God; Romans 5 gives us the believer rejoicing in view of that glory, because he knows he is fit for it. The jailor of Philippi wakes up when the glory of the Lord comes in, and he cries out, “What must I do to be saved?” —he sees his own unfitness for that glory.
Repentance is the soul judging itself before God—owning it is, what God says it is, a totally lost sinner. It was to save the lost that Jesus came. When once I discover I am lost, I am glad to look outside myself for a deliverer, a Saviour. It is a beautiful thing to see a soul going down, and owning itself lost, and really anxious. Are you anxious, my friend? I have two distinct words from the Lord for anxious souls, “Fear not.”
“Fear not,” says the angel, “I have for you tonight the very news you need. I bring you tonight tidings which will produce great joy.” The first effect is fear in the presence of God, and then, when the tidings God has to tell fall on the heart, What comes next? Great joy! And oh, I have better tidings for burdened sinners than the angel had for the shepherds. He could tell of a Saviour born; I can tell of the death and resurrection of that Saviour, of the work that has been done whereby the sinner’s redemption is completed, Satan’s power destroyed, death and hell vanquished, and lost man saved!
“To you is born a Saviour.” Now, a Saviour is for the lost! not those who are going to be lost, but who are lost already. God never would have sent a Saviour if man had not been lost, for He is not a helper, but a Saviour. There is one thing Christ absolutely refuses to do—to help a sinner; His saints He helps. The Lord will save a sinner; He will not help him. Help is for a man who can do something. Christ comes down to the sinner when he is dead in his sins, utterly helpless, dies Himself for the sinner’s sins, and saves him.
A Saviour for man—and how does He save? By Himself undergoing the judgment due to man’s sin. He saves by bearing the punishment instead of me, by dying in my place. In bitter derision they cry, as He hangs upon that cross, “Himself He cannot save.” Is it “cannot”? No! no! no! Himself He will not save, that He may save you and me; because if He save Himself, He cannot save man, but He chooses to save man.
On the cross He meets the claims of God, He does that which can eternally redeem you, and then He expires. He dies as no other man ever died. Not in weakness, but in strength; He cries with a loud voice, and gives up His spirit to God. And then the grave receives Him, But does it hold Him? No, it cannot; He comes forth again conqueror over it, risen from the dead, and by His resurrection proving that the sinner’s Substitute is free.
An angel comes down again at His resurrection, as at His birth. He rolls away the stone. To let Jesus out? Far be the thought! It is to let us look in and see an empty tomb—to see that He who died is dead no longer, that He is risen.
Why is it there is such profound silence here? Angels praise at His birth, but at His resurrection there is no praise. The angels seem to stand back now and say, “It is for you to sing; He did not die for us, He died for you.”
He died, He rose, and now He is on the throne of God. What are you going to do, now you have heard of Him? Mark what the shepherds did, “And it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.” The moment they heard the tidings they said, “Let us go and see!”
Where can you see the Saviour now? In Bethlehem? No! Upon the cross? No! In the grave? No! In Galilee? No! Where, then? Up in the glory at the right hand of God.
“And they came with haste.” They lose no time; they are not even exhorted to come; they are so earnest to come, they need no exhortation. They are splendid gospel listeners. They came and found. It is what always happens. They who seek find! Oh, cannot you picture that scene! Bowed down before Jesus, the Babe in the manger!
They have heard, believed, sought, found, accepted, praised, and worshipped God, and now they make known abroad the good news: We have sought and found the Saviour, a Babe in Bethlehem, but our Saviour!
“And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.”
They were anxious sinners; are calmed by the words “Fear not;” they hear about the Saviour, they seek Him, they find Him, they worship Him, and they return, praising God for all they have heard and seen.
Condensed—W.T.P.W.