Luke 2:1-7 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.… Was that infant at Bethlehem no more than a subject of the Roman emperor? Was Christianity the mere product of these outward favouring circumstances? Not so. It is true that from these circumstances the fulness of time took its shape and colour. Without that shelter it would not have been, humanly speaking, what now it is. But the spark of life itself was independent of any local or national state. The very characteristic of the life of Christ is that which soared above any such local limit. Therefore it is that He was born, apart from all the stir and turmoil of the world, in a humble stall, in a dark cavern, in a narrow street of an obscure mountain village. Therefore it is that He lived for thirty years in the secluded basin of the unknown, unconsecrated Nazareth; that He passed away without attracting a single word of notice from any contemporary poet or philosopher of that great court, which has made the reign of Caesar Augustus proverbial to all time as the "Augustan age." Born under the empire, there was in Jesus Christ nothing imperial, except the greatness of His birth. Born under the Roman sway, there was nothing in Him Roman except the world-wide dominion of His Spirit. From Caesar Augustus comes out a decree that all the world should be taxed, subdued, civilized, united. All honour to him for it! All vigilance, all exertion, all prudence, be ours to watch and seize all the opportunities that are given to us. But it is from God that there come these flashes of life and light, of goodness and of genius, which belong to no age, but which find their likeness in that Divine Child, which was born, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. This, then, is the double principle of which the birth of Christ is the most striking example; external circumstances are something, but they are not everything The inward life is the essential thing; but for its successful growth it needs external circumstance. There are a thousand ways in which this double lesson is forced upon us, but the most striking illustration is still to be found in the contrast of the same double relation to the circumstances of world, century, country, or Church in which we live. And, on the other hand, there is our own separate existence and character with its own work to do — its own special nourishment from God. (Dean Stanley.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. |
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