Testifying to Jesus: Simeon
Luke 2:25-30
Again, this morning, in our time to look at the Word of God, we turn to Luke chapter 2. Luke is giving us firsthand eyewitness testimony to the identification of the child who has been born in Bethlehem, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're looking at verses 21 to 39, righteous testimony to the Savior. This is the second message in that section.
As you know, if you know the gospel of Luke, or if you've been with us, the writer, Luke, has recorded his divinely inspired account of the birth of the Savior, the Son of the Most High God, the Lord Christ. And with that birth, redemptive action, redemptive purpose, redemptive accomplishment is initiated because the Savior of the world, the Messiah, the Lord, the King has arrived.
Luke's account is impeccable historically, carefully thought out, as we have already noted many times, fastidiously detailed. There's no reason at all to question his record, especially when you realize that his record is corroborated by two other writers, namely Matthew and John. Matthew and John both record the birth of Jesus Christ...Matthew from the historical side and John from the divine side. And those accounts perfectly agree with Luke's account.
But Luke was a very consistent, very faithful writer. He was consistent historically, he was consistent as well with what was expected by his readers and he knew that Jewish readers had been basically used to testimony being affirmed as the Old Testament required it by two or three witnesses. And so Luke, having given his impeccable account nonetheless, once he has pleaded the account of the birth of Jesus Christ, from verse 21 down to verse 39, brings in to his account the testimony of three witnesses...the parents of Jesus, an old man named Simeon and an old woman named Anna. It isn't whimsical, it's very critical. No one could ever say that there was no corroboration as to the identity of this child and had someone read only the gospel of Luke and had not Matthew, as would be true in many cases early on, had not the gospel of John and perhaps were questioning the validity of what Luke wrote, the testimonies of the parents of Jesus and of Simeon and of Anna would bear great weight on the credibility of Luke's gospel.
As I noted last week, Luke passed over some very familiar elements of the Christmas story. He tells us nothing about the wise men. He tells us nothing about Herod and the slaughter of the innocence. He tells us nothing about the little family escaping into Egypt. Instead of all of that information, which, of course, is left to Matthew to tell, Luke looks at eyewitnesses, corroborating the identity of the child through faithful testimony.
And as I noted for you last time, if you're going to have a witness who is to be believed, then you must establish their credibility. And Luke does precisely that. It is critical that we understand the credibility of Joseph, Mary, Simeon and Anna, and they are by all tests as righteous as anyone could be living in the land of Israel at that time, if not more righteous than most and maybe as righteous as any. The godly virtue of these witnesses is established and is critical so that their testimony cannot be impeached in any way by anything in their lives. And so here comes confirming testimony to the fact that indeed the virgin Mary brought a child into the world who is the Messiah, the anointed Christ, the Lord, the Son of the Most High God Himself.
And, first of all, last week we looked at the testimony of Joseph and Mary, the parents. And, of course, it's a fair question...did His parents believe in Him? Well we know His brothers and sisters did not. It tells us they didn't believe in Him until after His resurrection. Did His parents believe in Him? Did they believe that the child that they held in their arms was the Son of the Most High God, God in human flesh? Did they believe that He was the Messiah, the anointed one, the Savior of the world? And the answer is absolutely they believed that and Luke wants to give their firsthand and personal testimony.
First of all, it's important to establish that Joseph and Mary were righteous. It is said literally by the text of Scripture, by God the Holy Spirit Himself in Matthew 1:19 that Joseph was a righteous man, even though he was just a teen-ager, just maybe 14 years old or so. He was a righteous man. He would be considered a man after having become 13 years of age he would have entered upon his manhood, he was designated a righteous man. No one would ever question whether or not Mary was righteous. Mary was righteous and Mary's righteousness is clear in the indication that the Spirit of God selected her out of all the possible young girls to be the mother of the Messiah. She is righteous as indicated by the wonderful Magnificat in chapter 1 verse 46 and following where she says, "My soul exalts the Lord," and that was the character of her life. She was one who exalted the Lord.
So Joseph was righteous and Mary was righteous and five times in this passage, verse 22, 23, 24, 27 and 39 it tells us how they were committed to fulfilling the Law of the Lord, the Law of Moses, the Old Testament Scripture. They were obedient. They honored God. They were fastidious as much as possible in obeying what they knew was the will of God as expressed in the Scripture. So you have righteous and obedient people who are really God's people, they are true believers. Whenever the Bible says someone is righteous, it isn't saying that they gained some personal level of righteousness on their own. Whenever the Bible says someone is righteous, it means that God has declared them righteous not by virtue of anything they have done because it tells us in Romans, "By the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be made righteous, or justified," same word. You can't get righteous on your own, it is a gift of God to those who come in penitent faith and acknowledge their sinfulness in their need of grace. And so it was that Joseph and Mary belonged to God, they were a part of the believing remnant in Israel. They were true believers. They were God's own. They were declared righteous by faith, not by works, no one can by works. They belonged to God. They were a part of that true remnant in Israel.
Now their testimony, having established their righteousness, their testimony is given in two scenes that take place. One in verse 21 takes place eight days after the child was born and that is the scene of circumcision. The second is in verses 22 to 24 which takes place 40 days after His birth when He's a month and ten days old and that takes place at the purification.
The first circumcision ceremony obviously occurred when the child was circumcised. The second purification ceremony occurred after 40 days and that's when the mother having been ceremonial unclean for 40 days, according to the Old Testament law, is then brought to the temple and at the temple she offers a sacrifice for her purification. And then and only then can she enter in to the temple and the worship of God. Both of those are symbols, ceremonies given in the Old Testament, to point up the sin of man. Circumcision, obviously, as we have said was an indication on the outside of how desperately a man and a woman needed to be cleansed on the inside. And purification was the same thing. When a woman had a baby, a male child, for 40 days she was ceremonially unclean, couldn't go to the temple. And that illustrated the fact that people were sinful and separated from God until a sacrifice was given and then they could have access to God and that, of course, pictured the Messiah. All people are separated from God without the sacrifice of Christ, and we went into that detail last time. If you want the full message, it's available for you, of course, on tape.
But they went to those two very traditional ceremonies...the circumcision which would occur in some environment in the very place they were staying in Bethlehem area, and then there would be this purification which took place at the temple where a sacrifice would be offered. Now at the circumcision, I pointed out to last time, they give testimony to their knowledge of the child because in verse 21 it says, "They called Him Jesus just exactly as the angel had told them before the conception." You remember the angel had come to Mary and told her she would conceive and she would have a child and His name was to be Jesus which means "God saves," or "Jehovah saves." You remember that the same thing happened to Joseph. The angel came to him and said you're going to have this Son and His name will be Jesus because He will save His people from their sins. He will be, they knew, the Messiah, the Son of the Most High God, God in human flesh, virgin-conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary without a man and this child would be called Jesus saves because He would save His people from their sins. They knew all that. Did they believe it? Yes, it is confirmed because they named Him Jesus, indicating their confident faith in the words of Gabriel, the angel, to them.
And then in verses 22 to 24 when they came to the temple, they came to do two things, really. They came for purification and they came to pay a five shekel...five shekels of silver ransom price. Every firstborn male had to be given to the Lord. You just sort of offered him to the Lord for the Lord's service. You didn't have to go to the temple to do that, but while they were there they went beyond that, as we saw last week...and I'll tell you what I mean by that.
But they went to the temple and they went to do the purification ceremony and, no doubt, while they were there they paid the five shekels silver ransom price that was levied against all the firstborn of every tribe but Levi. All the Levite firstborn sons were priests and because the rest of the firstborns were excused from the priesthood, instead of becoming priests they paid five shekel silver ransom price, sort of ransoming them from priestly service, providing funding for the priests so they could function. They made a contribution that way to the priesthood without necessarily having to be priests.
So they went through the circumcision ceremony and the combination of purification and paying that ransom price at the temple, both of those. They gave testimony to the identity of the child at circumcision by His name. They gave testimony to His identity at the purification ceremony, at the end of verse 22, because it says they presented him to the Lord.
It was not required that you would take your child to the temple and present him to the Lord. He was the firstborn and He was offered to the Lord in a special way to serve the Lord, but that wasn't done at the temple. That was a very unusual thing to do, indicating that they went above and beyond because they understood who this child was. In a very real sense they're saying...this isn't even our child, we have to come and give Him to You. They must have felt certainly at least like Hannah did back in 1 Samuel 1 and 2 when given the child Samuel she realized the Lord had caused a miracle to happen so that she could conceive and have a child. She knew the child belonged to the Lord in a special way, took the child, literally left him at the temple giving him to Eli the high priest, Samuel became both priest and prophet in time. Very much like Hannah, Joseph and Mary realized this child isn't theirs and they go to give the child to God in a very special act, realizing this child of all children ever born is uniquely God's virgin-born, the Son of the Most High God.
So it is clear to us that Joseph and Mary by what they did indicate their affirmation of the identity of the child. Nothing in the circumcision indicates this is the Messiah, every Jewish boy had that. Nothing in the purification indicates that this is the Messiah, all the Jewish who had a boy would do that. Nothing in the presentation of the five shekel ransom price would indicate this is the Messiah. But taking Him to the temple, naming Him Jesus, presenting Him to the Lord were their clear testimonies as to the identity of this child.
So they were righteous young people who did know the identity of their child, were devoted to God, obedient to His law and going beyond that gave the child back to God. Later on they weren't too surprised to find Him in the temple. They had headed home to Nazareth, He was still back at Jerusalem in the temple. When they asked Him why, He said, "I must be about My Father's business." And there was an increasing dawning or realization of what it meant that this child belonged to God, as we shall see as the story unfolds.
Now the next witness that is called to, as it were, into court to give testimony to the validity of the claim to messiahship, to give testimony to this child, is a man named Simeon and that starts in verse 25. Let's meet him.
"Behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him and it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ and he came in to...in the Spirit into the temple and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to carry out for Him the custom of the law, then he took Him in his arms and blessed God and said, 'Now, Lord, Thou hast let Thy bondservant depart in peace according to Thy word for my eyes have seen Thy salvation.'" You can stop at that point.
I find Simeon a fascinating character. Very little is known about Simeon because there's nothing more than what we have here. But very little attention, it seems to me, is even given to what we have here and it fascinates me.
Notice very carefully the scenario that surrounds this scene. It can be sort of identified in a couple of terms. The nation Israel was apostate and hypocritical. That sort of sums it up. For the most part, the whole nation of Israel was largely in a condition of being unsaved. They...they talked about God on the outside, they had a certain zeal for the legalistic approach to things, they had traditions that they were committed to, but their heart was far from God. They were basically apostate and legalistic. They were hypocritical.
There were only a few righteous. In fact, when the church is established on the day of Pentecost, at the close of the full ministry of Jesus after His death and after His resurrection and the three years of ministry, only 120 believers are gathered in the upper room in the city of Jerusalem. It was always a very small group really looking for the Messiah, just a very small group.
Well, here's one of them. Of the situation in Jerusalem and in Israel at the time, William Hendrickson writes, "To be sure, conditions were bad, very bad, in Israel at the time of Israel's birth in Bethlehem. Think of loss of political independence, cruel King Herod, externalization of religion, legalistic scribes and Pharisees and their many followers, worldly-minded Sadducees, the silence of the voice of the prophets. And in the midst of all this darkness, degradation and despair there were men who were hopefully looking forward to and earnestly expecting the consolation of Israel. There were such men and women too, already mentioned were Mary and Elizabeth and in a moment Luke is going to add Anna to the list," end quote. And is a short list, a very short list. Most of the population of the nation Israel rejected Jesus Christ, as we know from the story that unfolds. There was just a very small remnant of true believers in the land at the time the Messiah arrived and here is a man who is one of them.
Verse 25 says, "Behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon." Four hundred years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Malachi, whose prophecy ends our Old Testament, said that the Sun of righteousness would rise with healing in His wings. And the Old Testament then closes with a prophecy of the coming of Messiah which occurred 400 years later. Many of the people in Israel paid very little attention to that promise, but there was a remnant of people in the nation that looked to the fulfillment of Malachi's promise and they were anxiously waiting for the arrival of the Sun of righteousness, this man was one of that small group.
His name is a common name and we know nothing about him except what is written right here. He just walks in to the scene and walks out. We know nothing before really, and nothing after about him at all. And the name, as I say, is common. In fact, Simeon was the name of one of Jacob's sons and so there was a tribe of Simeon, a very, very common name, as indicated in Genesis 29:33.
Now, Simeon has a wonderful meaning. The word "Simeon" means "God has heard." When Simeon was born, he's probably an old man when we meet him here, when he was born many years before this and his mother and father were trying to come up with a name for their little baby boy and it was probably the eighth day and it was time for his circumcision and naming, they chose by the providences of God, and the working of God, no doubt, moving them the name "God has heard." And, of course, that was a wonderful, wonderful hope in the hearts of Israel that God would hear their cry, particularly their cry for a comforter, for a Messiah, for a deliverer, for a King, for a Savior, and that was certainly the cry of Simeon's heart. So all his life he cried to God and in the later years of his life he was crying out to God to bring the Messiah. Wonderfully in the end, God heard, the Messiah came. Simeon means "God has heard."
Most likely he was an old man and most likely he was near to death because, as you noted when I read the passage, he told the Lord that he was ready to die. He was ready to go because he had seen the Messiah and the Lord could let His servant depart in peace, in verse 29. So it must have been that he was long in years and he lived most of his life and the only thing left to wait for was the Messiah. And when the Messiah was there, he was ready to leave and go to heaven.
Simeon really is a representative, sort of personifies expectant Jews. He personifies the true, believing, saved remnant in Israel who believed in God for their salvation, trusted in salvation by grace through faith and not by works. Even though they didn't