And it came to pass, while they were there, the days of her giving birth [to her child] were fulfilled,
Joseph and Mary are far from home, in a crowded town, held there by a Roman registration. Then her time to give birth comes — and the verse turns on one question: whose timing is this?
The words "while they were there" put the birth in the one place prophecy had named. One commentator ties the whole arrangement — decree, journey, and due date — to a single hand.
The appointed time (Galatians 4:4) had come. According to prophecy the Saviour had to be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). But Mary lived in Nazareth. God in His own marvellous way ordered everything. He directed Caesar Augustus to issue the decree of taxation at just such a time and in just such a way. He ordered the journey of Joseph and his promised wife Mary too, so that she had to be in Bethlehem when the time came for her to give birth.
Mary's days were fulfilled at Bethlehem. A much longer wait ended at the same moment, and God had let those centuries run on purpose.
"The fullness of time" is an important expression here. The Seed was spoken of in Eden, but God let some 4,000 years run their course before He sent Him forth. In this we may see the perfect wisdom of His ways. He would allow man to fully show his condition. He tried the creature in a variety of ways, under conscience and under law, sending prophets, and so on. But what was the result? Man proved himself in every way a creature beyond cure. Sin, wrongdoing and hostility were everywhere.
The census moved an empire. The thing that mattered was a birth no one noticed.
The emperor and his decree are only insignificant instruments. Caesar Augustus acts with his own subjects in view. Yet without knowing it, he is the means of fulfilling the prophecy that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. The entire course of the world runs outside the current of God's thoughts. The central fact for Him and for His kingdom here is the babe's birth at Bethlehem; but the emperor has no thought about it... Who cared to notice the poor Jew, though he might be of the house and lineage of David? The things that are perfectly indifferent to man fill the heart and eye of God.
The census that brought them there was never completed at the time. One writer sees God's care in that half-finished paperwork.
It was not carried out at the time proposed here. But it went far enough to call the parents of our Lord from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem. That accomplished not man's census, but God's prophecy. God took care that it should be fulfilled just enough to carry out His purposes.
The promise about Bethlehem was on record centuries before Caesar drew up his tax list.
If God is sovereign in His purposes, His sovereignty is no less displayed in His choice of instruments to fulfil them. More than seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Micah had said in the name of Jehovah: "But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days."
Mary was poor, and no woman in her condition would have chosen that journey.
But we see God's hand in her movements. The Emperor in Italy was the instrument that made the Virgin leave her home for Bethlehem, and give birth to her child there... She was poor. In the normal course she would not have left Nazareth at such a time. They seem to have been friendless at Bethlehem too. The inn was crowded. No one offered them a home... The world did not want the presence of the One whose birth heaven would rejoice over.
What God did at Bethlehem, one writer says, He is still doing.
There seemed no likelihood that the Babe would be born at Bethlehem. But the Emperor commanded that everyone should go to his own town for the census. God arranged it in His providence to fulfil His word. So it is today. There is no movement in the world that God is not ruling directly, or overruling indirectly, for the gathering of His people.
- Timing. The birth came at "the fullness of time." God had let long centuries show what man is. Mary's days ran out on a clock far older than hers.
- Instrument. Caesar issued a tax decree for his own ends. He never knew he was serving prophecy. The emperor was the tool; the birth was the point.
- Precision. The census was only half carried through then. It went just far enough to move one poor couple to Bethlehem. That accomplished God's prophecy, not man's census.
- Place. Micah had named the town seven hundred years earlier. So God moved a woman of Nazareth there in time for the birth.
- Assurance. God moved an empire to place one mother in one village. No movement in the world today falls outside His ruling and overruling.
and she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him up in swaddling-clothes and laid him in the manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke tells the birth of Jesus in one plain sentence. There is no drama and no crowd — just a mother, strips of cloth, and a feeding trough. Commentators keep asking one question: why does the Spirit of God record the manger and the inn at all?
The missing room was no accident of timing. It shows the welcome the Son of God met on earth:
The Son of God is born in this world, but He finds no place there. The world is at home in the inn, or at least its resources find it a place there. The inn becomes a measure of man's place in the world, and of the welcome the world gives him. The Son of God finds no place at all, except the manger. Does the Holy Spirit record this detail for nothing? No. There is no room in this world for God, or for what is of God. That makes the love which brought Him down to earth all the more perfect. He began in a manger and ended on the cross, and in between He had nowhere to lay His head.
The inn ran on money. Space went to whoever could pay for it:
Luke always loves to present moral features. So it is very instructive for us that Jesus lay in the manger, not in the inn. The children of men found their place in the inn according to their means, as it suited them. Those who had money could command a place in proportion to what they were willing to pay. But the parents of the Lord were so poor that people at the inn utterly despised them. The only place where they could find shelter for the Babe was a manger. Yet this did not stop the outflow of divine grace, and only unbelief could deny the divine glory of the One laid there.
Every step down was chosen. God passed over the great cities, and then passed over the village inn too:
He ignored the imperial city of Rome. He passed by the royal city of Jerusalem and chose Bethlehem, though it was "little among the thousands of Judah." He also passed by the poor fare the village inn could supply, and chose the shelter of the ox's stall. There in Bethlehem's stable the One "whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting" was born and cradled in a manger.
The cloths matter as much as the manger. What the angels announced and what a visitor would see stand worlds apart:
Who would have thought of the Son of God coming to earth as a Man in the way He did? Look for the Son of the Highest whom the angels are celebrating, and what do you find? A "babe" — the weakest of beings. "Wrapped in swaddling cloths" — the badge of helplessness, worn by One who had clothed Himself with light as with a garment. "Lying in a manger" — in the company of the animals!
Luke's word here is precise. He uses a different word when he means an only child:
"First-born son," prototokos; but when Luke speaks of an only son he uses monogenes: Luke 7:12; Luke 8:42; Luke 9:38.
One writer draws a conclusion from it:
"Firstborn son" in Luke 2:7 proves that the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the worship of Mary in extreme ritual religion, are fictions.
The poverty at Bethlehem raises a question about what came before it:
He was rich and He became poor. A man in conversation with me denied the eternal deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. He argued that Jesus began to exist in the manger at Bethlehem. My answer was this Scripture: He was rich, and He became poor. If what that man believed was true, then our Lord never was rich before He was poor, and the Scripture is a lie. There was none poorer than He on the day He was born in David's city. A manger was His cradle and a stable His shelter!
No one is too low to find Him there:
So the poorest child who has become aware of his sin may realise this: the Son of God has been younger than he is, and lower than he is. He brought all the might of Omnipotence into swaddling cloths, and all the wealth of God's matchless grace into a stable.
The closed door at Bethlehem has a way of repeating itself:
We live in a day when people seem to have less and less time for one another. Children, and unborn children, are often unwanted. Young people have trouble finding their place in society, and more and more elderly people live in hard circumstances. It reminds us of the words, "There was no place for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7). It should not be like that, yet even we as believers may show the same wrong attitude.
- No room — the inn measured people by their money, and His parents had none.
- Room refused — He passed by Rome, Jerusalem and the inn, and chose the stall; the manger was no accident.
- Room He left — He was rich before He was poor, so His life did not begin at Bethlehem.
- Room for the lowest — Omnipotence in swaddling cloths brings God within reach of the poorest child.
- Room to give — the road ran from manger to cross; the question is whether we still leave Him, and one another, outside.