Testifying to Jesus: Simeon, Part 2
Luke 2:25-35
You may open your Bible to the second chapter of Luke as we return to this incredibly important portion of Scripture which chronicles for us the arrival of the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the birth of Jesus Christ. We are looking at Luke chapter 2 and verses 21 through 39 in which Luke produces testimony to the identity of the child, testimony from His parents, Joseph and Mary, testimony from an old man named Simeon, and an old lady named Anna. And this is important for this testimony to be given because the Old Testament law required that all truth be confirmed by two or three witnesses, credible, trustworthy witnesses...and that is what Luke does in this section. He brings, as it were, into the courtroom three witnesses who can be trusted, righteous Joseph and Mary, righteous Simeon and righteous Anna, to give testimony to the fact that the child born in Bethlehem is indeed the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ and so we're looking at this testimony.
Now let me back up a little bit and sort of get you into the flow of thought here. The Old Testament is a collection of promises. It's a collection of promises from the one true and living God, the Creator, the Controller, the Consummator of the universe and the Redeemer of humanity. At the heart of all of these promises which fill the Old Testament is the primary promise that God would send His Son, the Savior, into the world, that He would come to redeem sinners from death and hell, and to establish His glorious Kingdom on earth. And in that Kingdom, all the promises of God would be fulfilled...the promises of blessing and peace and joy and prosperity and satisfaction and righteousness and salvation. And that that earthly Kingdom would then be transformed into an eternal Kingdom in which all of those promises in absolute and sinless perfection would forever come to pass.
Now all of these promises from the one true and living God are contained in the Old Testament only. There is no other holy or sacred ancient book that contains the promises of God. That Old Testament, as we call it, is the single place where God gave all the promises regarding the coming of the Christ, the Savior and the Messiah. And so there is a very narrow amount of literature, 39 books that make up the Old Testament which contain all that God has revealed about the wonders of the coming of the Savior of the world.
Not only is there a very narrow amount of material in all that's been written throughout antiquity, but that revelation itself was given to a very small group of people. The Jews make up a small nation, always have made up a small nation. They were a people who didn't ever conquer the world, didn't make some major mark on history their power or their prowess. They seem to be a smallish people, a people of no great consequence as God unfolded this marvelous revelation to them. So one book, given to one small group of people.
Even more amazingly, among the Jews there has always been only a very small remnant who actually believed the Old Testament. Certainly not all Jews today do, nor have Jews in history accepted the Old Testament literally as it is written. There has always been but a remnant, a small remnant in the midst of Israel who took the Old Testament seriously. The same is true today. There's always been a small remnant who believed that the promises of God were actual, real, literal promises that would be fulfilled in history, that the Messiah would come and do exactly what the prophet said He would do. The Bible identifies these as "true Israel," as the true Jews, the spiritual ones. And by spiritual you don't mean somebody who's metaphysical, somebody who's mystical, somebody who thinks he has or she has spiritual connections. No, by spiritual you mean one who takes the Old Testament seriously and literally. Even today, only 30 percent of Jews belong even to a synagogue, and of those 30 percent who belong to a synagogue, very few of them belong to an orthodox synagogue. Most of them are either conservative or reformed. Only the orthodox take the Old Testament literally and seriously.
It is a small, small remnant today. Even in the land of Israel, eleven percent of the population of the nation Israel would be classified as those who are literalists in interpreting the Old Testament, who take the promises of God and the laws of God seriously.
So God sending to the world the greatest message the world has ever known, a message of salvation and redemption, puts it in one book. All the promises in one book, gives it to one small nation and in that nation but a small, small remnant even believe it and perpetuate it. It was that way at the time of the birth of Christ, just a small remnant. In fact, when the ministry of Jesus ended 33 years after His birth, and all of those in Jerusalem who had embraced the Messiah gathered together in the upper room, there were 120 of them. And on the day of Pentecost to follow there were 3,000 converted to Christ who believed, just a very small remnant of that nation.
At the time of the birth of Jesus there was a little remnant. They're defined in this text for us. Verse 25, "There were those looking for the consolation of Israel." Looking, I told you last time, for the Manacham, looking for the Consoler, looking for the great Comforter, the Messiah...that was a rabbinic name for Messiah. They are further defined down in verse 38 as looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. They were looking for the Messiah and His redemption, or salvation, that He would bring. There was a small remnant.
Among that little remnant who took the Old Testament seriously and believed it literally and really did expect God to do what He said and fulfill His promises, was an old couple. Their names were Zacharias and Elizabeth. He was a priest and shew as his wife. They were part of that believing remnant. And also a part of that very small believing remnant was a very young couple. In fact, they hadn't even really begun their marriage, they were Joseph and Mary, just teen-agers. They were a part of that remnant as well. God chose Zacharias and Elizabeth out of that believing remnant to father John who would be the great prophet to announce the arrival of Messiah. And God chose Mary out of that remnant, just a 13- or 14-year-old girl to be the mother, the virgin in whom the Holy Spirit would plant the Messiah and He would be born out of her womb. And He chose Joseph out of that remnant, just a teen-age boy, to be the earthly adopted father of the Messiah.
Luke also tells us about some shepherds. Shepherds who also must have been among the remnant waiting for the Messiah who were given the special privilege of the angelic announcement that He had been born and hurry immediately to Bethlehem to see the child.
Now whether you look at the shepherds who were at the lowest level of the socio-economic ladder, or whether you look at Joseph and Mary, Joseph and Mary just teen-aged kids, Joseph at best would be nothing more than an apprentice in a carpenter shop, or you look at old Zacharias and Elizabeth who really were the commonest of the common, there were thousands of priests in the land of Israel at that time and he was a very obscure one, somewhere out in the hill country of Judea in a small little village area, they were the nobodies, the non-descript people. They had nothing to do with the mainstream of Jewish thought, education or religion. Shepherds were really outcasts. Priests only had two weeks a year, really, a couple times a year when they came down to the temple and did their service. The rest of the time they just resided in a little village in obscurity and so it was with Zacharias and Elizabeth. And what could be said about two teen-aged kids 13 and 14 years old who hadn't made a mark on anything? But they were all a part of that remnant and so they were chosen for monumental service at the time of the birth of the Messiah.
And this sort of suits the Lord, to pick the commonest of the common and the lowliest of the low. Zacharias and Elizabeth were from the sticks, out of town. And Joseph and Mary, from all places, the non-descript and lowly and despised place called Nazareth of whom it was said, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" But this fits because the gospel predominantly comes to the lowly, the not many noble, the not many mighty, the base and the lowly things God has chosen to confound the wise and the mighty. It doesn't mean that the wealthy were utterly excluded. After all, there were wise men, magi, king makers, the literate, the nobles of Persia...they were there, too. But predominantly it was the common people.
Now in our text we meet a few more of them. Beyond the shepherds and beyond Zacharias and Elizabeth and beyond Joseph and Mary we meet Simeon and Anna, old people. But Simeon was in the remnant because he was looking for the Menacham, he was looking for the consolation, the Messiah of Israel. And Anna was part of the remnant. She was among those looking for the redemption, the salvation Messiah would bring. God doesn't need the famous, He doesn't need the mainstream people and education or politics, the power brokers, doesn't need the religious leaders, He just chose the simplest and the common folks.
Now we know, of course, the story of Zacharias and Elizabeth already, and Joseph and Mary and the shepherds. But now we come to these rather obscure people, sad to say, Simeon and Anna. Their stories are included by Luke because he wants some eyewitnesses to attest to who this child is. There wasn't any halos surrounding Jesus, there wasn't anything visible to indicate that this was the Son of God. So testimony needs to be corroborated. And so, Luke selects three witnesses. First the parents, then Simeon, then Anna to give really unimpeachable testimony to the identity of the child.
First of all, in verses 21 to 24, the testimony of the parents, the testimony of Joseph and Mary. We've already covered that, we won't go into that again. They are the first witnesses that were called into the court to affirm the identity of the child. And the second is Simeon. And we started to look at him last week, and we'll finish it this morning. Simeon is a remarkable man. His part comes in verse 25 to 35. And, first of all, as we saw last time, it is important to establish his credibility as a witness. That was true with Joseph and Mary also. There's no question about Joseph as to his credibility because the Bible tells us he was a righteous man. There's no question about the righteous character of Mary either, that is evident from the Magnificat of Mary back in chapter 1 verse 46 and following. They were righteous, they were right before God, they were godly young people. Their testimony had integrity, it's unimpeachable. That's important to establish.
And the same would be true of the next witness, the next eyewitness to the Messiah, Simeon. And so no one is mistaken about his character, this man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon was righteous. That is he was right with God, he was a converted man, he was a justified man. He was devout. I told you the word means cautious or careful in obedience to God's law which means he was not only a justified man but a sanctified man. He was looking for the Manacham, the consolation, the consoler, the Messiah and the Holy Spirit was upon him. You can't ask for more than that. Here his credibility is established.
In fact, verse 26 says, "Even divine revelation had come to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ." Amazing, amazing revelation came to this man that he would be alive until Messiah arrived and he would see the Messiah.
Well, it all came to pass in verse 27. The Holy Spirit draws him down to the temple where, no doubt, he spent a lot of time and there he met the parents, Joseph and Mary, who had brought in the child Jesus to carry out for him the custom of the law. Remember we talked about the fact that after 40 days of the woman who had given birth to a male child had to come and offer sacrifice, and she had come to do that, and also to pay the five silver shekels to redeem the firstborn child, according to the Old Testament law. And they had come to the temple for that. And God providentially worked out a meeting. As I said, it would be fascinating to know what happened. It doesn't say. But in verse 28 it says that Simeon took him into his arms. Well at that point Simeon must have known who the child was. And how did that happen? Well between verses 27 and 28 there must have been a rather long conversation.
Simeon didn't know he was looking for Joseph and Mary. Simeon didn't come looking for the Messiah. They weren't looking for Simeon, but God brought them together and somehow at the right moment the Spirit of God prompted a conversation in the melee of thousands of people milling around in the temple court. And they began to talk and Joseph and Mary began to unfold the amazing story of how Gabriel had come to Mary and how an angel had come to Joseph in a dream and told them what was going on, that she would conceive and bear the Messiah, the Son of the Most High God, the Son of David who would have a Kingdom that would last forever and ever and He would be named Jesus because He would save His people from their sins. The whole story about how the barren Zacharias and Elizabeth in their 70's or 80's were able to conceive a son who would be the prophecy...the prophet of the Messiah and a whole story unfolded. And the angels in the field telling the shepherds and the shepherds reporting to them and all of this and Simeon heard it, believed it.
Somebody would say, "Well why would he believe it?" And the answer would be, because he was being led by the Spirit. It tells us in verse 25 the Holy Spirit was upon him. Verse 26, it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit he wouldn't die until he saw the Lord, Messiah. And verse 27, he came in the Spirit to the temple. I mean, the imprint of the Holy Spirit is all over this man and certainly the confirmation of the Holy Spirit came when he heard the story, the miraculous conception without a male father, the planting of this Messiah in the womb of this young girl, all of this wondrous story was told to Simeon. And in verse 28 he took Him into his arms, picked up that little baby and blessed God. And you can only imagine what all was in that blessing. He launches into his blessing in verses 29 down to verse 32 and it's called the nunc dimittis, Latin for the first two words, "Now Lord." They...the Latin terms are used to identify also the Benedictus of Zacharias, that's what that great praise at the end of chapter 1 is called, and the Magnificat of Mary earlier in the chapter.
Nothing about the child was visibly different. But he knew who the child was. The Spirit of God confirming the testimony of these parents. He was allowed by God to have this incredible moment, the great moment when the Manacham, the Savior, the King, the Messiah of the world was in his arms. And as I said last time, he pressed his face and kissed the face of God. Here was the one who was the fulfillment of all God's promises, here was the one who fulfilled all the Old Testament and here was a man, Simeon, who believed the promises, who believed what the Old Testament said, believed it literally, was faithful to those promises and waited for God to fulfill them. And God did.
Here was an old man. We don't know how long he had know the Messiah would come in his life time and he would see Him. We don't know how long he had hoped. But certainly this is what drove his life. This was the passion of his whole life. And from the time he got the revelation that he would see the Messiah before he died, he must have gone into every single day wondering...is this the day?...is this the day?...is this the day? He believed the promises that God had given to Abraham and he believed the promises of blessing that God had given to Moses. And he believed the promises that god had given to David, and that God had reiterated through all the prophets. He believed all of that. He believed the promises that are captured in the majesty of the Psalms which he no doubt had recited and sung since a child. He believed God would keep His word and make good on His promises.
We don't know what he expected. I mean, maybe he was looking for a king. Maybe he was looking for a...maybe he was looking for a heavenly king. Maybe he was looking to the skies some days when he looked at the open courtyard of the temple and saw a sort of a darkened sky and somewhere a crack in the cloud appeared and a sunbeam came through and maybe he thought that might be the sunbeam on which the King would ride. Maybe he thought one day the clouds would part. Or maybe he thought one night in the midst of the darkness a great light would shine and down would come the great King. There were certainly people among his remnant who had that thought. Or maybe he thought that the Messiah would come as a great soldier, a great conqueror, a great warrior and he wouldn't come out of the sky, he'd come through the Eastern Gate, as the prophet had said with great conquering power to shatter the Romans and establish the promise of Abraham.
We don't know what he thought, but we do know what he got. What he got was a little tiny baby that looked like any other baby, held in the arms of a little couple that was so poor they couldn't buy a lamb for the purification sacrifice, they had to use a bird, a little family that came from that lowly and despised place called Nazareth that was always being crisscrossed by Gentiles and was so far away from temple influence as to be on the borders of paganism. Simeon took Him into his arms..if I can read Simeon's mind, he was thrilled to embrace the child but maybe more thrilled to know that the child would embrace him. That was really all he needed. He had seen the Messiah come and so he says, verse 29, "Now, Lord, Thou doest let Thy bondservant depart in peace according to Thy word." You told me I'd live until I saw the Messiah, I've seen Him, let me die...I have nothing left to live for. My hope is fulfilled. My joy is complete. My heart is at peace. I'm ready to go.
So this dear Simeon serves as a crucial divinely inspired faithful righteous witness to the identity of this little baby. He was waiting for the Messiah. When he heard the story, the Spirit of God confirmed in his heart and he gives testimony that he can die...that's how sure he was. If this is what he had waited for all his life, the coming of Messiah as part of the remnant, if this is what he waited for, even more intensely when the Spirit of God revealed that he would actually see Him, then believe me, he wouldn't say "I can die" unless he was convinced this was the Messiah.
His task, though brief, just this little picture in Scripture, this task though brief was very much like John's, John the Baptist because both of them gave testimony to the Messiah and then died. As far as we can tell, Simeon...the Lord just took him and John the Baptist had his head cut off. But Simeon God used as a powerful, powerful witness to point to the reality that this was the Messiah.
Why is he content to die? He knows that. Verse 30 he says it, "For my eyes have seen Thy salvation." Don't ever think for a moment that God is not a saving God. "God, our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth," 1 Timothy 4. Three times in the book of Titus "God our Savior, God our Savior, God our Savior." He is a saving God. God who is the Savior of all men, 1 Timothy 4:10. It is God who is the Savior. It is God's salvation that he sees in the Messiah. God has sent His salvation because God has sent, as Zacharias called Him, the horn of salvation who is the Messiah.
When the Messiah comes who is the Savior, salvation comes. "And neither is there salvation in any other" says Acts 4:12. So his praise flows because God's salvation has come because God's Savior has come.
Now he had a full understanding of salvation. He understood that salvation was the word for deliverance and it could mean deliverance from your enemies and those who oppress you. Zacharias in his Benedictus in chapter 1 affirmed that and discussed that, talked about that. That's part of the Davidic Covenant, temporal, earthy deliverance from earthly enemies and invaders and oppressors.
But it didn't end at that. It wasn't just deliverance from other nations in time and space. It wasn't just the extension of the borders to fit the original covenant of God with Abraham. Zacharias, the high priest, knew, Mary knew that this child would not just extend the borders of Israel, would not just bring sovereignty back to Israel over all its enemies, but would bring forgiveness of sin and eternal salvation with it. That's all embodied in that word because when Jesus was named, Jesus, it was not because He would save His people from their enemies, it was because He would save His people from their sins. Yes there will be a national deliverance through the Messiah, the Kingdom will be established in Israel, the Messiah will rule over Israel. They will be a sovereign state ruled by the sovereign Lord. And they will not only have a sovereign Lord ruling them, but they will be the sovereign nation ruling the world as Messiah mediates His rule through Israel. There will be sovereignty. All their enemies and oppressors will be destroyed and broken. And there will be an earthly extension of the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant, but even more than that, there will be eternal salvation in the forgiveness of sins. Messiah will save His people from their sins.
And so here is this man, one of the small, small remnant. Even after Jesus' ministry is complete, there's only 130 in the upper room in Jerusalem who identify with Jesus Christ and are tarrying, waiting for the Holy Spirit. Small little group, but he has seen all he needs to see, the salvation of God has arrived because the Savior has arrived. And he knows in his heart that this means all messianic promise, all covenant promise, all the promises of the Old Testament are going to be fulfilled because, as Paul said, all the promises of the Old Testament are in Christ, yes and amen! All Old Testament promises are ultimately fulfilled in Christ, all of them. Simeon knew that and believed it. He was a literalist. He interpreted the Old Testament literally and accurately and believed in the promises of God. And as I said earlier, that has always been the small minority view in Israel and it is today...even among Jews in our own country it is. Very few take the Old Testament seriously and really believe its promises. He was one.
But you know what? He said some shocking things. If he had ended everything there, it wouldn't have advanced the amazing story of the Messiah any further than Joseph and Mary had already heard and the readers had already heard because Mary talked about G