Salvation, Revelation, and Glory (Luke 2:27-32)

Kootenai Church

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Let's begin with prayer before we start our study. Our Father, we ask that in your word and through your word you would speak to our hearts today, that you would show us the glory of Christ and the greatness of your plan of redemption and all that you have accomplished for us in and through your son.

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As our hearts meditate upon these things, we ask that your spirit would be our guide and our teacher and that your word would be made, that we would see the living quality of it and that we would see and apprehend in your word wonderful things.

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We pray that you would illuminate us today, our hearts and our minds, through your word and by the power of your spirit, in Christ's name we pray, amen.

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Last week we began studying this section in Luke 2, this very intriguing man named Simeon.

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This is the only place in all of scripture that Simeon is mentioned and though Matthew does also have a birth narrative of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, it is Luke who spends more time than any other gospel writer on the events surrounding the birth of Christ.

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Less than two months after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary went up to Jerusalem. This is all just by way of review to catch us up to where we're gonna be looking at in our passage today.

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They went up to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice and to present Jesus to the Lord and of course all of that was to fulfill the

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Mosaic law, the demands of the law regarding the infant Jesus. Mary and Joseph wanted to ensure that their son would be considered a son of the covenant, that he would have fulfilled the law in its earliest stages and even in his infancy while he was yet frail and vulnerable and unable to fulfill the law on his own behalf, his mother and father saw to it that the law was fulfilled for him and then we're introduced to Simeon, this righteous and devout man whom scripture says in verse 25, he was righteous in that he had faith and so he had an imputed righteousness, the righteousness of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only righteousness that's ever imputed to anybody is the righteousness that Christ earned through his death on the cross and his living the perfect life and living in obedience to the law.

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Simeon also was devout, that is to say, he was careful in his obedience to the law of God and in his walk with God.

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He demonstrated his piety, his devoutness in his obedience to God and he was waiting for the consolation of Israel, looking for and expecting the

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Messiah and the Holy Spirit was upon him. That's the wonderful biography of this man of whom we know very little else other than just what is right here in scripture.

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We just know that he was righteous, devout, waiting for the Messiah and that the Holy Spirit was upon him and I suggested last week that if those were the only four things that could ever be said of you, those are the four best things that could ever be said of you.

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That's quite a biography. This is an intriguing man. In some fashion, the Holy Spirit revealed to Simeon that he would not see death until he saw the

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Lord's Christ. Now, we don't know how old Simeon was when that was revealed to him. Was he a teenager and then now he is very old or was there some point when

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Simeon had become sick in his old age and thought that maybe that was the time that God was going to call him home and the

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Spirit of God revealed to him that no, you're not gonna die until you see the Lord's Christ. We don't know how old he was.

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We don't even know how it is that the Spirit revealed that to Simeon or how long he waited to see the

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Christ before he actually did in the temple that day. There's a lot about that encounter we don't know. We don't know what

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Simeon was expecting. Was he expecting to see the Messiah come back in clouds with great glory as the

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Old Testament seemed to suggest that the Messiah would come? By the way, he will come. It's not the first coming, the second coming.

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Was that what Simeon was waiting to see? Was he expecting to see Mary and Joseph, a young, unassuming, poor

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Jewish couple in the temple that day? What was he looking for and anticipating? We don't know any of that, but the

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Lord had promised a Messiah back in the Garden of Eden and all of the Old Testament writings throughout the course of Israel's history had promised that this

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Messiah would come and fulfill the promise given in the Garden. Abraham expected one who would be the seed, who would bless all the nations, that would be from his descendants.

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David expected that one of his long -descendant sons would end up ruling the nations and bringing in a kingdom of peace and righteousness.

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That was what David's expectation was. All the prophets expected this Messiah, anticipated him, described his judgment and his coming, and all of that was anticipated.

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And then you have Simeon who has this longing to see the consolation of Israel. As a devout Jew, he would have had that Old Testament expectation and been looking forward to it.

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And then listen, then to have it revealed to you that you were not going to die before you saw the

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Christ in your own lifetime. What would that have been like? To have that confidence?

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Someone saying, you know, Simeon, you've gotta get ready to meet the Lord. You could die at any moment.

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Oh, no, no. No, no, I know it's 5 p .m. right now, but I have not seen the Lord's Christ today, so I know that I shall live until I see the

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Lord's Christ. He had that confident expectation. What would that do for you if you knew that you would see the

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Lord return in your own lifetime, and that you would not die until you saw the face of Christ?

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Until you, in the words of Job, saw your Messiah take his stand, your God take his stand upon this earth?

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If you knew you were going to see that in your own lifetime and you could not die before that happened, what would that do to you? Would it motivate you a little bit?

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Would you arrange your life's priorities just a little bit? Would you live with this confident expectation, this eager anticipation, this sort of zealous motivation to do for the

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Lord what you can while you can? I can imagine that for Simeon, this would have been not only a source of great confidence, but something that would have just thrilled his heart, that expectation that at any day, the

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Lord could return. I don't want to camp on this too much, but just to remind you, the Lord has promised that he is going to return.

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He is going to come. Now, whether you see him in your lifetime or not, I can't promise you that. And if anybody here, or anybody watching, or anybody emails me and says, the

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Lord has revealed to me that I will see the Christ in my own lifetime before I die, I'm calling hooey on that.

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That is not true. That is baloney. He's not gonna do that. No man knows the day or the hour, but we do long to see that, and we do have that confident expectation that he shall return, and we will be with him.

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For some reason, the Lord chose Simeon to be the special recipient of that special blessing, to know that he would not die until he saw the

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Christ. Verse 27 says that he came in the spirit into the temple. Verse 26 is the promise.

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It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord's Christ. Verse 27, and he came in the spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child

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Jesus to carry out for him the custom of the law, he took the Christ child into his arms and blessed

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God and said. Now, in some way, the Spirit of God led Simeon into the temple that day. Here's what we do not know, because when

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I say the Spirit of God led Simeon into the temple, in your mind, so let's be clear about something.

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We don't know how this providentially worked out. It might be that this is simply Luke's description that Simeon came into the temple to worship that day.

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He was in the Spirit in the sense that he was in an attitude of worship and he was coming in to offer his sacrifice and to worship

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God in the temple as he did maybe several times that week, or at least weekly, that he came into the temple for that purpose, and that this is just Luke describing that in the

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Spirit, that is, in a spirit of worship and desiring to worship, he came into the temple. We don't know if that's what is being described.

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It is also possible that because the Spirit of God had revealed to Simeon that he would not taste death until he saw the

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Lord's Christ, that the Spirit of God also revealed to Simeon every step along the way what he was to do and what he was to expect.

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That's possible, isn't it? Now, these are obviously two separate extremes on the experiential paradigm, as it were, right?

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It's possible that Simeon woke up that morning and the Spirit of God revealed to him, spoke to him, and said,

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Simeon, today is the day. I need you to go to the temple. It needs to be at nine a .m.,

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and you need to go to the northwest, and I'm just making this stuff up, corner of the temple complex.

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It was a big complex, and you ought to be looking for a young Jewish couple. He's gonna look like sort of a ruffian type of a guy.

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He's a carpenter, after all, and they're not gonna have a lot of money. They're going to be theirs. You're gonna be holding the Christ child in the arms, and you're gonna recognize the child because it's going to be a male wrapped in a blue blanket with a blue beanie on top of its head.

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I don't know what it was the Spirit of God revealed him. The Spirit of God might have revealed all of those details to Simeon so he knew exactly where to go, where to be, when to be there, on what day to go, and what he was looking for.

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That is possible. Or it is possible that Luke is just simply here describing that even though Simeon walked into the temple that day, not feeling any liver shivers or getting

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Holy Spirit bumps or hearing any audible voices, that the Spirit of God was providentially guiding his steps so that though from Simeon's perspective, he was just living life, going through the motions, doing what he normally did, but from the divine perspective, it was the

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Spirit of God who was guiding and providentially guarding those steps and directing them to that end. That is what

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I think most likely happened. There is a whole segment of Christianity that thinks that the Spirit of God is not working unless we feel it and we see it and it's some supernatural reality, but I would submit to you that the

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Spirit of God works in all kinds of ways, all around us, all of the time. Most of it, the vast majority of it is unperceived by the children of God.

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I think this is just Luke saying Simeon went that day and you see this chance coincidence of this meeting of Simeon with this young couple.

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Oh no, no, Simeon was going about his business, but the Spirit of God was providentially guiding his steps so that it was in the

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Spirit that Simeon did this. And the Spirit ends up bringing Simeon to the Christ child and not only that, but the

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Spirit ends up prompting this confession that is on Simeon's lips beginning in verse 29 where he starts talking about and describing this

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Christ child. This is, I think, working out in a physical way, something that we have to understand and confess happens in the spiritual sense as well.

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Who was it that directed Simeon's steps and brought him to the Christ and then revealed to Simeon who this was?

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However that revelation happened and the guidance happened, we're not told that by Luke. What we do know that is in the moment when he saw that child, he could not have known that that child was the

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Christ unless the Spirit of God revealed that. There were all kinds of children, possibly in the temple, likely around Jerusalem, and if Simeon comes into the temple that day, the reality that this was the

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Christ is something that would have been revealed by the Holy Spirit to Simeon. That's something he could have only known by revelation.

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So whatever is orchestrating this encounter, however this encounter is taking place, it is in the moment that he sees the

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Christ child that he recognizes that is what the Christ child is. It is then when he sees that baby, he understands the value of that child, the significance of that child, the significance of the birth, and listen, this is what the

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Holy Spirit does to us and to anyone who gets saved. This is what the Spirit of God has done for everybody in here who is a believer in Jesus Christ.

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You did not come to Christ on your own. You came to Christ because the Spirit drew you to Christ. No man comes to the

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Father, right? No man can come to Jesus, Jesus said in John 6, 44, unless the

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Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. No one comes to Christ in the flesh. No one comes to Christ on his own.

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No man seeks after God. No one has that ability. It's not that no man is unwilling, he is. All men are unwilling to do that unless the

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Lord does that work. But this is something playing out in the physical realm that is true spiritually. Nobody comes to Christ on their own.

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It's the Spirit of God who does that. It's the Spirit of God who providentially directs our steps so that he may bring to God his elect in that perfect timing because it is

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God who has chosen. It's the Son who would die. It is the Spirit who draws in God's people. And that's what the

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Spirit of God is doing for Simeon here in a providential way and in a physical sense.

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I want you to notice also the Trinitarian moment that's unfolding right here before our eyes. He came in the Spirit into the temple and the parents brought the child

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Jesus to carry out the custom of the law and took his arms and he blessed God. And then what he says in verses 29 through 32 is his confession to God.

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This is a Trinitarian moment. Notice that you have the Christ child there in the temple. Even as an infant, he is

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God in human flesh. This is one person with two natures. This is God incarnate, the eternal second person of the

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Trinity, the Word made flesh. This is not something that would happen later in his life. This is something that is true of him even in his infancy.

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This is the God man. This is the perfect sinless Son of God present in the temple. And then you have

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Simeon whose steps and whose words and whose eyes are all being worked upon by the Holy Spirit to bring

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Simeon there to that point where you see the Spirit of God is there and the Son is there and then he begins to speak to the

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Father about the Son. So what we have here is the confession of a devout Yahweh worshiper under the influence of the

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Spirit speaking to the Father about the Son. This is somebody under the influence of the third person of the

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Trinity describing the second person of the Trinity to the first person of the Trinity. This is quite magnificent, isn't it? It's a

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Trinitarian moment. All three persons of the Trinity are there. The Spirit of God has been working to bring

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Simeon there and then speaking through Simeon exactly what it is who this Christ child is. He's blessing

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God and speaking to the Father, not telling the Father anything that the Father didn't already know. None of us do when we praise or bless

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God. But he's describing the Son to the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit that makes this entire encounter something that is worthy of us spending the time and attention to it that we are.

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And notice where this happens. All this takes place where? In the temple. The Spirit of God could have directed

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Simeon to go to the home where Joseph and Mary were staying at the end of the house or wherever it was.

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The Spirit of God could have arranged for Simeon to meet Joseph and Mary out on the road between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

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He could have arranged to have Simeon meet them down in the marketplace in Jerusalem or outside the temple complex or up on the

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Mount of Olives or down in the Kidron Valley or at the Garden of Gethsemane or anywhere else. But where does the Spirit of God providentially bring together

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Simeon and Mary and Joseph and this child? It is in the temple. Do you understand the significance and the symbolism of what is being played out there?

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What did the temple symbolize? It was God dwelling with his people. That's where the ark was.

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That's where the cherubim were. That's where the glory of God appeared between the wings of the cherubim over the mercy seat on the

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Ark of the Covenant behind the Holy of Holies and the temple. That's where God met with his people. The temple was the visible symbol that God was with us.

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And in comes Immanuel, God with us, into the temple in his infancy.

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And that is where Simeon begins to confess all of this about God's salvation. It is Immanuel, the fulfillment in the presence of the temple which symbolized

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God with us. And what else went on in the temple? Oh, by the way, that is exactly what John was talking about in John chapter one when he says the word became flesh and dwelt, tabernacled among us.

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That's the word for tabernacle, pitched his tent. God became flesh and pitched his tent among us and dwelt among us so that Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word is

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God with us because he tabernacled with us. And now the tabernacling God comes into the temple, brought in there by his parents.

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And what went on in the temple? Sacrifices were offered, right? Sacrifices, what did the sacrifices symbolize?

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Sacrifices were the reminder of sin and of course symbolized that greater sacrifice that was to come. So here

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Mary and Joseph bring in the Lamb of God to the place where the lambs were sacrificed. They bring in the one who would offer himself as a sacrifice, the full and final and perfect sacrifice that would put an end to all the other sacrifices.

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And again, you have here the fulfillment of the symbol being brought into the place of the symbol. And who offered the sacrifices at the temple?

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The priests did. The priests stood day after day and offered the same sacrifices which could never take away sin.

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And their priesthood was merely symbolic of another priest who was to come because there was one who is a priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, he is an eternal priest, an undying priest.

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He ever lives to make intercession for those who come to him. He is able to save forever all those who come to God by him.

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Hebrews 7, it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens, who does not need daily like those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people because he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

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For the law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a son made perfect forever.

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He is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. So here he was brought into the temple and he is among hundreds of priests who filled a priesthood that was merely symbolic of the priesthood that he would one day fulfill.

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He's the better priest. So he's the better temple, the better sacrifice, the better into ground zero of all of the old covenant symbols and features and forms.

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Right there in the temple is where all of that comes together. The temple's symbolic, the priests are symbolic, the sacrifices are symbolic, and Mary and Joseph brought him there in order to fulfill the law which was symbolic and there at ground zero of the entire old covenant, he is presented here in front of Simeon in the presence of the

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Trinity. So you have this symbolism all coming together, all of these themes are colliding in Luke chapter two and you have all three persons of the

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Trinity who are there and then this devout worshiper from the old covenant who is testifying to the efficacy of this one who is the mediator of the new covenant and all of that is happening right here at the temple.

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And here's something that nobody on the scene knew at the time but that this Christ child would end up by his death, his burial, and his resurrection putting an end to all of the symbols.

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He would fulfill them all and he would render all of it obsolete and this one would eventually leave the temple someday in the week before his crucifixion and he would look back upon the temple and he would pronounce judgment upon the temple for their rejection of him.

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And this is just where it begins. This is his first time in the temple. Well now, we need to get to what

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Simeon actually says. Verse 29, now Lord, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace.

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I want you to notice verses 29 through 32 is what he says to the father. Verses 33 through 35 is what he begins addressing to Mary and Joseph.

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So Simeon is going to address two different audiences here. First, he praises God for his provision and Simeon is aware here that two things are true.

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First, God has fulfilled all of his promises of the Old Testament. Sorry, not all of them but all of the ones concerning the coming of the

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Messiah. He has fulfilled all of those by bringing into the temple and by bringing into the world this Christ child.

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Second, Simeon knew that now he can die. Now he's seen it. And if the

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Lord had promised you you will not die until X happens and then X happens, then you know that at that point you can start counting up the days and say, okay, every one of these days is a gift of grace to be here on the earth.

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So Simeon begins to confess that now that he has seen the Lord's Christ, it's time for him to go. He knows now that he can depart.

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So he says in verse 29, Lord, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace according to your word. What was the word?

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The word was, I would live to see the Christ child. Now I've seen the Christ child. God has fulfilled his word, not just to all of Israel by bringing this child into the world, that this is the

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Messiah, the son of David, this descendant of Abraham who will fulfill all these promises. Not only has God fulfilled that promise, but God had fulfilled his promise to Simeon himself by allowing him to live to see this child.

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And now that God has fulfilled those promises, Simeon can die in peace. So he says, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace.

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I want you to notice the slave language that is used. He refers to God as Lord. That is a word that is, it was the word despotis, which was the word from which we get our word despot.

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It referred to one who is an absolute master, ruler, owner, and Lord. And then Simeon describes himself as a doulos, a slave.

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Not just a servant, not just one who would serve at his own will like an employee, but a slave.

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One who has no rights, one who is owned and has no rights whatsoever. Simeon's language here gives us some indication of how he viewed himself in terms of his relationship to Yahweh.

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Yahweh is the master and he is nothing more than the slave. This is the perspective of all righteous people.

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If you are righteous and you know who you are and what your role is before God, you would see yourself as a slave and him as the absolute master, ruler, and God.

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And there's no room at all for rebellion in such a relationship. And he now felt that he was being released.

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And that word released means to depart or to be set free or to be let go. It was used in two ways.

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And this, of course, is slave language as well. It described one who escaped from confinement or one who was delivered from toil.

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There's no better description of the death of a Christian than that. One who escapes confinement and is delivered from toil.

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Think about that. In this world, in your flesh, you are confined. You are shackled to this sin -cursed, fallen, reprobate, doomed world.

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You are shackled to it as long as you are in your flesh. But death for you is being released from that confinement.

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We're in this world and we have no chance, or no choice, I should say, of being anywhere outside of this world until death sets us free from that.

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So death is, for the Christian, truly a release from confinement. It's also a deliverance from toil. Because as long as we are in this world, we have to work and fight against sin.

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We have to strive for holiness. We have to pursue it. We have to love the Lord. We have to serve Him while it is still day, knowing that night is soon coming.

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And all of our efforts to serve the Lord are restricted. Our energy is restricted.

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Our time is short. There are a thousand things that compete with it. And yet we strive to honor Him and to serve

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Him and work to mortify the flesh. Everything about our life is toilsome. It's vexing. It's intended to be because this whole world is under a curse.

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And you're shackled to it. Death for you, in every sense, is a release from that confinement and a deliverance from the toil that God has called you to.

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And only for a Christian is this true, that we can depart in peace. You see, it is only when Simeon knew that he had seen the

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Lord's salvation that he can say, now I can depart in peace. That is absolutely true of you and I as well.

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Only if you know salvation can you expect to depart in peace. Because for the unbeliever who has no payment for their sin and is under the wrath of God, your departure from this world, if you die in your sin impenitent, is not going to be a release in peace.

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It is going to be an escape into a whole nother kind of confinement, an entirely different type of toil.

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You'll die and not know a moment of peace for all of eternity. And even if you do manage to die in some state of emotional, spiritual, intellectual peace here on this earth, it is the last moment of peace you will ever know or ever understand if you die outside of Jesus Christ.

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Only the believer can say that God has released him, delivered him from his confinement, and set him free from his toil, and that he can die in peace because the believer knows that he goes into an eternal peace at the right hand of God, forever and ever.

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I love the way J .C. Ryle describes Simeon. J .C. Ryle says he, that is Simeon, speaks like one for whom the grave has lost its terrors and the world its charms.

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He speaks as one for whom the grave has lost its terrors and the world its charms. That's magnificent.

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Before you are a believer in Jesus Christ, the grave is filled with terrors and the world is filled with charms. You love this world and you want to cling to it because it truly is all you have.

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And you're not sure how many trips around the sun you get to make on it, but you do know that those trips are limited and that your time is gonna come to an end.

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And you probably want and long to be here and to stay here for all of eternity in a world like this because this is the only thing that holds any charm for you.

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That is the perspective of the unbeliever. But then when you become a Christian, if you understand truth rightly enough, then you understand that the grave has lost its terrors, though the world might still be filled with charms.

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An unbeliever, the grave is filled with terrors and the world is filled with charms. For a brand new believer, the grave has lost its terrors because we know one who has been victorious over Satan and he was the one who had the power of death.

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So we no longer fear the grave. We no longer fear eternity. Knowing that we have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ and that there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, you and I as believers, even the newest of believer, can look at the grave and understand that this is just simply me leaving one realm and going into another and I'm passing immediately in to the presence of God and to depart and be with Christ is far better, to be absent from the bodies, to be present with the

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Lord, but the world might still have its charms. We do kind of enjoy things here, right?

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We enjoy the nice things that God gives us in this world. I'm not looking forward to not having steak.

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I hope there's steak in heaven. But I want, I enjoy those things here. So this existence has some charms.

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But then as you become an older believer, the grave has still lost its terrors, but now the world has lost its charms.

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And dare I even say that the grave starts to take on a certain charm, right?

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Because then you understand this world has nothing for me. And everything that I once loved, I don't love any of it anymore.

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You start to look at the prospect of seeing the Lord face to face and you think to yourself, I could do without steak.

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I've lost all my teeth, I can't chew it anyway. What a difference there is between the death of the righteous and the death of the wicked.

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Spurgeon, commenting on this passage, he says this. Listen, around the sinner's deathbed, the tempest thickens and he hears the rumblings of the eternal storm.

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His soul is driven away, either amid the thunderings of curses loud and deep or else in the dread calm which evermore forebodes the hurricane.

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Depart, you cursed, is the horrible sound which is in his ears. But not so the righteous.

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He feels the Father's hand of benediction on his head and underneath him are the everlasting arms. The best wine with him is kept to the last and eventide it is light.

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And as his sun is going down, it grows more glorious and lights up all the surroundings with the celestial glow whereby standers wonder and exclaim, let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his, close quote.

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It's quite a difference between the death of the wicked and the death of the righteous. Only the righteous can say, Lord, now I can depart in peace because he knows that he can depart in peace and that he goes into everlasting peace.

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Now look at Simeon's description of Jesus. My eyes have seen your salvation, verse 30, and you have prepared in the presence of all peoples a light of revelation to the

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Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. And here we are almost at the end and this is the three -point outline.

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Jesus Christ is salvation, revelation, and glory. Salvation is the central and primary mission of his incarnation.

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It's not the only thing that he accomplished at the incarnation, but he took upon himself flesh so that he could offer up that flesh as a sacrifice for sin so that he might save all those whom the

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Father had given to him and he might save them infallibly. That was the mission of the incarnation. Also in that incarnation, he took upon himself a flesh so that he might rise physically from the dead and rule and reign in an eternal kingdom.

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That is also accomplished there, but it is salvation that is on Simeon's mind here and it is salvation, of course, which was hearkened by the angels and foretold by the angels.

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Matthew chapter one, verse 21. The angel said to Joseph, she will bear a son and you will call his name

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Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. Luke chapter two, verse 10. The angel said to them, do not be afraid for behold,

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I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, there has been born for you a

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Savior who is Christ the Lord. It is salvation which is predominantly the focus of the incarnation narratives and the incarnation emphasis in Scripture.

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It's the salvation which God would accomplish. Simeon had been waiting for the consolation of Israel. He did not see consolation in the sense that the

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Old Testament promised that the nation would be consoled. That is still yet a future reality, but he did see salvation and though he was one who was looking for the consolation of Israel, he saw the salvation of God.

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Verse 20, verse 30. For my eyes have seen your salvation. Jesus Christ is God's salvation.

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That's what the name Jesus means. Yahweh saves or Yahweh's salvation or Yahweh is the

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Savior. This was the name, Jesus is the name given by the angel to Mary in Luke chapter one.

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It's the name given by the angel to Luke, sorry, to Joseph in Matthew chapter one. It is the

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Father himself, God, who named Jesus, not Joseph and Mary. Keep that in mind. And God could have chosen any number of appropriate names to name him.

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He could have named the Christ child. He could have given a name which described his kingship, his rule, his reign, his act of judgment, his act of provision, his act of providence.

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He could have chosen a name which would describe his eternality. He could have given any one of those names, but instead he chose the name which talked about Yahweh's salvation.

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That's the emphasis. My eyes have seen your salvation. Did Simeon know that his name was

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Jesus? We don't know that, do we? But he knew that this one, if this is the constellation of Israel, this is the one who was appointed to bring salvation.

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And the very name Jesus describes that. Christ came in his first coming not to deliver his people from their enemies, but to deliver his people from their sins.

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See, the Jews were expecting a Messiah to come and deliver them from their enemies. Why would they expect that?

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That's what the Old Testament promised. You say, was the Old Testament not fulfilled? Oh, no, no. He's coming again the next time without reference to sin.

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The first time he came to deliver his people not from their enemies, but from their sin. The next time he is coming, he is not coming to offer a sacrifice for sins.

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He is going to come and he is going to deliver his people from their enemies, just as the Old Testament promised. He's going to fulfill all of those promises.

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And notice that this is a salvation prepared in the presence of all peoples. This was not done in a corner. God had promised

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Adam and Eve in the garden, they had passed that hope down to their descendants that this was going to happen. God had then promised Abraham, and Abraham had passed that down to his descendants.

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All the tribes and anybody who'd grown up in the land of Israel knew that a Messiah was coming. God had sent prophets to predict the timing of the

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Messiah's birth, the place of the Messiah's birth, that he would be born of a virgin. God testified through the shepherds and the angelic hosts and the magi that this was the

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Messiah. Everybody knew it. By the time that Jesus of Nazareth died, he was the most well -known Jew in all of the land of Israel.

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None of this was done in a corner. This salvation was prepared in the presence of all the peoples. His crucifixion was out in front of everybody.

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His resurrection was something publicly available to anybody that could go to the tomb and see that he rose from the dead. Everything God did in preparation for salvation and in accomplishing salvation was itself done publicly, and it was done in the presence of all the peoples.

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That is a reference there to both Jews and Gentiles. That's the idea there. You'll notice that the next two phrases, in light of revelation to the

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Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel, that there is an ethnic distinction there in terms of that salvation.

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So Simeon and Luke here recognize this ethnic distinction, that there is salvation brought to Gentiles and to God's people

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Israel, so that those are kept distinct. And when Luke says that this salvation is prepared in the presence of all the peoples, he is incorporating here, he's wanting us to know it's not just all the

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Jewish peoples but all the peoples. There is a nationwide intentionality in the salvation that God has brought to this earth, and it has always been

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God's intention to bring in Gentiles by the millions into the salvific blessings.

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And listen, it has always been God's intention to bring Gentiles by the millions into the eschatological blessings that will come to the nation of Israel as well.

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That has always been God's design. We have Old Testament examples of Gentiles who were saved,

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Nebuchadnezzar, Melchizedek, Rahab. There were people of faith, and enough sprinkled through the Old Testament to remind us that God's plan always was this worldwide, national evangelism of all peoples.

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In fact, that was the reason that God has sent the nation of Israel to be a light to all of the rest of those peoples. And why do you think that this

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Gentile emphasis is something that is so significant to Luke? What was Luke?

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He was a Gentile. And you will notice as you read through the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, how

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Luke's focus is very Gentile -oriented. The Book of Acts tells us how the Gospel went from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts of the world, all in about 30 years' time.

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Luke was the traveling companion to the Apostle of the Gentiles. Simeon's words were not lost on Luke. Luke counted himself thankful that God had opened up grace so much as to bring him, an unworthy

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Gentile, into God's saving purposes. The salvation is a salvation prepared in the presence of all peoples.

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Now, here we have two descriptive phrases, a revelation, a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people

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Israel. Those are two phrases that describe the salvation that comes to all peoples or that is prepared in the presence of all peoples.

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All peoples incorporates two different groups of people, Jews and Gentiles. The salvation that is described in verse 29, or verse 30, comes by way of revelation to the

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Gentiles and glory to national Israel. Both of these are salvation issues. And it is difficult to try and separate salvation and revelation and glory, since in some senses, they are synonymous with one another, but they're not absolute synonyms.

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They're not perfect analogies with one another. They are distinct, but I think that there's overlap. And the whole point of this is described that to the

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Gentiles, salvation would come by way of a light shining to the Gentile nations, which they had never seen before.

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And this light would be the Messiah himself. The word revelation means a revealing or making something known. And the light here,

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I think, is an intellectual light. It's a moral light. It's the dawning of the Messiah upon all the nations.

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This was accomplished through the Jews' rejection of their Messiah, but this truth finds, this truth that eventually all of the nations would be brought into God's salvation, that is something that we see repeated time and again in the book of Isaiah.

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There's a lot of references in Isaiah. I'll give you a few of them. Isaiah 9, verses 1 and 2, and you'll probably recognize some of these verses, because they're quoted throughout the

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New Testament. Isaiah 9, 1 and 2, there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In earlier times, he treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on, he shall make it glorious by way of the sea on the other side of the

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Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.

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That was the promise of the Messiah coming to the other nations, offering salvation to the other nations. It's characterized in terms of light dawning on the other nations, and all the

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Gentiles seeing that light and coming to God. Isaiah 42, verses 6 through 7. I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness.

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I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you. I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.

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Isaiah 49, verse 6. He says, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel.

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I will also make you a light to the nations so that my salvation may reach the end of the earth. See, in the Old Testament, it was promised.

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Israel was intended to be a missionary -sending nation. They were supposed to be a light among the nations so that people from Israel would go out and call the

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Gentiles to repentance. Do you remember Jonah and the whale and Nineveh? Do you remember that? That was to be something regularly happening.

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It wasn't something that was supposed to only happen when God took a prophet and threw him into the depths of the sea and made him swallowed by a fish and then vomited back up on dry land.

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That was supposed to be the regular thing, not the exception. Israel was supposed to be a light to the rest of the nations but Israel failed in that duty.

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And so God said, all right, you are my servant. I appointed you for this. You failed to do this. Therefore, behold, my servant, this one who would come, he would do what

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Israel failed to do and that's what the Messiah did. He did what Israel failed to do. You see this also in Isaiah 51, 52, chapter 60.

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In fact, later in Luke chapter three, John the Baptist quotes a passage from the book of Isaiah that describes all flesh seeing the salvation of God.

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This was God's purpose. That you and I, non -Jews, alienated from God, would be brought into the salvific blessings of the new covenant.

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And third, he is the glory of Israel, the salvation prepared in all presence of all the peoples, that is a light of revelation of the

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Gentiles as well as the glory of your people Israel. Notice here, and I think more could be made of this but I'm not going to, not because I'm afraid to do it but we're out of time.

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Notice that there is not only an ethnic distinction here but there is also an order to these two phrases. Simeon does not suggest that because of the work of the

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Messiah that all of a sudden Gentiles would be considered Jews. He doesn't do that. Simeon doesn't suggest that because of the work of the

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Messiah or because of the rejection of the Messiah by national Israel that the idea of Israel would then just begin to incorporate all

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Gentiles as well and that anybody saved would be called Israel. That's not what he suggests. There is an order here and I think a chronological order.

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Jesus Christ is called the glory of Israel in the sense that they were the nation who was promised the Messiah would come from them so forevermore

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Israel will be known as the nation that produced for the world the salvation that brought salvation to all mankind.

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And that is a glory for the nation of Israel, not just that past birth that took place that marks them as the people through whom

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God brought this Messiah. So there is an honor and a dignity and a glory that comes to Israel because they were the chosen vessel through whom the

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Messiah would come. But there has to be and is yet a future glory not one that rests upon just him being a descendant of the nation of Israel but actually a glory that that Messiah will bring to national

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Israel. And I think this is what is described in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is the glory of Israel not just because he was born to Israel but because he will cause

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Israel itself as a nation to be reborn at the end of time. This will be its ultimate glory.

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Salvation for Israel is not just, oh yeah, the Messiah was born of that nation or now in the time of the

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Gentiles a few Jews are brought in and saved. That is glory for that nation but it's not the greatest glory that that nation could experience or see.

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There is a greater glory yet for that nation. And I think it will happen when Jesus Christ returns and they look on him whom they have pierced and they mourn for him as one mourns for an only son.

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And they will weep and lament and there will be weeping over him like the weeping over a firstborn, Zechariah 12, verse 10. Ezekiel says there will be a fountain of cleansing opened up in Israel and they will come to him and that salvation, that cleansing from their sin as they recognize that they have rejected their

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Messiah and there will come a day when as Paul says in Romans chapter 11, all

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Israel will be saved. National Israel will be saved at some point. That is future, that will be their glory.

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This is what's described in Isaiah chapter 45. Listen to this and you will recognize some phrases here plucked right out of here into the

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New Testament and used to describe Jesus. Isaiah 45, turn to me and be saved all you ends of the earth.

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Look at that, national focus, not just Israel, all you ends of the earth. For I am God and there is no other.

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I have sworn by myself. The word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back.

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That to me every knee will bow and every tongue will swear allegiance. That is God claiming that to him every knee will bow and every tongue will swear allegiance.

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Paul quotes that passage in Philippians chapter two when he says that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and swear allegiance.

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Jesus is the Yahweh, he is Yahweh to whom every knee will bow and swear allegiance. Has that happened yet?

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It has not happened yet. They will say of me only in the

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Lord are righteousness and strength. Again, this is Isaiah chapter 45. And all who were angry at him will be put to shame.

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Listen, in the Lord all the offspring of Israel will be justified and will glory.

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All the offspring of Israel will be justified and will glory. There will come a time when they look on him whom they have pierced and he returns and a fountain of cleansing is opened up and all of the nations come to him and Israel weeps over him, recognizing that they have crucified their

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Messiah and they have rejected him. There will come a time that all national Israel will be saved and they will be justified and that will be their glory.

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And the proclamation of the gospel to all the nations and the bringing in of all these Gentiles for the last 2 ,000 years has not minimized in any way

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Israel's glory. In fact, it has only served to accentuate it because now all of those eschatological blessings that will be poured out on national

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Israel, all of them get to be enjoyed by Gentiles as well from every tribe and kindred and tongue and nation on the face of the planet.

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Now all the Gentiles get to rejoice. If Israel had embraced its Messiah in the first century when Jesus came the first time, then all of those eschatological blessings would have been poured out on them but they weren't.

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Instead, because of that grace and because of that rejection, all of us are welcomed and brought in now. And now all of us get even greater glory and there's more people that get glory as God has said to all the nations, come to me for salvation and may all the flesh see the salvation of God.

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So now all the nations are brought in just in time for God to pour out all of his end time blessings upon Israel.

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When Jesus Christ is fully the glory of Israel, all of the Gentiles will rejoice in that.

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See, right now we get all the eschatological blessings. One day, we get to enjoy all of the good stuff that was promised to David and Abraham as well.

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Our eschatological salvation now is the promise and the security that all of those blessings promised to Abraham and David, they're also ours as well.

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That is for Israel's greater glory. It's not just that they are saved, yeah, that's glory. It's not just the

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Messiah came from, yeah, that's glory. But the greater glory that is yet to be had, that yet to be enjoyed by national

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Israel. And so I ask you this, Jesus Christ is God's salvation, his revelation and his glory.

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Do you know him? I'm not asking if you just know that Jesus is the reason for the season or that Christmas is about him or yeah, meek and lowly,

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Jesus in a manger. I mean, do you know him? Have you come to the end of yourself and all of your attempts at self -righteousness and earning

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God's favor and recognize that you are a sinner under the wrath of God, that you deserve his justice, but that God sent his son into this world so that in his living and in his dying, he might pay the price for you, a sinner.

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And have you repented of your sin and come to trust him for salvation? Are you believing upon him or do you know salvation or do you only know of salvation?

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Simeon was one of hundreds of people in the temple that day but other than Anna, he was the only one that saw in this

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Christ child the value and worth. That's not something that was revealed to everybody. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of people who walked past this

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Christ child during that time that Mary and Joseph were in Jerusalem who did not see in him any value and worth.

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Do you know salvation or do you just know of salvation? God commands you this day to repent of your sin, either embrace the forgiveness that the son offers or you will face the judgment that the son has promised.

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Those are your two choices. Let's bow our heads. Father, we thank you for so gracious a salvation is what you have provided in your son.

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Something that is now available to all, you have called the nations to repent, you have provided salvation in him.

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We thank you that his sacrifice on the cross was sufficient for us. Again, we rejoice in that, that by your grace, you have included and incorporated us into your plan of redemption and salvation.

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We thank you that as of yet, it is not too late for any and all who will repent and believe to come to that saving faith in Jesus Christ.

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We pray for any who are here or who are listening who are unbelievers who have not yet repented, turned from their sin and trusted

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Christ for salvation that they would like Simeon see in Jesus. The solace for their soul, the consolation of Israel, the glory of your people, the light of revelation, your salvation, your deliverance, forgiveness and everything that their soul needs that they may have eternal life and be justified and be made righteous before you.

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Accomplish this purpose in many lives we pray and in our own hearts. We pray that we would rejoice at so great a salvation is what you have provided in your son.

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Thank you again in Christ's name, amen. Amen. Amen.

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Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.