GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 2:26-27
26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not experience death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required,
It’s always important to take the word of God in its context. Only in this way will we understand what God is saying to us and what he is not saying to us. When I first began my studies for the ministry, I got two handwritten letters from home. Keep in mind that I was in my first week of studies in a Master’s program that was going to take eight years in three different places. But the mom of one of my friends back home asked me to explain “laying on hands,” thinking that after three or four days we would have covered that in class. And my grandmother wanted me to explain what Paul was saying about women and covering their heads in 1 Corinthians 11. Grandma was patient—I gave her an answer four years later after we studied 1 Corinthians in Greek. My friend’s mom, however, was confused that we didn’t cover that right away in school (did she think I could bring it up in beginning Greek class or in Phy Ed or maybe in music theory as one would bring up any old issue in an AA meeting?). When I finally gave her an answer, we found out that we had completely different ideas about theology. I answered her by gathering passages together that talk about the laying on of hands, and she didn’t really care what the Bible said, but only what she had heard about or felt as she witnessed various applications of hands in a dozen or so different Reformed denominations as she journeyed from church to church. But we need to ask the word of God what a thing means to understand it—we can’t just watch anybody do what they think it right, “whatever he saw fit” (Judges 21:25).
This brings us to the communication of the Holy Spirit with Simeon. Simeon was “moved by the Spirit,” and that can mean a hundred things to a hundred people. When do I know that the Spirit is moving me? Should I feel something? Should I hear something? Will I hear the Spirit whispering to me, like a buzzing in my ears? People who have believed that have done nothing but cause chaos and disorder in God’s church over the centuries—and “God is not a God of disorder but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33).
Let’s run back to the text. We’re told that the Holy Spirit had “revealed” to Simeon that he would not die (“not experience death,” μὴ ἰδεῖν θάνατον) until he had seen Christ. This means that God the Holy Spirit had communicated with Simeon, and we cannot assume or even infer that it was a silent, internal act or a mere feeling.
When the Spirit speaks, it is clear that God is speaking. The Holy Spirit spoke privately with a clear voice to Peter, “Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go up with them, for I have sent them” (Acts 10:19). During a worship service, the Spirit said publicly to a whole congregation, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). At other times, the Spirit spoke through prophets (Acts 28:25-26) or through visions (Ezekiel 11:24, etc.). And Paul was physically moved by the Spirit when he attempted to go to Bithynia. “The Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas” (Acts 16:7-8).
In this case, we’re not told whether the Spirit spoke to Simeon privately with a clear voice, publicly with a clear voice, through a prophet, through a vision or dream, or that he moved Simeon physically by some natural means. But there is no reason at all to make up a sixth possibility which is never supported by any Biblical text. And since there had been that earlier clear communication, we understand that when Simeon was “moved by the Spirit,” he was moved in some clear and evident way that was either described in the earlier communication or consequent to it.
We see the result of the Spirit’s work in verse 27, which is only the beginning of a sentence concluded in verses 28 and 29. As Simeon was moved by the Spirit into the temple, Mary and Joseph were also moving into the temple for an ordinary but necessary reason…and this is how the Spirit brought them together at just the right moment, for his own good purpose. “For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). God loves you and has a purpose for you. That’s clear from his holy word. Search the Scriptures, and listen for God to speak to you there, in his word.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota