Luke 2:12
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): That very Jesus, Who once lay in the womb of the blessed Virgin, and Who, at His birth had no other mansion than a stable, no other cradle than a manger—that same Jesus, was “God manifest in the flesh,” 1 Timothy 3:16.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): What spiritual lessons are we intended to learn from His being placed in a manger?
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Thus He would answer the type of Moses, the great prophet and lawgiver of the Old Testament, who was in his infancy cast out in an ark of bulrushes, as Christ in a manger.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I think it was intended thus to show forth His humiliation.
CHARLES SIMEON: What can we conceive more degrading than for the Saviour of the world to be born in a stable, and to be laid in a manger?
C. H. SPURGEON: He came, according to prophecy, to be “despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;” He was to be “without form or comeliness, a root out of a dry ground,” Isaiah 53:2,3. Would it have been fitting that the man who was to die naked on the cross should be robed in purple at his birth? Would it not have been inappropriate that the Redeemer who was to be buried in a borrowed tomb should be born anywhere but in the humblest shed, and housed anywhere but in the most ignoble manner?
A. W. PINK: He was laid in a manger to demonstrate the extent of His poverty. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich,” 2 Corinthians 8:9. How “poor” He became, was thus manifested at the beginning.
MATTHEW HENRY: The word which we render “swaddling clothes” some derive from a word that signifies to rend, or tear, and these infer that He was so far from having a good suit of child-bed linen, that His very swaddles were ragged and torn.
C. H. SPURGEON: He is to wear through life a peasant’s garb; He is to associate with fishermen; the lowly are to be His disciples.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): When He grew up, He probably wrought with His father as a carpenter; and afterwards, while He executed the duties of His ministry, He was so poor, that He had not a place where to lay His head, but lived on the bounty of His friends.
C. H. SPURGEON: The cold mountains are often to be His only bed; He is to say, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head,” Luke 9:58.
MATTHEW HENRY: His being born in a stable and laid in a manger was an instance of the poverty of His parents. Had they been rich, room would have been made for them; but, being poor, they must shift as they could—that a woman in reputation for virtue and honour should be used so barbarously. If there had been any common humanity among them, they would not have turned a woman in travail into a stable.
CHARLES SIMEON: One would have thought that a person in Mary’s situation would have found a thousand females ready to receive her into their houses.
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): They put Him in a manger from which the cattle were accustomed to get their food.
A. W. PINK: He was laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn. They provided no better accommodation than a manger for His cradle. How solemnly this brings out the world’s estimate of the Christ of God. There was no appreciation of His amazing condescension. He was not wanted. It is so still. There is no room for Him in the schools, in society, in the business world, among the great throngs of pleasure seekers, in the political realm, in the newspapers, nor in many of the churches.
THOMAS COKE: Thus, by going before men in the thorny path of poverty and affliction, He has taught them to be contented with their lot in life, however mean and humble.
C. H. SPURGEON: Nothing, therefore, could be more fitting than that in His season of humiliation, when He laid aside all His glory, and took upon Himself the form of a servant, and condescended even to the meanest estate, He should be laid in a manger. And there I perceive a choice Glory in the mind of God, for He evidently despises the pomp and glory of the world which little minds esteem so highly. He might have been born in marble halls and wrapped in imperial purple, but He scorns these things and, in the manger among the oxen, we see a Glory which is independent of the trifles of luxury and parade. The Glory of God in the Person of Jesus asks no aid from the splendor of courts and palaces.
MATTHEW HENRY: Christ would hereby put a contempt upon all worldly glory, and teach us to slight it.
THOMAS COKE: Upon this humiliating circumstance of our Saviour’s birth in a stable, we may observe, how much the blessed Jesus, through the whole course of His life, despised the things most esteemed by men; for though He was the Son of God, when He became man He chose to be born of parents in the meanest condition of life; though He was heir of all things, He chose to be born in an inn; nay, in the stable of an inn, where, instead of a cradle He was laid in a manger. The angels reported the good news of His birth not to the rabbis and great men, but to shepherds, who, being plain honest people, were unquestionably good witnesses of what they heard and saw.
A. W. PINK: Who among us had ever imagined that the Lord of glory would lie in a manger? But He did!
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): God stripped Him of all earthly splendour, for the purpose of informing us that His kingdom is spiritual.
C. H. SPURGEON: Yet even as a Baby, He reigns and rules! Mark how the shepherds hasten to salute the new-born King, while the magi from the far-off East bring gold, frankincense and myrrh and bow at His feet. When the Lord condescends to show Himself in little things, He is still right royal and commands the homage of mankind. He is as majestic in the minute as in the magnificent; as royal in the Baby at Bethlehem as in later days in the Man who rode through Jerusalem with hosannas! There He lies in the manger, the Infinite, yet an Infant; Omnipotent, yet swaddled by a woman, and hanging as though helpless at her breast. Let Bethlehem always tell the matchless mystery of godliness—God manifest in human flesh!
THOMAS COKE: Jesus is truly worthy of our adoration, even in His lowest humiliation; the Babe in the manger is still the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
