I. "The Child grew." He grew in stature, and He grew in character and goodness. He did not stand still. Although it was God Himself who was revealed to us in the life of Jesus Christ, yet this did not prevent us from being made like unto Him in all things, sin only excepted. Each one of us, whether old or young, must remember that progress, improvement, going on, advance, is the only condition, the only way of our becoming like Christ, and therefore like God. The world moves, and we must all move with it.
II. And then come three things which the text puts before us as those in which our Lord's earthly education, in which the advance and improvement of His earthly character, added to His youthful and childlike powers. (1) It speaks of His strength and character. It says "He waxed strong in spirit." What strength is to the body, that strength of character is to the mind. (2) And the next thing which the text speaks of is wisdom. It says the Child was "filled with wisdom." Wisdom, as it were, was poured into Him, and His mind opened wider and wider to take it in. He drank in whatever wisdom there was in the knowledge of those about Him; He drank in the heavenly wisdom also which comes down from the Fountain of all wisdom. You, too, have this to gain day by day. (3) And the next thing is the grace or favour of God or, as it says at the end of the chapter, the grace, or favour, of God and man; the grace, the goodness, the graciousness of God, which calls forth grace and goodness and graciousness in man. Our blessed Lord had this always, but even in Him it increased more and more. So may it be with you.
A. P. Stanley, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 136.
Holiness in Childhood.
In the history of the saints there are two things chiefly remarkable. One is the depth of personal religion which they have displayed at an age when, in these days, we are wont to look upon the children as little more than sentient and irresponsible beings. The other remarkable feature is their precocity of general character and powers. I speak of the precocity of moral and spiritual life; the integrity and strength of character which youths have shown. They have begun to live and act as men among men, while as yet they were hardly in the dawn of manhood. These later ages have lost faith in the miraculous conception and holy Childhood of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the type and pledge of our regeneration in holy baptism, and of the development of our regenerate life.
I. Note what is the effect of sin after Baptism upon the regenerate nature. Its effect is to hinder the advance of our sanctification; and if so, it is no less than a direct antagonist of our regeneration, and a defeat of the purpose of God in our new birth of the Spirit; it is a resistance to the preventing grace of God, a refusal to be led by Him, and to follow His guidance and illumination. How little parents seem to know what they are doing when they make light of their children's early sins. They are doing nothing less than their best to undo God's grace in their regeneration, to make their salvation doubtful, and their future sorrows and losses many and inevitable.
II. We may learn what is the true relation of repentance to regeneration. The necessity for repentance arises out of the disobedience of the regenerate, and from the falls of those that sin grievously after baptism. The repentance of baptized men is as the difficult and precarious recovery of those who, after the partial cure of a death-sickness, fall into relapse. The powers of nature are wasted, the virtues of medicine baffled, and the disease grows doubly strong a sad exchange for them who once walked in white raiment and were numbered among the children of God.
III. Note in what it is that they who have been kept and sanctified from their regeneration exceed the blessedness of penitents. They have never fallen away from their first estate. Let us then, by prayers and labours, by word and by example, strive to rear up the elect of God, from their childhood, in the sanctity of Jesus Christ.
H. E. Manning, Sermons,vol. ii., p. 17.
Luke 2:40 , Luke 2:49; Luke 2:52
(with Mark 6:3; John 4:34; John 10:18; John 10:30)
The Germ of Christian Manhood.
Man and God are in eternal relation. As you cannot have an upper without an under; a brother without sister or brother; a son without a father or mother, so you cannot have a true conception of man without God. It lies in the very nature of the Father that He will not leave us men, and it is in our structure that we cannot rest without our Father. Man had lost God. Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God's mighty and age-filling effort to put Himself within the throbbing heart of humanity.
I. This perfect correspondence between Jesus the Son and God the Father is the source of all true and enduring growth. Man getting into his true relationship to the Father gets to the source of all life and progress. Apart from God true manhood is an impossibility. We must come into fellowship with Him, be partakers of His nature. That is the one and only garden in which the plants of righteousness can be grown.
II. Such trust in a communion with the Father is the source of cheerful patience and serene self-control. It is hurry that enfeebles us and takes the beauty out of our work. We will not mature. Our "hour" is always come, and we are restless for the tented field. We do not compel leisure, or seek the strength that is born in solitude, and so we are poor weaklings, beaten by the first foe we meet and able to offer nothing to God that will stand the test of His consuming fires.
III. The spontaneity of self-sacrifice, one of the surest marks of a perfecting manhood, is due to this trust in the Father, and consequent acceptance of His will and work, as the absolute rule and business of life. Nothing reveals the prodigious interval between us and Christ like the difficulty we find in sacrificing ourselves for the welfare of His Church and of the world.
IV. This, too, is the secret of the plenary power of men. If there is one thing science has fixed beyond all question, it is this, that you cannot get the living from the dead; that a man must bein order to do. Jesus Himself partakes of the fulness of the Father, and so becomes the fulness of the Godhead, and out of His fulness we receive grace for grace. Partaking of God's nature, by being possessed of the mind of Christ, we live His victorious life, and get His full use of nature, His fine self-control, and His ever-fruitful service.
J. Clifford, The Dawn of Manhood,p. 34.
References: Luke 2:40. G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 72; Church of England Pulpit,vol. v., p. 34; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., p. 89; B. F. Westcott, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvii., p. 17. Luke 2:40-52. R. Lorimer, Bible Studies in Life and Truth,p. 119; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 127; W. Hanna, Our Lord's Life on Earth,p. 31.