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The Circumcision and Presentation of Christ. Luk_2:21-40
The circumcision:
v. 21. And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before He was conceived in the womb.
By His ancestry and birth, Jesus was a member of the Jewish race and of the Jewish Church. And Mary and Joseph observed all the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish law. On the eighth day of the Child's life, therefore, the sacrament of circumcision was administered to Him, whereby He was formally declared to be a member of the Jewish Church. Incidentally, according to the custom of the Jews, He was given a name by which He should be distinguished in the congregation of God's people. And in this instance there was no difference of opinion. As the angel had told Mary at the time of the annunciation, as he had told Joseph in a dream, Mat_1:21, so it was now done. The child's name was Jesus. In Him there is salvation for all men. Note: Jesus here, in submitting to the ordinance of circumcision, was made under the Law, Gal_4:4-5. It was the beginning of His active obedience in behalf of all men. But it was the beginning also of His passive obedience, of His suffering. For here He paid the first drop of blood as the price of our souls, the full payment being completed when He committed His soul into the hands of His heavenly Father on the cross.
The presentation:
v. 22 And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord,
v. 23. (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord,)
v. 24. and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the Law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.
Luke finds it necessary to explain the rites connected with the purification for the sake of his readers that were not familiar with Jewish laws. The mother was unclean, according to the ordinances of Moses, for seven days after the birth of a son, and must then remain separate for a matter of another thirty-three days. These forty days altogether denoted the days of the Levitical cleansing, or purification, Lev_12:1-8. At the close of this period the parents went up to Jerusalem with the Child to present Him to the Lord, for the firstborn of man and beast belonged to the Lord, Exo_13:2, and had to be redeemed with a sacrifice. Since Mary and Joseph were poor, they could not afford to bring a lamb. Mary therefore brought the less expensive sacrifice, Lev_12:6-8. The manner in which Mary brought her sacrifice, the sin-offering and the offering of thanksgiving, is the following. She entered the Temple through the "gate of the firstborn," waited at the gate of Nicanor while the offering of incense was being made in the Holy Place. She then proceeded to the highest step of the stairway which led from the Court of the Women to the Court of Israel. Here a priest took the sacrifice from her hand and made the offering. She was then sprinkled with the blood to indicate the cleansing. Finally she paid five pieces of silver into the Temple treasury, placing the money (about 85 cents) into one of the trumpet-shaped treasure-boxes which stood in the Court of the Women. Note: The law really concerned only such women as became mothers after the visual course of nature. The Virgin and her Child might fitly have claimed exemption. But Christ humbled Himself so completely for the sake of us sinners, so completely did He want to become flesh of our flesh, that He submitted even to this humiliating rite of purification in the Temple.