Wise Men Seek Jesus

GOLDEN TEXT: “When they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary His mother, and fell down, and worshiped Him; and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.” —Matthew 2:11

MATTHEW 2:1-12

THE statement in verse 1 of our lesson, “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king,” has been misunderstood to refer to the very night of our Lord’s birth. This misunderstanding has led to the erroneous conclusion that the wise men and the shepherds visited Jesus together on the night he was born in a stable. A closer examination of the account reveals that this was not the case.

When the wise men reached Jerusalem, they inquired, “Where is he that is born King of the Jew?” (vs. 2) Verse 3 reads, “When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” From these two verses it becomes clear that the wise men first of all inquired of the people in Jerusalem as to the whereabouts of Jesus. The information that the “King of the Jews” had been born had circulated among the people of the city, and finally reached the ears of Herod who, when hearing it “was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.”

Without the aid of the telephone and our other media for the circulation of news, this sequence of events would require considerable time. When Herod heard the report brought to Jerusalem by the wise men he sent for them and privately inquired “what time the star appeared” which meant to them that a King had been born to the Jews. The record does not furnish us directly with the wise men’s answer to this question. Later, however, in Herod’s attempt to destroy the newborn King, he ordered the slaying of all male children two years old and under. This would suggest that the wise men had seen the star, which to them denoted the birth of Jesus, as long as two years before.

This possibility is confirmed in our Golden Text, which states that the wise men found the young child in a “house,” not in a stable. The second chapter of Luke informs us that Jesus was taken from the stable to the temple in Jerusalem where he was presented to the Lord and a sacrifice offered. Then we read, “When they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned unto Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.”—vs. 39

No mention is made by Luke about Jesus being taken into Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. Surely he would not make the mistake of saying that Jesus’ parents took the child directly back to Nazareth, if the episode recorded by Matthew concerning the wise men occurred at the very time of Jesus’ birth. The harmony of the accounts is indicated in Luke 2:41, which reads, “Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.” They did return directly to Nazareth after the presentation of the infant Jesus at the temple. It was when they returned a year later, or possibly the second year, that he was visited by the wise men; and Joseph was warned by the Lord to flee with the child into Egypt.

The “wise men,” or Magi, as it is in the Greek, were the first Gentiles to adore the new King of earth. Their presentation of costly gifts to the young child, has helped to establish the custom of giving gifts in commemoration of Jesus’ birth. Many, however even more appropriately, think of Jesus himself as God’s great gift to man, and of the love which prompted that gift; for, as John wrote, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”—John 3:16

The visit of the wise men, and the circumstances associated with it, calls attention to an effort on the part of Satan to destroy the “seed” of promise. In response to Herod’s request they appeared before him, and he instructed them when they learned the whereabouts of the King who had been born, to let him know, for, as he hypocritically informed them, he wanted to worship the child himself.

God overruled in this, warning the wise men by a dream that they were not to return to Herod, but to leave the city by another route. When Herod learned that his instructions had been ignored he was filled with wrath. It was then that he gave directions that all the male children of the Jews two years and under should be slain.

The wise men had no part in this plot to destroy Jesus, and of course, Herod did not realize that he was being used by “that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan,” in his oft-repeated attempt to destroy the “seed,” as foretold in the Garden of Eden. (Rev. 20:2; Gen. 3:15) These satanic attacks on the “seed of promise” are reflected later in the hatred that was stirred up against Christ which finally led to his crucifixion. The followers of Jesus, who suffer and die with him, are also assaulted by Satan:

QUESTIONS

Explain why it seems apparent that the wise men did not visit the child Jesus on the night he was born, as did the shepherds.

Explain the harmony between’ the account of Jesus’ birth as recorded by Matthew, and the one given us by Luke.

Explain how Satan attempted to use the wise men in his determination to destroy the “seed” of promise.

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