This Baby serves as a blessing and a warning

This Baby Serves as Both Blessing and Warning

It’s Christmas time, and we are all going to focus on what the birth of the Christ child means for Christians worldwide. God dwelt among us as a man. This baby, held in His mother’s arms, would one day bear the sin of all those who believe upon His shoulders.

In this Christmas article, I want to focus on one of the encounters that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had with Simeon the prophet. This baby serves as a warning to all who continue the war against His kingdom through sinful rebellion, and as a blessing to those who find mercy in the Christ child. Simeon’s encounter shows us four things about the Christ child that people reject to their spiritual peril.

Luke 2:29–32

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation…”

1.      Simeon knew God would keep the promise He had given him—that he would see the Christ before he died.

He had now seen the Messiah, so he could die in peace at any time. Yet he also knew he would not die until the day he saw the Christ child.

What can we learn from this as a principle for daily life? God keeps His promises. He tells us He says He will never leave us nor forsake us—we can take that to the bank. God keeps His promises, and Simeon’s encounter is one of Scripture’s confirmations of that truth.

Every promise of God in the Scriptures should be clung to so we can navigate this life with confidence as Christians in a broken world. God is faithful, and His promises never fail. Rejecting this truth is rejecting one of God’s clearest testimonies to His goodness—His faithfulness. No other deity can compare, because none of them created anything. All they do is rob God of the worship due to Him alone.

“For my eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:30)

2.      Simeon, with his own eyes, had seen his salvation.

This little child, wiggling and squirming in his hands, would one day stand like a pillar of iron before rulers and leaders, proclaiming the truth they did not want to hear: that He was the supreme authority, not them, and that He would return one day to confirm this truth. This is why Herod wanted Him dead.

This child would bring salvation—deliverance from our sin debt. We cannot pay that debt ourselves; we needed a sufficient substitute. Jesus brought us salvation through His death, burial, and resurrection.

The One Simeon held in his hands would one day bear the nails in His that would break sin’s power over every Christian who would ever live. We are freed not only from the guilt of sin but from its dominion that once held us captive.

Listen to the words of the hymn “Rock of Ages” by Augustus Toplady:

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee;

Let the water and the blood,

From Thy riven side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Save me from its guilt and power.”

This hymn reminds us that both the guilt and the power of sin are broken when we truly understand salvation. Simeon saw that salvation with his own eyes. The joy that filled his heart must have been overwhelming.

Those who reject the only salvation of mankind and worship false gods—whether Buddha, Allah, the counterfeit Christ of Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses, or any other—are committing robbery that deserves the strictest judgment from a holy and just God.

“That you have prepared in the presence of all peoples” (Luke 2:31)

3.      This salvation was done for the world to see.

Jesus was not hidden away. He lived in Israel and Egypt. He worked, lived openly, and taught among His people. When He began performing miracles to confirm He was the Son of God, even His own townspeople said, “Is not this Joseph’s son, the carpenter?” Yet they rejected everything they heard and saw because they knew His family.

Jesus came, lived, taught, performed miracles, died, and rose again so that the world would be without excuse. Everyone who lived in that region at that time had opportunity to see God in the flesh doing what only God can do. Rejecting Him after God made Himself so obvious is like a child sitting on his parents’ lap, slapping them in the face, and declaring, “I hate you—you’re dead to me.” No one in their right mind would do that to their earthly parents, yet multiplied millions do it to their Creator.

This baby in the manger is therefore a warning to all rebels: God does not treat sinful rebellion lightly.

“A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:32)

4.      This news is for all people.

God stepped into history so that everyone—Jew and Gentile—could see Him, and so that we who did not live then could still read the record through special revelation. This child who lay in a manger on that cold night in Bethlehem came as a gift, yet He also serves as a warning to all who reject what He offers.

He is God’s promise kept (Deuteronomy 18:18). Simeon saw Him, the shepherds saw Him, the magi saw Him—the elite and the outcasts, Jews and Gentiles.

Today, people from every walk of life and every ethnicity are still being called to believe in this living Savior.

If you are still holding Jesus at arm’s length, I urge you: trust in the mercy He purchased on the cross. His life is an open door to God’s mercy, but it is also a solemn warning to all who remain in unbelief. There is an unfortunate power to unbelief. The only remedy for it is repentance from sin (lying, stealing, blasphemy, etc.) and saving faith in Jesus alone.

Until next year, go and share the Gospel. The truth worth sharing is the truth that transforms lives.

Merry Christmas—and may this Child be your blessing, not your warning.