Luke 2:38 Commentary and Bible Study

Like Simeon, Anna was allowed to see the coming into the world of the Lord’s Christ before she departed from this life. She came in as Simeon was there with Joseph and Mary and the child. She perhaps (Hendriksen) heard Simeon’s prophecy. She too would have rejoiced that nothing is able to disrupt the purposes of God. God’s promise is no less secure for being delayed. She saw these things by faith, because there was only a child to be seen with the eyes, but the Spirit revealed to her that this was no ordinary child. This was the God man born into the world without sin, the one in whom all the hopes of the people of God were lodged. She therefore gave thanks to the Lord, for it was only by his will that this was done. How great a gift is God’s Son to this world. In giving him to be born, he was given to face all the contradiction of sinners against himself, he was given to suffer living among a faithless and perverse generation; he was given to the abuse of justice in a phoney trial, to beatings and mockery, to the death of the cross, and the indescribable suffering of making an atonement for his people. The Father willingly and knowingly gave his Son to all of that. How can we thank God enough that he would go ahead with it, and approve it?She then went out and spoke to others. She spoke as a prophet to whom God had revealed these things. She knew there were others, and she knew who they were. ‘They that feared the LORD spake often one to another’ (Malachi 3:16). What greater news could they hear? Some would die before Calvary, but they would not question that the time had come. She spoke without a shadow of doubt and they were convinced because they knew sha was a prophet. Who were these people? They were those who ‘looked for redemption in Jerusalem.’ Redemption was their great need. They needed to be bought back from death and hell and all the consequences of their sins. They needed a Redeemer to come, and now he had arrived.