R.C. Sproul

But that emperor in Rome issues this decree that all return to their home cities to be registered for the census in order to be taxed by imperial Rome.

This decree,

is done in obedience to a decree that took place much earlier even in eternity when God decreed that his son would come into this world to do his work of redemption for his people and that he be born at a specific time in the fullness of time at a specific place in the village of Bethlehem

for a specific mission to save His people from their sins.

Caesar Augustus, probably the most celebrated of all of the Roman emperors.

Augustus meaning the supreme, sublime, majestic one.

a title that the Jews shrank from in horror because they believed that only God was worthy of the title August.

And the true August one was in the manger because there was no room for Jesus Augustus in the inn.

Caesar Augustus celebrated the memory of his great-uncle Julius, took it upon himself to build a temple in his honor, acknowledging the deity of Julius Caesar.

What a foolish mistake that was.

The only deity within the confines of the Roman Empire again.

was to be found in the manger in Bethlehem.

But in obedience to the decree of Caesar Augustus, Joseph left his home of Nazareth and Galilee, and he went up into Judea to the city of David that is called Bethlehem.

He did this because he was a descendant of the line of David, and he brought his wife with him.

Roman law did not require that the man bring his wife to register for the tax.

And we can speculate as to why Joseph subjected his wife to such an arduous journey, and again, proximately the reason is clear.

He knew that the time had come for her to deliver, and he did not want her to have to do that without his presence, and so he brought her with him.

But the ultimate reason that trumps the proximate one is that this also had been decreed from all eternity.

that the babe be born in Bethlehem, as Micah had announced centuries before, that thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, though thou be small among the princes of Judah, yet out of you will come the one whom God has anointed.

And so it was.