Jesus’s Presentation at the Temple (Luke 2:25-38)

The second chapter of Luke’s Gospel contains the famous story of Jesus’s birth in the small Jewish town of Bethlehem. There, Mary gave birth to her firstborn in a stable and laid him in a manger because there was no room in the inn. An angel of the LORD proclaimed the good news that in the city of David, a Savior had been born who was Christ the Lord. By comparison, the story of Jesus’s presentation in the temple is less well known.

Forty days after Jesus’s birth, Jesus’s parents made the “simple, six-mile trip north” from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. The trip “should not have taken more than two hours.”[1] In his account, Luke goes to great lengths to document that Jesus’ parents were a God-fearing young Jewish couple. Mary and Joseph, his adoptive legal, father were careful to observe the Law of Moses.

Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

This devout observance of the Law is on full display when Jesus’s parents present Jesus to the Lord at the Temple. “And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses,” Luke writes, “they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord” (Luke 2:22). Parenthetically, Luke adds, “as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord’” (Luke 2:23; cf. Exod. 13:2).[2] He also notes that Jesus’ parents, when presenting him, came “to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons’” (Luke 2:24; cf. Lev. 12:8).

Luke concludes, “And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth” (Luke 2:39).[3] He also points out that Jesus’s “parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover” (Luke 2:41). In this way, Luke sets Jesus’s future ministry into its proper context. Thus “Jesus would save Israel as a law-observant Jew within Judaism.”[4]

Jesus’s Mother’s Purification

Jesus’s presentation at the temple proceeded in strict observance of Mosaic Law. Luke’s comment, “And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses,” likewise harks back to the Old Testament Law. Mosaic Law considered a mother unclean for seven days after giving birth. Circumcision was to take place on the eighth day, even if it fell on the Sabbath.[5] Then, forty days after the child’s birth, Mosaic Law stipulated that a sacrifice be brought:

And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her. Then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean. (Lev. 12:6–8)

This passage stipulates that: (1) the mother complete her purification. (2) To bring the same sacrifices whether the child was a son or daughter. (3) To bring the sacrifice to the Levitical priest at the tent of meeting (i.e., the Tabernacle). (4) To bring both a burnt and a sin offering (see Leviticus 1 and 4, respectively). (a) To bring a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a pigeon or turtledove for a sin offering. (b) Or, if the mother could not afford a lamb, a pair of turtledoves and a pair of pigeons, one each for a burnt and sin offering. (5) The priest would make atonement so as to remove the woman’s uncleanness following her child’s birth.

Presentation of the Firstborn

In addition, the Law stipulated that Jesus’ parents present the infant boy to God as their firstborn (Exod. 13:2, 11–16; Num. 8:5–22; 18:15–18; Neh. 10:35–36). This was in view of God’s protection of the Israelites’ firstborn on the night preceding the exodus (Exod. 13:15; Num. 8:17). This presentation typically involved payment of a redemptive amount one month after the child’s birth (Num. 18:16; Neh. 10:35–36). Couples often combined the mother’s purification with the redemption payment. Luke doesn’t mention the payment explicitly. Yet we may assume that Mary and Joseph made the payment when they came to the temple for their purification. Jesus’s presentation at the temple is reminiscent of Hannah’s presentation of Samuel at the temple (1 Sam. 1:11, 22, 28).

Conclusion: Jesus’s Presentation at the Temple

The fact that Jesus’s presentation took place at the temple in Jerusalem, the central sanctuary, is significant in that Luke consistently emphasizes that Jerusalem was at the center of God’s plan of salvation.[6] The picture Luke paints of Jesus is in keeping with Paul’s statement that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4). In this way, Joseph and Mary’s careful observance of the Law was part of Jesus’s life lived in obedience to the Law so that he could become “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4).

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[1] Paul L. Maier, First Christmas: The True and Unfamiliar Story (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).

[2] Luke speaks of “their” purification. Leviticus only addresses the new mother’s purification, but possibly Luke believed Mary’s need for purification affected Joseph as well (in keeping with the first-century Jewish school of Shammai, a well-respected rabbi). See Richard Bauckham, “Luke’s Infancy Narrative as Oral History in Scriptural Form,” in The Gospels: History and Christology: The Search of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI, ed. Bernardo Estrada, Ermenegildo Manicardi, and Armand Puig I Tàrrech (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013), 1:399–417.

[3] See also Luke 2:27: “to do for him according to the custom of the Law.”

[4] Andreas J. Köstenberger and Alexander E. Stewart, The First Days of Jesus: The Story of the Incarnation (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 157.

[5] Lev. 12:3; cf. Gen. 17:12; John 7:22–23.

[6] See, e.g., the extended Lukan “Travel Narrative” (9:51–19:27) and the fact that Luke’s Gospel ends and the book of Acts begins in Jerusalem (cf., e.g., Acts 1:8; chap. 2).  See Andreas J. Köstenberger, The Jesus of the Gospels: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2020), 295–331.

Note: This article first appeared in The Bible Illustrator.