And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature. So our translators have rendered the word [ heelikia ], with Beza, Grotius, Bengel, Meyer. But it may be rendered 'age'; and so the Vulgate, Erasmus, Calvin, DeWette, Olshausen, Alford, Webster and Wilkinson, Van Osterzee, and the best interpreters. Probably this latter idea is the one intended; as filling up, by a general expression, the long interval until the age at which He emerged from this mysterious privacy.
And in favour with God and man. (See the note at Luke 2:40.) This is all the record we have of the next 18 years of that wondrous life.
Remarks:
(1) Those who love the habitation of God's house and the place where His honour dwelleth, will not be ready to take advantage of permitted absence from it, but, like the mother of Jesus, be found there at all stated seasons when necessary duties allow.
(2) The children of Christian parents are the children of the Church; they should be early taught to feel this, and-like the Child Jesus-trained to early attendance on its public ordinances and more private arrangements for instruction and edification.
(3) One of the most decisive marks of early piety is a delight in the gates of Zion. And if we cannot attain to all that was in the mind of Jesus, when in language so remarkable He gently rebuked His earthly parents for their anxiety on His account (Luke 2:49) let us imbibe and, manifest the spirit of His words.
(4) Let us realize the glorious identity with ourselves of the Infant Saviour, the Child, the Youth, the man, Christ Jesus.
(5) What an overpowering Example of filial obedience have we here! That the Child Jesus, so long as He was a Child, should be subject to His parents, though He was Lord of all, is not so wonderful; but that after, His glory broke forth so amazingly in his Father's house, He still "went down with them to Nazareth, and was subject unto them;" continuing so, as we cannot doubt, until, at the appointed time, He emerged into public life-this is that marvel of filial obedience which even angels cannot but desire to look into.
(6) Is it asked how "that holy thing," which was born of the Virgin, the sinless Seed of the woman, could increase "in wisdom, and in favour with God and man"? This is but to ask how He could become an Infant of days at all, and go through the successive stages of human life, up to full-grown manhood. But a simple illustration my perhaps aid our conceptions. Suppose a number of golden vessels, from the smallest conceivable size up to the largest, all filled to the brim with pure water, clear as crystal, so full that the least drop added to anyone of them would make it to run over. Of all these vessels alike it may be said that they are quite full; and yet there is, in point of fact, less in the smallest than the largest, and each of them has less in it than in the next larger one. Such was Jesus. The golden vessels of all different sizes are His human nature at each successive period of His life up to the age of thirty, when He came to full maturity; and the crystal-clear water in them is the holy excellences and graces with which He was filled. He was never otherwise than full of these to the whole measure of His capacity. His understanding was ever as full as it could hold of intelligence and wisdom; His heart ever as full as it could hold of grace. But as it could hold more and more the further He advanced, so He might be said to become more and more lovely, more and more attractive, as He advanced, and so to "increase in favour with God and man." True, the favour of men was afterward turned into frown and rage, when His fidelity irritated their corruption and dashed their expectations. But at this early period, there being nothing in Him to prejudice them against Him, His ever-unfolding loveliness could not fail to be increasingly attractive to all who observed it.
(7) See the patience of Jesus, who, though doubtless conscious of His high destination, yet waited thirty years, not only for the entire development and maturity of all His powers and graces, but for the appointed time of His public appearance. Not so Moses, who, burning with the consciousness of his divine destination to deliver Israel, waited not his full time and the manifest call to act, but took this into his own hand, and was punished for it by having forty years longer to wait, far from the scene of his future work. Yet such patient waiting has unspeakable reliefs and consolations. The conviction that the best things ever take the longest to come to maturity would doubtless minister quiet satisfaction. But besides this, what seasons of tranquil meditation over the lively oracles, and holy fellowship with His Father; what inlettings, on the one hand, of light, and love, and power from on high, and on the other, what outgoings of filial supplication, freedom, love, joy, and what glad consecration to the work before Him, would these last 18 years of His private life embrace! And would they not "seem but a few days" when thus spent, however ardently He might long to be more directly "about His Father's business."