Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 002D — No Room at the Inn?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes, Brother Camping. I had some thoughts and a question that I'd like to share with you and get your input on. My comment is this. I've been thinking about how rebellious we all are by nature, and that if it weren't for the Lord's intervention in our lives we would never have any room for Him in our hearts. And my question is this. Is this implication of Luke 2:7, where we read about Mary having to lay the Baby Jesus down in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn?
HC: This is a question that has real significance in our lives. In Luke 2 we find in verse 7, "And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn." And then it goes on and talks about the shepherds.
You see, we stand amazed. In fact, we stand aghast at the fact that the Lord Jesus, who is Eternal God Himself, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, and remember, He was born a King. When He stood before Pilate He said, "To this I was born," when Pilate asked Him, "Are you a King?" He was born a King, and you would certainly expect Him to be born in a palace, or at least under very royal conditions. But we find that there was no room for Him in the inn. And He had to be born in a manger.
Now in the historical context it's fairly easy to understand. The city of Bethlehem was swollen with people who came from all over the land of Judea, all over the land of Galilee, to register. And perhaps it was at the time of the fall feast of Tabernacles. And they had come to enroll. And so everything was jammed.
But on the other hand, we stand amazed that here is a couple. She is about to bear a child. In fact, she is almost in labor. And you would think that somehow, considering the milk of human kindness, someone's home would have been opened so that there would have been a little bit more comfortable circumstances in which He could be born.
But the fact is that the Bible says that there was no room for them in the inn. Now this word inn is a very curious word. In the parable of the Prodigal Son we find one kind of a word for inn, but in this context it is an entirely different word for inn. It is a word that is found in Luke 22, in a very unusual place. In Luke 22 we find the same word, where it is translated guest chamber. And it is the place where Jesus ate the Passover. We read in verse 11, as Jesus is giving instructions to the disciples to find a place to eat the Passover, at which time He's going to initiate the Lord's Table, "You shall say unto the goodman of the house, The Master saith unto thee, where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover with My disciples?"
Now that certainly is a curious word, guest chamber. Now the Passover had altogether to do with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah, and you would think that certainly a guest chamber ought to be available, a very special room ought to be available for Him, because He came as the Messiah. But the fact is, there is no room in the guest chamber. There is no room in the inn. There is no room for Him insofar as even the Passover is concerned. How do we tie all of this together?
You see, the problem is that Christ came to His own and His own received Him not. They did not want Him. They did not want Christ as their Messiah. They did not want to honor Him in any way. We read in John 1:11, "He came unto His own and His own received Him not." The fact is, the end of it all is that Christ was crucified. His death was plotted by the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the Jews, by the scribes and the Pharisees. They wanted Him killed.
And in the very act of denying Christ the right to the guest chamber, that is, the right to the Passover, the right to having a place of honor, the right to being part of the Jewish nation in all that it is, in the very act of denying Him this, you see, when they cut Him off, when they crucified Him, they effectively were saying, "We don't want Him to be identified with the nation of Israel. We don't want Him to be identified with us in any way. The ceremonial laws, the Passover, and all that goes with that, which was eaten in the guest chamber, that is for us. That is not for Jesus. We want him cut off. We want Him denied any of this." And that already was anticipated when He came, when He was born. Before He is even born He is denied a place in the inn, in the guest chamber. The denial of Christ by His own people is already taking place, symbolically, of course, not in actuality to any high degree, although there is certainly a physical implication here.
But in the denial of Christ, so that He could not have His place in the guest chamber, that is, as being privileged to partake and able to partake of the nation of Israel, in that denial He became the Passover, He became the Lamb that was slain. All of this was necessary in order that He might be the Lamb. He had to be denied these privileges, He had to be cut off from the nation of Israel and denied by them, because He had come to endure hell for our sins. And the nation of Israel was simply the instrument in God's hand to bring about the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, or the atonement, to bring about the fact that He would pay for our sins.
And a few nights ago someone asked about the manger, and we saw that in being born in a manger not only does that indicate the humble circumstances in which He was born, but also that identified Him with the whole creation, with the fact that He came to redeem not only man but the whole creation from the bondage to sin. And it also emphasized of course the humble circumstances of His birth, that He was rejected of His own nation.