Whose idea was Caesar’s census?
Luke 2:1
I can picture Caesar Augustus sitting in a lavish hall, wearing a purple robe of the highest quality and doing the work of a mighty emperor. He looked at a map of his vast domains and fantasized about even greater glory for Rome. He was the one who would boast at the end of his life, “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” What new conquests would further his dreams, what new plunder could he draw from the distant provinces? He decided a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. His decree would move vast populations. Hundreds of thousands, even millions of people would be physically moved to their home cities and towns to register and to pay their taxes. For that was ultimately the point of the decree, that and the knowledge of populations for the wise disbursal of the mighty but limited Legions. So, he had the decree written on a scroll, and he affixed his seal to it, putting it into law.
“With transportation and communication being what they were in the first century, it is likely that Caesar’s decree was made before Jesus was even conceived by the Holy Spirit in the virgin’s womb.”
But behind his decision was the eternal purpose of God. As Peter would later pray about the joint decision of the Jewish leaders and Pontius Pilate to put Jesus to death, “They did what your power and will had determined beforehand should happen” (Acts 4:28). God’s eternal decree preceded Caesar’s. It was prophesied by Micah around the time of Isaiah that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah (Micah 5:2). Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth and would have had no reason to make the arduous journey to the ancestral town of David’s lineage except that Caesar Augustus had issued that decree. With transportation and communication being what they were in the first century, it is likely that Caesar’s decree was made before Jesus was even conceived by the Holy Spirit in the virgin’s womb. The wheels of providence had to begin turning at just the right time to accomplish God’s eternal plan. Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” God’s purposes were as different from Caesar’s as the heavens are higher than the earth; God desired the salvation of his elect from every tribe and language and people and nation; Caesar desired more wealth from taxes.
But in some ways their purposes were similar. Caesar wanted those resources to flow to Rome to adorn that so-called “Eternal City” with marble and gold for the greater glory of Rome. God wanted the gospel of Christ to ring out from Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth for the eternal glory of the New Jerusalem… adorned with living stones from all those peoples, the true “Eternal City” will shine forever and ever.
God’s ways are wonderful, his purposes perfect, his plans inscrutable. And God is still moving temporal rulers, the “Caesars” of today, to make decrees that seem to serve their own purposes but are really serving his—to the glory of Christ.
