<p>2:22 <i>And when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord</i>- There was no Mosaic requirement to take a newborn child to Jerusalem, but despite their poverty, Mary and Joseph clearly tried to do the most they could for the Lord Jesus. Joseph's willing cooperation in all this is to be noted; for it was after all not his child. We can only conclude that he accepted the Lord's virgin birth and willingly went along with it- at least at that time. The Lord was perfect, without any barrier between Himself and the Father; &quot;holy, harmless and separate from sinners&quot; (Heb. 7:26). The purification ritual was not therefore to remove any sin from Him; it is no sin to be human, to be alive, and this must affect our view of what 'human nature' really is. For all we posit about it we posit about the Lord Jesus, who fully had our nature. The Greek translated &quot;purification&quot; here means literally a washing, and is used many times of how the Lord cleansed lepers and also sinners from their sins. The Lord did so knowing that He Himself had been likewise cleansed.</p>