Piper's Notes

March 11, 1984

Bethlehem Baptist Church

John Piper, Pastor

Christ Conceived By The Holy Spirit

(Luke 1:26-37)

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee

named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the

house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said,

"Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the

saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the

angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call

his name Jesus.

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God

will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of

Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there will be no end." And Mary said to the

angel, "How shall this be, since I have no husband?" And the angel said to her,

"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will

overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of

God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived

a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God

nothing will be impossible."

One recent book calls the Holy Spirit the shy member of the Trinity. His ministry is

to point away from himself to the wonder of God the Son and God the Father. Being

filled with the Spirit means being filled with love for Christ. When Jesus promised the

Spirit (in John 16:14) he said, "He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and

declare it to you." The Spirit is shy; he is self-effacing. When we look toward him he

steps back and pushes forward Jesus Christ.

Therefore, in seeking to be filled and empowered by the Spirit we must pursue him

indirectly - we must look to the wonder of Christ. If we look away from Jesus and

seek the Spirit and his power directly we will end up in the mire of our own

subjective emotions. The Spirit does not reveal himself. The Spirit reveals Christ.

The fullness of the Spirit is the fullness that he gives as we gaze on Christ. The

power of the Spirit is the power we feel in the presence of Christ. The joy of the

Spirit is the joy we feel from the promises of Christ. Many of us know what it is to

crouch on the floor and cry out to the Holy Spirit for joy and power, and experience

nothing; but the next day devote ourselves to earnest meditation on the glory of

Jesus Christ and be filled with the Spirit.

Devote yourselves to seeing and feeling the grandeur of the love of God in Jesus

Christ and you will be so in harmony with the Holy Spirit that his power will flow

mightily in your life. Christian spiritual experience is not a vague religious emotion. It

is an emotion with objective content, and the content is Jesus Christ. The shy

member of the Trinity does mighty work but he never puts himself in the limelight.

You might say he is the limelight that puts the attributes of God the Father and the

person of Christ into sharp relief.

Therefore, when the time came for the eternal Son of God to be sent by his Father

into the world, the work of the Holy Spirit was a quiet, unobtrusive work in the

service of the Father and the Son. Through him the Father caused the Son to be

conceived in Mary the virgin. So from the very beginning of Christ's incarnation the

Holy Spirit was quietly doing what needed to be done to put forward Jesus Christ as

the Son of God and Savior of Man.

In order to appreciate the work of the Spirit in the virgin birth of Christ let's follow the

scripture context as the Spirit inspired it in Luke 1:26-37. Predictably, the greatness

of the Son has pride of place. But that's as the Spirit would have it. And he will be

pleased if we taste a new sense of wonder at the glory of Christ.

Verse 26: "In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of

Galilee named Nazareth." The "sixth month" refers to the sixth month of Elizabeth's

pregnancy with John the Baptist. We will see the importance of this in verse 37.

Gabriel appears in Scripture only two other times: in Daniel as an interpreter of

visions and here in Luke 1:19 as the announcer of John the Baptist's birth. What's

significant in this verse is God's choice to announce to Mary ahead of time what he

is about to do. Again and again in Scripture this is the pattern: a word and then a

deed. Why? I think it's because God wants his deeds to be understood, and he

Wants to be sure that he gets credit for them. Events by themselves without words

of explanation are ambiguous. The word of God interprets the work of God and takes

away the ambiguity.

There are two lessons for us here in passing.

1) Beware of reading extraordinary meaning into unusual circumstances when

there is no clear word of Scripture to guide your interpretation. When God intends

his work to teach, he adds his word.

2) The other lesson is that we should never settle for a merely silent witness to

Christ. How we live is crucial, but if God thought his own work needed verbal

explanation, how much more ours.

Verse 27: "Gabriel was sent from God to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name

was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary." Two crucial

facts here are

1) that Mary was a virgin, and

2) Joseph was of the house of David. The virginity of Mary is important for two

reasons.

a) It means that she's sexually pure. She has not slept with her fiancé, or any

other man. That would have been fornication, and God abominates fornication.

Of course, not every woman in Jesus' lineage is so clean. There was Bethsheba the

adulteress and Tamar who seduced her father-in-law. These things can be forgiven,

as many of you have discovered. But don't overlook the importance of Mary. When

God chose a mother for his Son, he chose a virgin. Virginity before marriage is

important because the recipient of God's best gifts ought to be pure.

b) Mary's virginity is also important because it meant she wasn't pregnant. God

aimed to make known that the conception of Jesus in the womb of a woman

was owing to no man. So he chose a virgin. And a virgin conceived a child

whose Father was God and not man.

But it was still important that Joseph be of the house of David because the legal

relationship he had with Jesus put Jesus in the Davidic line and enabled him to fulfill

the promises made to the Son of David, which we will see in a moment.

Verse 28: "And [Gabriel] came to her and said, 'Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with

you!"' The word for "favored" here is used one other time in the New Testament (in

Eph. 1:6) where it means the free bestowal of grace. So the very first thing Gabriel

says to Mary is that she is about to receive a free bestowal of God's grace. She

does not deserve this honor. It is grace. There are other virgins in Nazareth. God

could have prepared them. Grace eliminates all boasting. Parents are prone to boast

about their children. How much more if one of your children is the Son of God. So

Gabriel quenches the spirit of pride before he does anything else. "The Lord is with

you, Mary, in a way you can't fathom. But never forget, it is a favor, a free gift of

grace."

Verse 29: "But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind

what sort of greeting this might be." I would wager that you have discovered in your

own life that grace does not always come with a welcome face. The highest and

most precious gifts of God do not always come to us in attractive colors. Grace can

perplex. Grace can frighten. The grace of healing may have the face, of a

hypodermic needle or a surgeon's knife. The grace of patience may have the face of

pain. The grace of humility may have the face of defeat. O, how we need to learn

from Mary not to lash out at God for the frightening forms of grace. Instead like her

we ought to wait and "consider in our minds" how this strange event might be grace.

God will often make it plain.

Verse 30: "The angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor

with God."' He reasserts the key word. Grace. I bring grace, Mary. Let the

assurance that this is grace take away your fear. And here is the grace I bring

(verses 31-33): "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you

shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High;

and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign

over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." This is

the heart of the passage. This is where the shy member of the Trinity (who inspired

this Scripture) does his best work. He magnifies Jesus, not himself.

Five things Gabriel says about Mary's child.

1) His name will be Jesus. In Hebrew: Joshua, which means Savior or Deliverer.

Gabriel loves to highlight grace. Before he tells Mary of Christ's greatness and

dignity and power, he tells her how he is going to use this greatness and dignity and

power. He is going to use it as a Savior. So don't be afraid, Mary, your child will be

your Savior. He will be Jesus.

2) "He will be great" (v. 32). Jesus is great. He is very great. A Christian who feels

ashamed of Jesus Christ is like a candle feeling ashamed of the sun. Our Lord

Jesus has been "appointed the heir of all things. Through him God created the

world. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding

the universe with the word of his power." Is there anything great in the world that

excites you, that you go out of your way to see or hear? Christ made it! And he is

ten million times greater in every respect, except sin. If you took all the greatest

thinkers of every country and every century of the world and put them in a room with

Jesus, they would shut their mouths and listen to the greatness of his wisdom. All

the greatest generals would listen to his strategy. All the greatest musicians would

listen to his music theory and his performance on every instrument. There is nothing

that Jesus cannot do a thousand times better than the person you admire most in

any area of human endeavor under the sun. Words fail to fill the greatness of Jesus.

So Gabriel leaves it simple and yet so profound: "He will be great!"

3) Gabriel says, "He will be called Son of the Most High." It's true that disciples

of Jesus are also called "sons of the Most High" (6:35) and so some say that the

sonship of Jesus is not anything more than what you or I have. I doubt that for two

reasons. One is that Gabriel is giving a description of what distinguishes Jesus: he

is great, he is king, he is eternal. It would be pointless and out of place to say: he is

merely a son of God by faith like you and me. The other reason is that in Luke 8:28

a demon cries to Jesus, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most

High? I beseech you, do not torment me." The demons recognize that Jesus'

sonship is not like ours. As the Son of God he has the right and power to torment

the forces of Satan. So Gabriel means: Jesus is uniquely God's Son, the divine

Word and image of God, begotten from all eternity.

4) Gabriel says, "The Lord God will give him the throne of his Father, David."

Since Mary's son will be the Savior of his people, will be superior in greatness and

will be called the Son of the Most High, it is fitting and inevitable that he will be king.

He will fulfill all the prophecies that a son of David will rule over Israel. But not only

over Israel. Is. 11:10 says, "In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to

the peoples; him shall the nations seek, and his dwelling shall be glorious" (cf. Lk.

2:32). Mary's son will some day rule the world (Luke 2:32).

5) Gabriel says, "He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his

kingdom there will be no end." Do you see what this promise means? It means

that Jesus is alive and ruling over his people at 11:50 a.m. Sunday, March 11, 1984.

Do you believe that? Jesus, Savior, Son of God, King of the world is governing just

as realistically today as Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher or Helmut Kohl. If

Gabriel has spoken the truth, THE ISSUE in 1984, no matter where you live on this

planet, is: Will you bow before the Kingship of Jesus and obey the rule of his

kingdom?

Now Mary catches her breath, and instead of mocking the impossible, she humbly

asks (in v. 34), "How can this be since I have no husband?" She was ready to

believe that she might give birth to the Messiah, but that she might give birth as a

virgin was beyond comprehension. But her attitude was humble and open and so

Gabriel answered her as far as he was allowed. Verse 35: "The Holy Spirit will come

upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to

be born will be called holy, the Son of God." Gabriel's answer to Mary's question,

How? is very simply and delicately: the Holy Spirit. Beyond this, revelation does not

go. How can a virgin have a child? How can the human child be the divine Son of

God? Answer: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you … therefore the child to be born

will be called the Son of God."

The word "therefore" in Luke 1:35 is tremendously important. It shows that the

conception of Jesus in a virgin is owing to the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit.

And it shows that the divine sonship of Jesus depends on his virgin birth. Many

people will try to say that the conception of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit in the

virgin Mary is not essential in the doctrine of the incarnation, since Jesus would

have been the Son of God even if the virgin birth weren't true. The words of Gabriel

do not agree. In answer to the question, how can a virgin conceive, he says, "The

Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you,

therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God." Jesus can be

called Son of God (v. 35), Son of the Most High (v. 32) precisely because he was

"conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary." It is an unfathomable

mystery that all the fullness of deity should dwell bodily in Jesus (Col. 2:9).

It is fitting (indeed necessary, I think) that the entrance gate to this mystery of

incarnation should be the virgin birth. And it should cause us to smile with pleasure

that the shy member of the Trinity should be assigned the delicate and wonderful

and mysterious work of causing the virgin to conceive -- to conceive the One whose

greatness he will magnify for ever. It's all so beautifully appropriate.

In verses 36 and 37 Gabriel gives the pregnancy of barren Elizabeth as evidence for

Mary that "with God nothing is impossible." The Holy Spirit may be shy, but he is

also omnipotent. What a tribute to Jesus Christ that an omnipotent member of the

Trinity exists to magnify his greatness.

So let us conclude where Mary does, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it

be to me according to your word" (v. 38). Can you say that: "Let the Holy Spirit do

with me as he pleases"? Do you trust the Spirit enough to say: "I am your slave;

take me; use your omnipotent power to put me where you want me, when you want

me there, doing what you want me to do"? Do you know why we can entrust

ourselves to the Holy Spirit? Because he exists to exalt the glory of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, if the heartbeat of your life is the glory of Jesus Christ, the Spirit will

empower and help you with all his might. Let's live and speak so that men and

women in Minneapolis and Morocco and Mongolia might know that Jesus Christ is a

great Savior, the Son of the Most High, and the never-ending King of Kings. That's

the passion of the Holy Spirit. To be full of that is to be full of Him.