It was the angel Gabriel who was sent to Daniel to make known of old the Messiah's coming and cutting off in the famous prophecy of the seventy weeks. Now he comes to Mary, the espoused of Joseph, and announces to her, “the virgin” of a still older prophet, the birth of that same Messiah. No wonder that he salutes her as a favored one, with whom the Lord was. Blessed was she among women! Mary, though troubled, pondered what might be the meaning of this salutation. The angel bids her not fear, for she has found favor with God. She is the chosen channel of the wondrous purposes which should yet fill the world as well as her own people with blessing—the appointed mother she is to be of One in whom God was about to solve all the difficulties that sin had brought into the world by a righteous triumph over it—nay, to make it possible for God to bless those who believed, sinners though they had been, and to make them righteously triumph through and with Himself.
Therefore he says, “Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus” —a divine Savior. “He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.” This is another and quite different glory, which evidently combines with saving power His title of Messiah. “And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Even in its lowest domain, how far is His kingdom from being a mere human dominion!
“Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” She does not doubt, but she asks confidingly. Hence there is no smiting dumb nor any sign of unbelief, as in the case of Zacharias, who asked, “Whereby shall I know this?” There may be a question in the spirit which needs an answer, but betrays no lack of faith. There might be one not so dissimilar in form, but which really sprang from unbelief. God does not judge according to appearance but the heart.
The angel accordingly explains in all grace to Mary. “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.” It was not to be nature but divine power. “Therefore also that holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God,” and not merely Son of man. This is exceedingly important. “Son of God” is a title that belongs to our Lord both in His divine glory before He became a man and here; for, in this place when He became a man, He did not cease to be Son of God. As incarnate He was still the Son of God. So, again, when He rose from the dead, the same thing was true; He was the Son of God as risen again. It is plain therefore that it is a title that appertains to Him in the three conditions in which Scripture represents our Lord. He was the Son of God when He was purely and simply a divine person; Son of God when He became a man; Son of God when risen from the dead and gone out of this world to heaven.
But there is another thing also to note, that His taking manhood did not in the smallest degree connect Him with the taint of man's fallen nature. This was absolutely counteracted by the singularity of His conception, which was effected through the power of the Holy Ghost: “therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.” Thus He was holy, not merely in His divine nature, but in His humanity. He was emphatically the Holy One of God: without this not only would salvation have been impossible for us, but even His own acceptance as man would have been out of the question. We have therefore in this passage the most important truth as to the birth of this wondrous child, and the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ. Much here given is peculiar to Luke. Mary is informed also of what God was doing to her cousin Elizabeth, for as the angel added “with God nothing shall be impossible.” She bows at once to the will of the Lord, with the words, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.”
Mary then arises, enters into the house of Zacharias and salutes her kinswoman, Elizabeth, which gives occasion to the wonderful obeisance that was paid even by the unborn babe, Elizabeth's child, to her the predestined mother of the Messiah, in honor of the Messiah Himself. The consequence was that Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost, breaks out into all acknowledgment of the place that God had given Mary. “And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” It is remarkable how beautifully it is owned that even the child that was yet to be born was the Lord. We find just the same thing with Mary herself. She has no notion of being taken out of the place of a needy sinner, whilst the miraculous birth of John does not detract from Elizabeth's sense of the glory of the Messiah, but rather adds to her sense of it. She owns at the same time that God had shown singular favor to Mary's soul. “Blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.” She knew what had happened to her husband because of unbelief, and contrasts with it Mary's meek, because believing, heart.
Mary answers, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” It is remarkable how simply scripture has met beforehand the monstrous unbelief of man which lowers God, as much as it exalts a human being. Mary had no thought of such exaltation. She says, “All generation, shall call me blessed,” but not a Blesser. She was the object of blessing, not the giver or mediatrix of it. “For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name (not a word of her own). And his mercy is on them that fear him (not that pray to or worship me) from generation to generation. He hath showed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree” —alluding to her own place as well as Elizabeth's. “He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.” It is remarkable how Jewish the character of the joy is, and the acknowledgment of the mercy.
So Mary abides with her cousin three months and then returns to her own house. “Now Elizabeth's full time came that she should be delivered: and she brought forth a son. And her neighbors and her kinsfolk heard how the Lord had shown great mercy upon her; and they rejoiced with her.” The general thought was to call the child after his father's name; but the mother, who alone can speak for it, directs him to be called John. Zacharias is appealed to and writes, “his name is John.” And immediately the punishment of his unbelief departs from him. His tongue was loosed and he spake and praised God; which filled all around with fear, astonishment, and anticipation of what this child would be.
Zacharias breaks forth into a strain of praise. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.” It is remarkable the grace that does not so much look at his own house as at the house of God's servant David. There was faith here. During the season of his dumbness Zacharias had pondered the ways of the Lord, and the Holy Ghost, as He had filled Elizabeth, and as He had filled the babe from his mother's womb, so now filled Zacharias who prophesies the end of these wonders. “That we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear.” It is important to observe how thoroughly this savors of Old Testament hopes. It is not a question of sins merely but of being delivered from their enemies, which last is assuredly not, nor ought to be, the feeling of the Christian now. Does not the Christian serve God, delivered from his sins, in the midst of his enemies? So when the Lord comes, it is simply a taking him up out of the midst of his enemies to be with Himself in heaven. Whereas the Jew cannot but look for the destruction of his enemies when the time of his deliverance comes. Here then the language is, “That we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” Such is the expectation of Israel according to the Psalms and the Prophets.
“And thou child shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways” —an allusion clearly to Malachi as well as to Isaiah. “To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins.” It is not that the Jews will be without the remission of their sins; they will have that, beside deliverance from their enemies. All this is on account of the bowels of “mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace.”
Such will be the condition in which the Jews will be finally met by God; there will be a special darkness more immediately before the light shines out upon them. It was when they were in bitter degradation under the Gentiles, as well as in moral darkness that the Lord came the first time; still more will this be the case when He comes again. There will be renewed bondage under the power of the west; a stranger king will reign in the land, and a special delusive power or Satan will be there: but the Lord will appear to the discomfiture of all their foes and the full deliverance of His people Israel.
Meanwhile “the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel.” We have seen that, before the large universal character of the gospel of Luke appears—the grace of God to man, there is the utmost care to skew the goodness and forbearance of the Lord in meeting Israel as they then were. Thus they have the responsibility of refusing their Messiah, before God lays the foundation of the richest grace to man generally.