When God promised a son to Abraham, Sarah laughed within herself, doubting, not knowing the almighty power of the Promiser. Zacharias also had the difficulty of unbelief when he received from Gabriel the announcement that his wife Elisabeth should bear him a son. Mary replied to the angel, “How shall this be?” But although what was promised must be outside of the order of nature, it was not, as in the cases cited, distrust that prompted her question. This is seen from the fact that Gabriel is permitted to give a full and complete answer to her inquiry, an answer which reveals two things, the miraculous conception of our blessed Lord, and that the child so born should be called the Son of God, the Son of God as born into this world, according to the second psalm. (“It is not here the doctrine of the eternal relationship of the Son with the Father. The Gospel of John, the Epistle to the Hebrews, that to the Colossians, establish this precious truth and demonstrate its importance; but here it is that which was born by virtue of the miraculous conception, which on that ground is called the Son of God.”) But to strengthen her divinely-given faith, which already existed, Gabriel was commissioned to inform her of God’s grace also to her cousin Elisabeth, “for,” said he, giving thus the unchanging basis of all belief, “with God nothing shall be impossible.” God were not God if this were not so, and hence, too, as the Lord Himself taught, “All things are possible to him that believeth.” It was this lesson which Mary had now learned in her inmost soul, as shown by her response, “Behold the handmaid” (the bonds-maid) “of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”