Tuesday, December 11, 2018 – Luke 1:26-27

The Announcement of the Birth of the Son of Man to Mary, Pt. 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8OW6YVNA3o

Grace Fellowship Church

Pastor/Teacher, Jim Rickard

www.GraceDoctrine.org

www.facebook.com/GraceDoctrine

The Gospel of Luke

  

II. The Identification of the Son of Man with Men, Luke 1:5-4:13.

  B. The Announcement of the Birth of the Son of Man, Luke 1:26-56.

Vs. 26

The first thing Luke does is connect the announcement to Mary with the announcement to Elizabeth by using the connective Conjunction DE, “now,” and saying, “in the sixth month,” HEKTOS MEN, which is also in vs. 36, as Gabriel revealed Elizabeth’s pregnancy to Mary. Likewise, by naming Gabriel once again, cf. vs. 19, it links the two accounts. And, the fact that both pregnancies would be due to God miraculously working, links them together. Many put this time period from 6 to 4 B.C.

The location of Gabriel’s announcement was in Mary’s hometown of Nazareth located in Galilee, the northernmost province of Palestine ruled by Herod the Great as the native ruler of Judea from 37-4 B.C., and later his son Herod Antipas from 4 B.C. to 39 A.D.

 Nazareth, Ναζαρέτ in this period, was an insignificant village of an estimated sixteen hundred to two thousand inhabitants. It is located in the lower Galilee region about halfway between Sea of Galilee and Mediterranean Sea. Galilee comprised the lands of Zebulun, Naphtali, Issachar and Asher. It is situated on the most southern of the ranges of lower Galilee, about ten miles from the plain of Esdraelon. It is on the slopes of a natural basin facing east and southeast. Although situated near several of the important trade routes of Palestine, the town itself was surrounded on three sides by high hills, giving it the appearance of isolation. Cana was about five miles to the northeast. A Roman road from Capernaum westward to the coast passed near Nazareth. It was a small village in Jesus’ day, having only one spring to supply fresh water to its inhabitants and was not an abundant agricultural area.

It was the home town of Mary and Joseph, and became the hometown of Jesus. The people in Judah disdained the Jews in Galilee and claimed they were not “kosher” because of their contacts with the Gentiles there, cf. Mat 4:15. They especially despised the people from Nazareth and it had a poor reputation, John 1:46, “Nathanael said to him, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see’.” It was an unimportant town as shown by the fact that it is not mentioned in the OT, the Talmud, or in Josephus. It reflected the humble nature by which Jesus entered the world, and was part of the first fulfillment of OT prophecy about the Christ, cf. Isa 53:3 with Mat 2:23; John 19:19.

Isa 53:3, “He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”

Mat 2:23, “And came and lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’.”

John 19:19, “Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, ‘JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS’.”

Nazareth comes from the Hebrew Noun NETSER that means “a shoot or branch,” which too is part of the fulfillment of prophecy, Isa 11:1, “Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit,” cf. vs. 27. Some also think it comes from the Hebrew NOTSERAH, that means, “one guarding or watching,” thus designating the hill which overlooks and thus guards an extensive region. This is also an appropriate correlation to Jesus Christ.

Jesus became known as “Jesus of Nazareth,” Mat 2:23; 26:71; Luke 18:37; 24:19; John 1:45; Acts 2:22; 3:6; 10:38, and His hometown became affixed  to Christianity, as even His apostles were called Nazarenes, Acts 24:5.

Vs. 27

In this verse, we learn several important facts:

1.      Jesus’ mother would be a virgin; therefore, He would not have a human father, cf. vs. 35. Luke presents the theology of the Incarnation in a way so holy and congruent with OT sacred history that any comparisons with pagan mythology seem utterly incongruous. Instead of the carnal union of a pagan god with a woman, producing some kind of semi-divine offspring, Luke speaks of a spiritual overshadowing by God Himself that will produce the “Holy One” within Mary.

  a. The first prophecy of the virgin birth, Gen 3:15-16.

  b. The Jewish prophecy of the virgin birth, Isa 7:14; 9:6-7.

  c. The historical fulfillment of the virgin birth, Mat 1:19-25.

  d. The result of the virgin birth, John 1:14; Rom 1:3; 1 Tim 3:16; Heb 2:14; Phil 2:5-11.

2. She was already engaged. Engagement was as solid as marriage is today. To get un-engaged, they need to apply for a certificate of divorce. Mary had already been given to Joseph, and according to the tradition of the betrothal, though they had not yet lived together or consummated the marriage, legally they were considered man and wife, cf. Mat 1:20, 24. The betrothal was a form of agreement that included witnesses, a marriage contract, and the payment of the bridal price. The betrothal was the first stage of the marriage procedure. The betrothal period was generally concluded at the end of one year when the woman would transfer residence to the man’s house.

3. The man she was engaged to was named Joseph. Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus. Nevertheless Matthew’s genealogy should be considered from the perspective that it is an official genealogy of Joseph intended to show that Jesus, as the son of Joseph, in the eyes of the Law is of the lineage of David. The very fact that Joseph took Mary as his wife, made Jesus the legal offspring of Joseph. Though nothing is said of Joseph outside the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke, both Gospel writers portray him as a man of deep piety, “Joseph the just,” and as a loving and devoted father of Jesus.

4. Joseph is a descendant of king David, therefore through adoption, Jesus is in the kingly line of David, Cf. Mat 1:16, with vs. 6; as he also is through Mary, cf. Luke 3:23 with vs. 31.

5. The virgin’s name is Mary, to be the mother of Jesus. Many believe she was only 12 or 13 years old at this time, but we do not know for sure. Luke’s Gospel presents Jesus’ birth from Mary’s point of view. It is also primarily concerned with showing the validity of the stories it contains. The doctrinal cornerstone of the Christian faith is the Deity of Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Birth is integral to this teaching. Therefore, Jesus Christ was born 100% man and 100% God; as truly God and truly man in what we call “hypostatic union.”

The Necessity of our Lord’s Virgin Birth:

1. Adam’s original sin is the origin of the Old Sin Nature in the human race, Rom 5:12. 

Rom 5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

It is Adam’s original sin that is the precedence leading to the Old Sin Nature, not the woman’s original sin, since Adam’s sin was deliberate; the woman was deceived. 

2. At copulation, the Old Sin Nature is transmitted through the twenty-three male chromosomes which fertilize the female ovum.

3. At human birth Adam’s original sin is then imputed to the Old Sin Nature, and the new born becomes a like copy of Adam at the point of his fall in the garden.  There are two factors involved in our spiritual death.

            a. Adam’s original sin.

            b. The Old Sin Nature.

4. The Old Sin Nature contaminates all the cells in the human body and when God the Father imputes Adam’s original sin to Old Sin Nature at the time of physical birth, spiritual death results.

5. Yet, the female, (through meiosis and polar body), throws off twenty-three chromosomes from the ovum that are contaminated with the OSN, leaving twenty-three uncontaminated chromosomes prior to fertilization. All the other cells in the female body are contaminated by the Old Sin Nature; the ovum prior to fertilization is the only exception.

6. Although both the man and the woman in the garden were equally guilty, the woman’s sin of ignorance was the reason she became the bearer of the embryo, 1 Tim 2:13-15. 

7. While both man and woman are carriers of the Old Sin Nature, only the man can transmit it through the fertilization of the female ovum.

8. Since, it is only the male’s twenty-three chromosomes that carry the Old Sin Nature and not the female’s, this means that if a woman could have a virgin pregnancy, (i.e., if her ovum could be fertilized apart from male copulation), the progeny could be born into the world without an Old Sin Nature. And being born without an Old Sin Nature, Adam’s original sin could not be imputed to that person, there being no affinity required for this imputation.