Jesus Was a Fetus

Luke 1:5-56

Main Idea: God always accomplishes his plan for his people. These scenes reveal for us two basic ways to respond to this truth.

1. We May Respond to God’s Plan in Unbelief (1:5-25).
   1. Introduction of Zechariah and Elizabeth (1:5-7)
   2. Serving God through disappointment
   3. Gabriel’s visit and prophecy (1:8-17)
   4. Zechariah’s response (1:18)
   5. Gabriel’s rebuke (1:19-25)
2. We May Believe God’s Plan Even When We Don’t Understand (1:26-38).
   1. Introduction to Mary and Joseph (1:26-27)
   2. Gabriel’s greeting (1:28-33)
   3. Mary’s response (1:34)
   4. Gabriel’s explanation (1:35-37)
   5. Mary’s faith (1:38)
3. We Should Praise God for His Work Even Before It’s Completed (1:39-56).
   1. Elizabeth’s confession (1:41-45)
   2. Mary’s song (1:46-56)

Fifty-seven million. Do you know what that number represents? Before I tell you, I want you to know I am not trying to be political or unkind. The American public has politicized this issue to death with very little fruit to show for it. So I’m not trying to be harsh or partisan. This issue should elicit the deepest wells of compassion because the number represents much pain and strife.

I give you the number in case you do not know. I give you the number so the scope of the issue is clear. I give you the number because I hope you will see its connection with God’s work in the world.

In 1973, Roe v. Wade made unrestricted abortion a right in the United States. As of January 2015, some forty-three years later, the total number of reported abortions performed in the United States had reached 57,762,169.

Researchers classify approximately five of ten pregnancies in the United States as “unwanted pregnancies”—a hideous term. Of those, 40 percent end in abortion. Those percentages yield the fifty-seven million total.

If that number had been true in the first century, how might it have affected God’s plan? If Mary, Joseph, and the first-century world lived in a context like today’s United States, how do you imagine abortion laws might have impacted God’s plan to redeem sinners?

Our text covers two miraculous pregnancies. In verses 5-25 God miraculously opens the womb of an old woman named Elizabeth. In verses 26-38 God miraculously opens the womb of a virgin girl named Mary. Both scenes follow the same pattern: The angel Gabriel appears, he announces the miracle, the people have questions, then Gabriel further explains God’s plan. Our text concludes with Mary and Elizabeth together, praising God (vv. 39-56).

Luke does not begin his Gospel with a full-grown Jesus or even with an infant Jesus. Luke begins his Gospel in the wombs of two women. In doing so Luke tells us about the dignity and importance of pregnancy and children. He illustrates how God in infinite wisdom placed the weight of his entire plan of redemption on the back of an unborn baby.

We May Respond to God’s Plan in Unbelief

Luke 1:5-25

Introduction of Zechariah and Elizabeth (1:5-7)

Context. Verses 5-7 introduce us to Zechariah and Elizabeth. Verse 5 says they lived during “the days of King Herod of Judea.” This is Herod the Great, who ruled from 37 to 34 BC. Herod was a puppet king put in place by Rome. This was not a peaceful time in Israel. They were a defeated people watching a foreign power occupy their land. It was a time of longing for deliverance.

Character. Zechariah and Elizabeth descended from Aaron, Moses’s brother, the father of the priesthood in Israel. Elizabeth was “from the daughters of Aaron” (v. 5), and Zechariah was “a priest of Abijah’s division” (v. 5), which means his people served the temple from the time of King David (1 Chr 24:10). As for character (v. 6), “Both were righteous in God’s sight, living without blame according to all the commands and requirements of the Lord.” They were faithful even into old age. Oh, to have God remember us all this way!

Challenge. We are meant to understand the sadness of this situation. They were righteous, but they were childless (v. 7). And they probably wondered why they were childless if they were righteous, or if they were truly righteous since they were childless. You know the human tendency to conflate God’s approval with our blessing. That tendency remains common, but it is wrong. Elizabeth must have felt broken and to blame. She was the one who was barren. What a desert-like word. Dry. Cracked. Lifeless.

When she was a younger woman, newly married to Zechariah, no doubt well-meaning people probably asked, “When are you going to have children?” As she began to age, they then began to say with concern in their voice, “We are praying for you.” Now in old age, they whisper around her, “She can’t have children.” You could probably see the concern on their faces. Imagine how difficult it might have been for her to rejoice in the pregnancy of other women without feeling sorrow for her own barrenness. Elizabeth was well aware of what she called her “disgrace among the people” (v. 25). She felt stigma and shame.

They were now “well along in years” (v. 7). So, at some point in life, Elizabeth and Zechariah had to adjust to the reality that their could not have children was, in fact, a would not have children.

Serving God through Disappointment

While I was serving in the Cayman Islands, a middle-aged woman once asked if she could meet with me. She’d been attending church services for a few weeks, and a cloud of sadness hung over her. When she came to my office she told me she had one son but had suffered six or seven miscarriages. She had one question: “Why is God punishing me?”

Our disappointments will either make us bitter or make us better. Our disappointments have a way of producing terrible theology and denials of God’s goodness. That morning I told this depressed woman, “Though I cannot explain why God has entrusted you with so much suffering, I know God is good.” My words seemed to her an empty platitude. In Elizabeth and Zechariah’s case, the striking thing is that they handled a lifelong disappointment and social shame with righteousness and blamelessness before God. They served God even though they did not have what they wanted.

Being righteous and blameless does not mean a challenge-free life, exemption from heartaches, or that every desire will be granted. If you serve God for what you can get, then you actually serve yourself. That, beloved, is the prosperity gospel, not the biblical gospel. The righteous person is not free from suffering because he serves the Lord. We do not get everything we want just because we live well. We may live well past the years of possibility without receiving our hope; but if we are God’s people, we will live righteously anyway because God is our hope.

Elizabeth and Zechariah endured this very test. Their examples provoke us to ask, Will we serve God faithfully through our disappointments? No child. No husband. No dream job. No dream house or car. Will God mean more to us than all those things though we receive none of them?

Gabriel’s Visit and Prophecy (1:8-17)

Verses 8-10 zero in on Zechariah the priest. His division has been called up to the temple in Jerusalem to serve their rotation as priests (see 1 Chr 24). This happened twice a year. But something special happened during this rotation. Zechariah “was chosen . . . to enter the sanctuary of the Lord” (v. 9). Because there were so many priests serving the temple, such service was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. God worked providentially to extend this special privilege to this aged priest. Zechariah would have the honor of going into the Holy Place before the presence of God and burning the incense during the sacrifice.

During this period of focused worship, an angel appeared to him. Angels are glorious creatures, majestic and awesome! They strike fear into the hearts of even the righteous! They are so awesome and powerful that two things often happen when they show up. Some people mistake angels for God himself. Some people are overcome with fear before these great beings. Zechariah experienced the latter.

Incidentally, one reason I don’t believe stories about people seeing angels and feeling all warm and fuzzy inside is because of scenes like this. Persons in the Bible who see an angel cover their eyes, hide their faces, and fear for their lives!

But angels are also messengers. According to Acts 7:53 angels deliver God’s word—which is what the angel of the Lord does in verses 13-17. What a wonderful message this is! God says through Gabriel seven things:

(1) “Do not be afraid” (v. 13). That alone comforts the Lord’s people—the assurance that the Lord is on their side.

(2) “Your prayer has been heard” (v. 13). Which prayer? His prayer for a son: “Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John” (v. 13). Given Zechariah’s response in verse 18, I do not think Zechariah was praying for a son at that moment. I think the angel delivered an answer to prayers prayed long ago and now almost forgotten, maybe abandoned. Maybe Zechariah thought God had not heard or had forgotten. He did not realize God records our prayers in a book. In the fullness of time God sent the angel to say, “I heard you. I have you in mind.” God had stored his prayers until this dramatic moment in his plan of salvation. God was so interested and delighted in Zechariah’s prayers he gave the baby a name for him!

(3) “There will be joy and delight for you, and many will rejoice at his birth” (v. 14). If we stopped right there, these three statements would include almost everything that human beings want: not to be afraid, to have a family, and to be happy. Oh how often we settle for so small a prize from God. But the angel went on.

(4) “For he will be great in the sight of the Lord” (v. 15). God will have a special regard for this child. He will be a mighty man of God.

(5) “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb” (v. 15). This means the child John, from conception, will be controlled by God the Holy Spirit. So he must not drink alcohol; nothing else should control him. Verse 15 teaches the same idea we find in Ephesians 5:18—“Don’t get drunk with wine, . . . but be filled by the Spirit.” Why was John anointed with the Spirit of God?

(6) “He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God” (v. 16). God will use Zechariah’s son to ignite a revival in Israel.

(7) “He [John] will go before him [the Lord] in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to make ready for the Lord a prepared people” (v. 17).

The angel speaking to Zechariah in the temple was a historic and unique moment in the history of salvation. Not since the last words of the last book of the Old Testament (Malachi) had God spoken. That was over four hundred years ago. God can give you the silent treatment when he wants to. And now through the angel Gabriel, God breaks his silence and speaks to an old man.

What does God say when he begins speaking again? He picks up where he left off, with the last words spoken four hundred years ago in Malachi 4:5-6. God made promises in the Old Testament that he now begins to fulfill in the New Testament. He sends John as another Elijah who will prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. God now sends his long-awaited Savior to his people!

Zechariah’s Response (1:18)

The angel brings really good news to Zechariah, but Zechariah’s response is, “How can I know this?” Seeing and hearing an angel is not enough? You want more proof!?

When our eyes are on our problems—in Zechariah’s case, his old age—we will not receive God’s word or trust God’s power. We can’t think our problems are great and God’s power is great at the same time. We will exalt one a little bit more than the other. Trying to exalt our problems and God’s power is like attempting to serve money and God at the same time. We cannot do it. We can be so focused on our problems we can’t hear God’s promises and we fail to believe God’s power.

Did you know you can block out the noonday sun with a quarter? All you have to do is bring the quarter right up to your eye. We sometimes hold our problems and limitations to our eyes in that way, bringing them so close to our eyes we cannot see the great, glowing sun of God’s promises and God’s power.

When our eyes are on our problems, we will not remember God’s Word and how it applies to us. Why did Zechariah not remember Abraham in Genesis 17:17? Abraham was in the exact same situation—wanting a child but he and his wife were far too old. God gave Abraham and Sarah a son when they were nearly a hundred years old! Zechariah should have remembered God’s word, but he was focused on his limitation instead.

So Zechariah wants more proof than the Scriptures and more proof than an angel visiting him. He wants proof rather than the promise. In that way this righteous man walks by sight, not by faith.

We can be righteous persons in the holiest places, carrying out the holiest acts of worship, and not believe God! Unbelief is that sneaky! It can slither right into the middle of spiritual worship. You can be a preacher preaching the gospel and not believe anyone will be saved. You can be an evangelist on the street corner and not believe anyone will listen. You can be married and not believe your spouse is a gift from the Lord. We can pray for our heart’s deepest desire, and laced in the marrow of our prayer is a sneaky unbelief. That was Zechariah, and that is many of us.

This lesson applies to older Christians in particular. Don’t let age hinder you from God’s work in and through you. You are not forgotten in God’s plans any more than Elizabeth and Zechariah were forgotten. You are a vital part of God’s plan in the church. In fact, without you we cannot do the one thing Christ commands in Matthew 28:18-20—make disciples. Christ has ordered things in his church in such a way that the older persons among us are meant to teach the younger (Titus 2:1-10). You are not simply “along for the ride.” We do not want to sit you in a corner and forget about you. It is to our shame that older persons are forgotten in society. We want to treasure you. We want to remind you of God’s plan for your life. We want to see you active and involved in all God has for us as his church.

You will feel as if young people have passed you by. You may feel like you have little to contribute. You may feel like you’re too old now. Let me encourage you: Don’t make your age a quarter you hold to your eye and forget the power of God. Keep living for God and serving him with the strength and the wisdom he supplies!

Gabriel’s Rebuke (1:19-25)

In verses 19-20 the angel is like, “Man, don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I work for? You want a sign? I tell you what, since you like to question God’s word, I will close your mouth until the whole promise is fulfilled.”

Do not make God close your mouth because of unbelief. If the choice is between human creatures questioning God’s word or God’s word closing our mouths, guess which one will come to pass? God’s word will stand. In fact, on the final day, the day of judgment, every mouth will be closed. There will be no rebuttal, no rejoinder or appeal. The God of the universe will do all things well, including administering justice on that final day. So it’s better to receive and share his word rather than doubt it. Zechariah found that out the hard way.

Zechariah had to learn sign language while he was in the temple! All he could do was gesture and go home (vv. 21-23). The people knew he had seen a vision. Elizabeth conceived just as God had said through the angel Gabriel (vv. 24-25).

We May Believe God’s Plan Even When We Don’t Understand

Luke 1:26-38

This is what we learn from Gabriel’s second visit and second prophecy.

Introduction of Mary and Joseph (1:26-27)

It’s six months after Elizabeth had conceived. Now we’ve moved from Jerusalem north to the region of Galilee to a city called Nazareth. We’ve switched from the religious capital of the country to a small, backwater town with a bad reputation. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). We’re told in verse 27 that this young woman, Mary, was a virgin engaged to Joseph, a descendant of King David. To be engaged in those days was stronger than in our day. You couldn’t break an engagement without getting a divorce for sexual immorality.

Zechariah and Elizabeth are at the end of their long lives, while Mary and Joseph are beginning theirs. What God does in the world has nothing do with our ages or our hometowns. God uses whomever he wills.

Gabriel’s Greeting (1:28-33)

Gabriel greets Mary with words of grace, really (v. 28). God is smiling on this young, unknown girl. We might be tempted to think Zechariah was chosen because he was righteous and a priest. The angel’s greeting to Mary reveals she is chosen solely as a matter of God’s grace.

Mary doesn’t understand the angel’s greeting. She “was deeply troubled” by it and tried to figure out what kind of greeting it was (v. 29). How could she, an unknown young woman, be so described by God? Did you ever feel like your life is too small for God to notice, too insignificant for God to be aware of you? Perhaps that’s how Mary felt.

Just as with Zechariah, the angel explains his message (vv. 30-33). Not only would Zechariah and Elizabeth give birth to the promised forerunner, but Mary would give birth to the promised Savior.

• Gabriel promises she too will conceive.
• She should name him Jesus, which according to Matthew 1:21 implies, “He will save his people from their sins.”
• Mary’s son will actually be “the Son of the Most High” (v. 32). He will be God’s own Son. This is more than any human could ever have imagined or dreamed.
• This Son will fulfill the promise made to King David hundreds of years earlier (2 Sam 7). This will be David’s son who rules over Israel forever in an everlasting kingdom.

Mary’s Response (1:34)

Now Mary sounds a lot like Zechariah when she replies in verse 34, but apparently there’s no unbelief in her question. She’s not asking, “Can you do it?” She’s asking, “How will you do it?” Her question builds on faith, not unbelief. This is why Gabriel does not rebuke.

Gabriel’s Explanation (1:35-37)

To this young girl in a rural countryside, God through Gabriel reveals two of the greatest mysteries in the universe: the incarnation and the Trinity (v. 35): “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” He refers to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit each having a part. But it’s God the Son who will take on himself human flesh in the humility of a babe.

When God says the Holy Spirit “will come upon” Mary, he does not mean God impregnated Mary, as some Muslims slanderously believe of Christians. What a blasphemous thought! “Come upon” brings to mind Genesis 1:2, where the Holy Spirit was “hovering over” the face of the deep in creation. It’s what Jesus is quoted as saying in Hebrews 10:5: “as he was coming into the world, he said: ‘You did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me.’” By the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of God the Father, a body was prepared for God the Son who would be brought forth by Mary.

Because Christ is fully God and fully man, he is perfect Savior. He needed to be God to supply the righteousness humans could not achieve. He needed to be man to supply to God the sacrifice we owe. So he became the only mediator between God and man—the God-man, Christ Jesus. He is the only way for men to come to God.

We don’t have to stumble at Jesus’s deity and humanity. The angel assures Mary and assures us, “Nothing will be impossible with God” (v. 37). The moment you admit the existence of God, you must deny the impossible. With God it’s nothing that a barren woman and a virgin woman would both conceive. In fact, that’s just like God!

Mary’s Faith (1:38)

Now contrast Mary’s response to Zechariah’s. Zechariah stumbled in unbelief. Mary yields in faith. Doesn’t she sound a lot like Isaiah saying, “Here I am. Send me” (Isa 6:8)? Doesn’t she sound a lot like Esther saying, “If I perish, I perish” (Esth 4:16)? Doesn’t she sound a lot like Ruth saying to Naomi, “Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16)? It brings to mind Job’s, “Even if he kills me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15). It reminds us of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane praying, “Father, . . . not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). This is how faithful people respond to God’s plan, even when they do not understand it.

What must Mary have thought about the Lord’s plan? The only way a person can genuinely say what Mary says is to believe that God’s plan is better than our plans for ourselves. When Mary responds in faith, she faces the potential of public shame. She faces the prospect of a divorce or a broken betrothal and never marrying. She would likely wear the scarlet letter of her day and be forced from home and family. She would be destitute.

Mary would face the same prospect that women face today when unfaithful men abandon them. Statistically, a woman ends up in poverty. Their lives are doubly hard. This is why we brothers must care for our women and children. Even if it breaks us, never let us forsake them.

Though she faced all of this, Mary spoke in faith. She concluded, “Whatever your will is for me, let it be.” Like Mary, we can’t truly be servants of Christ unless we accept his plan for our lives. He cannot be our Lord if we insist on ruling ourselves. If he is Lord, then we are servants—glad servants of God. This is how faith replies to grace. When God promises you a Savior, say, “Let me have him!” When God announces his plan for your life, say, “Amen! Let it be so! Not my will, but your will be done, God!”

Do we have this kind of faith? I pray we do. To express this kind of faith, must we renew our commitment to the Lord in some way? I pray we will.

We Should Praise God for His Work Even Before It’s Completed

Luke 1:39-56

Mary learned from Gabriel that her cousin Elizabeth was six months pregnant. Elizabeth had kept her pregnancy hidden for five months (v. 24). Now Mary knows and she travels to the hill country in Judah to visit her cousin.

These two women meet together and erupt with joy. They’re not just joyful because they’re both having babies. No. They know the Lord has shown them favor. They know the inside scoop on God’s plans for their children. Their joy is supernatural.

Elizabeth’s Confession (1:41-45)

By the filling of the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth gets loud and blesses Mary as well as her baby Jesus in the womb. Apparently Elizabeth receives a revelation from God. Once Mary walks into the room, Elizabeth announces without prior communication that Mary carries her Lord. Elizabeth knows that Mary has believed the word she received from the Lord. Even the fetus John leaps for joy in his mother’s womb when Mary, carrying Jesus, enters.

It’s customary for us to think the first to confess that Jesus is the Christ was Peter. Actually, the first to make this confession is the older woman, Elizabeth, who confesses Jesus is Lord even before Jesus is born.

How did she know this? “Jesus is Lord” is the earliest of the Christian confessions. Paul tells us that no one can truly call Jesus “Lord” unless the Spirit gives him the ability (1 Cor 12:3). The Spirit gives Elizabeth that ability, and he gives that ability to everyone who believes in Christ. In the power of the Spirit we should proclaim it loudly to all who will listen. From the four corners of the block to the four corners of the globe, let us follow Elizabeth’s example and proclaim him as Lord to everyone!

Elizabeth knows that God’s fulfillment is at hand, and Mary has believed it too (v. 45). God has a plan. Our most basic part in the plan is to believe it. These women are models of faith. They believe before the plan is fulfilled. How can we not believe him after it is fulfilled?

Mary’s Song (1:46-56)

After Elizabeth makes her confession, Mary sings her song. It’s a beautiful song filled with hope and rich truth about God.

Mary rejoices in the Lord (vv. 46-48). Why? Because God her Savior “looked with favor on the humble condition of his servant” (v. 48). That is what God is like. He is close to the broken and the lowly.

Mary sees herself as blessed (vv. 48-49). Generations will call her blessed. Hasn’t that happened for centuries now? She’s no longer confused about what it means to find favor with God. However, the nations don’t call Mary blessed because of anything she has done. They call her blessed “because the Mighty One has done great things for [her], and his name is holy” (v. 49). The point is God, not Mary. There’s not the slightest hint of Mary worship, or Mariolatry, in this passage. Our Catholic friends err significantly when they exalt Mary to comediator with Christ. Mary herself exalted God for his greatness.

Anyone who would love and respect God will find mercy with God. “From generation to generation” (v. 50) means God’s mercy reaches down to our time and place, too.

Verses 51-53 give us the signs that God’s mercy is for all. There are no more virgin births, and we’re unlikely to be in a Jewish temple when an angel visits; but we can see the work of God every day. That’s what Mary celebrates. Don’t ask God for a sign his promise will be fulfilled. We are simply to look around to see fulfillment. There are signs posted everywhere for all us “nobodies.” God scatters the proud (v. 51). God topples the mighty (v. 52). God sends the rich away empty (v. 53). But the Lord exalts the lowly—that’s the projects and the hoods (v. 52). He fills the hungry (v. 53). If we would know the riches of God’s mercy, we simply need to admit the poverty of our lives.

Mary has confidence that God fulfills his plans and keeps his promises (vv. 54-55). He has helped Israel. He has remembered his mercy. All that he said to Abraham and Abraham’s descendants is about to come to pass. And indeed it did. Christ was born as promised. He lived a sinless life. He offered righteousness to God in our place. He died a sinner’s death, suffering the wrath of God in our place on Calvary’s cross. He satisfied God’s anger, and three days later God raised him from the dead—proving that the Father accepted the Son’s sacrifice on our behalf. Now God calls all men everywhere to repent of their sins and to trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The Father’s mercy comes to us through his Son.

We should praise God for keeping his promises even before we see the promises fulfilled. That’s what these women of faith do. His mercy endures forever.

Conclusion

What do you think is Mary and Elizabeth’s view of children in the womb? The very least we can say is that they think life is a special gift from God and that the fetus is a baby.

From the beginning, God planned to carry out his plan to save the world by the birth of a child. Genesis 3:15 says that the offspring of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. The Son of God entered the world through pregnancy and childbirth. That fact fills pregnancy, gestation, and childbirth with incalculable dignity and meaning! The infinite God came into the world through the close spaces of a human womb, making the womb and all that’s in it sacred!

Had Mary and Elizabeth lived under Roe v. Wade, the plan of God to save the world would have been in jeopardy from the angel’s announcement to her. She would have had a line of people ready to tell her to abort the baby. We think our age is more advanced and scientific. Well, these “primitive people” recognized from the start something our culture works hard to deny: the fetus is a baby. If it’s a baby when you miscarry, it’s a baby when you abort.

Praise God Christ was not born in modern-day America. Praise God for pregnancy! Praise God our Savior was born!

Reflect and Discuss

1. What do the miraculous pregnancies of Mary and Elizabeth teach us about the power of God? What does it teach us about how God works in the world?
2. Does the fact that Christ came into the world through the normal process of childbirth affect how you view pregnancy and children? If so, how?
3. Zechariah and Mary have very similar experiences with the angel Gabriel. How do their responses differ, and what is the consequence?
4. Zechariah was a righteous man, but he stumbled in unbelief. How common a problem do you think unbelief is among Christians?
5. Can you describe a time when you struggled to believe a promise of God or a part of God’s Word?
6. What kinds of things have helped you in your battle against unbelief?
7. The angel announced to Mary a difficult thing to comprehend. Can you remember a time when you found God’s Word or promise difficult to believe? How were you able to express faith despite the difficulty?
8. Israel waited a long time before God fulfilled his promise of a Messiah. Have you ever had to wait a long time for God to fulfill a promise in his Word? Did you find it difficult to wait? What was difficult and what was helpful to you?
9. In this section of Luke’s Gospel, older persons figure prominently in the life of Christ. What do they teach us about faith and the role of older persons in the church today?
10. How can you praise God right now for some unfulfilled promise or some aspect of his work in the world that you don’t yet understand?