Jesus Was a Fetus

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!

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).

Luke 1:26-38

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

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 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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!