The Gospel of Luke: Setting the Stage

Transcript

JRNT 60
06/09/2024
The Gospel of Luke: Setting the Stage
Luke 1:26-27
Jesse Randolph


If you've ever been to the theater, not a movie theater (nobody goes to the movies anymore) but a live production of some sort, you've no doubt encountered that moment where the scene changes. That's the moment where the curtain drops and the lights go down and the pupils of hundreds of eyeballs immediately dilate as they stare into the grainy darkness. And then as the audience waits with rapt attention there is a team of stagehands who with great skill and with great care begin to scurry around in the dark as they set the stage for the next scene. And as this is happening there is this faint glow reflecting off the floor beneath the curtain, indicating there is some sort of dim lighting backstage, giving the stagehands whatever illumination they need, to do what they need to do. Then you hear the sound of wheels rolling, then you hear the sound of felt pads gliding across the stage and you hear that new backdrops are being put in place. Then there is the sound of the soft pitter patter of feet as the actors involved with the next scene scurry about, getting themselves where they need to be -- stage right, stage left, upstage, center stage, etc. -- and all of this in preparation for what comes next.

As we turn to our text for today, Luke 1:26-27, we are coming across and coming upon a significant change of scene, a switch in the scene. The curtain has dropped, so to speak, on this initial scene involving Zechariah the priest and his temple service in Jerusalem and the casting of lots and his name being called to be that priest who would offer incense inside the Holy Place, the sanctuary of the temple, and his encounter with the angel Gabriel and the angel's description of the various features of the son that would be born to Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth in their old age and Zechariah's doubt over what the angel Gabriel shared with him and then the consequences of Zechariah's doubt, namely his muteness and in Luke 1:62 we see his deafness, and Zechariah's completion of his week of service in the temple. Then his trip home to the hill country of Judea to tell Elizabeth about all that had happened to him at the temple in Jerusalem and then Elizabeth's conceiving and then that state of worshipful seclusion that she placed herself in for five months. All that goes into scene one. And now in the two verses we'll be camped out in this morning, verses 26-27, we are in the midst of a scene change, or to borrow from the world of theater again, we're leading up to scene two.

Look at Luke 1:26-27, God's Word reads, “Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.” Now where all of this is headed is a scene that is familiar to most if not all of us, a scene which has long been described as the annunciation. In fact, to give us some context why don't we read ahead, read into scene two starting in verse 28. We'll get here next week, Lord willing. It says, “And coming in, he said to her,” that's the angel to Mary, “Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was very perplexed at this statement, and was pondering what kind of greeting this was. And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of His kingdom.’ But Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be since I am a virgin?’ The angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ And Mary said, ‘Behold the slave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.”

It's a familiar account, one which leads up eventually to the story we know of the birth of our Lord. And these two accounts taken together, the annunciation account and the birth account, are ones we typically crack open around Christmas time as we are enjoying the wonder and the revelry of the season with the tinsel and the trimmings and the family gatherings and Jack Frost nipping at our nose. But note that the whole Christmas story package involving Luke's account of the angel's annunciation to Mary and then the account of the birth of Jesus our Lord is preceded by these two verses we'll be looking at this morning where Luke really sets the stage for the annunciation account. As we're about to see there are four key components to the stage setting that Luke will do in these two verses as he temporarily for the time being puts aside the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth and now takes up the account of the annunciation to Mary. Here are the four ways that Luke sets the stage in these two verses if you are a note taker this morning. First he records “An Angelic Visitor,” second he describes “An Average Village,” third he highlights “An Anticipatory Vow,” and then fourth he reports on “An Adolescent Virgin.”

Let's get right into it starting with “An Angelic Visitor” in verse 26. It says, “Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth.” As you can see there, our Spirit-directed shift in scenes starts with this reference to this angel Gabriel who is sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth. The same angel who had spoken with Zechariah in the Holy Place in the temple in Jerusalem was now going to speak to this young betrothed virgin in some obscure village in Galilee. And that was now going to set in motion a series of events leading up to the announcement of the birth of the Messiah, the Savior, the God/Man, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now before we get too much further note again this precision and attention to detail with which Luke writes. See, evidently there were people in Luke's day, as there are in our day (just check National Geographic anytime) who struggled with and doubted and flatly disbelieved that Jesus the Son of God could have been virgin born. With a basic understanding of human biology and human reproductive processes and the specific roles that males and females play in the whole process of conceiving a child, the idea of Jesus walking this earth in human flesh but as One who had been conceived in a manner other than how conceptions normally happen, would have simply been too much for the skeptics to handle and take in. Well, Luke as he wrote here in our passage, recognizing that he is writing to this Gentile named Theophilus who might have been experiencing some doubts and misgivings himself about how this all happened and supposedly took place, writes with this precision and care and accuracy to get to Theophilus and by extension to everyone of us.

Look again at this precision in verses 26-27, we'll read it again. “Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.” Note there is no couched or qualified language from Luke here, there is no statement that an angel may have been sent, there is no waffling on geographical details by saying this all happened in the general vicinity of Galilee, there is no ‘out’ being offered here by saying that this person Mary was perhaps a virgin or allegedly a virgin or that the man she was betrothed to, Joseph, may have been of the house of David. No. Every word the Spirit moved Luke to write here was clear and uncompromising and chosen with care. Luke was effectively saying to Theophilus in our passage here, this is how it truly happened, this is how it went down, which is directly in line with, as we have already seen, Luke's style of writing and his commitment to this development of this absolutely clear record and his commitment to absolute historical precision.

In fact, look up at the prologue again in verses 1-4 (we covered this many weeks ago now) but Luke says in Luke 1:1 to Theophilus, “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as those, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, handed them down to us, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in orderly sequence, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty about the things you have been taught.”

Recall that Luke investigated carefully each of the matters he recorded in his Gospel. He spoke with the eyewitnesses. Who knows? Maybe Mary was one of them. He was committed to writing it all out in orderly sequence, it wasn't some sort of jumbled mess. So that what? He says in verse 4, “so that you may know the certainty about the things you have been taught.” Well, what things? The details surrounding Jesus' life and ministry, no doubt; the details surrounding Jesus' death and crucifixion, to be sure; the details surrounding Jesus' resurrection and ascension, absolutely; but also, as we are going to see in the weeks ahead, the details surrounding Jesus' incarnation, the virgin birth of the Son of God. Luke clearly took the virgin birth of Christ to be literal, factual history and he intended for his readers, Theophilus then and us today, to do the same. And it starts with what we see here in verse 26 in our text where he says, “Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God.”

Now let's start drilling into this a bit deeper by noting the historical and chronological sequencing of events that Luke lays out for us here in his Gospel. Luke organized his material related to the events surrounding the birth of our Lord in a very logical, orderly, and chronological fashion. We saw last week, just up the page in verse 24, that Elizabeth, after her husband Zechariah received his own angelic announcement, kept herself in seclusion, look at the date reference here, for five months. Now here in verse 26 we're told that in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God. If you turn the page and look just down at verse 36, this is now the angel speaking to Mary, he tells her that her cousin Elizabeth was in the sixth month of her pregnancy. And then down in verse 56 we're told that Mary stayed with her, meaning Elizabeth, about three months, following the birth of John the Baptist. And then when we get to Luke 2 we find that when Luke gives the account of the birth of Mary's Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, he hangs the dating of the Lord's birth within this frame of verifiable, secular historical events that can be cross-checked very easily. Look at Luke 2:1, “Now it happened that in those days a decree went out for Caesar Augustus for a census to be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

See, with these precise date references and these historical details Luke was inviting Theophilus and really any of us here today as countless scholars and theologians and historians and archaeologists have done, to see and to verify that these events really did happen. In other words, Luke wasn't some wild-eyed, conspiracy theorist who was looking to win favor with the noble, Theophilus. He wasn't tickling ears to tell Theophilus what he wanted to hear. He wasn't trying to invent, Luke wasn't, this new religion whereby millions would now worship a murdered Galilean miracle worker. No, he was relating facts, he was reporting history based on his own investigation and research and interviews of what took place in connection with the birth, the life and the death of Jesus of Nazareth. Now to be sure, Luke was conveying a spiritual message, a religious message you could even say, but it was a spiritual message, a religious message, which was explicitly grounded in historical fact.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Back to our text, we're told that in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God. Sixth month, like the month of June? No. Like the sixth month on the Hebrew calendar, “Elul”? No. In context this is a reference to the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. Remember there was this angelic appearance to Zechariah in the temple and then Zechariah returned home and then he told his wife, not through his lips, because they were sealed and he was mute now, but apparently through some other means, that they were going to have a child. And then through natural means they came together, she conceived as we see here in verse 25, and then she secluded herself for five months.

And now, and here is this natural connection point between verse 25 and 26, another month had passed so that Elizabeth was now six months pregnant and had now finally come out of seclusion. And it was then, at that stage of Elizabeth's pregnancy that Gabriel makes this second appearance, this second announcement, this time to a young, virgin girl named Mary of her own impending pregnancy. Again from a storytelling perspective Luke couldn't have been more clear about what he was doing here. He was connecting the angelic announcement that was made to Zechariah to the later angelic announcement that was made to Mary. And in doing so he is really highlighting this escalation of the magnitude of these two angelic announcements. One would involve the birth of the prophetic forerunner to Jesus, John the Baptist, while the other would involve the birth of the Son of God Himself. One would involve a woman who was beyond normal childbearing years conceiving, which in and of itself would be a jaw-dropping event, while the other involved a virgin conceiving a child without the seed of man, which would be nothing short of miraculous.

Now who was this angel, this angel that was now making this appearance to Mary? The angel we see here is identified as Gabriel, this was the angel, Gabriel, the same angel who appeared to Zechariah back in the Holy Place back in Jerusalem. And how do we know it is the same angel? Well, look up the page at verse 18. This is now Zechariah's encounter back in the Holy Place inside the temple. It says, “And Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How will I know this,’ ” this is speaking of Elizabeth's conception, “For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years,’ ” then verse 19, “And the angel answered and said to him, ‘I am Gabriel, who stands before God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.” So Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and it was Gabriel who appeared to Mary.

Now what else do we know about this angel? Well, as we saw last week, Gabriel is only one of two angels mentioned by name in Scripture, the other being Michael. And Gabriel was an angel who was known for providing revelation and understanding of future things, like we saw last week in Daniel 8 and 9. He gave an understanding of future things to Daniel, he gave an understanding of future things to Zechariah, we saw that last time. And this is exactly what he would do with Mary, he would give her revelation and understanding about future things, specifically about the birth of her forthcoming Son.

And note, getting back to verse 26 here, we learn one more thing about this angel. The angel, Gabriel, who visited this young girl Mary during the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, we learn right in the middle of verse 26 there, that he “was sent from God.” “Was sent,” that is a passive verb form in the Greek, meaning Gabriel wasn't on some sort of self-willed, voluntary, elective mission. No, he was following through on a divine commission. This angel had been sent from the heavenly realm, the dwelling place of God Himself to do the works of God and to deliver the Word of God to this young virgin girl there in Nazareth.

And by the way, that's what holy angels do. Holy angels, meaning good angels, are wholly surrendered to God's will. They worship Him with awe and reverence in His majestic presence. We see that in Isaiah 6:3, the famous throne room scene in that prophetic text. There we see the seraphim, literally ‘the burning ones,’ recorded as saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.” We think of Psalm 148:2 which says, “Praise Him, all His angels, praise Him, all His hosts.” The angels not only worship and revere God though, they always stand ready to carry out God's orders. Consider these words from Psalm 103:20, it says, “Bless Yahweh, you His angels, mighty in strength who perform His word, obeying the voice of His word! Bless Yahweh, all you His hosts, you who serve Him, doing His will.”

Back to our text, the angel Gabriel was a sent one, a messenger. God had commissioned Gabriel to bring this message to Mary, a message about the coming arrival of the Messiah who in His first coming would not arrive on the back of a stallion as He made His way into Jerusalem, but instead, would arrive by means of a virgin's womb in the region of Galilee in the most humbling and humble of circumstances. That's a bit about Gabriel, this angel who was now making this second appearance, this time to Mary. That's our first heading, “An Angelic Visitation.”

That brings us now to our second heading as we continue to work through this stage-setting text. For you note takers point 2 is “An Average Village.” Look at the next part of verse 26. After mentioning the angel Gabriel being sent from God, it says “to a city in Galilee called Nazareth.” So this heaven-sent messenger, this angel was sent by God from heaven to deliver the news of the arrival of the Messiah, the anointed One, the King, the Savior. The mission of the angel Gabriel was clearly a divine one. He came directly from God to deliver the most important message ever to be delivered, which is that the Savior of mankind was now on earth, and so certainly, because of the Savior's stature and because of the significance of his message, this coming one, this sent one, this messenger, would announce His coming in some major city. Right? Like Jerusalem, the holy city. Or this announcement would be made in the bustling seaport of Capernaum or another major city like Caesarea or Joppa, or maybe in the seat of political power in this day, Rome. Right? That's where the announcement would be made. Wrong.

No, the angel Gabriel was sent here, he says in verse 26, “from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth.” Nazareth?! That's right, Nazareth. Of all places in this region which He could have chosen to announce the paving of the way for the coming of the Messiah, God chose Nazareth. And what do we know about this place Nazareth. Well, for starters -- little Greek word study, you guys love Sunday morning Greek word studies, right? -- that Greek word for city in verse 26 is “polis.” It's a term which has carried over in its pure Greek form to our English language.

We think of the Decapolis in New Testament times, that term describing those ten cities lying south and east of the Sea of Galilee where Jesus performed many of his miracles. Or in our modern American context we think of Annapolis or Indianapolis or Minneapolis, all cities of substantial sizes. In fact, in the case of those latter two, Indianapolis and Minneapolis, we would call them a metropolis. The same idea, it's a large city, a city with a sizable population. That's how we tend to think of that word “city” when we see it on the page here in Luke, like this must be a big city like Minneapolis or Annapolis or Indianapolis, or at least a city that has two Costco’s or five Culver's.

Well, we need to resist the urge to read our modern English usage back into the original Greek grammar because the reality is the Greek word that Luke uses here to describe Nazareth, “polis,” could describe either a large thriving, sprawling city like Minneapolis or a small dusty, one-stoplight sort of town. It was in that latter sense that Luke was using this term “polis” here. He wasn't describing a city like Omaha or Lincoln, instead he was describing a city like Utica or McCool Junction or Osceola.

In fact, Luke here had to describe Nazareth as being in Galilee. Did you see that? He had to go out of his way to explain to Theophilus where this city of Nazareth even was, that it wasn't in one of the other districts like Samaria or Judea. No, it was in this northern district of Galilee. And this city Nazareth was one that was never mentioned in the Old Testament, it was never mentioned in Josephus' writings, it was never mentioned in the early Jewish literature like the Mishna or the Talmud, it was never mentioned in the inter-testamental literature. It was the proverbial blip on the map.

Now in terms of where Nazareth sat, in terms of its physical geography and terrain, it sat on the southern slopes of these high hills in Galilee. So Galilee was the northern region but Nazareth would have been in the southern part of this northern region. It would be like being in south North Dakota. It sat some 70 miles north of Jerusalem, 22 miles to the east of the Mediterranean, 15 miles to the west of the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee. And while it might have had some nice distant Mediterranean views, it was otherwise small and forgettable. And not only that, Nazareth was, because of how far north it was situated in the region of Galilee, it was adjacent to Gentile territory and to Gentile influence, pagan influence. Which is why back in Isaiah's day in Isaiah 9:1 the region was referred to as Galilee of the Gentiles.

Now this convergence of circumstances hovering over Nazareth—its size, its proximity to pagan influence—this is what influenced Nathaniel over in John 1:46 to say what of Nazareth? “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Or as we might put it, can anything good come out of McCool Junction or Utica or Osceola? I can assure you something good comes out of Osceola, our executive pastor is from Osceola. (I'm just doing this to kind of needle him, this is like hazing from the pulpit.) Something good can come out of Osceola. But once again with this reference to Nazareth, Luke here was setting the stage for an entirely new development that was coming in this narrative. With Zechariah the stage and the scene was the temple in Jerusalem, this place of formality and reverence in worship, a place where Zechariah would have been right next to the Holy of Holies where God was said to dwell. And now here in our passage, verse 26, the scene is shifting from the sanctuary of God in Jerusalem to far flung Nowheresville in Galilee, to of all places, Nazareth. It was to this little town in Galilee, Nazareth, that God sent the angel, His angel Gabriel, and His purpose in sending Gabriel to Nazareth as we are about to see was to visit this young virgin girl there whose name was Mary, who was betrothed to a man, Joseph.

And this whole set of circumstances would bring about the fulfillment of what Matthew would record over in his Gospel in Matthew 2:23 where it says that He, meaning the Messiah, would be a Nazarene. Yes, Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, you are thinking about your Christmas chronology, you are right, He would be born in Bethlehem but He was a Nazarene. His parents were from Nazareth. And as we read the Gospel accounts chronologically we learn that after His birth in Bethlehem they went back to Nazareth. So He was a Nazarene, meaning that like the town itself, (can anything good come out of Nazareth) He would have been one who was looked down upon, of no regard, despised, which sounds a lot like the prophecy given of the Messiah in Isaiah 53:3 where it says, “He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”

Well, as we turn to verse 27 of our text we're going to see two more scene-setting truths laid down in this passage, both relate to Mary, the mother of Jesus. First, Luke is going to report that she was betrothed to a man named Joseph and then second, Luke will report, with emphasis by the way, that she was a virgin. We'll start with the first one, this fact that Joseph and Mary were betrothed. Look at verse 27 which tells us that the angel Gabriel appeared “to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.”

Here is our third heading for this morning if you are tracking and taking notes. This would be “An Anticipatory Vow,” you see it there. Gabriel was sent by God not only to Nazareth but to a young woman who was betrothed to a man named Joseph who we are told was of the house of David. Now that is not a word that we use a whole lot anymore, “betrothed,” but it is a term that is used multiple different places in the Gospel accounts to describe the nature of the relationship between Joseph and Mary. We have our passage, verse 27, “to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph.” Then just down the page in Luke 2:4 we see it again, their betrothed status is confirmed. Look at Luke 2:4, “And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was betrothed to him, and was with child.” Matthew in his Gospel also points out that Joseph and Mary were betrothed. Here is how Matthew records it in Matthew 1:18, he says, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.”

So that concept of betrothal is woven throughout the Gospel accounts, but what does it mean? What does it mean to say that Joseph and Mary were betrothed? Now many have, and I think with good motives, attempted to say and link betrothal in Jewish times, Old Testament Jewish times, to what it's like to be engaged today. I think that's a stretch, I think that's a leap. See, divorce rates, if you have noticed, have shot up around the world, and corresponding to that is the significance of engagement in our context, in our culture, has progressively diminished. Nowadays commitment levels are so paper thin that literally anyone can walk away from any engagement for any reason whenever they feel like it.

In fact, earlier this week (don't ask me how I find these articles) I found a few stories about couples who ended their engagements for truly ridiculous reasons. I'm going to give you a few of these, just to give you a feel for how different the concept of modern day engagement is from Old Testament Jewish betrothal. Here is one story given by a modern bride-to-be who ended her engagement. She says when he couldn't take time off work to emotionally support me during a family funeral because he had taken too many days off, but could take a day off a few weeks later to go see Avenger's End Game, I ended it two months later. Here is another one. I was engaged to the guy I led worship with in college. I never felt one ounce of physical attraction to him, I would cringe when he touched me. But I was young and thought I was just being shallow and that somehow things would click into place for me. Before class one day I went to his dorm to use his computer to look at wedding dresses. I broke down about 20 minutes into the process and broke up with him. Or here's another one. He was a darling but he was too much of a pushover and a loud chewer.

I bring up these silly examples only to highlight the fact that there isn't an apples to apples correspondence between our modern conception of engagement and the Jewish conception of betrothal. Rather, there are many key differences. I'm going to work through some of them. For starters betrothal typically took place during this era while a girl was still quite young. A young girl like Mary typically became betrothed between the ages of 12 to 12½, just as she was coming of age. And it was all done at the behest of her parents who would arrange for the betrothal and draw up the contracts and then negotiate the bride price. In terms of logistics there would be this betrothal ceremony where there would be witnesses present and these solemn promises that were made and it was at this betrothal ceremony that the girl was formally transferred out from under the authority of her father to now being under the authority of who was legally already considered to be her husband. And then after the betrothal ceremony this couple was considered to be legally bound, unlike modern day engagements which can be broken off for any reason, like watching Avenger's End Game. The betrothed couple was in this binding contractual relationship. They were considered legally to be husband and wife and the only way to terminate this betrothal was to go through a process, a formal process, of divorce. In fact, go back with me to Matthew's Gospel, the very first Gospel in the New Testament, where we see what this could have looked like through the pen of Matthew. Look at Matthew 1:18. This brings to mind this whole concept of betrothal and how a betrothal would have to end through divorce. Matthew 1:18 says, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.” Those words “send her away” could also be translated as it is translated in the ESB as “divorce her.” So you needed a divorce to end a betrothal.

More highlights and details about the betrothal process according to the custom and the practice of the day. In Jewish practice the betrothal phase of the couple's relationship would typically last a year with the girl still living with her parents and the young man still living with his. And the whole purpose of this waiting period was to demonstrate the faithfulness of the pledge of the bride's father that his daughter was actually pure. And if it were found out that she was pregnant during this period, then she obviously wasn't pure. She had obviously been involved in some sort of illicit sexual relationship, and in those circumstances their betrothal could be ended or terminated or finished. And not only that, but if there was found to be impurity in that relationship, the penalty… it was considered adultery in the first place and the penalty was death. Deuteronomy 22:23 says this, “If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man,” that would be the equivalent of betrothal in the Greek, “and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring both of them out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them, and they will die.” So that was the penalty if she were found to be impure during this period of betrothal.

But on the other hand if after this one-year period it was demonstrated that she were pure, what would happen is that the husband would then go to the house of his bride's parents, lead his bride back home in this grand processional march and there they would begin to live as husband and wife and able to physically consummate their union. All this to say in Jewish culture a man and a woman would be betrothed or pledged to each other for this period of time before the actual consummation of the marriage, and this betrothal was much stronger and much more significant than our modern cultural conception of engagement. And getting back to our text, the account that we have here of the angel's visitation and eventually Jesus' conception should be read with this background in mind. Because it was during this period of this one-year waiting period that Mary was found to be with child. More on that later as we work our way through the Gospel.

But back to our text, and specifically to verse 27, we see that the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph. And the next thing we learn, you see it there, is that he, meaning Joseph, was of the house of David. Now though just a few words, those are highly significant words. See, going all the way back to the days of King David, a thousand years before the angel Gabriel made this appearance to Mary, the Lord had made this promise to David through the prophet Nathan, the promise that is found in 2 Samuel 7:16. And it goes like this, it says, “And your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.” It's a promise made to David. This is what is known as the Davidic Covenant, a promise made by God to David that the Messiah of Israel would come through his line and sit on his throne. Isaiah 9:6-7, another Christmas verse, starts this way, “For a child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” We sometimes forget verse 7 though, which says, “There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.” In other words, if any future Israelite, after this promise was given to David, were to claim that he had come to fulfill this prophecy and that he was that promised Messiah, it would have to be established that he came from the Davidic line, from the line of David, from the house of David.

Well, back to our text, verse 27, Joseph was from the line of David. It says right there, “to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.” You can even turn the page over to Luke 2 again and look at verse 4 where we will see more of this, Joseph's Davidic lineage. Luke 2:4 says, “And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was betrothed to him, and was with child.” But there you see he was of the house and family of David. And then if you go back over to Matthew's Gospel, turn with me if you would again to Matthew 1, we're going to see more about Joseph's Davidic lineage. Look at Matthew 1:16, it says, “And Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.” Now go up the page to verse 6 of Matthew 1. Going back in history, it says, “And Jesse was the father of David the king, and David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” So if you read through the whole chronology and the genealogy in Matthew 1, you'll note that there is Jacob who is Joseph's father who was a descendant of who? David. Joseph is in David's line. This lowly Galilean carpenter, perhaps a stone mason if you are a Doug Bookman fan, a man with no wealth, no outward marks of social standing is described not only in Luke's Gospel but in Matthew's genealogy as being a direct descendant of David, in David's royal line.

And the way it worked and why this is significant is that as a matter of Jewish law at the time of their betrothal, we've already seen this, but Joseph and Mary were considered to be legally husband and wife. So assuming that Joseph were to agree to accept parental responsibilities for the child, any child born to Mary, whether Joseph's or anyone else's, would be legally regarded as Joseph's. And sticking with the Gospel of Matthew, that's exactly what we see recorded in Matthew 1:24. Matthew 1:24 where we see that Joseph, rather than divorcing Mary, took Mary as his wife and in doing so took her Son in as his own. Matthew 1:24, “Joseph got up from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife.” That would include parental responsibilities for the child she was carrying.

And what all this means and meant practically, legally, is that Jesus, like Joseph, would have now been deemed a rightful descendant by matter of Jewish law through the royal line of David. He would have a legal right as Joseph's adopted son to sit on David's throne. And this is why the angel Gabriel, back to Luke 1, could announce to Mary, as we're going to see next week, Luke 1:32-33, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of His kingdom.” This is why Zechariah, down the page in Luke 1:68 (this is when he is prophesying over his son John the Baptist), look at Luke 1:68, Zechariah says, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He visited and accomplished redemption for His people, and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant.” Jesus' true Father, of course, was God but Joseph would be his legal father on earth. And because He had been adopted by Joseph, son of David, Jesus in His humanity would be considered part of the royal Davidic line. And all of this was going to take place, as we are going to see, by way of Jesus' supernaturally wrought virgin birth.

And that takes us to the fourth and final point for this morning, and this is a major one. If you are taking notes, point #4 is “An Adolescent Virgin.” Take a look again at verse 27 where we are told that this angel Gabriel appeared “to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.” Now before we get into the subject of Mary's virginity, and we'll have much more to say about this not only this morning but in future weeks as we work through this account and as the text takes us there, let's simply take a moment to review who Mary was in the first place. Mary is Mariam in Greek, Miriam in Hebrew and her name would have meant exalted one, which is a fitting description for this soon-to-be mother of the Messiah. Not exalted, of course, in terms of her position as the so-called Queen of Heaven, as the Roman Catholic Church would teach, not exalted in terms of being worthy of worship or prayer or special reverence as the Catholic church would teach, but instead exalted in the sense of being favored one, specially privileged, to be that one woman in the sea of the billions of women who have ever lived on this planet to have the distinct privilege of carrying in her womb the Messiah, the Savior, the hope and the promise of Israel and indeed the entire world. So Mary's name meant exalted one.

What else do we know about her? Well, some of the other details the Scripture gives us about Mary is that she was a witness, she was a witness to many of Jesus' miracles such as at the wedding at Cana. In fact, go with me if you would over to John 2 where we see an aspect of Mary's life that is often overlooked, that she was a witness. Look at John 2:1, “And on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. And when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Whatever He says to you, do it.’ ” So much for the Roman Catholic church's position that Mary is the Queen of Heaven, on par with God Himself being the King of Glory and Jesus Himself being the Prince of Peace. No, she was a servant and viewed herself as a servant of Christ.

Or go over with me to Acts 1 where we're going to see another feature, another characteristic of Mary, where we're going to see that she was a woman of prayer. Look at Acts 1:12, this is Luke now recording those events that followed immediately on the ascension of our Lord. It says, “Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. And when they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one accord were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers.” Note that Mary isn't the one who was being prayed to, rather she is described here as praying to God, demonstrating her reliance upon God and her subservience to God.

So much for the Roman Catholic Church's teaching that Mary was some sort of co-mediatrix or co-redemptrix along with Christ who intercedes on behalf of those who pray to her. No, I Timothy 2:5 is crystal clear, “there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” And note what else we see here in Acts 1, that same passage, and what it reveals about Mary. Look at verse 14, we see that she had other children. Yes, she was a virgin when Jesus was conceived but the testimony of Scripture is clear that Jesus had brothers. Verse 14, “These all with one accord were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers,” meaning Mary had other children. So much for the Roman Catholic doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary.

Back to Luke 1, one more of these and this is a big one. Look at Luke 1:46 where Mary in her prayer, her “Magnificat,” famously and openly recognized that she was a sinner in need of a Savior. Look at Luke 1:46, her prayer. She prays, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” Mary then, contrary to what the Roman Catholic Church teaches, was not immaculately conceived. She wasn't, as the Roman Catholic Church teaches, herself sinless as her Son was. No, she was a sinner who needed a Savior just like anyone of us in this room here today. So the Scriptures openly refute, if we just open up the book, they openly refute what the Roman Catholic Church teaches about Mary. She wasn't immaculately conceived, she wasn't free from sin, she wasn't perpetually a virgin, she isn't an intercessor between God and man. No, those are extra-biblical fictions created out of whole cloth by the Roman Catholic Church to prop up and support its whole works-based system of religion. The Roman Catholic Church gets Mary horribly wrong, but at the same time we as non-Catholics, as Protestants, we can commit an error of just sort of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and not actually appreciating what the Scriptures plainly do teach about Mary. Like what we've just worked through, that she was a humble and prayerful servant who recognized her need for a Savior, and that there was this specific way in which she was favored and blessed and used of the Lord to bring about His sovereign purposes in introducing Jesus to this world, namely by herself being the privileged one, the favored one, who would carry the Christ child in her womb, to be that vessel through whom, humanly speaking, God would manifest Himself in the flesh. That was our Scripture reading this morning, Galatians 4:4, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.” The woman of course was Mary.

And that takes us right into a needed, but at the same time, preliminary discussion of the significance of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, a chief, a cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith. Now getting back to our text here, verse 27, as Luke sets the stage for this next scene of his narrative, including the annunciation to Mary and then Jesus' eventual conception and birth, he drives in a key pillar here of Christian doctrine which is that the Son of God in His incarnation would be virgin born. Look at verse 27, the angel appeared “to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.” Did you catch that? Mary's virginity is mentioned twice here. It's almost as though Luke is saying in case you missed it the first time she was a virgin. Now in the weeks ahead we will go deeper into this account, of course, and we will work out more of the details of all that was involved with these different aspects of the virgin birth of Christ, but for this morning's purposes as we sort of round out or walk through this stage-setting text I just want to walk us through some of the basics of what the virgin birth is and what it was all about. I'm going to give you four key truths about the virgin birth of Christ and then we'll be done.

Number 1, the virgin birth was supernatural. This one is rather obvious, virgins don't get pregnant, but here one did, and when a virgin gets pregnant you know something supernatural must be going on. And note, there are various key indicators here of the supernatural elements associated with the virgin birth. We have already seen it was preceded by the announcement of an angel, that doesn't happen every day, who was sent by God Himself. And as we're soon going to see, the Holy Spirit was the divine agent in bringing about the conception of Jesus in Mary's womb. So the virgin birth was supernatural, but at the same time the conception of Jesus in Mary's womb was not only supernatural or merely supernatural. And what I mean by that is there are many other religions of the world that claim supernatural births for their own objects of worship. Buddha was said to have been supernaturally conceived according to a dream his mother had. His mother wrote this, the mother of Buddha, “A noble elephant, white as silver or snow, having six tusks, well-proportioned trunk and feet, blood red veins… firmness of joints, and easy pace, has entered my belly. That's how the conception of the Buddha is recorded, and then ten months later he was born. In Greco-Roman mythology the mother of Perseus was said to have been conceived by Jupiter when Jupiter visited her in the form of a golden shower of rain. Then there is the story of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, supposedly the goddess of procreation superintended his conception in the womb of his mother. See, the point is each of those stories if they were taken with any sense of face value would be described as supernatural births. So were the stories of various births recorded in the Old Testament: Isaac, Samson, Samuel. These are instances of supernatural involvement in a birth. None of those, though, involved a virgin birth. A virgin birth by definition is a supernatural birth, but a supernatural birth is not by definition a virgin birth. Jesus' birth was unique, He was virgin born.

Here is our next one, the virgin birth was incarnational. What does that mean? It means that through His incarnation Jesus the Son of God took on humanity. He existed eternally as God, John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and as God He existed eternally in spirit form but through His incarnation He took on flesh. The eternal Son of God stooped down from His eternal position in the heavenlies to be encased in flesh with real skin and real hair and real fingernails and real follicles just like you and I have. That's what we mean by His incarnation. Jesus was and is God incarnate. John 1:14, “the Word,” that's Jesus, “became flesh.” That's an incarnational passage. And how did He become flesh? Through His virgin birth, specifically by His conception by the Holy Spirit in the virgin womb of Mary.

But why? Why the incarnation? Why the virgin birth? Why the necessity of either? That brings us to our third truth which is that the virgin birth was necessary. If Jesus had a natural human father he would be just a man, and if that were the case, though He be able surely to sympathize with us in His humanity, He would still have a sin nature and hence not be sinless and hence not be that perfect, spotless substitute that was needed to pay for the sins of mankind. But that's not what happened. Instead, look how Luke records it down the page in Luke 1:34. It says, “But Mary said to the angel, ’How will this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.’ ” The Holy Spirit, in other words, would bring about the conception of Jesus in Mary's womb in a unique way, coming upon Mary and overshadowing Mary so that the child conceived in her womb would be called, you see it there in verse 35, “holy,” perfect, set apart, righteous, allowing Him to be this sinless substitute, this perfect representative, this spotless lamb.

Last one, number 4, the virgin birth was prophetically predicted. Over 700 years before the angel's encounter with Mary the prophet Isaiah wrote these words in Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold the virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” Now the Hebrew word there for virgin is “almah,” and there have been literally centuries of debates over two main issues related to Isaiah 7:14. One is whether that word “almah” means virgin or instead young woman or maiden, and two is whether Isaiah's prophecy was intended to have only a near term fulfillment, i.e., in Isaiah's day or if it was to have a longer term fulfillment for the future. I'm going to largely stay out of those debates this morning, #1, because we have like two minutes left and #2, because we're going to cover this in the weeks ahead in much more detail. But for our purposes today I just want us to note this: as Luke is setting the stage for us in these two verses it is sufficient for us to note, as we get ready to depart, that Matthew in Matthew 1:23 quoted Isaiah 7:14 and he answered those two questions I just posed to you quite straightforwardly when he directly applied the prophecy of Isaiah to Jesus and in doing so used a Greek word, “parthenos” that means virgin, not maiden, not young girl… virgin. And Luke in our text uses that same Greek word, “parthenos,” to describe Mary. Verse 27, she was “a virgin,” parthenos, “betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name,” parthenos, “was Mary.” In fact, Mary herself in Luke 1:34 used that same word to describe herself. Mary says this in Luke 1:34, “How will this be, since I am a,” parthenos, “virgin?” Tying all of this together, the Messiah would be conceived in the womb of a virgin, Mary. The God/Man would soon be walking on earth among His people as Immanuel, God with us. And all of it would be in fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy.

We started our message this morning with that visual of the curtain coming down, the scene involving Zechariah the priest and the angel in the temple in Jerusalem. And with that illustration, or that picture, of the stagehands scurrying around to set the stage for the next scene. That's what our text today has been doing for us, setting the stage for the next scene involving the angel's annunciation to Mary which would set in motion a series of events leading up to the birth of our Lord.

Let's pray. Lord, thank You for this time together in Your precious, timeless, perfect and sufficient Word. Thank You that we can spend a full hour on two verses and know that we have left so much behind because Your Word is so rich, so clear, so compelling, true, accurate, and sufficient for our lives today. God, I do pray that this morning's message has not just been received as a mere academic study, but that it would be received and has been received where we are placed into a state of awe about who You are, what You have done and purposed and accomplished through Christ and the various details that You allowed Luke to record for us so that we can see all these years and decades and centuries later how You made it all happen. God, I pray we would come away from this message with a greater awe of You, a greater respect and love for the Word. The Word is truth. And God, I would be remiss not to mention that if there is someone here who is coming to our services, to our church, and simply checking a box to learn something new, to learn something about the Bible, to just kind of be religious, God, I pray that You would turn their hearts to You. I pray that they would see their need for a Savior, I pray that they would repent and believe in the risen Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and have their sins forgiven and paid for. God, I pray that they would understand that no amount of works, no amount of good deeds, no amount of “do-gooding,” even church attendance, could save a wretched soul, but only by putting one's faith in Jesus Christ can a soul be saved. God, do a work, please, among those here who are unregenerate and do a work among those who have been redeemed. Glorify Yourself, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.