The Fullness of Time Had Come

Dr. John Clayton's sermon on Luke 1:26-45, 56 from our service on April 21, 2024, the third in his sermon series The Gospel of Luke.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 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 call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home (Luke 1:26–45, 56).[1]

The Westminster Confession of Faith states,

The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.[2]

As our confession makes clear, the incarnation of Christ is essential to the Christian faith, including his conception by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary. And yet, it is a doctrine that has been under attack all the way back to the early church heretics, all the way through to today. For example, one of the reasons for the formation of our denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, coming out of the Presbyterian Church United States in 1973, was the doctrine of the virgin conception and birth of Christ, a doctrine that was being undermined at the highest levels in our former denomination. It has been and continues to be a doctrine worth fighting for.

Attacks against the doctrine are typically connected to other heresies, such as denying the inerrancy, infallibility, and authority of Scripture, or denying that Jesus is the true Son of God, or denying his vicarious atonement upon the cross, or denying his literal resurrection from the dead. In other words, to attack one of these doctrines is to attack them all, attacking Christianity itself.

But for those who take God at his Word, trusting in the special revelation of his Word, need look no further than Luke’s historical account in our passage today, the annunciation by the angel Gabriel to the virgin Mary.

Angelic Communication

Continuing his orderly account, Luke connects the annunciation to Elizabeth’s pregnancy. She who hid herself for five months has only now come out of seclusion; the forerunner of Christ is six months ahead. But before John’s birth, the angel Gabriel returns to earth, appearing to a betrothed virgin living in a small Galilean settlement. She is a young woman of no regard, named Mary, living in a nowhere place, named Nazareth. But into time and place the supernatural breaks, an angel from heaven with a message from God.     

The message Gabriel delivers addresses the virgin not by name but favor: “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” (28) The ESV translates the Greek participle “favored one,” or recipient of grace. Like us, Mary is a sinner by nature, thought, word, and deed, but unlike us God has chosen her exclusively to bestow his unmerited favor in the miraculous conception and birth of the eternally begotten Son of God. As one scholar summarizes, “God has given his favor to one who had no claim to worthy status, raised her up from a position of lowliness, and has chosen her to have a central role in salvation history.”[3] The Lord is indeed with her, to conceive and bear her Savior and ours.

But in the moment, Mary does not feel favored but fearful: she is “greatly troubled” by Gabriel’s greeting. But Gabriel comforts her with the reason for his greeting: Mary will conceive, bear a son, and name him Jesus. This in itself is miraculous, but then Gabriel explains that her child “will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (31-32a). What Gabriel reveals is that the rightful heir of David’s throne, the Savior of God’s people, is the Son of God, and will be Mary’s son: “God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.”[4]

Her son’s name, Gabriel tells Mary, will be “Jesus,” which means “Yahweh is salvation,” or the “the Lord is salvation.” The Son of God incarnate is named in his purpose for coming: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And this is the kingdom over which Jesus shall reign, the true house of Jacob, or Israel, defined not by lineage but by faith. The children of the kingdom of God will populate a kingdom built by God’s grace through faith in the Son of God, lasting forever.

Miraculous Conception

Despite the magnitude of Gabriel’s message, Mary remains perplexed at how she may be favored in this way, asking, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (34). Unlike Zechariah, Mary does not ask for a sign but a logical explanation: How can a woman who has never been with a man sexually conceive? That’s not how it works. But he who created all things, and sustains all things, works according to his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, for his own glory, working all things according to his foreordination.[5] According to the sovereign purpose of God, a virgin may conceive.

But why? Why must Jesus be born of a virgin? It is helpful here to think back to when Adam and Eve fell in sin. Breaking the Covenant of Life, their punishment was pronounced by God, but not until after his curse upon Satan, in which God said to him:

            I will put enmity between you and the woman,

                        and between your offspring and her offspring;

            he shall bruise your head,

                        and you shall bruise his heel (Gen. 3:14-15).

Within this curse is a promise of victory over Satan through a suffering One to come, the offspring of the woman. But, as Mary’s question reminds us, that’s not how it works. An offspring comes from a man and a woman, not a woman alone. But that’s precisely how God said it would come about, through “her offspring.”

How this will be, Gabriel explains to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (35). To put it plainly, Mary will become pregnant, not by sexual intercourse, but by the Holy Spirit, the power and overshadowing of God. Such a description seems veiled in mystery, but as J.C. Ryle cautions, “Here we must stop. The manner in which all this was effected is wisely hidden from us. If we attempt to pry beyond this point, we shall but darken counsel by words without knowledge; and rush in where angels fear to tread. In a religion which really comes down from heaven there must needs be mysteries. Of such mysteries in Christianity, the incarnation is one.”[6] The necessity of this doctrine, however, is not.  

Because, “all mankind, descending from [Adam] by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression,”[7] it was necessary that our Redeemer not descend from Adam “by ordinary generation,” but by divine conception. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), because all are children of Adam. But not Christ, who was “incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man.”[8] Conceived by the Holy Spirit, he neither sinned nor fell short of the glory of God but is the sinless Son of God.

How significant is this for all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? Consider your life if Christ had not been conceived by the Holy Spirit but born of the seed of Adam. You would still be legally liable for your sin nature, as well as your sinful thoughts, words, and deeds, past, present, and future. Trusting in a sinner, even a morally upright one, for salvation cannot justify you as righteous, because there is no perfect righteousness to impute. You would remain under the wrath and curse of God because there would be no vicarious atonement; a sinner hung upon a cross is still a sinner. And you would still be dead in your trespasses and sins, because the wages of sin is death. Sinners don’t resurrect from the dead in victory over sin and death; death wins.

This is why what Luke records is so significant. Because “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). In the perfect and precise moment in time, God sent his son, in fulfillment of his promise, to be born of woman, without sin. Born of a people entrusted with God’s law, he kept it, that he might fulfill it. And by his death and resurrection, he redeemed every believer, past, present, and future from sin and death, reconciling us to God, who adopted us as his children.

Familial Celebration

In addition to telling the virgin Mary of how she would conceive, Gabriel also tells her of Elizabeth’s pregnancy in her “old age.” Like Sarah before her, God has given the barren a child beyond the years of childbearing. But as wonderful as this news is, Gabriel’s point in telling is theological, saying, “nothing will be impossible with God” (37). Such is the amazing grace of God.

How gracious God is in sending his angelic messenger to Mary. How gracious he is in bestowing his favor upon her in the conception of God’s Son. How gracious he is in encouraging her in the reality of divine possibilities. And how gracious God is to remind us of the same. It would seem impossible for God to make his enemy his child, but in Christ the impossible is possible. It would seem impossible for God to bring the spiritually dead to life eternally, but in Christ the impossible is possible. It would seem impossible for the Holy Spirit to indwell a born sinner and then graciously, patiently conform him to Christ, but in Christ the impossible is possible. If you are in Christ, then you are a miracle (And I don’t use that word haphazardly!), for God in Christ made the impossible possible in you.

Encouraged and with child, Mary heads with haste to the hill country to the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth. We may wonder how Mary was going to tell them of the angel’s appearance, or the message she was given, or how she learned of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, or how she would share the good news of her own pregnancy and most importantly the divine identity of her child. But when she walks through their door, she barely gets past hello. For, in Elizabeth’s womb is the Spirit-filled forerunner of Christ, who is jumping for joy in the presence of the yet-to-be-born Son of God incarnate.

Not only does life begin in the womb, but in John’s case it’s a place of celebration. With John’s Spirit-filled leaping, his mother joins him in exclaiming, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (42-45). Elizabeth blesses Mary and her son, regards her for her believing the Word of the Lord, and is humbled that she has come: “why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? The God-bearer, or in Greek Theotokos, has come to the humble abode of this aged couple. The word Elizabeth uses, translated “Lord,” is the same word for God in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit has revealed to Elizabeth and her child the identity of Mary’s child, the Lord God himself.

Luke tells us that Mary remained with Elizabeth for three months before returning home, and I wonder how incredible those several months must have been. The telling of what God had done, the significance of what was said. Surely, they poured over the Scriptures, sang and prayed together, worshiping together in the presence of the Lord. And yet, Scripture tells us their view was veiled, for the Lord Jesus had not yet been born, not yet lived a perfectly righteous life under the law, not yet died a sacrificial and atoning death, not yet resurrected from the dead. All that they knew pointed to him, but they did not know fully what we know on this side of his resurrection.

As amazing as those three months must have been, they were not as amazing as our gathered worship every Sunday. For, we gather on the Lord’s Day, the Christian Sabbath, in celebration of the day of our Lord’s resurrection. We sing and pray together, pour over the Scriptures, in worship, looking back to the full revelation of God’s act of redemption in Christ, and looking forward to the final consummation of our salvation. For on that day, of forever Sundays, we will gather with Elizabeth and Mary, and with all the saints before and after us, worshiping the Lord of glory, not only for several months but for eternity. Amen.

[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).

[2] “The Confession of Faith” 8.2, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 36-37.

[3] Fuller quoted in Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke Green (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 87.

[4] “The Shorter Catechism” Q. 21, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 368-369.

[5] Ibid. Q. 7, 361.

[6] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 21.

[7] “The Shorter Catechism” Q. 16, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 364.

[8] “The Nicene Creed,” Trinity Hymnal, Revised Edition (Suwanee: Great Commission Publications, Inc., 1990), 846.