Bible Study Series: Luke 1:26-38. “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.” Mary was puzzled by Gabriel’s announcement, but she responded with obedience. She surrendered herself to God’s will, no matter how strange it seemed at first.
Friendly greetings and a warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together.
I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click here:
In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Luke 1:26-38
26 In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town in Galilee by the name of Nazareth 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man by the name of Joseph, from the dynasty of David, and the name of the virgin was Mary. 28 And coming to her, he said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you!” 29 She was startled at the word and reasoned about what sort of greeting this might be.
30 The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God.
31 And look! You shall conceive in your womb and birth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
32 He shall be great and called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give him the throne of David, his ancestor.
33 And he shall rule over the house of Jacob forever, and there shall be no end to his kingdom.”
34 Mary said to the angel,
“How shall this be, since I have no relations with a husband?”
35 And the angel replied to her,
“The Holy Spirit shall come upon you and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you. Therefore, the holy one who is born shall be called ‘the Son of God.’ 36 And look! Your relative Elizabeth herself has conceived a son in her womb, and he is six months old—to her who had been barren! 37 For every word shall not be impossible for God!”
38 Then Mary said: “See the Lord’s servant. Let it happen to me according to your word.”
And the angel departed from her.
Comments:
Let’s take it verse by verse.
26:
God marked time by Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the sixth month. NIV: “in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy,” though the phrase “Elizabeth’s pregnancy” is not original. This is kairos time, not strictly chronos time.
“was sent”: Once again Gabriel got his commission: announce the birth of the Son of God. His authority came from God. Our authority also comes from God, when he commissions us. Please study or read 2 Cor. 5:16-21, if you believe God is commissioning you to carry out his mission for you, and we all have a mission from him, tailor made just for us.
27:
It was important to establish that the Son of God came through David’s lineage, because of v. 32—God’s gift to his Son. It is also important to establish her virginity, because of the miraculous birth prophesied in Is. 7:14. Also, Jesus had to have a divine nature, and his conception was by the Father through the Holy Spirit and his power. See v. 35 for more theology about this.
“betrothed” could be translated as “wooed” or “courted,” but “betrothed” is the better translation, because of Matt. 1:18-19. Joseph’s parents, if they were still alive, entered into a contract-covenant with Mary’s parents, to seal the marriage agreement before the marriage actually took place. (Or it is more likely that Joseph himself entered into this legal agreement, since his parents were probably dead.) It was much more serious and legally established than the modern practice of engagement.
“Mary”: the Greek is Mariam, and the Hebrew is Miriam.
28:
“Greetings!” In Greek, this is the standard “rejoice!” In Hebrew, he said, “Shalom!” which means peace. But translators go with the cultural meaning of “Greetings!” Or “Hail!”
“favored one”: Mary received this greeting and complement because God deemed her favored and full of grace. Grace has been rightly defined as God’s unmerited and unearned favor and generosity and kindness. See verse 30 for more comments.
“The Lord is with you”: The verb “is” is missing, so the greeting is a fact: “The Lord is with you.” This may reflect Matthew’s title of Jesus, Immanuel, “God with us” (Matt. 1:23). God is with Mary through her (future) Son.
29:
“startled”: this verb is related to the one in v. 12 (disturbed). The difference here is that no fear fell on Mary, as it did on Zechariah.
“reasoned”: It means “consider, ponder, reason, discuss, argue.” Sometimes it is translated as “wonder,” but that is too aesthetic or emotional—but no firm objections to that word choice from me! I thought about using it here, and you can if you want to.
30:
“Don’t be afraid”: It means a wide range of things, but afraid is also correct.
Of course the angel had to reassure her not to be afraid. So she must have been frightened on some level, but no fear fell on her, as noted. When an angel appears, it should be startling. Anyone who claims this reverential fear does not occur in the soul when an angel appears is treating the visitation casually (see comments on v. 12.)
“favor”: It means, depending on the context, “graciousness, attractiveness; favor, gracious care, help or goodwill, practical application of goodwill”; a “gracious deed or gift, benefaction.” In some contexts, it means “exceptional effects produced by divine grace,” in other words, empowerment to accomplish a task or receive a blessing.
Let’s go deeper, by repeating part of what I wrote in the linked post, below:
William Mounce teaches us about the Hebrew and Greek words. The Hebrew noun ḥen (pronounced khain) “describes that which is favorable or gracious, especially the favorable disposition of one person to another” (p. 302). The Greek noun further means “the acceptance of and goodness toward those who cannot earn or do not deserve such gain” (p. 303). The verb in Hebrew is ḥanan (pronounced khah-nan) and means to be gracious, “to show mercy favor, be gracious” (ibid.).
“Grace is not limited simply to receiving mercy and forgiveness. Finding grace with God means that God entrusts her with something great to do and to bear” (Garland, comment on 1:30).
31:
The same verb was used for Elizabeth’s conception, but Mary’s conception will be miraculous. Some translators simply have “get pregnant,” which is accurate, also.
The name “Jesus” comes from Hebrew “the Lord saves.” Perfect name. This meaning is spelled out clearly in Luke 2:11, but especially in Matt. 1:21-23.
32:
“He shall be great”: this is true, for he was / is the Son of the Most High. This attribute is applied to God (Deut. 10:17) and to Christ (Tit. 2:13). On the other side, John will be great before the Lord (v. 15). John will be called the prophet of the Most High (v. 76). Jesus has the elevated status, Luke subtly notes.
“Son of the Most High”: God shall give him the throne of David, and Jesus won’t share the throne with David, the Israelite king. Jesus fulfills this promise and prophecy, by himself.
Let’s dip into systematic theology.
“Son of God”: Mary may not have fully known at that time what the Son of God meant as her baby boy, but we do now. Jesus was the Son of the Father eternally, before creation. The Son has no beginning. He and the Father always were, together. The relationship is portrayed in this Father-Son way so we can understand who God is more clearly. Now he relates to us as his sons and daughters. On our repentance and salvation and union with Christ, we are brought into his eternal family.
Quick teaching about the Trinity in systematic theology. The Father in his role as the Father is over the Son; the Father guides the whole of creation and the plan of the ages. The Son carries out the plan, notably by being born as a man, humbling himself, taking on the form of a servant (Phil. 3:7-8). He humbled himself so deeply and thoroughly that he died a death on the cross, the instrument of the death penalty.
The Trinity: What Are the Basics?
The Trinity: What Are Key Terms?
The Trinity: What Are Some Illustrations?
The Trinity: What Does He Mean to Me?
Please see my posts on the Son of God:
6. Titles of Jesus: The Son of God
When Did Jesus “Become” the Son of God?
33:
Mary will bear a son, while Elizabeth will bear a son for Zechariah (v. 13). Mary completes her assignment for God, not a husband.
“house of Jacob”: this means the family line going all the way back to Jacob, and by extension Jacob’s father (Isaac) and grandfather (Abraham). Jacob’s other name was Israel, so he stands in for the entire nation.
“forever”: the noun and adjective have versatile meanings, but it is clear that “eternal” is attached to God; apart from that modification it mostly means “a long time” or “an age.”
What Do Words ‘Eternity,’ ‘Eternal’ Fully Mean in the Bible?
“kingdom”: What is the kingdom? As noted in other verses that mention the kingdom in this commentary, the kingdom is God’s power, authority, rule, reign and sovereignty. He exerts all those things over all the universe but more specifically over the lives of people. It is his invisible realm, and throughout the Gospels Jesus is explaining and demonstrating what it looks like before their very eyes and ears. It is gradually being manifested from the realm of faith to the visible realm, but it is not political in the human sense. It is a secret kingdom because it does not enter humanity with trumpets blaring and full power and glory. This grand display will happen when Jesus comes back. In his first coming, it woos people to surrender to it. We can enter God’s kingdom by being born again (John 3:3, 5), by repenting (Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:5), by having the faith of children (Matt. 18:4; Mark 10:14-15), by being transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son whom God loves (Col. 1:13), and by seeing their own poverty and need for the kingdom (Matt. 5:3; Luke 6:20; Jas. 2:5).
It also includes the Great Reversal in Luke 1:51-53, where Mary said that Jesus and his kingdom were about to bring to the world. The powerful and people of high status are to be brought low, while the humble and those of low status are about to be raised up. It also fulfills the reversal in 2:34, where Simeon prophesied that Jesus was appointed for the rising and falling of many. It is the right-side-up kingdom, but upside-down from a worldly perspective.
Here it is the already and not-yet. The kingdom has already come in part at his First Coming, but not yet with full manifestation and glory and power until his Second Coming.
5 The Kingdom of God: Already Here, But Not Yet Fully
Bible Basics about the Kingdom of God
Questions and Answers about Kingdom of God
Basic Definition of Kingdom of God
1 Introducing the Kingdom of God (begin a ten-part series)
Liefeld and Pao:
The child whose life is this engendered by the power of God, which power is identified as the Holy Spirit, is himself called by Gabriel ‘the holy one.’ Because of this connection with the Holy Spirit, and because of the ethical meaning of ‘holy’ in v. 49, this word probably relates here to the purity of Jesus instead of to separation for a divine vocation. (comment on v. 35).
I add: This vocation will grow gradually and be sealed at his baptism.
34:
Betrothal lasted only about a year, so she asks how can this conception happen? Though the angel used the future tense, Mary must have interpreted the promise in the near future.
Her question was not like that of Zechariah, for the wording is different. She simply asks, “how.” Zechariah, in contrast, asked, “According to what …?” Mary was young and had no worries about barrenness, as Elizabeth and Zechariah had. She did not have to pray for a child for many years without an answer to her prayer; they had done this. Clearly Zechariah asked his question from skepticism, while Mary was more genuinely and innocently perplexed.
However, some scholars wonder why Mary asked the question in the first place? She knew biology! (Bock discusses the scholars’ puzzlement at length [vol. 1, pp. 118-21]). The answer seems obvious to me. The readers / listeners of Luke’s Gospel have to know that this conception will be divine and will happen before her marriage to Joseph. She was a virgin. She must have thought the pregnancy would happen quickly. She was puzzled because she was not yet married.
“have (no) relations”: In this context, it is a euphemism for having sexual relations with a person. Mary and Joseph had not had sex, yet. Please don’t fornicate or have sex before marriage. Let this betrothed couple guide you and set the example for you.
35:
This verse uses phrasing that indicates that God himself will miraculously conceive his Son in Mary’s womb.
“overshadow”: a figure of speech for the divine presence (Exod. 40:35) and the miraculous work of God.
Dr. Luke does not have to go into details, so he uses metaphorical verbs “come upon” and “overshadow.” Even as a doctor who may have delivered babies, he probably did not know how God was going to work this miracle (nor do we, really). In any case “come upon” is a paralleled in the Septuagint (pronounced sep-TOO-ah-gent and is the third-to-second-century B.C. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) in Is. 32:15, and the image has no sexual connotation. It is a divine activity.
So neither “overshadow” or “come upon” is the normal language of sexual activity, but they mean miraculous activity. God’s Spirit will create in a similar way that he created before at the beginning (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 33:6) or in humankind as a special work (Ezek. 37:14).
Now for a little systematic theology. If you don’t get this section, read it over several times. If you still don’t get it, ask. If you still don’t get it, skip it.
We are standing on holy ground, when the incarnation is described here (“incarnation” means “becoming flesh”). Jesus is both fully divine or has the fullness of deity (Col. 2:9; John 1:1-4, 14) and is fully human, but without sin. Yes, he was full deity even as a zygote, but his deity was hidden behind his humanity (Mary’s ovum). His divinity did not have the full human capacity to express itself, but God’s miraculous conception and his nature were there all throughout the process of Jesus forming into an embryo and a fetus (Luke 2:5) and a human baby (2:22-39), a boy (2:40-52), and a man (3:21-23). That is, his divine nature did not grow with his human nature, but his divine nature simply remained hidden behind his human nature. As far as we know from Scripture, which is sparse on the details about such mysteries, his divine nature was static (remained still) as he grew, but completely and powerfully present. At the baptismal launch of his ministry, he could then display his divine nature more fully than before, so it became kinetic (it moved). But he still surrendered it to the Father; he did not lay it aside or lose it. Consider these verses about his surrendering it to the Father: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. I am in the Father, and the Father is in me” (John 14:9-10). Jesus “can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son does also” (John 5:19). “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
One theologian insightfully suggests that the Father and Son cooperated in showing the Son’s divine nature, like a bank manager and a customer who have to use two keys to open up a safety deposit box. They have to cooperate to turn the keys at the same time, and then the contents are revealed. So it is with the cooperation of the Father and Son. Jesus submitted his divine nature to the Father, who hid it behind Jesus’s human nature, until the Father and Son allowed it to shine, only in part, for example, on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36). Finally, we have to consider the Holy Spirit in Jesus’s life, who was given to him in the Spirit’s fullness (Luke 3:21-22). So the Trinity was fully active in his earthly life, plus his divine nature.
Everything was perfectly coordinated in Jesus, even if we cannot figure out the details with our sparse biblical data.
3. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Was God Incarnate
4. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Took the Form of a Servant
5. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Came Down from Heaven
6. Do I Really Know Jesus? Why Did He Become a Man?
2. Two Natures in One Person: He Was Human and God
3. Titles of Jesus: The Son of David and the Messiah
In Part Four I exegete passage Phil. 2:6-8.
36:
Once again God marks time by significant events, or by Elizabeth’s sixth month of pregnancy. This is kairos time, though the noun is not mentioned here (see v. 20 for comments). God keeps track of your baby, even in the womb.
37:
Then Gabriel injects faith into the announcement. No word or promise shall be impossible with God. The Greek noun here is rhēma (pronounced ray-mah), and the rhē– stem is related to speaking, and the –ma suffix means “the result of.” So combined, the noun means a “spoken word” (though it does not always mean that in every context). But the promise of a child was spoken by Gabriel in this instance. Never forget what Gabriel said to Mary—no promise or claim or word that comes from God’s throne—from God himself—shall be impossible for him, though it may be for us. His promise to her and his character and ability to carry it out apply to God’s promises spoken to your heart, if they really come from God.
38:
Mary adopts a humble posture and attitude. She simply submitted to the Lord’s will and his word (rhēma again, and see v. 37). This humility is in contrast to Zechariah’s skepticism and reluctance, who, because of it, was struck mute, since he was, after all, in the presence of an angel.
“See”: it is the updated translation of “behold!” It’s difficult to translate to the reader how humble this is because we don’t speak like that. But she says, “Here is the Lord’s servant.” Or “I am the Lord’s servant.”
“servant”: it is the feminine form doulē (pronounced doo-lay), and it could be translated as slave, but I chose servant because in Jewish culture a Hebrew man (or woman) who sold himself into servitude to his fellow Jew was like an indentured servant whose term of service had a limit; he (or she) was freed in the seventh year. But then the indentured servant could stay with his family, if he (or she) liked his owner (Exod. 21:2-6; Lev. 25:38-46; Deut. 15:12-18). So there was a lot of liberty even in servitude, in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).
Slavery and Freedom in the Bible
It is a sure thing, however, that Luke’s Greek audience would have heard “slave” in the word doulē. So if you wish to interpret it like that, then that’s your decision. But culturally at that time slavery had nothing to do with colonial or modern slavery.
Liefeld and Pao: Hannah’s story is told in 1 Sam. 1:11, in which she devoutly and humbly prayed for a child and calls herself a doulē in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Then Liefeld and Pao write of Mary’s servanthood:
Her servanthood is not a cringing slavery but a submission to God that in OT times should characterize believers today (cf. v. 40). Understandably, Mary doubtless felt empathy with Hannah’s sense of being at the Lord’s disposal in a past of life over which a woman before modern times had little or no control. Mary’s trusting submission at this point in her life may be compared with her attitude toward her son later on (cf. Jn. 2:5). (comment on v. 38)
To conclude ….
I already posted this summary when Zechariah was struck mute. It is so good, I paste it here:
David E. Garland has twelve contrasts between Zechariah and Mary at the birth announcements (pp. 84-85). Here is a summary:
1.. Zechariah and Elizabeth belong to a priestly line; Mary’s background is not stated, indicating her lowly status.
2.. The older couple are both blameless and righteous; Mary’s social qualities, though no doubt stellar, are not brought up, indicating she is the recipient of unmerited favor;
3.. Zechariah was in devout prayer and religious duties, who said many prayers; the angel visited Mary without her praying, so divine grace again.
5.. Zechariah is in Jerusalem, the holy city; Mary was in village of no fame;
6.. Elizabeth is beyond child-bearing age, but conception through a man will happen; Mary is a virgin, so human conception is impossible;
7.. To Zechariah the angel promised what happened in the OT: an older couple will conceive (e.g. Abraham and Sarah); Mary is promised a virginal concept that has never happened before.
8.. Zechariah asked for a sign, though the sign—the angel right in front of him—was sufficient, and the sign he received is silence; Mary received the sign of a blessing from Elizabeth.
9.. John is to be great before the Lord; Jesus is great in himself, without the qualifier;
10.. John’s mission will prepare the way, and then he shall fade out of the narrative; Jesus and his kingdom will live on forever;
11.. John will be filled with the Spirit even before his birth, yet the Spirit is prophetic; Jesus will be conceived by the Spirit and his power and is Son of the Most High;
12.. John the prophet will turn many in Israel to God; Jesus the Messianic king will rule forever over the house of Jacob.
Grow App for Luke 1:26-38
1. Mary was told she was favored of God. Do you believe you too are favored of God? Where does his favor come from?
2. In v. 37 Gabriel makes a strong statement about God’s promises and his ability to carry them out. How do you really believe that no promise or word from God is impossible for him to carry out? Stated positively, how do you believe he can carry out every one of his promises?
3. What do you do if you stumble over your human unbelief about his promise to you?
RELATED
11. Eyewitness Testimony in Luke’s Gospel
3. Church Fathers and Luke’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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