YOU WILL BEAR A SON

Luke 1:30-33

Luke 1:30–33 ESV

30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 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, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

WE MUST START AT THE BEGINNING

Genesis 3:14–15 ESV

14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 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.”

“The glad tidings of Genesis 3:15 - namely, that God will give Eve an offspring who will crust the serpent’s head- creates faith. Yet it also initiates a war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent that will become the story behind all the stories in the Bible” Michael Horton December 3, 2020 The Gospel According to Mary

God’s promise is tied to history—so tied to it, in fact, that the Messiah can only come through a single line. The scarlet cord of redemption was threaded through the smallest eye of the thinnest needle. At key junctures, it seemed as if the serpent had triumphed. There was young Joash, the only royal survivor of the wicked Queen Athaliah’s purge of the House of David. Besides direct assassination, the serpent also attempted to lure Israel into apostasy. Eventually, Israel was sent into exile for having so thoroughly violated the covenant. Yet even in Babylon, mothers of Israel continued to hope in the promise that one day, one of them—or one of their daughters—might be the mother of the Messiah. Michael Horton December 3, 2020 The Gospel According to Mary

IT IS A GRACIOUS PROMISE

Luke 1:30 ESV

30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

Luke, Volumes 1 & 2 Gabriel’s Greeting

This is the meaning of the angel’s salutation: “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” (Luke 1:28). With these words, Gabriel pronounced God’s benediction on Mary. God was with her to bless her, not because of her own merit, but because of his grace. The word the angel used for “favor” (kecharitōmenē) comes from the Greek word for “grace” (charis). It means to be treated with undeserved kindness. Martin Luther paraphrased Gabriel’s greeting like this: “O Mary, you are blessed. You have a gracious God. No woman has ever lived on earth to whom God has shown such grace.”5

YOU SHALL BEAR A SON

Luke 1:31 ESV

31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

HE WILL BE GREAT

Luke 1:32–33 ESV

32 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, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Luke 1–5: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary The Divine Child

Unlike John the Baptist, whose greatness was qualified as being in God’s sight (1:15), Jesus’ greatness is unqualified. He is great in and of Himself; His greatness is intrinsic to His very nature as God, and is not derived from any source outside of Himself. Jesus Christ is “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Eph. 1:21).

Luke, Volumes 1 & 2 The Angel’s Announcement

As Luke has already indicated (Luke 1:27), his earthly father Joseph came from the house of David, which meant that Jesus was David’s rightful heir. Long ago God had promised David that his son would have a kingdom that would never end: “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Daniel 2:44–45 ESV

44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”

Revelation 11:15 ESV

15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”