And Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" And 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 offspring shall be called the Son of God" Luke 1: 34-35.
A crucial component of God's plan rests right here in these two little verses. No one at the time understood it, even Mary herself must have thought God was a bit unusual-why this overshadowing? Why not just pick the child He wanted. We know from the psalms that He does indeed have something to do or at least the power to have something to do with the birth process (whether you believe it to be remote doesn't matter-an eternal viewpoint might have it's advantages in planning a blood line or a genetic line, don't you think?): "My frame was not hidden from Thee. when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them" Psalm 139: 15-16.
The virgin birth however had to be, not because it would show off God's power, but because without it the rest of us would never be able to enter into His throne room, become His children, regain what was lost by Adam and Eve in that garden so long ago. What happened back then? Once they ate of the fruit of the tree, they died. God had warned them-because now that they knew good and evil, their eyes were opened to the conditions of sin and while before eating their innocense protected them, now they knew. The result was spiritual separation from God, a death to the unity they had with him, a death to their relationship with Him.
Their disobedience when they ate the apple resulted in a huge change because they could not say, "I didn't know it was wrong." Their very nature changed. Satan was right about that-they knew things now that they didn't before. An innocent free life not bound by good or evil is difficult for us to comprehend since we are all by nature motivated toward sin, toward living without God, toward thinking we can adjust good and evil to fit our own motives and desires. That is the true face of it - because I am a man and not an eternal being with authority, power, wisdom, judgment, unselfish love and all of the other attributes of God, I cannot handle having this knowledge. I know now that I might sin-choose willfully to do something my sense of right and wrong tells me is wrong. But in choosing that sin, I will pervert my reasons for doing it just as Eve did when she pointed the finger at the serpant and Adam did when he pointed the finger at Eve. Sin must be justified when it is chosen-therefore I point my finger away from myself. The results can be clearly seen in the story of Cain's murder of Abel. I must justify my sin by saying, "Who am I? I'm not my brother's keeper-I don't need to love him! He deserved what he got. Besides, I'm only responsible for myself!"
Back to Adam and Eve. More startling for them perhaps is what happened next: They were cast out of the garden. Again, the reason was not as many assume -f or punishment. God had already given out their punishment-Eve would struggle with painful childbirth, Adam would have a hard time bringing home the bacon as we say in the South. For Adam, the ground would yield a stingy harvest. So why were they banned from the garden? Again, for their protection because, "the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.... Genesis 3: 22. If God has left them in the garden and they had taken the other fruit and eaten it they would forever be separated from God by their sins. There would have been no need for Jesus to come to the earth at all. God would have had no way to "save" His children.
But now there was a new problem. Sin had corrupted man. And the Scriptures tell us that this sinful nature was passed on through the bloodline inherited from the man. That there was some powerful fruit!
Thus the need for a pure sacrifice. There must be the shedding of blood for the remission of sins, we are told in scripture. This is foreshadowed by the slaughter of the innocent beast in the garden to provide covering for Adam and Eve and by the temple sacrifices of lambs specifically for the atonement of the sins of the people. Jesus had to be without sin. (More about that in future posts.) And so it is as the angel says, "The power of the Most High will overshadow you and for that reason the Holy offspring shall be called the Son of God." There would be no bloodline of sin; the flesh and blood of Jesus would be free from the fruits of that tree in the garden. He would be born without the blood of rebellion so that He would be a fitting, sinless, uncorruptable sacrifice for us.
It was the only way. It is crucial to God's plan. It is astounding to ponder!
That reminds me...I am heading to meet with a friend, share some sisterly love and get me a nice tall glass of sweet tea- some of the best of the simple pleasures of life!
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