The
virgin birth of Jesus is recorded in Matthew and in Luke (Matthew 1:18-25;
Luke 1:26-38; 2:1-38), but neither gospel explains its meaning. The
lack of explanation is surprising given that the virgin birth was no
ordinary event. How are we to understand it if no explanation is
given for it? In Luke’s account of the virgin birth, one verse
stands out, however:
Luke
1:35: 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” (ESV).
The
Holy Spirit’s overshadowing of Mary in Luke 1:35 has a parallel in
Genesis 1:2 which says that at the creation of the world, “the
Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters”. Many OT
scholars note that in the Hebrew text, “hovering over” literally
means “brooding over” (the word “brooding” refers to a bird’s
sitting on eggs to hatch them).
The
two parallels between Luke 1:35 and Genesis 1:2 (namely, Holy Spirit
// Spirit of God, and overshadowing // hovering/brooding) bring out a
vital truth:
The
overshadowing of Mary by the Holy Spirit has to do with the new
creation whereas in Genesis, the Spirit’s brooding over the as yet
unformed earth has to do with the “old” (physical or material)
creation. The overshadowing of Mary by God’s Spirit indicates that
the new creation is primarily a spiritual creation brought into being
by being “born of the Spirit.”
The
meaning of the virgin birth is brought out not only in Jesus’
teaching of being “born of the Spirit” (John 3:5) but also in
Paul’s teaching of the “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17;
Galatians 6:15), a term that, like the virgin birth, would be
unintelligible if it were given “out of the blue” without
explanation or precedent.
There
is no doubt that the word “overshadow” (episkiazō) in the
account of the virgin birth points back to the Spirit’s involvement
in the Genesis creation (“the Spirit of God was hovering over the
face of the waters,” Genesis 1:2). Here the word “hovering”
(Hebrew “rachaph”, used elsewhere only in Deuteronomy 32:11)
brings out the idea of “overshadowing”.
The
Spirit of God brought into being a new creation in Mary, replacing a
sperm from Adam’s descendants. In this way Jesus is a descendant of
Adam via Mary but also the beginning of a new creation by the
creative power of the Spirit of Yahweh. This would explain Paul’s
teaching of the “new creation” in God's anointed one (2
Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15; cf. Revelation 21:5) and of Jesus
as “the man from heaven” or “the spiritual man” (1
Corinthians 15:45-49).
Jesus
came into being by the creative power of God’s Spirit. Believers
also, as a result of being in God's anointed one, are
incorporated into the new creation, becoming new persons through
God’s transforming power. Just as Jesus was born of the Spirit at
his birth, so everyone needs to be born of the Spirit, as is stated
in the well-known words to Nicodemus: “You (plural) must be born
from above” (John 3:7), and “Unless one is born from above, he
cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3) - that is, he cannot
inherit eternal life.
What
God has accomplished in Jesus, He intends to reproduce in every
believer, that is totally committed to Him, so that he or she becomes
a new creation, by being born of the Spirit into a new life that is
lived by the power of God’s indwelling Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16;
2 Corinthians 6:16). God has in view that all believers grow into a
“mature manhood, to the stature of the fullness of His anointed
one” (Ephesians 4:13).
In the New Testament, being a Christian is
not just a matter of believing in Jesus or believing that he died for
us, but is crucially a matter of becoming a new person who is like
Jesus in the way he lives and thinks. This is what constitutes true
believing or what Paul calls “the obedience of faith” (Romans
1:5; 16:26). True faith includes an obedience to the Father that
mirrors the way Jesus lived in perfect obedience to Him. In the New
Testament, any claim to faith is spurious if it is not accompanied by
wholehearted obedience to God.
The
gospels speak of our being disciples of Jesus. But Jesus is now in
heaven at the right hand of the Father, so how do we follow him now?
In this age, to follow Jesus means to live in relation to the Father as Jesus lived in relation to the Father: "as he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17).
We
need to realize the connection between Jesus’ being born of the
Spirit at the virgin birth and our need to be born of the Spirit. We
also need to realize the connection between Jesus’ being the head
of the new creation and our being partakers of the new creation in
him. Likewise, we need to realize the connection between Jesus’ being
indwelled by the “whole fullness of God” (Colossians 1:19) and
our being indwelled by the Spirit such that we are “filled with all
the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). We need to understand that
God intends that our spiritual lives be a reproduction of Jesus’
life, to see that the goal of the believer’s life is to be an image
of the living God, as Jesus is the image of God, in order that God’s
life may be manifested through us in fundamentally the same way it
was and is manifested through Jesus. It is the Father’s eternal
plan that we “be conformed to the image of His son” (Romans
8:29).
These
are vital realities that if we don't act upon will give rise to a
hollow faith that does not see the necessity of living our lives as
Jesus lived his life. Today it is hard to find a wholehearted
follower of Jesus who is filled with dynamic power and spirit. Yet
Paul says, “This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1
Thessalonians 4:3). And what is this sanctification but the whole
process of becoming like Jesus; the biblical Jesus; by being “born
of the Spirit” and then being perfected by Yahweh’s indwelling
Spirit? This process involves out being wholehearted in our
commitment to living according to the will of our God and our Father.
We
need to take heed to the warning that Jesus gives in Revelation
2:14-16:
And unto the angel of the called-out Aseembly of the Laodiceans
write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness,
the beginning of the [new]
creation of God;
I know your works, that you are neither cold [unconverted] nor hot
[totally committed]: I would thou were cold [unconverted] or hot
[totally committed]. So then because you are lukewarm [not totally
committed], and neither cold [unconverted] nor hot [totally
committed], I will vomit you out of my mouth.
If
we have not died to self and become totally committed to God and to
His son Jesus, and are not doing His will, we will not have any
part in the coming kingdom of God.
Jesus
says: Luke 11:23: He that is not with me
is against
me:
and he that gathers not with me
scatters.
What
Jesus is saying here is that if you are not with him 100 percent,
totally committed to him, you are against him. There is no middle
ground. Those who are not totally committed to obeying the words that
God gave to Jesus to give to us will be among those whom Jesus says
he will not know when they appear before him:
Matthew
7:21-23: Not
every one that says unto me, lord, lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Many
will say to me in that day, lord, lord, have we not prophesied in
your name? and in you name have cast out demons? and in your name
done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never
knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.
Written
by Eric Chang in Chapter 9 of The Only Perfect Man and edited by
Bruce Lyon
You
can read The Only Perfect man online:
http://www.christiandc.org/content/the-only-perfect-man
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