But Mary said to the angel, How shall this be, since I know not a man?
Gabriel has told Mary she will bear a son, and she answers with one honest question: how? Much hangs on how we read it — whether she doubted, and how this Child came into the world.
Earlier in the chapter, a man questioned an angel and lost his speech for it. Mary's words sound similar, yet Gabriel answers her instead of rebuking her.
And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" She does not doubt; she asks with confidence. So there is no striking dumb and no sign of unbelief, as with Zacharias, who asked, "How shall I know this?" There may be a question in the spirit that needs an answer but shows no lack of faith. There might be another not so different in form which really sprang from unbelief. God does not judge by appearance, but by the heart.
One writer weighs her question against the request of Zacharias.
Zacharias had constantly asked for a son. It was only a question of God's goodness and power to grant his request, and God's clear declaration brought him to a point where he had only to trust it. He did not trust God's promise. It was only the exercise of God's extraordinary power within the natural order of things. Mary asks, with holy confidence, since God has so favoured her, how the thing is to be accomplished, outside the natural order. Of its accomplishment she has no doubt.
Her question exposes what she took for granted about the incarnation — God the Son entering the world as a man.
When the angel Gabriel announced the honour about to be given to her in the great work of incarnation, she asked, not in a spirit of scepticism but of honest ignorance, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" Clearly she thought that the birth of this glorious Person, who was about to appear, would follow the ordinary principles of generation. In God's great goodness, her thought becomes the occasion for developing much valuable light on the central truth of incarnation.
Commentators differ on what exactly puzzled her. Another points to the titles she has just heard.
The coming Child was to have David as His ancestor and yet be the Son of the Highest! She did not ask for a sign, since she accepted the angel's words, but she did ask for an explanation.
Her asking did not stop the plan. It drew out the fullest answer in the passage.
Mary replied to the angel, "How will this be?" What was promised had to happen outside the order of nature. Even so, distrust did not prompt her question. We see this because God allowed Gabriel to give a full and complete answer to her question. That answer reveals two things: the miraculous conception of our blessed Lord, and that the Child so born should be called the Son of God.
Mary's description of herself also settles an old question about translation.
The Old Testament was carefully translated into Greek in the version commonly called the Septuagint, and our Lord quoted from it again and again. That translation plainly understood the word "virgin" as Mary herself shows in Luke 1:34. It rendered the word parthenos, which does mean "virgin."
Some have read her words as a vow of lifelong virginity. One writer rejects that, since an earlier verse in the chapter rules it out:
Schanz abandons his usually sensible interpretation by taking Mary's words as a vow of virginity, which verse 27 rules out.
If the child had come the ordinary way Mary assumed, everything would be different.
Sinful men have sinful children… Does it matter, then, or does it not, how the Lord was born into this world? Had He come by natural generation, would He not have been like every other man? To deny the virgin birth is to deny His pre-existence in the Godhead. It also denies the holiness of His Manhood. Without these two great truths about His glorious Person, He could not have been the Saviour.
- Ask. Mary's "how" is faith seeking light, not doubt demanding proof. God reads the heart, not the wording.
- Contrast. Zacharias would not trust a promise inside nature's order. Mary never doubted one outside it.
- Assume. Her question shows she expected an ordinary birth. That mistake became the occasion for light on the incarnation.
- Answer. Because she asked in faith, God let Gabriel answer in full: the miraculous conception, and the Child called the Son of God.
- Depend. Her own words about herself anchor the virgin birth. Deny that birth and you deny His pre-existence and the holiness of His Manhood — and He could not be the Saviour.
And the angel answering said to her, [The] Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and power of [the] Highest overshadow thee, wherefore the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God.
Gabriel told Mary she would bear a son who would reign forever. She asked how, since she had no husband. This verse is his answer — how a virgin could bear a child, and why that child would be called Son of God.
Zechariah had asked a similar question earlier in the chapter and lost his speech for it. Mary does not.
She does not doubt; she asks in trust. So she is not struck silent, and there is no sign of unbelief — unlike Zechariah, who asked, "How shall I know this?" A question may rise in the spirit and need an answer, yet show no lack of faith. Another question, close to it in wording, might spring from unbelief. God does not judge by appearance, but by the heart.
The verse says two things about what God will do. One writer reads them as two distinct acts, not one act stated twice.
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you" means that the Holy Spirit produced the human nature of our Lord in the virgin by a creative act. And so He had a completely holy nature. "And the power of the Most High will overshadow you." This is not a repetition of the first statement. It means that the Son of God, who is the Most High, overshadowed the virgin. He united Himself with the human nature the Spirit had prepared. He is called "that holy thing" in His very being, because He fits into no class.
Commentators differ. Others read the whole verse as one act of divine power: "it was not to be nature, but divine power" (William Kelly).
Older translations render the phrase "that holy thing." That word choice separates this child from the first man God made.
There is no taint at all in that "Son of Man." It does not say "that innocent thing," but "that holy thing." The first man before the fall was innocent and guiltless. But that condition was only negative, and it was unstable. He was of the earth, earthy — made of dust; with a spirit, but a creature, and nothing more. The second Man is out of heaven. He was "holy," and had a positive, inherent, lasting character, utterly incapable of sin. His positive holiness came from the direct, divine work of the Spirit in His incarnation, apart from fallen nature.
This birth did not simply add one more descendant to Adam's family.
When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman (Gal. 4:4), yet conceived under the direct action of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). That is why, although the Deliverer came by the woman, He was not an ordinary son of Adam at all. The virgin birth means that the Lord Jesus, while truly Man, was yet a Man of a new order.
The word "therefore" ties the name to the miracle just described.
"Therefore the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of God," and not just Son of Man. This is very important. "Son of God" is a title that belongs to our Lord in His divine glory before He became a man, and here too. When He became a man, He did not stop being the Son of God. As incarnate He was still the Son of God. And the same was true when He rose from the dead. So the title belongs to Him in all three conditions in which Scripture shows our Lord: Son of God as a divine Person; Son of God when He became a man; Son of God risen from the dead and gone to heaven.
What this verse teaches is narrower than the full doctrine of the Son:
It is not here the doctrine of the eternal relationship of Son with the Father. The Gospel of John, the letter to the Hebrews and the letter to the Colossians establish this precious truth and show how important it is. But here it is the One born by the miraculous conception who, on that ground, is called the Son of God.
This verse does Luke's work, not John's.
The power of the Holy Spirit did what would otherwise have been impossible. "That holy thing" born of the virgin was the "Son of God," even as to His humanity. This does not by itself declare what John declares. It is not the same as the Word becoming flesh. Luke's is the Gospel of the Manhood, as John's is of the Deity of the Lord. Both sides are essential to His proper glory.
- Question — Mary's "how" came from faith, not doubt, and God answered it fully; He reads the heart behind the words.
- Power — The conception was not nature at work but God at work: a creative act of the Holy Spirit.
- Holy — He is holy, not merely innocent. Adam could lose his innocence; nothing could touch this holiness.
- Name — "Therefore" links the name Son of God to the miracle. Yet the title was His before He became man, and His again when He rose.
- New — Born of a woman yet not of Adam's line, He is a Man of an entirely new order.