How could God have a son?

The Virgin's question "How shall this be, seeing that I know not a man?"--is not the result of unbelief. She believed, presupposing the absolute reality of the promise, in asking the exact manner of its fulfillment. The blessed mystery of the incarnation, how the Son of God should take on the human form and become man, is made known. It is a great mystery. "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee" means that the human nature of our Lord was produced in the Virgin by a creative act of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18-20). And therefore He possessed an absolutely holy nature. "And the Power of the Most High shall overshadow thee." This is not a repetition of the first statement. It means that the Son of God, who is the Most High, overshadowed the Virgin, uniting Himself with the miraculously prepared human nature. He is designated in His Being "that holy thing" because He cannot be classified. And because He is holy there could be nothing in Him, who was born of the Virgin, which is unholy. And beautiful is the submission of the Virgin to the will of God.

"But Mary said to the angel, How shall this be, since I know not a man?" She does not doubt, but she asks confidingly. Hence there is no smiting dumb nor any sign of unbelief, as in the case of Zacharias, who asked, "Whereby shall I know this?" There maybe a question in the spirit which needs an answer, but betrays no lack of faith. There might be one not so dissimilar in form, but which really sprang from unbelief. God does not judge according to appearance, but the heart.

The angel accordingly explains in all grace to Mary. "[The] Holy Spirit shall come upon thee,29 and power of [the] Highest overshadow thee." It was not to be nature, but Divine power. "Therefore the holy thing also which shall be born [of thee] shall be called Son of God," and not merely Son of man. This is exceedingly important. "Son of God" is a title that belongs to our Lord both in His Divine glory before He became a man and here; for, in this place when He became a man, He did not cease to be Son of God. As incarnate He was still the Son of God. So, again, when He rose from the dead, the same thing was true; He was the Son of God as risen again. It is plain therefore that it is a title that appertains to Him in the three conditions in which Scripture represents our Lord. He was the Son of God when He was purely and simply a Divine Person; Son of God when He became a man; Son of God when risen from the dead and gone out of this world to heaven. "Of thee," after "born" is supported only by C and a few minuscules.

This last utterance of the angel "who stands in the presence of God" requires no comment. It most surely drives away all doubt for those who will believe. The birth of the Saviour was miraculous, it was by God's power, it was God's work. Man and his corruptible seed had no part in it; the Son of Mary was holy and undefiled. He was the Son of God. Of this J. N. Darby has written, "It is not here the doctrine of the eternal relationship of Son with the Father. The Gospel of John, the Epistle to the Hebrews and that to the Colossians, establish this precious truth and demonstrate its importance, but here it is that which is born by virtue of the miraculous conception, which on that ground is called the Son of God." And if unbelief says it is contrary to every law of nature and impossible, faith answers in the words of Gabriel, who knew God's power so well, "with God nothing shall be impossible."

At this point we may perhaps appreciate more fully the immense importance of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin. There was a hint of this great fact in the first prediction concerning Him ever given. It was the Lord God Himself who spoke of "the woman" and "her seed" (Gen. 3:15). Hence, "when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman" (Gal. 4:4), yet conceived under the direct action of the Holy Ghost (Luke 1:35). Therefore it is that while the Deliverer was 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.

How this was secured, the Gospel of Luke bears witness for us. The power of the Holy Ghost accomplished what would otherwise have been impossible; and "that Holy Thing" born of the Virgin was, even as to His humanity, the "Son of God" (Luke 1:35). This does not of itself declare what John declares: it is not equivalent to the Word being made flesh. Luke's is the Gospel of the Manhood, as John's is of the Deity of the Lord. The one presents to us the First-born, as the other the Only-begotten. And it is essential to His proper glory that both sides should have adequate statement. The power of the Holy Ghost was manifested in the "Man Christ Jesus" being "made in all things like unto His brethren," while absolutely free from all the sad inheritance of the fall. It was manifested where needed: on the human side, and not on the divine.

It is clear then that Scripture, in saying that the Word became flesh, teaches us that this was a new beginning, a condition not existing before, but now become true of the One who was and is the Word. And all true Christians agree surely that the words "became flesh" refer to His becoming Man; to the Incarnation of the Word, in fact.

The second difference is in one sense a minor one. "We beheld," in that context, would probably convey to any spiritual mind that it was spiritual vision and not mere physical sight. So that it would not mean a mere incident in the lives of the beholders, but a continuous impression upon the mind, and hence is rendered in the New Translation as, "we have contemplated "His glory."

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (v. 14). Here is the greatness of His condescension made manifest in His incarnation, for His humanity was not in form merely, something put on, as one would put on a garment for a certain purpose and then cast it off again when that purpose was accomplished, but it was a reality. He became an actual man, and this He will never cease to be.

He took up perfect manhood into union with His Person. His incarnation did not in the least detract from His eternal deity nor from His eternal relationship in the Godhead, but only gave to His humanity His infinite perfection. So in manhood He was Son as He ever was in that eternal, unchanging and unchangeable relationship which He had with the Father in the Godhead.

There is absolutely no taint in that "Son of Man." It is not said "that innocent thing," but "that Holy Thing." The first man before the fall was innocent, guiltless, but the condition was a negative and unstable one. 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 (1 Cor. 15:47). He was "holy," and had a positive, inherent, abiding character, utterly incapable of sin. He was a partaker of the divine nature as incarnate, with nothing of "the flesh" in any part of His person. His positive holiness was because of the direct, divine work of the Spirit in His incarnation — absolutely apart from fallen nature. We would veil our faces as we speak or think of this divine mystery, and adore the grace of Him who thus humbled Himself to be found in fashion as a man.

The first scripture quoted is from Psalm 2:7: "My Son art thou: I this day have begotten thee." Never was such a word addressed to an angel. It applies only to Christ. But how? The apostle John loves to expatiate on His eternal Sonship. Again, elsewhere in the epistles of Paul He is often shown as Son of God in resurrection (Rom. 1:4, Rom. 8:29; Col. 1:18), as of course also when He returns from heaven (1 Thess. 1:10). How is He regarded here? As Son of God born in time: so we see Him in Luke 1:32 and yet more definitely in verse 35. The assumption of flesh in no way lowered His Sonship: Son of God eternally, He was still and no less Son of God when born of the Virgin, as He is in resurrection and evermore in glory; He only, and in virtue of divine right acknowledged of God, and to Jesus solely by the word magnified above all Jehovah's name.