Luke chapter 1, starting at verse 26, reading through verse 45. Hear now the word of Almighty God. And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, how shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that Holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, She hath also conceived a son in her old age. And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God, nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, behold, the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste into a city of Judah. and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. And she spake out with a loud voice and said, blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy, and blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. Thus far the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word from the gospel of Luke chapter one, verses 26 through 45. May the Lord bless us in the reading and hearing of his most sacred word. We have in this verses 26 through 38 the notice given to the Virgin Mary that she should be the mother of the Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is in the sixth month, it says, referring back to verse 24, which we read last week. Elizabeth hid herself for five months. This is the sixth month. So now she's six months along in her pregnancy. It tells us that the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth. This is the same angel who spoke to Zacharias, you'll recall from chapter 19. He is called an archangel or a ruling angel in Daniel chapter 8 verse 16 and Daniel chapter 9 verse 21. though Mary is of the house and lineage of David, yet she lives in Nazareth in the Northern Kingdom to fulfill divine scriptures that God had prophesied. It says that this angel came, Gabriel, verse 27, to a virgin, espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. Not only is Mary of the house of David, Joseph likewise, to whom she is espoused, is of the house of David as well. Now this fulfills that blessed promise, the sign made to faithless Ahaz, of whom we just read, of Isaiah 7. God said, seek and ask a sign. Ahaz said, no. And God said, I'll give you a sign. A virgin shall be with child. So the angel comes to whom? What sort of woman? A virgin, espoused, but not consummated, not yet. This virgin's name, we are told, was Mary. This is why we call her the Virgin Mary. She was chosen by God to bear the Son of God in her womb. You may also hear some say the Blessed Virgin, for this very reason, from this passage. She is called blessed to all generations. Some call her the Holy Virgin. Why? Because that thing in her womb was holy. It was the Son of God, Jesus Christ, our Lord, in her womb, made of her substance. So she is called a holy virgin. Her name was Mary. She would bring forth a child, she is told. And when the angel comes unto her, he says this, Hail! Now this is not the superstitious prayer of the papists. She's not praying, or the angel is not praying to her. This is a common greeting, Hail! Our Lord is said, Hail, King of the Jews, Matthew 27 verse 29. Judas greeted Christ and said, Hail, Master, Matthew 26 verse 49. In the Septuagint, it's used for rejoicing or singing. This same verb, chaire, Joel 2, 21, Zephaniah 3, 14, Zechariah 9, 9, and Lamentations 4, 21. James, in his epistle, uses this in James 1, verse 1. Greetings, he says, to the 12 tribes scattered abroad. It's the same exact verb. Our Lord says that when you are persecuted for His namesake, you should rejoice and be exceedingly glad. That's the same verb. When our Lord Jesus Christ came to His disciples in Matthew 28 verse 9, He said, all hail. It's the plural of the same verb used by the angel to Mary, hail. It's a greeting, it's not a prayer. Jesus isn't praying to the disciples, all hail. I'm going to say my hail, disciples. Is that what Jesus does? It's ridiculous. It's foolish. It's absurd. The word means farewell in 2nd Corinthians chapter 13, 11. The apostle uses the same verb only in the plural rather than the singular. Mary, the singular because he's hailing one person, he's greeting one person. He says, hail thou that art highly favored. Jerome mistranslates this as gratia plena, filled with grace. But that's not what this means. It is not a description of her being filled up with grace. No, it is a perfect passive participle. God himself, not you. God has showed you grace, Mary. He has given you things you do not deserve. That's what grace is. where God shows you mercy and favor when you deserve his wrath. Mary, thou art highly favored. God has bestowed freely upon you. The same verb for her being highly favored is used in Ephesians 1.6, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted. That's the word, same exact verb as Mary being highly favored. And there it is not passive because God's the one who made us accepted. Mary was made accepted by God himself. I note then this doctrine. The blessed Virgin Mary was not full of grace, but was passively given grace by God. She was not filled up with grace, a source of grace, a storehouse of grace for others. No. God had grace for her. God showed mercy to her. How? Well, think about it, ladies. Would you like to have the son of God in your womb? Would you like to give birth to the savior of the world? Well, that's pretty, that's pretty special, isn't it? That's a huge grace from God. That's a blessing and favor from the Lord, that she who was a daughter of Eve, who apostatized and let her husband into it and brought ruin on her entire race, that you, the daughter of Eve, could give birth to the one who would give life. to those dead, to give righteousness to those guilty ones, to give redemption to the captives. This is the blessed virgin. That's why she is favored because God chose to do that through her. She is, of God's free grace, granted this privilege and favor. She being passive, an unworthy recipient, as she recognizes, by the way. She doesn't call herself great. Look at me, I'm the queen of heaven. No, handmade. Dule is the word. It means a bondservant, a lowly bondservant, she will call herself, as we'll see this afternoon. Let us retain the scripture notions of the Holy Virgin. Let us honor her as God does, but not fall to idolatry and going beyond the honor ascribed in scripture. And this rebukes the idolatry that exalts Mary as a grace-filled co-redemptrix with Christ. Who do we go to? Well, we go to Christ and through him we go to the Father. Where's Mary in that chain? Absent? Where is she in the idolatry of Wormwood and the Antichrist? We can't really go to Christ. Who do you go to? The Virgin. Bow before her images, pray to her, then she goes to Jesus on your behalf, and then Jesus goes to the Father. Where's that in the Bible? Well, it's absent. It's not there. It's not there in the least. The Holy Virgin is not a conduit of grace. She is not co-redemptrix with Jesus Christ. There is only one Redeemer of God's elect. There is only one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. He is the conduit by which grace comes to us and by which we go to God. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and none comes to the Father, but by whom? The Virgin? No, but by our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 28, she is told to be blessed among women. Did you know our Lord Jesus Christ that says that there are others who are blessed more than her? Blessed are the paps that gave thee suck. Blessed is the womb that bare thee. What does he say? No, rather, if you hear the word of God and do it, you are blessed, Jesus says, Matthew, or excuse me, Luke 11, 27 and 28. She was indeed blessed. But if you hear the word of God and keep it, you are more blessed even than his mother. JL was also called blessed among women, the same exact phrase in Judges 5, 24 in the Septuagint. Let us be blessed with the Holy Virgin by hearing the word of God, by keeping it fast, by doing it. You know that's why she's blessed. She believed, blessed is she that believed, for there shall be an accomplishment of those things, Elizabeth says. Mary is troubled at these sayings. Who am I blessed among women? Who am I to be hailed and greeted by an angel Gabriel? She's troubled, verse 29 tells us. She wants to understand what this is all about. The angel commands her, stop fearing, verse 30. And then he gives her an assurance. Thou hast found favor with God. God has freely chosen thee to this honor which thou thoughtest not of, the Westminster Annotations say. She didn't think she was going to bear the Son of God. She thought she was going to get married to Joseph and have a life with him. Now she finds out, no, you are chosen to have the Son of God. She's promised to conceive this child, to bring him forth. She's even given his name, that glorious name, Jesus, who saves his people from their sins. Verse 32, the angel says, he shall be great and shall be called the son of the highest. Who is the highest? Who is El Elyon? Who is the exalted God, the possessor of heaven and earth? Genesis 14, who is the God of Melchizedek and of Abram? Well, this is his son. This is the son of Abram's God, in other words, the Most High. That is a name of God himself. The Lord shall give unto him the throne of his father, David. He will be the son of David. He will be son of the highest, the son of God, the son of David, the son of the Holy Virgin. David's son, yet David's Lord, fully God and fully man. The fulfillment of all of God's promises to David, 2 Samuel 7, 11 through 13, I will be his God, I will be his father, he shall be my son. Psalm 132, 11, Isaiah 16, 5, all these promises of David's kingdom. And his kingdom, he says, over Jacob, It shall be endless. It shall have no telos, no ending point, no ending point in extent, in gradation, in time, no ends to his kingdom. It shall go on and go greater and greater and rule all. Then Mary said to the angel, how shall this be? Seeing I know not a man. She wants to resolve her doubts. She's not scorning or unbelieving in the truth. This is a believing question. Zacharias was a doubting question. How can this be when I'm old? She believes, but wants to understand. Faith seeking for understanding. Her knowledge of the prophecies was apparently limited or she forgot. Isaiah chapter seven, verse 14, Isaiah 11, verse one. She forgot the almighty power of God that he could form a baby in her womb. Then the angel explains, verse 35, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee, just like at the first creation. The power of God is the Holy Ghost. He operates and accomplishes the purposes of God as he did at the tabernacle, Exodus 40, 35. As the Mount of Transfiguration, when a cloud came down, it's the same verb, overshadowed them. God is going to demonstrate His power, He's going to work. And therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Now this does not mean that Christ became the Son of God at His incarnation, that's not true. But it's going to demonstrate that because it's not from a man, because it's the Spirit of God, you will know that the Son of God is the one who will take flesh in your womb. This will demonstrate God's almighty power. Again, Matthew Henry, that holy thing, such as never was, and he shall be called the Son of God, as the Son of the Father by eternal generation, as an indication of which he shall now be formed by the Holy Ghost. So he's always been the Son of God, but God will demonstrate that by conceiving him supernaturally by the power of the Spirit. Elizabeth then is brought in by the angel. Look at her. It's the sixth month. She who is called barren, she has a child. Can you not have a child as a virgin? That's the argument. Then notice Mary, verse 38. Behold, the handmaid of the Lord. I am the Lord's dule. I am his bond slave. Be it unto me according to thy word. This is known as the optative mood. It's where a person speaks in such a way that they wish something to be so. You have said, Angel Gabriel, through the word of the Lord, that these things shall be so. I wish it to be so, she says. Be it unto me, just as God said through you, according to thy word. She wishes for the Lord to fulfill his word of promise. She trusts in the promise of God. And let us, with the Blessed Virgin, wish that God's will, what has he said to us and about us? May it be so, O Lord, in my life. May you do to me as you have said. Come what may. In fact, she will have a sword pierced through her soul, Simeon will tell her. Come what may, be it unto me according to thy word. This is faith. Then we have the interview of Elizabeth and Mary, verses 39 through 45. Mary goes to Elizabeth's house in Judah. She salutes her or greets her, verses 39 and 40. And when Elizabeth heard the salutation, the babe leapt in her womb. Notice it doesn't say a blob of tissues leapt in her womb. What is it? What is the child before it's born? Well, it's a baby, isn't it? The word fetus means baby. It's just in Latin. It means the same thing. It doesn't mean blob of tissues. Humans exist from their conception. They are who God has determined them to be. They may not be as big as the rest of us, but they are humans. So the baby, filled with the Spirit of God as his mother was, hearing the salutation as his mother did, leaps in the womb. Elizabeth then blesses both Mary and our Lord, called the fruit of her womb. She wants to know why she would be so honored. That the mother of my Lord should come to me. Elizabeth recognizes this is Emmanuel. This is God in the flesh. My Lord, my God, my King, my Savior, Jehovah in that womb. That is the Lord. That is my Lord, she says. And you are his mother. This is why we call Mary the mother of God, by the way. We don't just say mother of Christ. No, she is the mother of God, the mother of our Lord. That's who she is. And it is a privilege for Elizabeth to have the mother of God in the flesh come to her. The Westminster Annotations comment. Elizabeth, respecting God's great favor conferred on the Virgin Mary, yieldeth her due respect and honor, and acknowledgeth this visit an honor undue to herself. Yet, doth she not adore her to God's dishonor? We may neither undervalue God's graces in others, nor idol them for the same. so as to cloud God's majesty. She honors the Virgin and what God did in her womb, and she doesn't bow down and worship her, does she? She just says, it's an honor, it's a blessing, it's a privilege. Elizabeth then rehearses the leaping of the babe in verse 44, and pronounces this blessing, verse 45, blessed is she that believed, that's Mary. You are blessed, Mary, for you believed. For there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. Mary's faith was a blessing to her. Why? Because when we believe, we are blessed with faithful Abraham. God blessed him through believing in the Word of God. Mary is blessed because she believed in the Word of God. And if you believe in the Word of God, you are blessed as well. Blessed is she that believed, blessed are ye if ye believe. For there shall be a performance of those things which were told you from the Lord. She stood upon a most solid rock, the virgin did. The most solid of all, God's inspired word. And where do we stand? On the same spot. On the inspired words of God. We stand and we shall be blessed, for he shall perform every good thing that he has promised. And thus far, the exposition of Luke, chapter 1, verses 26 through 45.