Luke 1:35

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 THE ANGEL ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO HER, THE HOLY SPIRIT SHALL COME UPON THEE (SEE THE NOTE AT MATTHEW 1:18 ), AND THE POWER OF THE HIGHEST (THE IMMEDIATE ENERGY OF THE GODHEAD, CONVEYED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT), SHALL OVERSHADOW THEE. What exquisite delicacy is there in the use of this word, suggesting how gentle, while yet efficacious, would be this power, and its mysterious secrecy too, as if withdrawn by a cloud from human scrutiny-as Calvin hints. THEREFORE ALSO THAT HOLY THING WHICH SHALL BE BORN [OF THEE], [ to ...

35._The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee _The angel does not explain the manner, so as to satisfy curiosity, which there was no necessity for doing. He only leads the virgin to contemplate the power of the Holy Spirit, and to surrender herself silently and calmly to his guidance. The word ἐπελεύσεται, _shall come upon, _denotes that this would be an extraordinary work, in which natural means have no place. The next clause is added by way of exposition, _and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: _for the Spirit may be regarded as the essential power of God, whose energy is manifested and exerted in the entire government of the world, as well as in miraculous events. There is an elegant metaphor in the word ἐπισκιάσει _, overshadow. _The _power _of God, by which he guards and protects his own people, is frequently compared in Scripture to a shad

26-38 We have here an account of the mother of our Lord; though we are not to pray to her, yet we ought to praise God for her. Christ must be born miraculously. The angel's address means only, Hail, thou that art the especially chosen and favoured of the Most High, to attain the honour Jewish mothers have so long desired. This wondrous salutation and appearance troubled Mary. The angel then assured her that she had found favour with God, and would become the mother of a son whose name she should call Jesus, the Son of the Highest, one in a nature and perfection with the Lord God. JESUS! the name that refreshes the fainting spirits of humbled sinners; sweet to speak and sweet to hear, Jesus, a Saviour! We know not his riches and our own poverty, therefore we run not to him; we perceive not that we are lost and perishing, therefore a Saviour is a word of little relish. Were we convinced o...

Verse 35. _THE HOLY GHOST SHALL COME UPON THEE_] This conception shall take place _suddenly_, and the Holy Spirit himself shall be the grand operator. _The power_, δυναμις, the miracle-working power, _of the Most High shall overshadow thee_, to accomplish this purpose, and to _protect_ thee from danger. As there is a plain allusion to the Spirit of God brooding over the face of the waters, to render them _prolific_, Genesis 1:2, I am the more firmly established in the opinion advanced on Matthew 1:20, that the rudiments of the human nature of Christ was a _real creation_ in the womb of the virgin, by the energy of the Spirit of God. _THEREFORE ALSO THAT HOLY THING_ (or person) - _shall be called the_ _Son of God._] We may plainly perceive

THE HOLY GHOST SHALL COME UPON THEE - See Matthew 1:20. THE POWER OF THE HIGHEST ... - This evidently means that the body of Jesus would be created by the direct power of God. It was not by ordinary generation; but, as the Messiah came to redeem sinners - to make atonement for “others,” and not for himself it was necessary that his human nature should be pure, and free from the corruption of the fall. God therefore prepared him a body by direct creation that should be pure and holy. See Hebrews 10:5. THAT HOLY THING ... - That holy progeny or child. SHALL BE CALLED THE SON OF GOD - This is spoken in reference to the human nature of Christ, and this p

EXPOSITION THE origin of the Gospels—the four histories which relate in detail the circumstances of the foundation of Christianity—will ever be an interesting study. Here we shall never know the exact truth of the compilation of these writings, the foundation-stones of all our hopes and fears; a reverent, scholarly speculation is all that can be offered to the student of the Divine memoirs. The speculation, however, probably in this case comes very near the truth. After the Ascension and the events of the first Pentecost, which quickly followed their Master's return to heaven, the twelve and a few others who had walked in the company which followed Jesus during the years of his public ministry no doubt often met together and talked over the teaching and the acts of their risen and now glorified Master. As time passed on, a certain number of these acts, a certain number of the public and...

AND THE ANGEL ANSWERED AND SAID UNTO HER,.... The angel gave her an account of the manner in which what he had said should be effected, as well as observed some things for the strengthening of her faith. THE HOLY GHOST SHALL COME UPON THEE. The words, "upon thee", are left out in the Syriac and Persic versions; but are retained in others, and in all copies: the formation of Christ's human nature, though common to all the three persons, yet is particularly, and most properly ascribed to the Spirit; not to the first person, the Father, lest it should be thought that he is only the Father of him, as man; nor to the second person, the Son, since it is to him that the human nature is personally united; but to the third person, the Spirit, who is the sanctifier; and who separated, and sanctified it, the first moment of its conception, and preserved it from the taint of original sin. His comin...

Luke 1:5. _There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless._ There have been some good people who have lived in very bad times; never was there a worse reign than that of Herod; seldom or never a better man and woman than Zacharias and Elisabeth. Let no man excuse himself for sinning because of the times in which he lives. You may be rich in grace when others around you have none, even as Gideon's fleece was wet with dew when the whole floor was dry. God help us, in these evil days, to be «righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless»!...

LUKE 1:35 gennw,menon {A} The words evk sou/ are apparently an early addition prompted by a desire for greater symmetry after the two preceding instances of the second person pronoun. The expanded reading gained wide currency in the early church through Tatian’s Diatessaron. The reading (literally “in thee”), for which Dionysius Barsalibi (died A.D. 1171) argues vigorously in his commentary on Luke, 1 is read by the earliest manuscripts of the Peshitta (the Curetonian and Sinaitic Syriac manuscripts are not extant here) and is adopted as the text in Pusey and Gwilliam’s critical edition. ------------------------- 1 See Tj. Baarda, “Dionysios bar ‚al£b£ an...

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE Analysis and Annotations I. The Birth and Childhood -- Chapter 1-2:52 CHAPTER 1 _ 1. The Introduction. (Luke 1:1)_ 2. Zacharias and Elizabeth; the Vision. (Luke 1:5) 3. John the Baptist, his birth and ministry announced. (Luke 1:13) 4. Zacharias' Unbelief and Punishment. (Luke 1:18) 5. The Angel's Announcement to the Virgin Mary. (Luke 1:27) 6. Mary's Question and the Answer. (Luke 1:34) 7. Mary Visits Elizabeth ...