I Believe God Ordained Christ’s Birth

We’ve heard the well-loved Christmas story so many times that we may risk losing the wonder of it all. Carefully read Gabriel’s announcement to Mary:
Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you! . . . Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. (Luke 1:28–33)

Mary, understandably perplexed asked, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?’ 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” (Luke 1:34–35).

In Gabriel’s announcement, we see the Trinity fully represented. Gabriel’s words come from God the Father, telling her that the Holy Spirit will come upon her, conceiving in her the Son of God. Each person of the Trinity participated in God the Son becoming man.

When Jesus became man, He forever joined Himself to His creation, fully embracing our humanity. As a child, He had to learn (Luke 2:52). He became tired and had to rest at a well in Samaria (John 4:6). He felt hungry (Matthew 4:2). He faced temptations, just as we do. But in all of this, He never sinned. As Hebrews tells us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (4:15). To save humanity, Christ had to become part of humanity. Only after He became fully man could He serve as our substitute on the cross and be our mediator with God. Being fully man and fully God, Christ alone could mediate between lost humanity and God almighty.

Two thousand years ago, the angel Gabriel appeared to a teenage girl to give the most miraculous news the world had ever heard. God would send the one He had promised and that one would be God Himself. He fulfilled that promise in Jesus—fully God, fully man, yet one person. This is the miraculous incarnation.