Power, Day 4
God’s Power Revealed in the Incarnation
And Mary said to the angel, “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. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”
Luke 1:34-37
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men…
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.
John 1:1-4, 14, 18 (CSB)
In the first chapter of Luke’s gospel, the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she had found favor with God and He had chosen her to bear a Son who would reign forever on the throne of David—a kingdom with no end. This had to have been overwhelming in so many ways for Mary. First, simply to have an angel appear to you and speak to you would be startling! And her Son would reign forever? How is it even possible that one man could be a king forever? And exactly why had she found favor with God? So many questions were introduced by this announcement! But the question that Mary posed, the most practical and direct question that was immediately apparent to her was, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
Mary knew that it was physically impossible for her to conceive a son at that time. She was engaged to Joseph, but she knew that she couldn’t have a baby when she remained a virgin. Never before in mankind’s history had a woman conceived a baby without a partner. Gabriel’s answer, in short, was the power of God—“the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Gabriel even affirmed the human impossibility of this announcement by contrasting it with the reality that nothing is impossible with God. Again, this is the power of the God who created the entire universe from nothing. Not only does He have power to create life in a barren womb such as Sarah’s, He has power to create life in a virgin womb.
But this is so much more spectacular than creating human life. This birth involved combining divine nature and human nature in one Person. This birth was the incarnation of the Son of God—the second Person of the Trinity taking on human flesh. The omnipotent God joined with the weakness of humanity. The God who has no need became dependent on others. The infinite in union with the finite. How can this be? When the Holy Spirit came upon Mary to conceive the child Jesus, the power displayed was beyond our comprehension. In a mysterious union, the very Son of God who was with God from all eternity and who was God from all eternity, the Son of God who created all things—this divine Person united Himself to human nature in one tiny person. The divine chose to contain Himself in a human womb for nine months. The Son of God chose to humble Himself to not only become human, but a human baby that would be totally dependent on parental care. The upside-down nature of God’s kingdom is put on display when the omnipotent God calls on power beyond human understanding to experience powerlessness Himself. In one Person, at the same time the human nature of the infant Jesus was powerless over feeding Himself, the divine nature of the Lord Jesus continued to uphold “the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3).
Action Step: The idea of two natures in one Person is beyond our understanding. The coexistence of the human nature of Jesus that experienced weakness, hunger, and thirst, and the divine nature of Jesus that held power over all of creation, is not something that we ourselves have experienced in any way. In the description of this doctrine on page 97 of this book, we covered the reality that our finite minds cannot conceive of all that our infinite God can do. Faith includes believing some things that are beyond our understanding. Pray that God will give you faith to believe what is revealed in Scripture but beyond human understanding.