Hebrews 2; Psalm 132
All right, we’ve got three scriptures tonight, so turn in your copy of God’s word. First Psalm 132, and then Hebrews chapter two, and then Luke chapter one. So we’ll be thinking about what’s often called the Immaculate Conception. The Lord Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And then he was born of her yet without sin. And then there’s an interesting phrase, so that he might be the true seed of David.
So Psalm 132 helps us to see that Jesus is the son of David. So Psalm 132, one of the songs of ascents, going from far away from Jerusalem to Jerusalem, and then up the hill. By the time you get to Psalm 132, you’re getting pretty close to Jerusalem.
Remember, O Lord, in David’s favor, all the hardships he endured, how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the mighty one of Jacob, I will not enter my house or get into my bed. I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. Behold, we have heard of it in Ephrathah, We have found it in the fields of Jayar. Let us go to his dwelling place. Let us worship at his footstool. Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. Let your priest be clothed with righteousness and let your saints shout for joy. For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one.
The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back. One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne if your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them. Their sons also shall sit on your throne. The Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his dwelling place. This is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provisions. I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priest I will clothe with salvation. and her saints will shout for joy. There I will make a horn to sprout for David. I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine.
And then Hebrews chapter two speaks of the humanity of Christ. Remember Hebrews, the one word to describe the book of Hebrews is the word better. Jesus is better than Lots of Old Testament shadows. And there’s a warning to the audience. Don’t go to lesser things. And it begins in chapter two.
Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord and was attested to us by those who heard while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere. What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will sing your praise. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, behold, I and the children God has given me.
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps. but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
And then Luke chapter one, verse 26 is the visit of the angel Gabriel. to Mary, the mother of Jesus. And Luke chapter one, beginning at 26 says in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, greetings. Oh, favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 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 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.
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, 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. And Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. Amen. God’s great and gracious word.
So in church history, the doctrine of the virgin birth is probably one of the most talked about things in a continuing way. And you think about the creeds of the Christian church. They named the Father, they named the Son, and they named the Holy Spirit. But what two humans also get named in a couple of the creeds? There’s double P, Pontius Pilate, right? And he was a bad one, but he gets mentioned. And then there is Mary, right? So in ancient creeds of the church, besides God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, you get mentioned. Pontius Pilate and Mary. Very interesting that those two names get mentioned in ancient creeds. Ancient creeds, usually pretty succinct. You’re going to mention people, they got to be pretty important.
But along the church history came the medieval period. And what did the medieval period do with Mary? They elevated her. They made her what’s often termed the Mediatrix. Don’t pray to God through Jesus, pray to God through Mary. Maryology, the beliefs about Mary which are mixed and varied are all over the place. Y’all may find this a little humorous given our whole no graven images thing we’ve been working on over the last couple years.
I had the sign guy up the street here make us some Christmas Eve signs. I wanted to put Christmas Eve service 5 p.m. and put them out on the street and see if that, you know, helped advertise any. Well, he sends me a proof and guess what? It was a picture of Mary, Mary, Joseph, a bright star and baby Jesus. And I had to say, well, we can have the star. Let’s do the star. So he, he got it all fixed up, but it’s pretty common, isn’t it? To see Mary all around.
Uh, one of my neighbors, uh, keeps a, I don’t know, I guess it’s a plastic manger scene. Keeps it in her front yard, has spotlights on it year-round. Big deal to her. She also has, sitting off to the side, a lion and a lamb. Now I’m sure most people walk past and say, oh, a lion and a lamb, how nice, but what does that mean to Christians? That’s the future of the new heavens and the new earth when the lion will lie down. with the lamb.
But the medieval period gave us perhaps a little too much Mary. And then along came the Protestants and they got Mary back where she ought to be. She’s mentioned in the Bible and the gospels. She’s mentioned in the book of Acts. We hear about her with Gabriel, baby Jesus, the boy Jesus. She pops up maybe at the end of his life at the cross and a couple of places like that. But we’ve got Mary just right.
Well, then you bump along to the 1800s or so, 1700s, 1800s, and along comes the enlightenment and the enlightenment elevated human reason over anything else. And so what did the universities which held the seminaries and the schools of theology do? They began to say that Mary and the virgin birth was a myth. Mary and the virgin birth could not possibly have happened. And so you have all those stretches of the denial of the supernatural.
So we’re living in an era post-enlightenment with the effects of the enlightenment, where even a large swath of what would institutions that would call themselves churches don’t believe in the supernatural, especially not in the virgin. birth of Jesus. And they also do not believe in a historical Adam, among other things. And those two unbeliefs, as it were, you don’t believe in Adam, you don’t believe in the virgin birth, you undo salvation. And we’ll think for a minute or two about why that is so.
But we understand the scriptures speak of Mary. We understand the prophecy, say a virgin shall conceive. We understand that you read the birth narratives and guess who had baby boy Jesus, a virgin named Mary. We understand that Joseph, being a just man because he wanted to divorce her quietly, knew that that was scandalous. We understand that the supernatural, not just in the virgin birth, is all over the scripture, like the sun standing still. God speaking and from nothing came the world and everything in it. We understand that he really did go to a wedding in Cana and he turned water into wine. He healed palsied hands, he made the blind see, he made the lame to walk and on and on. Even his own power His divine power is how he was raised from the dead. And so we’re good with supernatural. It’s all over the scripture. This is also critical for our Christology. Jesus is the eternal son of God. He became man and he was and continues to be God and man, two distinct natures, one person forever.
But also this has implications for the atonement, the sacrifice of Jesus. So we want to think about the words conceived by the Holy Ghost or conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. The first stanza says it means that God’s eternal son, who is and continues to be true and eternal God, took upon him the very nature of man. What would it take for creatures who sinned against their creator to be rescued, redeemed, and reconciled to that great creator? The gap, the distance, the infinity and the finitude. What would it take for there to be reconciliation? Could that God, that creature, or that creator make up you know, a silly test or something for the creatures, you know, stand on your foot, one leg and pat your head and, you know, just something ridiculous. Could he? No, it had to be. We, we thought of this several weeks back. It had to be a true man, uh, in our nature, uh, bear had to bear the sins for the people. And so wonder of wonders, the second person of the Trinity, has to become man in order to seek and save the lost. That’s a wonder, and perhaps post-enlightenment people don’t understand that. But it’s a worldview clash, isn’t it? It’s a faith issue, it’s a massive issue, but it has to be true.
The eternal Son of God took upon himself the very nature of man, of the flesh and blood of Mary by the operation of the Spirit. Now think about that for a moment. Why could Joseph not be Jesus earthly or real or begatting father? He would have passed along original sin. The sin of Adam would have passed along to Jesus. And what would have proceeded from that original sin that he inherited from Joseph? He would have committed actual sins. And so Jesus would, by birth or by conception, become a sinner. And he would, by birth and some fine motor skills and a little time, become a better sinner, just like we. And so he would have been no different and his sacrifice would have been no good. It wasn’t that something had to die. It was that something perfect had to die. And our sins had to be laid on that perfect sacrifice. And that perfect sacrifice had to be accepted in God’s sight. And so Jesus took upon himself the very nature of man, but it was through the power of the Holy Ghost being conceived in the womb of Virgin Mary.
Now, obnoxious people ask obnoxious questions and probably an obnoxious question is, well, didn’t Mary have original sin? And what’s the answer? Yes. Did Jesus have original sin? No. Um, just think on it and thank the Lord. Um, and you can go read books if you want to find out more about all that. Um, but he was conceived by the power of the Holy ghost, uh, in the womb of the Virgin Mary. That’s what Gabriel came and announced to her. But it also says he, um, so that he might be the true seed of David, like unto his brethren in all things sin accepted. He took on the very nature of man to be of the seed of David. Remember Adam in the garden, what did God tell Adam to do? Puts him in the garden and he says, rule the earth. keep the earth, that’s a protect word, make things fruitful and multiply. And then when he gets Eve and gets a helper and a wife, y’all be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. And the idea was that Adam, Adam is God’s you know, king of the earth, so to speak, would rule the earth, protect the earth, be fruitful, multiply, tell his offspring about God and righteousness.
And then the whole earth would eventually be populated with righteous offspring. And as long as Adam obeyed God, there would be no sin, there’d be no death. And the whole earth would eventually be full of the glory and the knowledge and the righteousness of God. But of course, Satan slithered in and took care of all that.
Well, um, what did God promise Eve? He told Eve in all their pain and, uh, punishment, he said, you will have an offspring. You will have a seed and that seed will seek and save the lost.
Well, fast forward to Abraham. What does God promise to Abraham? You’ll have a seed kind of carrying on in the line of, of Eve, and then you bump along to the kingship era. What does God promise to David? He promises to him a dynasty.
So God promises Adam a dynasty, and does he fail? Yes. Bad dynasty, Cain and Abel. little split. What does God promise to David? A dynasty. And what does David do with his dynasty? Well, he has Solomon from an illegitimate wife. And what happens after Solomon kingdom splits? And so you have unfaithful Kings in Adam, unfaithful Kings in David, but who’s coming? Jesus.
And he’s going to be a true seed of David. but he will produce offspring. That’s us who will be righteous. He’ll produce offspring that will one day rule and reign the new heavens and the new earth. And we’ll do it right and well. We get a little down payment on that. Now we’re new creations. Yes, we struggle with sin, but what’s our goal. Our goal is to be good Kings, right? Our goal is to be good children, not of Adam, but children of the living God, the savior, Jesus.
So the two natures of Christ pop up in this catechism. He needs to remain God, of course, and he needs to become man. And then in his humanity as the true seed of David, he will experience everything under the sun, so to speak, in his humiliation so that he can be like us and accepted. And that’s where Hebrews comes in several times. The book of Hebrews tells us, Jesus like us in every way except sin. He’s the high priest who can sympathize with us.
I have a copy of a J.B. Phillips. I guess it’s a New Testament. Can’t call it a Bible. It’s a New Testament. Half the Bible, a third of the Bible, eighth of the Bible, whatever the math is. But it’s a Bible that was printed, it’s a New Testament that was printed for schools, amazing. J.B. Phillips, and it’s a modern translation, a little bit goofy in some areas. And I don’t know where I got this from, I think it came from my grandmother’s house.
But I was looking up this morning’s passage in it, early this morning, just to see if it said anything interesting about communion and what Paul was telling us in 1 Corinthians 11, and I never flipped to the back inside cover, and whoever’s Bible it was had written a bunch of things and Kind of tell what this person was going through by the notes they took but several times it said when you know when I’m in despair remember Jesus despaired Whenever I’m suffering remember Jesus suffered whenever I’m and it listed at several human pains And it just simply said remember Jesus went through these human pains. I’d be interested to know whose handwriting this was and provides great insight into at least a stretch of their life. But that’s what we have in Jesus. We have one made like us in every way except sin, and he’s our big brother. He’s our high priest. He sits on the throne interceding for us, and there’s nothing in our human experience, including death, that you cannot tell him. He’s been through these hardships, and he’s been through all these pains and sufferings.
So the eternal son of God takes on the true nature of man. He’s the seed of David, the seed of Adam. But then we get in the final stanza to the benefit. What’s the benefit of Jesus being man? Well, he’s our mediator by his holy conception and birth and with his innocence and perfect holiness.
So we got the conceived by the Holy Ghost part. We have his human birth part. But what about his innocence, the spotless lamb? What about his perfect holiness, his perfect obedience? That’s the key, isn’t it? When Jesus goes to the cross, I think a lot of times we focus on, oh, he, you know, he got beaten. He got his hands and feet nailed. We, you know, we think of the crown of thorns and all those horrible things. But we focus on those suffering aspects. But what I think what we ought to focus on is the, I don’t know the whole Old Testament sacrifice that’s fulfilled in Jesus. He was the spotless lamb, the innocent lamb. He was the scapegoat, perfectly obedient. fully innocent, yet our sins were laid on him. He who knew no sin became sin for us. And then when he died, the death of deaths, the wrath of God poured out on him for the sins of those he came to save. That spotless lamb sacrifice was accepted. He was a lamb without blemish.
Yes, all the Jewish and Roman torture, sufferings, terrible, But really the atonement features are what we ought to focus on. And so in his innocence and his perfect holiness, he covers in the sight of God my sins wherein I was conceived. So think about that for a moment. The greatest human predicament is to be sinful and unholy in the sight of a sinless and very holy God. And how do we who were at odds with him be brought near? It’s only through the blood of Jesus, very specifically the blood of the innocent born second Adam who fulfilled all righteousness. These are wonderful things for us to think on and things I hope you’ll treasure in your mind and heart.
Let’s pause and give thanks to God. Lord, we thank you for the, the best solution to our worst problem. There’s no greater gift than your son, no greater joy than knowing that we have his obedience, we have his righteousness, we have his salvation. And so we have every confidence, every reason to draw near and to seek help in our time of need from the one who ever lives above to intercede, but also from the one who has been through this life and been humiliated in many ways, ways that most of us will never endure, but ways that cause him to be able to sympathize with our frailty, our weakness. Lord, give us hope as we live life in a world that denies these things, but give us a sure confidence day by day. Help us, we pray in Christ, a great and gracious name, amen.