The Gospel of John - Christ born of a virgin
John · Vern Peterman · Nov 10, 2013
Gospel of John (2013), No. 43
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492646266762

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, what we're doing, we finished at the end of last month, we finished going sequentially through the Gospel of John, and so now we're taking topics that are some aspect of the Gospel of John, and last week we looked at believing and beholding, and this week we're going to be looking at Christ born of a virgin. Now, one of the things, as soon as I say that, is that That particular teaching is not brought out in the Gospel of John.

It's in fact Matthew chapters 1 and 2 and Luke chapters 1 and 2 that bring this out, that deal with Christ's birth and give the historical details. And so it's after that that we get more information about Christ's family, Christ's mother, etc. So anyway, let me read Matthew 1, 18 through 23. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows.

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which translated means God with us. So then what we find is the Gospel of Matthew then carries on the account of the Magi, otherwise known as the wise men, Herod the Great, the escape of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus to Egypt, the killing of babies in Bethlehem, and the return to Nazareth after Herod's death. So that's what we find in the Gospel of Matthew. So verse 23 is a quote of Isaiah 714 which prophesied Christ's virgin birth.

And the angel spoke to Joseph of Jesus' part in the gospel of substitution, Jesus as the Savior. What's interesting is that what Joseph is told is he will save his people from their sins. What Mary is told is that this will be the one who reigns as the Messiah in the coming kingdom. So Mary is told of the gospel of the kingdom, Joseph is told of the gospel of substitution. Very interesting how that's pointed out here.

So Luke 1.26-38, now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph. Now I've given this in this particular sequence, the reality is historically Gabriel appeared to Mary first and told her and then the account with Joseph there. Joseph of the descendants of David and the Virgin's name was Mary and coming in he said to her greetings favored one the Lord is with you But she was very perplexed at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutations was We can imagine this is a little hard to figure out. It's not every day that you know an angel appears and starts telling you such things so at any rate So the angel said to her, 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 name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I am a virgin? The angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason the holy child shall be called the Son of God.

And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold the bondslave of the Lord, may it be done to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. A lot to think about for that lady, right? So let's take a look at the top of page two.

So here's Mary and Joseph in a little town called Nazareth. had been betrothed. The pattern in Israel was there was first a betrothal period, and they actually would call them husband and wife, but they were not to have relations at all. What was typically said at the end of the engagement ceremony was he would say words like, behold I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also. Those words sound familiar?

Okay. I go to prepare a place for you and there would be typically about a one year period of time when he'd be working on a house. Of course, Joseph being a carpenter would be particularly apt at doing that, right? And so then a year later then would be the wedding ceremony. But in this case, there's a whole lot to get in the way, and that is, here they are betrothed, and Mary becomes pregnant, and Rome comes in and says, you know, you've got to go to your ancestral home and register in the middle of this thing, and we don't care that you're pregnant.

So this becomes very difficult. I was talking with Brad beforehand. They went to Bethlehem, right? And we might think, well, that's some strange foreign town. Bethlehem had about 3,000 inhabitants, tended to be a lot of people related to David, descended from David. But Joseph, in his annual duties, would have gone down to Bethlehem to cut wood with his relatives, because there was assignments throughout Israel to cut wood because the temple fires had to always be kept going. So Joseph would have seen these people annually, possibly even starting when he was growing up, in his younger years. And so going to Bethlehem was kind of like a family reunion time, not a here's a bunch of strangers necessarily.

So, in Luke 2, 41-52, now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. So here is Joseph and Mary. And when he became 12, they went up there according to the custom of the feast. And as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But his parents were unaware of it, but supposed him to be in the caravan.

You can imagine to get these large groups of people traveling back and forth. And of course, you've got family and friends and people you know and all that. And you kind of lose track of people, especially when it's not a matter of, you know, they're in the car or not in the car.

Right? And so they assumed he'd be in the caravan. All of a sudden, it's time to maybe put down for the night. Wait a minute, where's Jesus? Right? So they're looking around. Uh-oh, we've lost track of Him. So, when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for Him. Then after three days, they found Him. After how long? Three days! Where is he? So this sort of panic is escalating. After three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

When they saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, Son, why have you treated us this way? Behold, your father and I have been anxiously looking for you. And he said to them, why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my father's house?

But they did not understand the statement which he had made to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and continued in subjection to them. And his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.

OK, this account we just read here in Luke 2 is the last mention of Jesus' father is actually being present, Joseph. So what happened? What happened to Joseph? It isn't said. The presumption is, because he just drops off this picture altogether, that he died. Some have supposed that Joseph was older and therefore died, but is that necessarily the case? If that was the case, and further down here it talks about all these brothers, so if those are Joseph's sons, there had to be a period of time that he was around, but he's quite a while.

Jesus is 12, and if the others are subsequent, they're behind him in time. He possibly, we don't know, possibly could have died shortly after this event here in Luke 2 that we just read. Or he could have been around a while, because the next point that we have any historical account is when Jesus begins his ministry at approximately 30 years of age. So some, between 12 years and 30 years, some quite a bit of time may have passed. And let's ask another question.

If Jesus, being the eldest son, had to help lead the family and take care of not only the family, but also take care of his mother, if that were the case, that may have caused Jesus, at least for one reason, to have delayed the beginning of his ministry. because he had to support the family and raise up the rest of the kids, get them to the point where they were independent.

So Jesus' mother Mary was central to the account of Jesus returning the water into wine at the wedding of Cana, and at that point in time Joseph doesn't even get mentioned, but Mary is prominent. Jesus' mother and brothers, but not Joseph, are recorded together in the Gospel of John as they traveled from the wedding at Cana. So here's what's interesting, traveling from the wedding at Cana, where the brothers, they must have been some way aware of the miracle that took place there, you would think, Mary and Jesus, and Jesus' brothers, and The disciples traveled from Cana to Capernaum together. That's the last time we hear of them traveling together. Then we have the family tree that's shown there on page two. Here's Joseph and Mary, and then you have Jesus and James.

James, the author of the book of James. And it appears, not absolutely certain, but highly likely Have any of you ever heard of the James Ossuary? It is a bone box that says, James, brother of Jesus, son of Joseph. And that has turned up, and as a matter of fact, even a part of a trial in Israel, because the owner of the box was accused of fraud, and they couldn't prove it. As a matter of fact, the various experts looking at it said, this isn't fraud, this is the real thing. It was unusual to have a brother named on any of those ossuary boxes. So it appears to be the actual, the bone box of the actual brother of Jesus, James.

The one you see here in the author of the book of James. The next one, Joseph and Jude. This is the author of the book of Jude, the brief book, second to the last book in the New Testament. Simon, and then two sisters, Salome and Mary. Let's go down the bullets here to pick up the points.

Since Jesus was born of Mary as a virgin, as Matthew 1.23 and 25 and Luke 1.27 and 34, Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus as he was of Jesus' other siblings. So Jesus was properly a half-brother to these siblings. Mary would be the common parent. And here's the other part. Jesus' brothers did not believe in him until after Christ was resurrected. What's interesting is that the Apostle Paul records in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus appeared explicitly and directly to James, James the half-brother here.

They are listed in Acts 1.14 along with Mary, Jesus' mother.

And by the way, that Acts 1.14 is the last mention of Mary by name in the New Testament. So James and Jude, actually Jacob and Judas, Yaakov, is actually closer to the original pronunciation, were the authors of the New Testament books by these names.

The names James, Joseph, Jude, and Simon are given in Mark 6.3, as is the fact that Jesus had sisters. It doesn't name the sisters. The names Salome and Mary are from records outside of scripture, so the names and number of Jesus' sisters has less certainty. It doesn't have the certainty of scripture, though the names and number may be accurate. We just don't have the certainty about them.

Thoughts and questions so far? Yes? Is Jesus the oldest? Yes. Okay, on the top of page 3 of Jesus Brothers, James is the one about which the most is recorded, including several times in John. 1 Corinthians 15.7, Galatians 1.19.29 and 12, and James 1.1 and Jude 1. And in the writings of Josephus. Josephus, a Jewish author of the first century, records about James and records about his death, that he died in Jerusalem in the early 60s AD. An ossuary box, New Testament Times, is the one I talked about. It's found with the inscription, James, actually Jacob, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.

After careful investigation, even public trial, it appears to be genuinely that of James, the brother of Jesus. One expert looked at the box because this expert was hired by the prosecutor, claiming that this box was a fraud. And this one expert said, if this box and the inscription are a fraud, I quit. It was that clear that this is the genuine article.

John reports on the mother of Jesus and the interactions with the people of Capernaum, who say in John 6, 42, they were saying, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? In the Gospel of John, the last mention of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is when Jesus speaks to Mary, his mother, and John, the disciple, from the cross.

And this is part of the interactions. If you look at the clock of the crucifixion day, 9 a.m. Jesus was crucified. From 9 to noon is when all the interactions with people took place. Interactions, for example, with the thief from the cross, Today you'll be with me in paradise. And in addition to that, this assignment that you see here of, you know, John, here's your mother, that is, take care of her, okay? And Mary, you know, John will take care of you. Yeah, you start, put your hand up. I've always wondered, what was the dynamic in that family? Yeah, that's a real wild one. Thoughts came up when those siblings began to look at their older brother, and things that he did, and things that he said.

We don't have any record of those. But I wondered about this. And being in the medical profession for 50 years, the biggest factor as to why physicians do not predominately become Christians is because of the virgin birth. That's an obstacle to many of them? It is a miraculous event.

Think about it, there are four ways that human beings have come about on this planet. So what are they? Okay, one is out of the dust of the ground, here's Adam, right? Was Eve created the same way? So Adam's rib, there's two, then we have the virgin birth, and then the normal means for everybody else, right? So each of the first three things that happen, happen just once. And then the typical thing that they study in medical school, right? The typical thing is rather that people are born in the usual way. Yes? I'll forget about that. Okay.

Okay, so John 19, 25-27, But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, his mother's sister, and Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Well, if it wasn't for Mary, there wouldn't be anybody there. By the way, in Israel about that time, one in five women were named Mary. So, when Jesus then saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved, that's how John is referred to, standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman behold your son, and then he said to the disciple, behold your mother, and from that hour the disciple took her into his own household. So Jesus assigned John to be responsible to care for Mary in her later years.

She was at this time in her mid-forties most likely. In other words, the typical time for betrothal would have been early to middle teens. If a woman in Israel was not engaged by their late teens, that was thought to be a point of panic. So early to middle teens would have been typical. The Roman Empire would allow a girl to be married as young as age 12. And by the way, that's the age in Uganda now, too. So by age 12, which to us, that's awfully young. But nonetheless, that was the cultural pattern there. So the last mention of Mary by name is alongside Jesus' brothers after Christ that appeared to James, Jesus' brother, and after Christ was ascended, but before the day of Pentecost. So here's Acts 1, 12-14.

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away, about five-eighths of a mile. When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying, that is Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew. So here's the final list of the disciples turned apostles. James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer along with the women and marry the mother of Jesus with his brothers.

Yeah. Just an observation. Here is Jesus on the cross assigning his mother to John. Yeah. James is not in that picture. Yeah, isn't that interesting? Let's ask this question. Why did Jesus make this assignment and not just assume that his brother James, being the next oldest, would pick up his responsibility? Pardon? First of all, at that point in time, he didn't believe. So he would be, you know, Jesus making an assignment, hey, I don't care about you, right? So that would be one difficulty. Yes?

But he would have known that, that he was going to become a believer. So it probably would be that short period of time when Jesus died and was buried and so they were in the upper room and all these events were taking place. He wanted to make sure that she had support and I would imagine that was why he gave him John. Right then and there she could count on John's support. There's one other thing and that is that John, from every appearance, appears to be the youngest or among the youngest of the disciples. And so he would, for some time to come, be certainly able and physically able to support her.

Yes? I think the fact that it's repeated so many times, the disciple whom Jesus loved, Yeah. Maybe he loved him more than others. Apparently, that was said so many times. Yeah, it was quite apparent to John. He first says it there at what we call the Last Supper, and it's continued throughout this Gospel, the disciple whom Jesus loved. So here's Mary, the mother of Jesus, with his brothers. And where are they located at this point in time? So this is in Jerusalem, right?

So after this point in the New Testament, Mary is never mentioned again by name, though we have this reference to Mary as a woman. Galatians 4, 4 and 5, But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. So that's the last reference to Mary and at this particular point she just gets called a woman. Now, why make reference born of a woman? Isn't everybody born of a woman?

Why is that particularly relevant? It's calling out the duality. Pardon? It's calling out the duality. He's the Son of God and He is a human being. That's certainly correct. Any other thoughts here? Let's ask one other question. Is the virgin birth a necessity? Or is it just an optional teaching? It's required, right? And why? One is it's in prophecy, so that by itself makes it a requirement. It's not just a surprise, here's a virgin birth.

It's also required because the sin nature couldn't have been transferred to him because he didn't have a father. Here's the interesting thing, in order that he not be born with a sin nature, he has a human mother but not a human father. And so Christ in order to be the sin bearer and have adequate capacity has to be in fact on his spiritual side full deity and on the physical side On the physical side, no sin nature attached to this body, right? So is the biblical principle on burn, that the sin nature, because Adam was the federal head, the sin nature is passed through the father and the father, not through the mother? Yeah, now, what you would say is that the implication of scripture is that, right? I can't think of some particular statement that says that, but the implication of scripture would be exactly that.

So here is Jesus born of a woman but not born of a man. It moves from logic to faith. In some ways I think it's easier for we as humans to relate that Jesus was indeed a human being, not all spiritually, and that he went through trials and tribulations, and colds and coughs, and grew up. He wasn't born as an adult. He was a child. And so in that respect, he has a human nature that we can relate to. And a part of that, he does have the spiritual. Remember the passage there we read at the end of that Luke 2 passage, Jesus grew in wisdom and stature. Did he grow in wisdom and stature on his divine side or his human side? On his human side, right? Does God change? No, God does not change. Yes? I'm just thinking in Colossians 2 we're told about Him being the one who holds all things together. Yeah, here is the one who holds all things together, in Him all things cohere and consist. That is the one who is born here of women. Amazing.

Yes? I just think of something else. He's working in the carpenter shop with his dad. Yes. And he'd have to hold back to say, Dad, that isn't the way you do it. Because I know it. Well, that's restraint, isn't it? You can imagine carpenter shop conversations with Jesus. That would be some extraordinary conversation, right? Talking just about nails and wood. Now, question. Does Mary have any special spiritual standing? So we have a little point to make here. First, there's a text box insert there on the left-hand side.

Christ's two genealogies. There's the one in Matthew chapter 1, 1 through 17. And then there's the one in Luke 3, 23 through 38. And some people have looked at that and said, here's two different genealogies and they conflict. It's actually based on a misunderstanding of the way genealogies were written.

In Matthew, written to the Jews, focuses on Christ as within the covenants that God had made with Abraham and David by Joseph's lineage. It goes back to the covenant with Abraham and back to the covenant with David, and it says that there are 14 names. In fact, those names are selected to be 14. Not that there were actually only 14 generations. So 14 generations in each stage, and the pivotal point in those is to point back to the relationship with Abraham, he's Jewish, and back to the relationship with David, he's qualified to be king.

Right? Yeah, Stan? Do you think that has anything to do with multiples of seven? Yeah, I know it's interesting that number 14 doesn't crop up in that many different places. Seven is looked upon as a complete or perfect number, and so this would be double seven, right? Double perfect.

So as the physical mother of Jesus, does Mary have any special standing in proximity to God or to Christ, or is she spiritually unique in any way? Physically, she is descended from David, just like Joseph is, but along a little different line. Luke writes, as was supposed, and he makes a connection to Joseph.

And the reason for doing that is because if you were to follow the Jews' customs explicitly, you don't include female names in the genealogy. So you give a woman's genealogy You give a woman's genealogy by using that as was supposed, with her connection to her husband. Isn't that interesting? It's the language there that's specially selected language to make the connection. That's why the genealogies are different and people reach the wrong conclusion. It's not the same genealogical line because they don't both connect to Joseph.

The one in Luke chapter 3 connects to Mary. So, we look back in here. Scriptures say that Mary was chosen because of her genealogical connection to David, to Judah, all the way back to Adam. Why go all the way back to Adam with Luke's genealogy? He must be a man. Jesus is fully God and fully man. And so Luke is particularly interested in establishing this truly is a man. He is descended from the original one.

She was also chosen because of her willingness and character, and that's Luke 1.28 and 38, as you say. And she was also one that God found favorable. So, willingness and character were part of the qualifications.

We take particular note of the angel Gabriel's greeting to Mary, Luke 1.28, and coming in he said, her greetings favored one, the Lord is with you.

Greetings is actually the usual Greek salutation based on the Greek word for grace, charis. The word favored one comes from one Greek word which is also used of the believers at Ephesus. So favored one doesn't put her in some unique, spectacular spiritual standing. Here's Ephesians 1, 1-6, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and I'm going to move down here for the sake of time at the bottom in verse 6, to the praise of the glory of His grace which He freely bestowed on us.

The King James has hath made us accepted, but that's the same word as the word for favored. So is that the same in Hebrew where it says that Noah found favor with the Lord and several other places in the Old Testament it talks about finding favor with the Lord? I haven't cross-checked that in terms of, I mean that's how it's translated in the English, but whether for example the Greek Old Testament uses the same word for favored, that I haven't checked.

Yeah, there may be a nuance of difference. It's just like the word for blessed is not all the same word. So that I haven't checked out. So we see that all of the church age believers are called saints. All church age believers are called saints and that the word for favor spoken to Mary is the same word used for all the saints in the church. So this is This is key. The words, blessed art thou among women, found in the King James, do not appear to have been written by Dr. Luke. They are added later on, but added to some hand-copied text many centuries later.

The idea that Mary was ever virgin, contrary to Matthew 125 and a few lines of Jewish tradition, was begun after the New Testament era. The Jewish law would have been this, that you do not, and this is explicitly in the Law of Moses, you do not have intercourse with a woman during her period, that's part one, and added to that they said you do not have relations with a woman when she is pregnant, so the whole nine months as well. And so keeping her a virgin, until Jesus was born and then having relations with her would have been according to Jewish custom. The rabbis added that no relations during pregnancy to the Jewish customs.

Yes, Dan? I was going to say, I think it's also interesting that it was Gabriel who actually came to Mary and according to Daniel, Gabriel is the protector angel of the Jews, right? Isn't he the Jewish... Yeah, interesting, you have two angels are named in the Bible, and it's interesting with all the angels that show up, only two are named, and that's Michael and Gabriel. And Michael is the one who shows up more prominently, Gabriel less so.

Now, let's take a look at the top of page 5. There is no biblical or historical reason, top of page 5, to believe that Jesus' brothers and sisters were from Joseph's previous marriage or another wife. What happened is after the New Testament era, a tradition began to develop that is carried on in both the Roman Catholic lines as well as the Orthodox churches. I'm talking about Serbian Orthodox and Antiochian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox. The Orthodox churches that Mary was ever virgin, that she was always a virgin. And so those particular splinters of different groups, church groups, have come up with the idea that either Joseph was married previously and had children from that marriage and brought those into the marriage with Mary or Joseph had another wife as was allowed under Jewish law and therefore James and Jude and the other brothers and sisters were were from the other wife.

But there's no evidence for either one of those. That's based on, well, Mary's ever virgin, which is not in scripture, and therefore we conclude it's this or this. So that's the conclusion there. The evidence is that Christ died for Mary's sins as well as everyone else's sins.

And that as a believer, Mary became a part of the church on the day of Pentecost because Everyone who had believed up to that point and was still alive, or who believed on that day, on the day of Pentecost, was then brought into the church. And she was identified with Christ in his death, and burial, and resurrection, ascension, and seeding, just as all church saints were and are. So this is very interesting. Here's Mary, who gives birth to a son, who dies for her sins, and she is identified with this son in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. It's rather amazing, huh? As such, Mary was blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, Along with all other church saints from Acts 2 to the rapture, to the time when the Lord takes the church home.

Scripture provides every indication that we have direct access to the Father through Christ by means of the Holy Spirit. By the way, that's something we're going to be looking at in the main service as well. Every indication we have direct access to the Father through Christ by means of the Holy Spirit. And we get several different passages there. And I say et al because there are other passages aside from the several that we reference here.

Is Mary the mother of God? One of the things that happened, and again this is common to both the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox traditions, They had at the Council of Ephesus a conclusion that Mary was Theotokos, that is, the God-bearer. Now, is there a problem with that title, the Mother of God? Is there a problem with that title?

Okay, let's think of this. First of all, God, what persons are included when we say the word God? God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Did Mary birth God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit? No. So there's an issue with that. So there's an issue with that, and just using the term God, it would be more correct to say she gave birth to deity. But even with that, we've got to look at it. Did she give birth to deity, or did she give physical birth to one who was already deity? Here is how I put the wording, and I made two long paragraphs to make it clear.

Christ, the eternal Son of God, existed from eternity past. He was of the same essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, each being separate personal beings. One essence, three persons. By agreement among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, God the Son added humanity to his eternal deity by being born of Mary, Jesus' conception having been a work of the Holy Spirit. So God the Son as deity also became fully man as Jesus Christ, Savior and Messiah. We can now refer to him as Jesus Christ, the Son of God, being fully God and fully man. Jesus, as the Savior, died physically for our sins, was buried and rose again. As the Messiah, rejected by Israel at his first coming, he will come again, that's his second coming, to reign as the King of Israel and the King of Kings and Lord of Lords over the Gentile nations. So this avoids the confusing terminology of trying to give some simplified title, calling Mary the mother of God, or the God-bearer.

Now, why does this matter? Why is that important to get this distinct? To get clear understanding? Stan? Could you say that she was the mother of the son of man, not the son of God? That would be one way to put it, that would be clearer. She didn't, she did not, she gave birth physically, right? She gave birth physically out of a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. She gave birth physically. But to say that she gave birth to God is not very clear.

It could be said maybe that she's the mother of the Lamb of God. The mother of the Lamb of God, that would be an appropriate way to put it as well. That would be clearer, right? Because we have this important distinction. Jesus was fully God and fully man.

In order to have the capacity to take the sins of the whole world upon himself and pay for all those sins of the whole world for all time within a few hours, that's not something human beings can do. If I said, you know, I think I'll pay for the sins of the whole world, is that going to work? It's not going to work. I do not have the capacity to take the sins of the whole world upon myself and get it done in a few hours. When Jesus was done, he said, it is finished. So I can't volunteer for that. It might be admirable, but it just isn't going to work. Here's the other thing.

Could we take a fish and put a fish on the cross and have the fish pay for the sins? No. The payment must be of a being of like kind that is a man. A man would take the sins upon himself. And the other thing is, if you are identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seeding, you want to be identified with a fish in those same events. Not so much, right?

Yes, the Jewish law sacrificed animals. And why did the Jewish law sacrifice animals? It needed to be a blood sacrifice, right? Why didn't they just say, well, you've got to kill somebody? Why didn't they just have, instead of animal sacrifices, human sacrifices? That would be against the law. That would be one reason. Right? Right. Unblemished animal. Why couldn't you just say, well, we're just going to take unblemished human beings and slaughter them in the temple? I can't find them. Yes? Well, human life is sacred.

I mean, all the way back to the book of Genesis, it talks about, you know, that Cain and Abel, the blood of the one who was in the ground, said that there would have to be payment for that. Yes. From the book of Genesis on into the New Testament, it says that man is created in the image of God. And therefore, you must respect that image. That's stated from the book of Genesis on into the New Testament. But here's what's interesting. There is a spiritual process going on now among us as believers. And are we being made into the image of God? Christ, specifically.

We're being conformed to the image of Christ, or 2 Corinthians 3.18, we're being transformed. So two parallel processes, being conformed as believers to the image of Christ, and we're being transformed. Both of those are in agreement, even though they're two parallel processes. This is a very interesting subject.

If I were sitting here as a Roman Catholic, I'm not. I would really have some problems within my spirit, within my soul, thinking about this. I'm not trying to attack anybody, I'm just saying, here's clearly what Scripture says. Mary being the mother of God, I've had so many discussions with common Catholics about that. It just goes so far and then that's it. Well, and that's where, you know, if I were to carry on a discussion with them, and in fact, I don't aim there. If I have a discussion of that kind, I talk about Christ, I talk about salvation, and the Gospel.

Those are the things I talk about, not Mary. Well, I was born and raised with the Catholic Church. And what I was always taught, and of course, this is in the Midwest. But it was Jesus is the son of God who became man to die for our sins. And that was the basic concept, which, as I understand it, is relatively correct. But the issue with brothers, that was always addressed as he called It was a term that was used. His friends and disciples were called brothers. They didn't ever say, I was never taught that he had siblings. That was very definitely not taught.

Because it was a virgin birth and she would be following. The only thing is, you find multiple places, and we made reference to some of them, where you have Mary and then These, you know, brothers and sisters are mentioned, and they're going around with Mary. But they all put Mary on a very high pedestal. Yes. And that is based on the subsequent traditions begun in the centuries after the New Testament era, but it's not in the New Testament.

So there lays the problem that the brothers probably had with Jesus is the fact that the story that went around was the fact that she was impregnated with the Holy Spirit and all this other sort of thing. If they weren't believers, I mean, they would have seen Jesus as having had another father other than the Holy Spirit. So that would have been really hard to take as far as the brothers and sisters.

You never say those things to him, right? Well, I don't have to, right? You can imagine, different treatment, everybody else is treating you oddly. Because of this guy, I get called all kinds of names around town, right? And my parents treat him like he's this phenomenal guy, and none of them go for it. None of them like it. They don't like the home situation. They don't like what it does to their relationship with friends and neighbors.

Yeah. before about John having a connection with the elite people of that time. And I just wonder if something hadn't happened with John that maybe he no longer was a part of that, or he was removed from that. But what I'm saying is he had a special identity with Jesus. There was a special connection. And I wonder if it wasn't. in that venue, so to speak, where Jesus went through all this in his personal life. And I wonder if John didn't kind of have some similar things, not the pregnancy thing, but with his life, where maybe he was part of it, and then he was no longer part of it. So the disciples kind of looked at him as being a little bit different than all the rest of the disciples. And so he was kind of really not part of the group, but he was part of the group.

And so he had this really special identity with Jesus because they were both kind of, if you know what I'm saying, there's a special identity. Yeah, it's interesting to look at the disciples and kind of try to figure out what kind of group dynamics is going on here.

You have Peter always jumping out to do things. Here's John who has a brother James, an older brother James who's among them. One of them that I laugh at, you remember Jesus sent the disciples out two by two? How would you feel afterwards if you'd been the one paired up with Judas? And here's another one, okay? You had Simon the Zealot was one of the disciples. You know what the Zealots did? They were kind of secret terrorists against the Romans, right? And then you've got Matthew who's a tax collector for the Romans, right?

Wouldn't it be amazing if the Lord paired those two up to go out two by two? That would be just kind of funny. So there's a lot of group dynamics that you would wonder about with that as well. But you can imagine the difficulty that Jesus' brothers and sisters had both with the parents and with all the friends and neighbors. It was like, man, I'm in the house, this isn't good. I go out of the house, it's not good. Nothing about this is good, and it's all Him. He's the problem, right? He's goody two-shoes.

Going back to Mary for a minute, there is a verse somewhere that says that she's highly favored and she's going to be revered, that everyone will call her blessed in the future. So what do we do with that in regard to how we speak of her if we don't elevate her in some way?

What I'm telling you is that those words are not a part of the original text. Really? Yeah. Those words are not a part of the original text. We can call Joseph blessed for his life and his example and to live a godly life. So that's very down to pay. Well, and I think if you look at the favored one, that you're blessed, those words are also used to all the church saints. That's one of the things we pointed out. Well, we've run out of time, so let's close in prayer. We'll be moving on to other topics relating to the Gospel of John through the rest of the year here, and so we'll move on to others this next week. Lord, we thank you for your word and what it makes clear. We thank you for what we see here.

Certainly Mary had a great honor in bearing Christ our Savior. She was of a particular character that she was selected and she was also of a willingness that she was selected. Even thinking of that, being willing in the midst of a culture which would certainly reject her lifelong for having become pregnant during this patrol period. And Lord, we just thank you that we too are blessed, we too are favored, And we thank you for those blessings and for the favor that you've shown us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.