Full Transcript

Hi, and welcome to Share the Word, the best way to learn your way through the New Testament one chapter at a time. So let’s listen in to today’s lesson and go a little deeper. Luke chapter 1. Nothing is impossible with God. Welcome back to Share the Word, the best way to learn your way through the New Testament one chapter at a time. We’re going to turn our attention for this next podcast segment to Luke’s New Testament contributions, the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.

You might want to start reading those or listening to them if you prefer. You can find them on a Bible app like Bible Gateway, for example. These two detailed writings form a part one and part two of the story of the birth and early development of Christianity. Luke is the only one of the gospel writers to carry the story forward beyond Jesus’ earthly ministry years to show us what happened over the next three or four decades as Christianity quickly grew and spread. Much of what happened during those years Luke personally witnessed. So at the outset, let me tell you a few interesting facts about this fellow and then one likely theory about his two New Testament writings.

Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, is believed to have been a Gentile, that is, a non-Jew. And if that’s true, he would be the only Gentile to contribute as an author to the New Testament canon of Scripture. Luke was likely, therefore, not among the first disciples of Jesus during his ministry years. So how did he get in here? Why is what he had to say important? Well, what we do know about Luke is that he was a medical doctor, that the Apostle Paul somehow connected with him, probably during Paul’s time spent in Antioch, Syria, around 46 or 47 A.D.

Antioch was, by the way, where the first really thriving Christian church in a major Gentile city was born. I think Paul and Luke were destined to be together. They were both very intelligent, well-educated men. Paul would definitely value a physician on his team as time went on, as we’ll see. So Luke, becoming a close associate of the apostle Paul, was kind of a divine appointment. He apparently had a serious interest in history too, and was into research.

So, even though he was likely not with Jesus during his public ministry years in Israel thirty or so years earlier, he tells us at the outset of his gospel that what he’s about to share is a result of careful personal investigation. Here’s how he put it in his opening lines. Many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us. So it has also seemed good to me, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first, to write to you in an orderly, sequential way, most honorable Theophilus, so that you may know with certainty the things about which you have been instructed. Some of those he interviewed during his careful investigation, as he calls it, he referred to as servants of the word.

I believe that’s Luke’s way of referring to others who had already put down in writing accounts of Jesus’ life and teaching. It’s very likely Luke had, by the time he wrote, access to Mark’s gospel, and since servants of the words, plural, maybe Matthew’s gospel as well. Those two writings in our Bibles contain teachings and narratives from the life of Jesus, as well as stories of events from the outset of the Christian era. Some scholars place Luke’s writing, therefore, late in the first century, which is possible. But I think it’s much more likely that he wrote his Gospel and the Book of Acts during the Apostle Paul’s imprisonment in Rome, which means in the first half of the decade of the 60s A.D. I say that because where he leaves the story at the end of Acts, Paul is still very much alive, although confined to house arrest in Rome.

We know that Paul was martyred around 64 A.D., but Luke does not write about that, which would seem odd if Luke’s Gospel and Acts were written after that fact. Luke would almost certainly have told us that that’s what happened to Paul, since, as we’ll see, he and Paul were very close associates. Since he does not, and ends his account with Paul still under arrest in Rome, busily sharing the Gospel and overseeing early Christian churches through surrogates and letters sent back and forth, that convinces me the date of writing for both Luke and Acts is prior to Paul’s martyrdom in 64 A.D. Now, here’s the interesting theory part, a little, I guess you would say, informed speculation on my part, but hear me out. Both Luke’s Gospel and his part two, the Book of Acts, are addressed to someone you heard called Theophilus.

Or maybe it’d be better to say they are dedicated to someone he calls Theophilus. Who in the world is that? Good question. It’s a Greek name meaning lover of God. So I wonder sometimes if this was a real person’s name, or was it perhaps a pseudonym for someone whom Luke did not want to name. Perhaps this person for whom Luke originally intended these writings may have been someone well known in Roman society.

The salutation here, most excellent Theophilus, sounds like a dignitary, doesn’t it? Maybe someone even in Caesar’s own household, whom Luke did not want to identify by name. So he addressed him with this kind of cryptic lover of God, maybe a code name. I say Luke would maybe not want to identify this person because the sentiment against Christianity at that point was starting to get strong in the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, we know that during that lengthy Roman imprisonment of Paul’s, and Luke was there with him, the gospel was making inroads among the powerful elite in Rome, even into Caesar’s own household. Paul says as much in a letter he writes called Philippians later in the New Testament.

So I can’t prove this, but my hunch is that whoever Luke refers to here as Theophilus was some high-ranking Roman dignitary who was very curious about Christianity. So while Luke was in Rome and with time on his hands because Paul was in prison awaiting trial, he sat down and wrote out this orderly account, as he calls it, of how Christianity began. Maybe he intended it only for this guy, or for others like this guy in Rome who’d heard Paul preach about Jesus and had become curious to know more. But God the Holy Spirit was using Dr. Luke to pen the third gospel and the definitive account of how infant Christianity spread from Jerusalem in only a few decades throughout the Roman Empire to the point it was now making serious inroads even into the imperial family. With all that in mind, let’s return now to what Luke tells us he learned about the beginnings of Christianity.

Notice he doesn’t begin with the announcement of Jesus’ birth, but with the announcement of John the Baptist. We’ve already met John the Baptist in our journey through the Gospel of John, remember? We call him the Baptist because baptizing people who wanted to get right with God became the distinguishing characteristic of his ministry, and also, I think, to distinguish him from other people in the New Testament named John. Luke was told, I’m sure by those he interviewed, about the important role this man played as a prophet in Israel preparing the way for Jesus’ public ministry. He writes here in chapter one about how an elderly couple named Elizabeth and Zechariah were told by an angel, Gabriel, that they would have a son even in their advanced age, and that God had a special ministry planned for him.

He would be a prophet, a spokesman for God, who would call the nation to repentance, which means challenge people to own up to and be sorry for their sins, in order to get ready for the Messiah and Savior that God was sending. Six months later, up north in Nazareth, Gabriel was sent again by God with another message to another person, this time a young woman by name of Mary. Mary is told that she is highly favored by God and that she is going to conceive a son and that she should call his name Jesus. The name means, The Lord is salvation. Further, the messenger told this astonished young woman that her child would be the Son of the Most High God and will one day inherit the throne of her forefather, King David, and establish a kingdom that would have no end. Wow.

Out of nowhere, an angel of God appears to her and tells her this? That’s a lot to take in. I’m not sure how much of this was initially computing in Mary’s head, but one part that did compute is the part about her being pregnant and having a child. I know that because Luke reveals in her first response to Gabriel, Wait, how could that be? Since I’m a virgin, I’ve never even had sexual relations. You might wonder, how would Luke know that?

Well, he tells us, remember, his version of the life of Jesus was based on extensive investigation, interviews with the principals. So I think he must have gotten this firsthand from Mary herself. And the messenger from God had told her more. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the holy child will be called the Son of God. Listen to that part again.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and so the holy child you’re going to give birth to will be called the Son of God. Then Gabriel added, And consider your relative Elizabeth. Even she has conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her, and she had been called childless. But nothing will be impossible for God. Here’s how it’s going to happen, Mary, and this is why your son will be called the Son of God, the heavenly messenger explained to her, because he will be the Son of God. Literally, he will be conceived in your body supernaturally, without a man involved, by a miracle caused by the Holy Spirit.

So at the very outset of Luke’s Gospel, we are confronted with not one, but two miraculous conceptions. John the Baptist’s parents were just so old that his conception would not naturally ever have occurred, but God caused it to happen anyway. Then, in young Mary’s case, she was still a virgin, and, well, no way could that naturally happen. But it did, which brings us immediately to the big question of miracles. What is being claimed here in unmistakable terms is that the conception of Jesus was a miracle, something that simply could not naturally occur. That’s what a miracle is: something supernatural, something superseding the laws of nature, something impossible without the direct intervention of God.

I understand today many dismiss the Bible and all it has to say out of hand because they simply dismiss miracles as impossibilities. They think because the Bible records many claims of miraculous things happening, and since I myself have never seen a miraculous thing happen, therefore those claims must be made up. And if those claims are not true, then the Bible is not to be believed or trusted in anything else it claims either. Hey, that reasoning is built on a couple fallacies. For one thing, even in the Bible, which covers thousands of years of human history, miracles are quite rare. That’s what made them so noteworthy, so significant.

They were used by God in clusters during a few specific generations. The Bible never suggests they’ve been common or usual. If they were, they would not be significant. So when the Bible says a miracle occurred, it was because God was drawing attention to something important. His divine power was breaking through, superseding the laws of normal nature. Causing people to realize, wait a minute, this is a God thing happening right here.

The other point I’d like to make about miracles is that, from the Christian worldview, miracles are demonstrations of divine power from a being that created the universe and everything in it by the mere word of His mouth. In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God said, Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds. Then God said, Let us make mankind in our own image. Just a few lines from the beginning of Genesis, the first book in the Bible.

Christians believe the only reason anything exists is because God is powerful enough to do the miraculous. So the occurrence of miracles during special points in history, when God chose to override the natural laws of nature for specific purposes, is not a stretch for us. It’s accepting that this is His world, that He can intervene to accomplish His purposes in it when and how He chooses. Christians believe that He certainly possesses both the power and the right to do that. This is exactly what is shown to, first, John the Baptist’s father, who found it impossible to believe that he and his elderly wife were going to have a child, and then again to Mary when she was told, You’re going to get pregnant even though you are a virgin. Both essentially said, We don’t see how that could happen, because they, like most, not all of us, had never seen a miracle either.

That’s why the heavenly messenger reminded them, Nothing is impossible with God. The supernatural conception and virgin birth of Jesus inaugurated another period, we are told about in the Bible, when God did break through the normal laws He instituted to govern this planet, and began demonstrating His power through miracle after miracle. It’s as if He was shining a very bright light on this special time and place, on this foundational era of Christianity, and declaring, I’m doing something extraordinary here. Pay attention, people. We often stress on Share the Word that we are focused on the big ideas in each chapter of the New Testament. The big idea I want to focus on here in Luke chapter 1 is the miracle of the virgin birth.

Why it’s so significant, in fact, essential. You might be thinking, the idea of Jesus being conceived and born while His mother Mary was still a virgin, that’s pretty far-fetched. Or you might be thinking, why in the world does that even matter? What’s the difference whether it’s a cool legend or, in fact, literal truth? Well, it makes all the difference in the world, actually. Let me explain.

For one thing, if this claim in the Bible about the virgin birth is not true, we are left with a Jesus who was, at his best, a good teacher, a great role model. That’s the best he could be. But that’s not who he claimed to be, as we saw over and over again in the Gospel of John, remember? He claimed to be the Son of God who came down into our world from heaven on a mission. The miracle of the virgin birth means that Jesus, in fact, did not have a biological human father. He literally was the Son of God.

He was absolutely unique. The New Testament throughout insists on this. The apostle Paul wrote in a letter to early Christians, In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman. Not made of a man and woman, like the rest of us, but the Son of God conceived and carried to term in the body of a woman. And another reason that Luke tells us here about Jesus’ miraculous conception and birth and why it’s so important is because it fulfilled a very specific prophecy about the coming of the Messiah the Jewish prophet Isaiah had written about 700 years earlier. This would be a confirming sign of his identity, Isaiah wrote about the Messiah.

This is in chapter 7, his prophetic book. The Lord Himself will give you a sign. A virgin will conceive and bear a son, and he will be called Emmanuel. The term Emmanuel means God with us. That’s exactly who the early Christians like John and Peter, Mary Magdalene, Luke, Paul, and others came to believe Jesus was: God with us. A final reason, I’ll try and explain that the virgin birth claim is so important, so essential to the Christian faith, is bound up in the mystery of Jesus’ two natures.

The Bible writers came to believe that the man Jesus, born of a real woman, Mary, because he was the Son of God as well, had to have had dual natures. By that I mean he was really human, but he was also really God at the very same time. I like the way the Apostle Paul expresses this in 1 Timothy chapter 3, where he writes, Without question, the mystery of godliness is great: God was manifested in the flesh. And remember, the Apostle John also wrote the same mind-bending thing in his prologue: The Logos, the Creator of all that is, who was with God and was God, became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus was truly God and actual man at the very same time. He had a divine nature and a human nature.

Why is this very hard to wrap our minds around concept insisted upon by these writers in the Bible? Because they came to understand that Jesus had to be a real man, a real man who sinlessly, perfectly, righteously lived before God. He had to be that so he could one day be our perfect representative, that he laid down his life as an atonement for sin as our representative. But he also had to be divine, the unique Son of God, in order for that sacrifice on the cross he made to be valuable enough and powerful enough that it was sufficient, an atonement to cover all of us who would believe into him as our Savior. Talk about big ideas. You may need to hit the rewind button and hear that a few more times.

You might need to hit pause and try to wrap your mind around it, because this unique identity of Jesus, the result of his miraculous virgin birth, is at the very heart of the Christian faith. It was his unique virgin birth that enabled him to be both God and man at once. And only because he was both God and man at once was he qualified to become our Savior. The Christmas story, as we call it now, is not just a traditional holiday legend that we like to feel warmed by every December. It’s the actual account of how the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, humbled himself for a time to miraculously enter our world as a flesh-and-blood human being. How he became one of us, putting himself in the care of a humble young woman from Nazareth and her soon-to-be husband.

How this one they named Jesus, remember, the Lord is salvation, this literal virgin-born, sinless Son of God, when he came of age, changed the whole world through the truths he revealed and made a way for us back to God through his sacrificial atonement for our sins on the cross. Returning to chapter one for just one more moment, Luke tells us, beginning at verse 39, and I’m sure this is what Mary recalled for him, that after she was told about God’s miraculous plan for her to give birth to the Savior, and what God told her he had already done for her relatives Elizabeth and Zechariah in giving them a child in their old age, Mary decided immediately to go visit them in Judea. I think she was looking for confirmation, and she was looking for someone who could possibly understand and empathize with her impossible-to-explain situation.

The moment Mary walked into their house, Elizabeth grabbed her six-month-old baby bump and said, Mary, my child just leapt for joy in my womb. Then overcome with joy and the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth pronounced blessings on Mary and the holy child she was already carrying, God’s own Son in the process of coming into our world. Next time we will see Luke’s beautiful description of how the birth of Jesus actually came about. Until then, don’t forget that the awesome God who created everything there is could, and in fact did, bring about what the Bible writers all insist happened. He brought His own Son into our world through the miracle of a virgin birth. For nothing is impossible with God.

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