What strikes you as more surprising: that God created the world or that God saved the world? Which seems less probable to you: that God formed all things out of nothing or that God is willing to forgive you? We live in a world that cannot accept the former. Our secular society says that Genesis 1-2 just isn’t possible. We had a profitable time thinking about this together last Sunday, with Professor Steve Taylor helping us see that far from contradicting Christianity, science actually supports it. If you missed that, I’d encourage you to go back and watch it online. However, this evening, I want you to see that the Bible’s spiritual assertions are far more surprising than even its most startling historical claims. That while the truths of creation are astonishing, the truths of the Gospel are even more astounding. Friend, if you stumble over what seems to be the physical impossibility of creation, how will you ever begin to grapple with the far greater spiritual realities? If a Creator God flummoxes you, how can you hope to comprehend a Saviour God? In our passage tonight, we have what our world views as a physical impossibility. It is known as the virgin birth, and those two words well describe the apparent impossibility of it all. We are told that Mary, the mother of Jesus, conceived without a physical father. That she was a virgin, yet she gave birth to a child. The world says it is impossible, and yet we shall see God’s Word says it is true. However, even this remarkable event isn’t the most surprising part of our passage. For there is a spiritual reality revealed in it, that should not simply surprise us, but should absolutely stagger us. Let’s look at these two things together this evening: (1) A Surprising Narrative (1:18-20; 24-25); (2) A Staggering Name (1:21-23).
1. A SURPRISING NARRATIVE (1:18-20; 24-25) – The story of a virgin with child
It was never supposed to be like this. No one could have imagined it working out this way. Two ordinary people suddenly having their lives turned upside down, their worlds fall apart. Through no fault of their own, their lives head in an entirely unexpected direction. The first few words of our narrative are rather ordinary, 1:18 tells us that ‘Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph’. In the culture of 1st century Palestine, this pledge, a kind of betrothal, was much more than what we call engagement today. This was a legally binding agreement, and as we shall see, one that could only be broken by divorce. Although they had yet to come together to consummate their marriage, there were as good as married in the eyes of the law. All that was left was the formality of the wedding. Such betrothals were usually arranged by the two sets of parents. They often made an agreement when the bride was around the age of 12 and the groom the age of 18, with the wedding usually occurring about a year later. If this was the case with Mary and Joseph, then here we have a very young couple, getting ready to begin their journey in life together. They are about to leave their families and set up home together, they are standing on the doorstep and about to step out into the rest of their lives. Then disaster strikes, the rug is swept from beneath their feet. For ‘before they came together [i.e. got married], [Mary] was found to be pregnant’.
Matthew doesn’t reveal the conversation Mary had with Joseph. However, from Luke 1, we know an angel had told her what would happen, explained that while she was a virgin, she would conceive a child. Perhaps she told Joseph of this encounter – we don’t know. However, Joseph knew how childbirth usually worked. That virgins by definition do not give birth. And so concluded he had no choice but to break off their betrothal. It should be noted that rather than criticise Joseph for this, Matthew commends him. In 1:19 he highlights Joseph’s decision ‘was faithful to the law’. Though Mary had apparently been unfaithful, Joseph was determined to be faithful. He would uphold God’s righteous requirements. He would act according to God’s Word. And yet, while he is resolute in doing what is right, we see he resolves to do it in as kind and as compassionate a way as possible. 1:19 reads, ‘Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.’ Instead of pursuing a public divorce, with Mary being exposed and disgraced before all in her community, Joseph chose a private divorce, meaning only two witnesses needed to know about it. While Joseph was resolved to do what was right, he would not cause Mary more pain than was necessary. That was the kind of man Joseph was. What a wonderful example this sets for different difficult decisions and conversations we have: challenging a church member about their sin, explaining God’s stance on sexuality to a work colleague, or confronting our wayward children. We cannot compromise, but we can be compassionate. We must do what is right, and yet we need not do it in a reckless way. Like Joseph, let us be just, yet gracious. Firm, yet fair. Unyielding, yet understanding. Surely here we get a glimpse of the one Joseph would raise, of Jesus, who in John 8 graciously rescues the adulterous woman, and yet tells her to go and sin no more. Let us be like Joseph, like Jesus. As Spurgeon comments, ‘when we have to do a severe thing, let us choose the tenderest manner.’
Joseph’s solution was a good one. And yet we can be thankful that God had a better one. In 1:20, God reveals it in a dream to Joseph: he calls him to still take Mary as his wife, and confirms that the child she has conceived is from the Holy Spirit. Matthew 1 leaves us in no doubt that the virgin birth, as unlikely as it seems to our Western mindset today, and as improbable as it originally appeared to Joseph then, it is in fact the truth. As God’s people have affirmed through the Apostle’s creed for almost 2000 years, we ‘believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary...’. Some scientists and our society around us might say otherwise, but God’s Word contains it. And God’s people have believed it for 2000 years. As Paul puts it in Romans 3:4, ‘Let God be true though every one were a liar.’ If you find yourself wondering how it is possible, go away and read Luke 1, see there that Mary asks the same question and receive this simple answer: ‘For nothing will be impossible with God.’ (Luke 1:37) Friends, God made the heavens and the earth. He formed the first man out of dust. He crafted the first woman out of a rib. What makes us think he could not cause Mary to conceive like this? If God is God, all things are possible.
Throughout Matthew 1-2, God repeatedly speaks to Joseph through dreams. Like his namesake in Genesis, this Joseph is also a dreamer. And yet, do you see the angel highlights a different Old Testament connection to him. In 1:20, he addresses him as ‘Joseph son of David’. It is unclear whether this hint helped Joseph put all the pieces of the puzzle together. However, I think Matthew mentions it here to help us, his readers, do so. For as surprising as this narrative was for Mary and Joseph, us readers of Matthew should have seen something like this coming. If you remember a few weeks ago, in 1:1-17, we seen how Matthew established Jesus to be the Son of David. When the angel addresses Joseph as David’s descendant, it should set alarms bells ringing, cause us to remember where Joseph is listed in David’s family tree and reflect on the unique language used about him. You see Joseph is not joined to Jesus like every other generation in that genealogy. See Matthew did not write in 1:16 ‘Joseph the father of Jesus’, as with everyone else, but ‘Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus’. Our passage this evening is almost written to explain this odd language. This is why Matthew tells us in 1:18 ‘how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about’. He is answering the question the final line of the genealogy left us asking.
Here too we are given an answer to a theological question, one you were perhaps asking during our last sermon. There we heard that all who descend from Adam have the fallen nature of Adam. That the doctrine of original sin means we are all born sinners, naturally opposed to God, inclined against his commands. How then is it possible for Jesus to please God? How does Jesus avoid original sin? See here the virgin birth resolves the problem of original sin. As his adopted son, Jesus receives Joseph’s legal lineage, meaning he can sit on David’s throne. However, Jesus does not inherit Joseph’s fallen nature, come under Adam’s curse. His nature is human, but not fallen. It is not skewed towards sin. As one writer puts it, ‘He bears our nature, but not our corruption; he is made in the likeness of sinful flesh, but yet in his flesh is no sin.’ (Spurgeon) In Jesus, humanity has a fresh start, a new beginning, a second chance. Just as the Spirit was over the water to bring about the world’s creation in Genesis 1, here in Matthew 1 the Spirit works in the womb of Mary womb to bring about its salvation. Because Jesus is the legal, rather than the physical son of Joseph, he is able to live a perfect life in our place, he is able to save us.
This important theological discussion also leads to a particularly comforting realisation. Notice that God does not allow us to pass through pain without a purpose. These verses record a great moment of confusion and distress for Joseph. A period of suffering and scandal for Mary. I’m sure it felt like their lives were falling apart. And yet, do you see that God does nothing by accident? He has reasons for everything that happens, even the most difficult seasons we go through. In order to overcome original sin, there had to be a virgin birth. And so Mary and Joseph’s lives had to take that unexpected path. It was a surprise to them, but not to God: it was all part of his good plan. Their pain had a purpose. When your world begins to crumble, where do you look to? When your dreams don’t come true, what do you do? When your life doesn’t pan out, the way you planned it out, how do you respond? Brothers and sisters, see here you can trust that God has a good purpose behind all your pain. God’s great plan will make sense of all the ups and downs we face. When everything goes wrong, you can trust that he is working it all for good. As strange or as surprising as it may seem, it is all part of his great plan. See this is what Joseph does at the end of our passage. After hearing the purpose behind his pain, Joseph takes God at his word. Unlike secular society around us, Joseph knows that if God is God, then a virgin birth is not an impossibility. And so, we read in 1:24-25. That act of naming the baby is an act of adoption. By naming him, Joseph adopts him. So we see he was Mary’s physical son and Joseph’s legal son. However, we also see he was God’s divine son.
2. A STAGGERING NAME (1:21-23) – The story of God with man
I’m sure you have all heard surprising baby names before. Recently there has been a fad of celebrities using rather strange ones: Cosmo, X-Ash, Gravity, Raddix, Blue Ivy. You can’t help thinking that such names sound more like a range of men’s deodorants than the names of babies! Thankfully, the name in our passage is not nearly as strange. In fact, on the surface, there really isn’t anything surprising about the name Jesus, it is simply the Greek version of the Hebrew name Joshua. It is only when we consider its meaning that we begin to marvel. For the angel says in 1:21, ‘you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’ Jesus and Joshua literally mean ‘Yahweh saves’, a name well illustrated by the Old Testament character Joshua, who led the people into the promised land through God’s saving power. Here too, the angel says this Joshua, this Jesus, will also be a Saviour. However, we see he is to save God’s people not from their physical enemies, but from sins.
Sometimes it is helpful to remind ourselves what Jesus does not save us from. See here he is not sent to save us from our suffering and sorrow. Indeed, see seen that the coming of Christ actually caused Mary much suffering. She would have faced scorn and shame for years as those around her refused to accept her virgin birth. I’m sure the first century equivalent of the school gates was a hard placed for Mary to be, with others whispering about the circumstances of her son’s birth. It seems Mary was also not saved from the sorrow of losing her husband early in life. After chapters 1-2, we never hear of Joseph again and it seems he died in Jesus’ childhood. Perhaps most heartbreakingly, the salvation Jesus came to achieve would soon see Mary standing at the foot of a cross, watching her son die in drawn out agony and public disgrace. If Mary is anything to go by, associating with this Saviour is more likely to bring you into suffering than save you from it. Brothers and sisters, if giving birth to Jesus did not save Mary from suffering, let us not think that believing in Jesus will keep us from it either!
Jesus came to save us from our sins, and yet, do you see how this is the greatest salvation God could offer? Rather than address the symptoms, this Saviour tackles the disease. Rather than cutting the thorns and thistles of this world off at the surface, this Saviour pulls them up by their roots. He does not offer a temporary plaster for our problems, he come to carry out a surgical intervention. This Saviour goes to the source of all suffering and sorrow, he descends to deliver us not just from our difficulties, but from our depravity. The angel says in 1:21, ‘give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’ What a wonderful succinct summary of the gospel that is. Just the name ‘Jesus’ captures the core of the Christian message. The next time you are asked what Christians believe, you can simply respond they believe in Jesus, that is in one who saves people from their sins. There is clear underlying assumption there that we need this salvation, isn’t there? That we need a saviour because we are all sinners. The Bible makes this very clear, teaches that all of us face God’s just judgement for rejecting and rebelling against him. That is why Jesus came, he came to save us, to die on the cross and rise from the dead, to take the punishment for sin and defeat death, for all those who would repent and trust in him. He came to save his people from their sins. If you are not a Christian tonight, that is you have yet to repent and trust in this Jesus, what are you going to do about your sins? How do you hope to achieve salvation, secure safety from God’s just judgement? Friend, Jesus came to save, because we need to be saved. And he alone can save us. As Acts 4:12 says, ‘Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.’ Friend, there is one Saviour. His name is Jesus. Is he your Saviour tonight? If not, why not?
However, do you see Jesus’ name reveals not just his work, what he will do, but his person, who he is. Matthew makes sure that we don’t miss this. Reflecting on the announcement of the angel in 1:21, he explains to us in 1:22, ‘All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" (which means "God with us").’ The quotation comes from Isaiah 7:14, which we read together earlier. There we heard of a huge army attacking God’s people. King Ahaz is terrified, and yet when the prophet Isaiah comes to offer him a sign of God’s salvation, he says that he doesn’t want one. It seems he will not trust in God for deliverance. And so Isaiah responds by promising that God will send someone to save his people, but because of Ahaz’s unbelief, he will not come until after Ahaz’s reign, he will be too late to rescue him. Isaiah tells us the sign by which we can know this saviour is that he will be born of a virgin, predicting the exact circumstances of our passage about 700 years before they happened. But he also says he will be called Immanuel. At first glance this can be a little confusing, I thought he was called Jesus, not Immanuel? However, Matthew highlights the meaning of Immanuel to us at the end of 1:22, just as the angel did for Jesus, in order to show these two names are actually synonyms. While they do not share the same spelling, they share the same meaning. Matthew is telling us that if we looked Jesus up in the thesaurus, we would find the name Immanuel. We said that Jesus (the Greek version of Joshua) literally means ‘Yahweh saves’, however here we see that this salvation is not like it was with Joshua in the Old Testament, where God saved his people through Joshua. Here we see that God will save his people as Jesus. For when Jesus is with us, it is Immanuel, God with us. As we read in Philippians 2, Jesus is God come down. As we sang early, ‘Humbled for a season, to receive a name, from the lips of sinners, unto whom he came...’. Jesus is God. As is clear over the coming chapters, this is not just Mary’s physical son, or Joseph’s legal son, this is God’s divine Son, the second person of the Trinity, God in human flesh.
Brothers and sisters, a virgin with child is certainly surprising. But God with man, God as man, that is surely staggering. Here we see just how far the spiritual assertions of God’s Word surpass even its greatest historical claims. We should wonder at creation, absolutely. We should worship the God who made the heavens and the earth, for in them we see his greatness. But when we realise that that same Creator entered into his creation in order to save it, it should take our breath away. We should fall at his feet in worship, for by this we surely see his grace. We should be astounded that a man can walk on water, as Jesus later did. However, even more astonishing than man walking on water, is God walking as man. God hungering and thirsting, God being subject to tiredness and temptation, God undergoing pain and suffering, and God ultimately dying to save you from your sins.
When you hear the name Jesus, what do you think of? If you were to introduce yourself to me at the end of the service and say you were called Sarah, I would probably smile and tell you that’s my wife’s name! I would smile because I would think of her, someone who is dear and precious to me. It is natural for us to do this for those we love. Indeed, in Song of Solomon 1:3, the bride says of her beloved, ‘your name is life perfume poured out.’ So precious is this one whom she loves, when she hears his name, it is sweet to her. What about the name of Jesus to you? When you hear his name, what does your heart do? Does it feel anything? Where does your mind go? See here that his name ought to make you think of your God humbling himself to save you, coming to carry away your sins. For that is what his name means. That is surely why almost 1000 years ago, Bernard of Clairvaux said that ‘the name of Jesus is honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, and joy in the heart.' Or as Charles Wesley put it, ‘Jesus! the name that charms our fears, That bids our sorrows cease; ’Tis music in the sinner’s ears, ’Tis life, and health, and peace.’
ALEXANDER ARRELL