We turn this morning to the Gospel according to Luke and read chapter 1, or a portion of chapter 1. We'll read verses 26-56 of this chapter, and we read this in connection with Lord's Day 14 of the Heidelberg Catechism in which we consider the portion of the confession He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary. And here we have the historical account of the announcement of the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary. So let's read verses 26-56. of Luke 1. This is God's Word. And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin, espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age. And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste into a city of Judah. and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. And she spake out with a loud voice and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as the voice of the salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed. For there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For he hath regarded the lowest state of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is his name. and His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation. He hath showed strength with His arm. He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of a low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away. He hath opened His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy, as He spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever. and Mary abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house." We'll read the chapter that far. May God bless the reading of His Word to us. It's on the basis of that passage, and in harmony with all of God's Word, that we have the instruction of the Catechism in Lord's Day 14. And let's read that together now. Lord's Day 14 of the Heidelberg Catechism. Questions and answers 35 and 36. What is the meaning of these words? He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, that God's eternal Son, who is and continueth true and eternal God, took upon him the very nature of man, of the flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, that he might also be the true seed of David, like unto his brethren in all things, sin accepted. What profit dost thou receive by Christ's holy conception and nativity, that he is our mediator, and with his innocence and perfect holiness covers in the sight of God my sins wherein I was conceived and brought forth? Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you flip back to Lord's Day 7 of the Heidelberg Catechism, you will see that the Apostle's Creed is listed in twelve distinct articles. Lord's Day 7 sets forth the Apostle's Creed in its twelve articles in connection with faith. This is the object of our faith. This is what we as Christians believe the gospel as it is summarized in the Articles of the Apostles' Creed. In Lord's Day 7, that Apostles' Creed is divided into 12 articles. And now in Lord's Day 14, we have an explanation of the third of those 12 Articles of the Apostles' Creed. The article that states that Jesus Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. What the Apostles' Creed now will delve into are the states of Jesus Christ's humiliation and exaltation. There are five parts to the state of Christ's humiliation. The time in the life of Jesus Christ in which He was guilty with the sin of His people upon Him. On account of that guilt, Jesus went through five steps in His humiliation. It was His lowly birth, His lifelong suffering, His death on the cross, His burial and His descent into hell. Following the state of humiliation was the state of exaltation. Upon perfectly performing the will of God as He came to accomplish, Jesus was exalted. And there are four steps to that exaltation. His resurrection from the dead. His ascension into heaven. His sitting at God's right hand. And one day, His return in judgment to make all things new. The Heidelberg Catechism now in Lords Day 14 begins the treatment of that state of humiliation. We look this morning at His lowly birth. And the birth of Jesus sets our hearts upon what is the theme of the sermon, namely, the Incarnation. So I call your attention this morning to the Incarnation. We look at in the first place, what? In the second place, how? And in the third place, why? The Incarnation. What, how, and why? I want to begin the sermon by explaining briefly three terms. Three terms that we have to understand to rightly grasp the truth of Lord's Day 14. The first term is the term in the theme of the sermon. Incarnation. You'll notice in Lord's Day 14 that the word incarnation is not found. But nevertheless, the substance of Lord's Day 14 is the doctrine of the incarnation. When we read in the answer to question 35, that God's eternal Son, who is and continueth true and eternal God, took upon Him the very nature of man, of the flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary, and what follows, that is a description of the incarnation. The word incarnation very simply means enfleshing. or becoming flesh. It is the truth that God's eternal Son became a man. That's the first term. The second term is person. One's person is the subject of all of the actions, will, thinking, and words of a rational creature. Your person is that part of you that says, I. When you say, I, that I of you and of me is our person. Our person never changes. When we were five years old and said, I, just got done with kindergarten, that I of a 5-year-old is the same as the I of a 45-year-old that says, I, this week, am going to go to work. I. That's our person. The subject of all of the actions, will, thinking, and speaking of a rational human being. The third term is nature. One's nature are the sum total of the qualities that make up what a being is. Those three terms are important. Incarnation, Person, Nature. Those three terms are important to understand Lord's Day 14 and to understand really what is the answer to the question, who is Jesus? It's important to understand these terms on account of history. Very early in the history of the church, the Spirit of Truth led the church to ask and answer that question. Who is Jesus? Who is this One that came forth from Mary? And what the church did in its very early history is say, we need to explain the answer to that question in certain language. And use certain terms. And what we call this is the incarnation. And to properly understand who Jesus is. We say something about His person, and we say something about His natures. And that leads us to see that this is important not only historically, but this is important theologically. It's important theologically to understand rightly the truth of who Jesus is. The doctrine of who Jesus is. But that leads us to see that it's not only important historically and theologically, but it's important personally and practically. Who is the Jesus that you confess? And that I confess? And there is one Jesus who can be and is your Savior and my Savior. It's to Jesus that the beginning of the church was led to confess with these terms, person and nature. And therefore, the theology of the doctrine, who Christ is, is set forth clearly so that personally and practically, when we say, I believe in Jesus, we confess the One who truly is on account of His person and natures. My Savior. and the one therefore in whom I and we and all of God's people have life with God." Now let's apply this to who Jesus is. As to His person, Jesus is the second person of the Holy Trinity. The mysterious truth of the doctrine of the Trinity is that in the one Being of God, there are three Persons. There are three within the Being of God who say, I, distinct from each other, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The wonder of the Incarnation is that the second Person of the Holy Trinity. The one identified in Lords Day 14 as God's eternal Son. That that second Person of the Trinity became a man. When Jesus said, I, that's His Person. When Jesus said, I, that Person is the divine Person. which we identify as the second Person of the Holy Trinity. In that divine Person, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, there are two natures. Natures being the qualities that make up what one is. Obviously, He had a divine nature. The divine Person of the Son of God has and always continues to have a divine nature. All of the characteristics, all of the qualities that make up what it means to be God. Jesus possessed. Heidelberg Catechism makes that clear. That God's eternal Son. And this is the wonder of it. Who is and continues true and eternal God. Who is Jesus? He's God. He continued to be true and eternal God. He had a nature that was a divine nature. The truth of the Incarnation is that Jesus is the Person of the Son of God with that full, true, divine nature, now having taken upon Himself also a human nature. In the incarnation, the second Person of the Trinity did not lose anything. He did not cease in any way to be God. It was not a subtraction for the second Person of the Trinity when He became a man. Now is it true that in His humiliation, Many of those divine characteristics were veiled for a time. Yes. Did they come through in clear, profound ways during His earthly ministry? Of course. No denying that He did things that only God could do. But it was veiled for a time to a certain extent in His state of humiliation. But that doesn't mean it wasn't there. The Incarnation was not a losing, a subtraction for the second person of the Trinity. Instead, it was an addition. He was a divine person with a divine nature, now taking to Himself, uniting to Himself a human nature. That's the wonder of the Incarnation, that the person who is the second Person of the Trinity, divine God, became a man. And so when we come to the doctrine of the Incarnation, the heart of the doctrine is to explain what that means that He became man. And in Lords Day 14, that's really what the emphasis is on. So we need to, in the remainder of the first point of this sermon, explain what it meant that Jesus had a human nature. In the first place, with respect to that, we say that He had a real and complete human nature. Real is opposite of fake. Or we could say that it wasn't the case that Jesus just appeared to have a human nature. That was one of the major heresies in the early church that led the Spirit of Truth to guide the church to rightly explain the doctrine. The error was called docetism from the Greek word dakao, which means to seem. And the error was that Jesus only seemed or appeared to be human. Over against that, the truth of God's Word, explained in the Heidelberg Catechism, is that Jesus had a real human nature. And part of having a real human nature is to have a complete human nature. And that's the language of the Heidelberg Catechism. That He took upon Him. The very nature of man, of the flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary. That's describing a real, complete human nature. Everything that it means to be human. The flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary was true for the eternal Son of God as He came into our flesh. Body, soul, and everything that that means, Jesus possessed. That's the teaching of the Heidelberg Catechism. That's the confession of the Apostles' Creed that we make every Sunday evening, because that's the teaching of the Word of God. Simply reading the Gospels makes that clear. When you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you hear about this man Jesus, and how He walked the face of this earth, and what He did, it's clear that you are reading about a man. A man who is just like you and me. But beyond that, there are specific things that you can point to. Hebrews 2 and 4 make clear that He was like unto His brethren in all things. Galatians 4 verse 4 says that He was made of a woman. Literally, out of a woman. But the incarnation leads us to Matthew 1 and Luke 1. And in Matthew 1 and Luke 1, we have the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary. And that's why the Heidelberg Catechism uses the language it does. Of the very flesh and blood of Mary. And that's the wonder of the Incarnation. That He was conceived in Mary's womb. conceived and developed as a human in the womb of Mary. Just like every other child is conceived in the womb of their mother. He took upon Himself the very flesh and blood of Mary. And what that means also to further describe Jesus' human nature is that He had a weakened human nature. He had the human nature like yours and mine, which is under the effects of the fall into sin and the judgment of God upon this world as a result of Adam and Eve's fall into sin. Our nature, right now, is not like Adam's nature as he was created, and Jesus' nature after He was resurrected. Currently, right now for us, it's a weakened human nature. The effects of the fall are experienced by us every single day. Sorrow. Pain. Hardship. In body, mind, and soul. Subject to dying. In the bulletin this morning, a grandmother died. Because the human nature that she possessed was a human nature that was subject to the effects of the fall as we live in this world. Jesus knows what it's like to live with a weakened human nature. He understood. on account of how He came into this world, sorrow, hardship, pain, and suffering, and yes, to that same death, on account of the nature that He had, He was subject. And that leads us to the fourth point that needs to be clear in our minds. Though that was the case, he had a sinless human nature. Heidelberg Catechism makes that clear. Hebrews 2 and 4 makes that clear. He was like unto his brethren in all things, sin excepted. And he was without sin, Because who He was and is, He's the second Person of the Trinity come into the flesh. He's God. And if He's God, He's sinless. That's the incarnation. That's what the incarnation is. The Person of God's eternal Son becoming a man and uniting to Himself a human nature, so that in the one Person of God's Son, He possesses both a human and divine nature. The second point of the sermon is how. How did that incarnation take place? And the overarching answer to the question of how is this, by God's divine work. When we answer the question of how this could take place, our focus is directed upon God. And what I want to say in the second point of the sermon in two sections is on the one hand, it was the work of the triune God. And then on the other hand, what we'll come to more specifically, is that it was the work of the Holy Spirit to conceive the second person of the Trinity in the womb of the Virgin Mary. But let's start over here. How? With respect to the incarnation. And to that we say it was a triune work of God. And that's true in two respects. Number one is the fact that this was according to God's decree. Everything is rooted in the decree of God. And the decree of God is a Trinitarian work. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in eternity. Determined. The whole course of time and history. And the whole purpose of time and history. And this central event in the decree of God. That God's eternal Son would become a man. So that we can say, because Christ is first, God determined in eternity that Christ would be first, that in the way of redeeming a sinful people, and thereby bringing glory to God and dwelling with man in Jesus Christ, that this event was front and center in the decree of the triune God in eternity. All of history. was leading up to all of history flows out of in the fullness of time, Galatians 4 says, Christ was made of a woman. It's the work of God because it's according to God's decree. His decree that Christ would be first and exalted to the glory of God's name in the way of humility and saving a sinful people. Then in the second place, it's the work of the triune God, because each of the persons of the Trinity had a distinct role in the incarnation. Galatians 4 says that God, reference to the Father, made of a woman the Son. Philippians 2, with the subject being the second person of the Trinity, says that He humbled Himself and took upon Him likeness of human flesh. And obviously, Luke 1 speaks of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's role in conceiving the second person in the womb of Mary. And this should not surprise us. Whenever we're dealing with The great works of God. The outstanding acts of God. All of them are Trinitarian in nature because God is one. His will is one. His works are one. And each of the persons, in their respective roles, bring about these great works of God. This leads us to see what is explicitly stated in the Heidelberg Catechism and what we read in Luke 1. And let's focus now moving from the triune God to specifically the Holy Spirit. The incarnation took place specifically by the work of the Holy Spirit to conceive the second person in the womb of Mary. That's the clear testimony of God's Word. We read that in Matthew 1. Let's describe that with a few points. In the first place, this is in harmony with the nature of the Holy Spirit's work. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings forth life. And while it is true that it wasn't a bringing forth of life in the same way that we are brought forth in the womb of our mothers, because as to His person and divine nature, He always existed eternally, nevertheless, there is a certain bringing forth that we see in the Incarnation, which is distinctly always the work of the Holy Spirit. Number two, it is a mysterious work. How can you, how can I stand here and explain fully so that we understand completely this work of the Holy Spirit? We can't. The conception of any child in a mother's womb is mysterious. We can say things about it, but we can't fully understand that. How much more this? that that second Person of the Trinity, eternally and truly and fully God, was conceived, actually conceived, in a virgin, without any work of man, and therefore comes forth as a baby from her womb. 1 Timothy 3.16, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. And in the third place, it is a divine, sovereign work of God. Luke 1 makes that clear. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Verse 37, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. This is a divine work of God. No human means involved. No man could be involved. A virgin. Mary's involvement was passive. She was the object of the favor of God. She didn't do anything herself to make this happen. It was God's work. God's work alone by the power of the Holy Spirit. And you see the truth in that. This is a work of salvation. This is a work to accomplish your salvation and my salvation. And in all of the saving work of God, there's not a synergy between what you do and what God does. It's not a coming together and a combination of the two that produce the salvation that we need. It's God's work. It's all God's work by His power. And in that, we have a picture in the incarnation. God by His Holy Spirit. powerfully, efficaciously, and we can say, because we didn't deserve any of this, graciously, conceives the second person in the womb of Mary, so that the eternal Son of God becomes a man. Now how in the world and why in the world would we ever believe this? This mysterious, powerful, beyond human understanding work that we ascribe to the living God, and particularly the third Person, the Holy Spirit. Why in the world would you and I ever believe this? We believe this because God has worked faith in our hearts. A faith that reads the Word of God, and believes, and is fully persuaded that what God says is true. So that when we read the Gospels, we say that that Jesus, who walked the streets of Nazareth, who was in Galilee and Judea, who did all of those things, was a man just like me, and was truly and fully God. I believe that. You believe that. By a God-worked faith. A faith that confesses that the eternal Son of God became man. And may God strengthen that faith as we hear this truth explained this morning. The Incarnation was for the reason, in the third point of the sermon now, for salvation. Why? To save. What profit, question 36, dost thou receive by Christ's holy conception and nativity, that He is our mediator, and with His innocence and perfect holiness covers in the sight of God my sins, wherein I was conceived and brought forth? He came in this way for the reason of saving us from the sins that we were conceived and we were brought forth in. Now, when the Heidelberg Catechism says what it does there in the answer to question 36, it's not saying that the incarnation as such, that the fact of the second person uniting to Himself a human nature as such covers, as the Catechism says, my sins. It's not just the fact of the Incarnation that in the end covers my sin and guilt. The point here is that the Incarnation is that which qualified the Lord Jesus Christ on account of who He is to accomplish the work necessary so that what the Catechism says is true. He covers in the sight of God my sins. It's because He was innocent and had perfect holiness as the Son of God come into the flesh that He could do that in accomplishing the will of God. Everything we said in the first point of the sermon is necessary for this Jesus to be your Savior and my Savior from my sin and guilt. He had to have that human nature. True and complete. Just like you and me. Because that's the human nature that God in His justice must punish for the sin and guilt before Him. He suffered in that human nature. He suffered entirely in that human nature, but He needed to have that divine nature too. Because it's that divine nature that surrounded, so to speak, the human nature and upheld that human nature so that what was endured in the human nature might truly, in three hours on that cross, satisfy the justice of God. And with that divine nature that was never separated from Him, He arose victoriously from the dead. And now, with that resurrection life, imparts life to us, His people. If He was only man, beloved, no salvation for you and me. If He was only God, And just the appearance of that here on this earth. No salvation for you and me. Only partly man. No salvation for you and me. Only a little bit God in some respects. No salvation for you and me. But because He's this. This as the church has confessed from the very beginning. Divinely, the Second Person of the Trinity come into the flesh. True God and true man. We can and we do with confidence say, Savior, full and complete, and that what was done on the cross and in the resurrection which is that to which I look for all of my hope and salvation." It's true unto salvation. It's life with God. He came in order to give we who are unworthy life with God. Communion with God. And the wonder of this, beloved, is that He remains a man. He didn't come as a man. Go through everything that He did. Earn the salvation and then poof! No longer a man. And now it's back to the way it was before. No. He became a man and remains a man. Now in resurrected body. Glorified body. The human man. Still today. And He's God with us. So that having accomplished that salvation in Jesus Christ, as we will see Him, as we will be like Him one day in our resurrected bodies, we will, as we can say today, forever live with God in the face of Jesus Christ. That is the wonder of wonders. That is the supreme revelation of God to us. That He became like us, to save us, and to dwell with us. Amen. Father in Heaven, bless Thy Word as it was brought this morning, and may it lead us to see the wonder of who Jesus is as our Lord, our Savior, and the one in whom we place all of our hope and trust. In Jesus' name do we pray. Amen. Let's sing now Psalter number 14.