Conceived by the Holy Ghost
Tue miraculous conception and birth of our Lord has been sometimes assailed, because it is alleged that it is not borne out by the references made to it in other parts of Scripture, and specially in the Gospels themselves. But surely this assertion cannot be sustained.
In the archaic record of Genesis, it was foretold that the seed of the Woman should bruise the serpent’s head, and the expression is so remarkable as even then it foreshadowed some such event as actually occurred. The Fourth Evangelist, in his sublime Prologue, clearly enough defines the miraculous origin of Christ, when He says, “The Word was made Flesh.” On the assumption that Jesus descended naturally from Joseph and Mary, he would surely have said, “The Word came in the flesh.” That the Word of the Eternal should have taken on Himself our nature clearly involves the creative Act of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul undoubtedly refers to the same fact, when he says that “‘ the Second
Man” is the Lord from Heaven, in contrast to 60 “the First Man,” who is of the earth earthy; and when he says again, that our Lord was made of a woman.
When the fulness of the time arrived, a new vital principle appeared. And it was as much due to the creative work of God as the mystery of Regeneration. He that works in our hearts, implanting the incorruptible seed of the new and heavenly life which constitutes.us sons of God, wrought in the very depths of human nature, as represented by Mary, and thus that Holy Thing could be born of her, which we know as “the Son of God.”
The most casual acquaintance with the gospels is sufficient to prove that they portray a unique Personality. Christ was the white flower of our race, revealing itself on a stock which was dark and ugly, exhaling the rarest fragrance, and prolific in healing influences; but this was the marvel of it that notwithstanding His profound humility, there was no consciousness of sin. All others, who have attained superlative excellence, have prostrated themselves in lowliest self-abasement in the presence of God, confessing themselves unclean, but in the hours of most radiant fellowship with the Divine, there is no confession on His lips, because He is without sin. In the glad certainty that none can meet His challenge, He cries, “‘ Which of you convinceth Me of sin?”
But how can we account for this closeness of identification with our race on the one hand, coupled with this apartness on the other, unless we accept the teaching of His Immaculate Conception? He was not born of the will of man, but of the will of God, and was therefore wholly pure from sin. Anselm in his Cur Deus Homo mentions the four methods in which God can make man; by the law of natural generation, or as He made Adam, or as He made Eve, or as our Lord was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. As the first man originated, without father and without mother, from the creative energy of God, which spiritualized the dust of the earth, so did the Second Man originate without father by that effectual power of the most High, which spiritualized humanity.
It may be that the mystery would seem less remote did we know more of the laws of birth among the very lowest forms of life, where the ordinary law of generation seems suspended. Why should not the highest revert to and touch the lowest, as a perfect ring, worn on the Creator’s finger!
In any case those who have accepted the first statement of Genesis, “In the Beginning God created,” may be at perfect rest in the presence of this other great mystery and assert their belief that Jesus was Conceived by the Holy Ghost. Oh, Spirit of Generation, Re-generate us!