The most stupendous fact in history is announced by the angel chiefly as the reason for Joseph’s going on with his marriage.  Surely that strange inversion of the apparent importance of the two things speaks for the historical reliableness of the narrative.  The purpose in hand is mainly to remove his hesitation and point his course, and he is to take Mary as his wife, for ‘that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.’  Could ‘the superstitious veneration of a later age’, which is supposed to have originated the story of a supernatural birth, have spoken so?  As addressed to Joseph, tortured with doubts of Mary and hesitations as to his duty, the sequence of the two things is beautifully appropriate, otherwise it is monstrous.  The great mystery, which lies at the foundation of Christianity, is declared in the fewest and simplest words.  That He who is to show God to men, and to save them from their sins, must be born of a woman, is plainly necessary.  Because ’the children are partakers of flesh and blood,’ He also must ’take part of the same.’  That He must be free from the taint in nature, which passes down to all ‘who are born of the will of the flesh or of man,’ is no less obviously requisite.  Both requirements are met in the supernatural birth of Jesus, and unless both have been met, He is not, and cannot be, the world’s saviour.  Nor is that supernatural birth less needful to explain His manifestly sinless character than it is to qualify Him for His unique office.  The world acknowledges that in Him it finds a man without blemish and without spot.  How comes He to be free from the flaws which, like black streaks in Parian marble, spoil the noblest characters?  Surely if, after millions of links in the chain, which have all been of mingled metal, there comes one of pure gold, it cannot have had the same origin as the others.  It is part of the chain, ’the Word was made flesh’; but it has been cast and moulded in another forge, for it is ‘that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.’

‘She shall bring forth a son.’  The angel does not say, ‘a son to thee,’ but yet Joseph was to assume the position of father, and by naming the child to acknowledge it as his.  The name of Jesus or Joshua was borne by many a Jewish child then.  There was a Jesus among Paul’s entourage.  It recalled the warrior leader, and, no doubt, was often given to children in these days of foreign dominion by fathers who hoped that Israel might again fight for freedom.  But holier thoughts were to be Joseph’s, and the salvation from God which was expressed by the name was to be of another kind than Joshua had brought.  It was to be salvation from sin and from sins.  This child was to be a leader too, a conqueror and a king, and the mention of ‘His people,’ taken in connection with Joseph’s having been addressed as ‘the son of David,’ is most significant.  He, too, is to have a subject people, and the deliverance which He is to bring is not political or to be wrested from Rome by the sword, but inward, moral, and spiritual, and therefore to be effected by moral and spiritual weapons.