Luke 1:28 Commentary and Bible Study

Gabriel enters the house and speaks the very words that God has commanded him to speak. As Hendriksen comments, his entrance and his words seem designed to create an atmosphere of tranquillity. She is greeted as a familiar friend or relative might greet her coming in through her front door. ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women’ – she is given a blessing not given to any other women ever born, for she is to be the mother of the incarnate Word. God placed his only begotten Son in the hands of Mary and Joseph, and they who were created by him were appointed as parents over him. Mary is indeed highly favoured. But though that is true, there is nothing in these words to justify the idea that she was sinless as some have foolishly taught. God favours us in our sinful state, whenever he calls a child of Adam to come to Christ for salvation. It is all of grace and without grace there is no approach to God. Mary was to have a unique relationship with Jesus, her son, but she would learn from him that there is a relationship far higher than that of kinship: the spiritual relationship which every believer has with his Lord (Matthew 12:50). She too shared in that spiritual relationship. And the Lord is with her, which we see in the protection given to the family in the face of the danger posed by herod. In this and in so many other matters to do with the role of parenting God would be with her and with Joseph.‘And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying.’ Nothing is said about her being alarmed by his presence because of her sin – although we can assume that this too added to her disturbed state of mind – but she is troubled by his words. What seems to have disturbed her was the special status implied by these words. She was troubled because she was so far from seeing herself in these terms. But she could not think in this way unless she first recognised that this was an angelic visitation, for otherwise, why should she take the words seriously? It was because she understood that this was the angel of the Lord that she was forced to believe what he was saying about her. ‘And cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.’ She has been greeted in a friendly way by a being she knows to be an angel, and she was unsure what this meant, and considered various options in her mind. She did not at first grasp it and she was afraid. She is a deeply thoughtful person and she reflected deeply. Had she offended in some way, even though the message is favourable? She cast in her mind, as a fisherman casts the next in different places to try to secure a catch.