She caught it

Luke 1:30 (And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God) is filled with doctrinal content although it’s really a simple statement by the angel Gabriel to young Mary as he describes to her the mission God has for her.

Luke  writes in Luke 1:28-29, "And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
[29] And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be."

Jordan explains, “God is going to give Mary a very special privilege. That word ‘favored’ there is the idea of finding grace—finding a very special place of service with God.

“Luke 31 says, ‘And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.’ That’s a very clear purpose statement about what Mary is going to be involved in. There was never any question in Mary’s mind about the child she was going to have—who he was or what his purpose in life was going to be.

“ ‘Thou shalt have a son’ (there’s the humanity and the humility of the Messiah). ‘Thou shalt call his name Jesus’ (there’s His deity as well as His humanity as well as His mission). The name Jesus means Jehovah Savior. That’s a tremendous statement about who he is.

“In Isaiah, Jehovah says, ‘I am the Savior. Beside me there’s none other.’ He’s going to be Jehovah who’s going to be Israel’s savior. That’s a statement about His deity and a statement about His mission.

“ ‘He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest.’ That’s going to identify Him as when He’s the son of the highest. ‘and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.’ He’s going to have the title to the throne of David.

“ ‘And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.’ This thing is going to last forever--and the universality and the eternality of His kingdom. When He accomplishes what He’s come to accomplish, there will never be an end to it. If you notice in verse 31 you can see all four of the gospel accounts.

“Each of those ‘behold’ statements to Israel about their Messiah matches one of the four gospel accounts. That’s why there’s four gospels. All of that’s wrapped up here. ‘Bring forth a son.’ There’s His humanity. Then it’s ‘behold the man.’ There’s Luke. ‘Thou shalt call his name Jesus.’ He’s going to be the servant of the Lord who comes to save His people. There’s Mark. ‘He shall be great and called the son of the highest.’ He’s God. There’s John. Verse 33: ‘And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.’ There’s ‘behold your king.’ There’s Matthew.

“Everything that the Messiah’s going to be, Mary has it laid out for her to start with. When you read that, you see the whole compass of the prophetic program all gathered together in just a few short statements given to Mary.

“I have to say to you there are theologians of our day that don’t get this. Mary understood something about the Bible that all the rest—the great theologians of our day—don’t get.

“The issue of right division and studying the Bible dispensationally has fallen into disrepute today as you would expect it to. But the only way you can understand what the angel said to Mary, and the only way that Mary could have understood, or would have had any expectation to understand what’s here, is if she were a dispensational Bible student.

“Verse 31. That’s the first coming of Christ. Verse 32. That’s the second coming of Christ. One talks about His first coming and the other talks about His Second coming. One talks about what He’s going to be as He comes in His humanity, born of Mary. The other talks about what He’s going to be when He comes back as Messiah to reign.

“If you’re left at the mercy of the theologians, they will tell you that that latter (the reigning) . . . I’ll never forget going to a retreat of a bunch of preacher guys my first year in Mobile College in Mobile, Ala. He was the best professor I ever had in school--bar-none in anywhere I’ve ever been: W.C. Dobbs.

“Dr. Dobbs, the first night, was speaking and he ran down through this passage. And he said, ‘Well, we know that Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary and born to a virgin and that he was going to be great and called the son of the highest, but when it says in verse 33 that He shall reign over the house of Jacob, we know that that was just spiritually speaking. It’s not literal; it isn’t real; God is through with Israel and has replaced Israel with us.’ And he was an Amillennialist. He picked up my Scofield Reference Bible once and said, ‘Son, that book has done more damage to Christendom than any other book written in the 21^st Century.’

“And I remember thinking, ‘How can I believe that verse 31 is literal if verse 33 isn’t literal?! If what he said in verse 32 and 33 aren’t real and literal, then how come you think verse 31 is literal?! How can he be saying something literal and then all of a sudden it isn’t literal anymore; it’s all figurative?! Either it’s literal or it isn’t literal. Either he meant what he said or he didn’t mean what he said! Either the house of Jacob is the house of Jacob, and the throne of David is the throne of David, and His reign is going to be forever or it isn’t! And if that’s figurative then, for heaven’s sake, why is the virgin birth not figurative?!’

“Makes no sense! You’re left at the mercy of theologians to tell you what it means. You’re left in a situation that endorses the apostate and where you don’t know whether God can say what He means or mean what He says because whatever He said He didn’t mean, and what He meant He didn’t say because it isn’t there.

“Well, Mary had none of those problems. When Mary heard that she said in verse 34: ‘How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
[35] 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.’

 “She caught it; she knew it was real! She knew this wasn’t some spiritually understood and designed idea of things that didn’t have anything to do with reality. She understood what the angel said and the only way that she could have understood it was obviously the way she was intended to understand it, and nobody has a right to change or even to doubt the words and their natural meaning.

“So what you have here is another one of these passages in the Bible that establishes for you without any question and forever ends the debate about whether you have to study the Bible dispensationally or not; whether the premillennial dispensational approach to studying the Bible is right or not. And if you’re going to believe what’s in the text that’s where you have to be.

“Now when you do believe what’s there and that’s where you are, 99.5 percent of all of Christendom is not going to agree with you. Did you expect them to?”