Matthew 1:18, commentary and pictures

Before she lived with Joseph to whom she was pledged in marriage, Mary was with child through the power and action of the Holy Spirit, not through union with any man. Joseph at first judged her unfaithful and purposed to put her away privately, until an angel told him in a dream that what was conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost and that she would bring forth a Son named Jesus. This came about in literal fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, as the sign of His first advent and evidence that He is the true Messiah. Conceived by the Spirit of God and born of Mary, He entered human life in the line of David as both Son of God and Son of man, divine from conception and not merely human made divine afterward. His miraculous conception and virgin birth are a fundamental verity of the Bible and foundation of Christian faith, so that to deny them is to deny His divinity and reject the Word that records them.

Language and Circumstances

The word rendered Ghost in Holy Ghost is the Greek pneuma, which comes from pneō meaning to blow and is also rendered spirit, wind, and life, with breath in the margin. It can mean breath, moving air, wind, life, or the life-giving spirit, and here it names the Holy Spirit in connection with Jesus' conception. Mary was betrothed or espoused to Joseph before they came together, a pledged engagement in which they are already called husband and wife. Joseph is thus her husband who takes her as his wife, and he is the guardian of Jesus and of the holy family.

Joseph is Jesus' reputed and legal father, while Jesus' fleshly descent and ancestry by birth come through Mary. Because Mary was Joseph's wife, Joseph was reckoned as son of her father, and Jesus as Joseph's son, and Joseph's place in the genealogy is through his marriage to Mary. This distinction between legal fatherhood and birth lineage explains how Matthew traces the line through Joseph son of Jacob, from David through Solomon to Joseph, without conflicting with Luke's genealogy through Heli, Mary's father. Matthew's first chapter gives the royal genealogy of Christ showing that the throne of David belongs to Jesus, while Luke, who set himself to ascertain all the details of the Lord's life, gives the fullest accounts of His parents, infancy, and childhood and the story of John the Baptist, with his genealogy as the line through Mary the mother, Joseph being named in Mary's place because the record is reckoned through the male line.

The verse stands in a chapter tracing Christ's genealogy from Abraham to His birth, arranged in three sections of fourteen generations each with some generations omitted. Across forty-two generations the succession to the Son of Mary was preserved despite obstacles, placing His birth within the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham and establishing Christ's claim to Abraham's promised inheritance, which includes the whole world. The birth occurred about four years before A.D. 1, in the latter part of the Jewish year B.C. 5, a little over four years before the era marked by His name. The later reckoning was based on an incorrect date for the founding of Rome. The passage establishes the historical fact that Jesus was born but gives no date for His birth, and the day chosen for Christmas is not His true birthday.

Mary was found pregnant by the Holy Ghost while she was engaged to Joseph and before they had come together, a fact made known to Joseph in a dream. The verse belongs to differing Gospel accounts of Christ's birth that stand alongside each other without editorial harmonization to explain them. Their differences reflect separate, fragmentary memoirs rather than a single polished history.

Miraculous Conception Described

When Mary was espoused or betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, lived together, or had union, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Jesus was conceived by the agency, power, and action of the Holy Spirit, so His birth began through divine action and was miraculous, not the result of union with Joseph. He came through Mary without the concurrence of a man and was not begotten through the natural laws of ordinary human procreation by Adam or by human parents. Joseph was therefore not His biological father.

Joseph at first thought Mary was not virtuous when he learned of her condition, and he did not accept her explanation. He decided not to marry her but to put her away privately rather than expose her to public shame and the penalty for adultery. An angel of the Lord told him in a dream not to fear to take Mary as his wife, because what was conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost, and she would bring forth a Son named Jesus. That message confirmed Mary's account and convinced Joseph of her purity, and after receiving it he accepted it and married her. Her pregnancy was thus not evidence of impurity but the miraculous conception of Jesus. The divine plan provided grounds for her to stand vindicated before Joseph and the universe, and her humility was to be honored with lasting glory.

Christ's birth took place in humble circumstances without worldly rank or splendor, with Mary bringing forth her firstborn Son and laying Him in a manger because there was no room in the inn. His lowly birth, upbringing, and poverty reveal God's pattern for carrying forward His work, and show that truth and God's presence are not established by outward grandeur or imposing buildings. The virgin conception was a real, personal, literal event at Bethlehem, not merely human, mystical, merely symbolic, or a moral lesson. Virgin means a literal virgin, just as Judah means the literal tribe and David the literal David, proving that prophecies about Christ are explicit and are fulfilled literally. His birth is one of the greatest miracles recorded in Scripture, more wonderful than Jonah's survival or the feeding of the multitude, and accepting the account belongs with accepting the possibility of miracles.

Prophecy Fulfilled Literally

Matthew 1:18 explains how the birth of Christ came about, that while Mary was espoused to Joseph and before they came together or lived together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 that a virgin would conceive and bear a son called Immanuel. This birth to the virgin Mary while she was engaged to Joseph and before they lived together was one of the signs of His first advent foretold beforehand. The virgin birth is evidence that Jesus is the true Messiah spoken of beforehand.

Joseph was looking for the fulfillment of the prophecy that a virgin would bear the promised Messiah, and because he was spiritually attentive to that prophecy he understood the angel's message about Mary and could be trusted to become the Lord's mother's husband. The foretold birth of a virgin was fulfilled exactly and literally in Mary the wife of Joseph in her virginity. Virgin means a literal virgin and typifies no social or spiritual condition, just as Judah means the literal tribe of Judah and not the Jewish race, and David means the literal David and not any royal line. Like the prophecies regarding the life and death of the Lord, it proves the prophecies about Christ are explicit and are fulfilled literally.

The verse places the birth of Christ within the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham and presents it as a landmark in the fulfillment of the Gospel promises of the Old Testament. The chapter's genealogy traces the succession to the Son of Mary across forty-two generations, showing that the promised line leading through Abraham, Judah, David, and Mary was preserved despite obstacles and efforts to destroy it. This preservation establishes Christ's claim to Abraham's promised inheritance, which includes the whole world.

His first advent was foretold by prophecy and announced to Mary by an angel with the coming Saviour's birth. It was also made known to Joseph, so that God's people could know that Christ's coming was approaching. At His arrival it was announced by angels singing of peace and good will, as part of the account of the one whose coming was foretold.

Person and Lineage of Christ

Jesus was conceived by the Spirit of God and born of Mary as a divine-human child, not as a merely human child who acquired divinity later in life, for His divine nature was present from conception and birth. His birth was therefore the coming of the Son of God in human form. His virgin birth reveals the union of the divine and the human in Him, who is both the Son of God and the Son of man.

He truly entered human life and took human flesh in the line of David. His origin through supernatural conception by the Holy Ghost does not make His humanity unreal, for He had a genuinely human body and mind and experienced the ordinary stages and needs of human life, and His conception from the Holy Ghost does not mean He was not truly born among humanity. Though His human ancestors were subject to the sins common to humanity, including sinful people and people of other races, He entered human flesh with divine power to conquer sin on humanity's behalf, could be tempted as humans are, yet lived a perfect holy life, showing that human beings can live holy lives in this world. His sinlessness does not exclude His humanity, because sin is not essential to being human.

He had a human pedigree distinctly traced from Adam and entered the world by birth into the human family as an infant with a beginning of days, and He both was born and died, in contrast to Melchizedek who has no pedigree and no beginning of days as an infant and no end of life, proving they are distinct individuals who are priests after the same order. He is the eternal Son of God who came from glory, took human nature, and entered the world to reveal the Father, bring forgiveness and hope, atone for sin, and redeem humanity and the world, and to serve as a merciful and faithful High Priest.

The first chapter gives His royal genealogy showing that the throne of David belongs to Jesus. His parents Mary and Joseph were Jews descended from David and belonging to the tribe of Judah. His genealogy on His father's side shows His descent from Judah, whose genealogy was preserved together with that of Levi while the other tribes were scattered and their genealogies lost, and the tribe of Judah was held together until Jesus came, so that His lineage proves the rulership given to Judah until Shiloh come, from whose coming He becomes the center of the gathering of God's people.

As part of the record of Christ's birth and lineage, the verse assures believers that the promises to Abraham belong to his spiritual seed. Natural descent from Abraham was a valuable privilege and opportunity, but it did not by itself guarantee heirship. Faith in Christ gives believers a share with Abraham in the inheritance of the world, which includes the whole world, and makes them joint heirs with Christ in David's throne, supporting the believer's right through faith to receive the blessing promised to Abraham. The genealogy traces the succession to the Son of Mary across forty-two generations, showing that the lineage was preserved despite obstacles and establishing Christ's claim to Abraham's promised inheritance.

Jesus Christ was begotten of the Holy Ghost as the Son of God who is Spirit, and joined to His anointing with the Spirit at baptism, the abiding of the Spirit upon Him, and His being full of the Spirit, led by the Spirit, and speaking by the Spirit, this origin proves that the lessons He taught were spiritual even when He used earthly, fleshly, tangible things as illustrations. His miraculous birth shows His divine character and essential deity in His person, not a divine mission only, which makes Him an adequate Redeemer for a lost race. He is the divine Saviour of men, not merely the highest type of man differing from other men in quantity and not in quality, and this miraculous birth is essential to recognizing Him as divine.

He came through Mary without the concurrence of a man to bring deliverance from sin. His being born into a human family demonstrates that God wants to save families, so that those brought together by Christ's blood will form His family.

Defense and Belief Required

The virgin birth and miraculous conception are fundamental, essential Christian doctrines, a great verity of the Bible and a foundation stone in the creeds of Christendom once held as vital rule of faith. Mary while espoused to Joseph and before they came together was found with child of the Holy Ghost, and belief in this account is a test of belief in the Bible itself. The account is real and literal, not merely symbolic or a moral lesson, and holding it belongs to simplicity, devotion, and faith in the miraculous and miracle-working Christ, the eternal Son of God. Departing from it, minimizing what God calls great, and questioning it as myth marks a backslidden, worldly, unbelieving church that has lost faith and substituted human plans and traditions for God's fundamentals.

The evidence for this birth is the same in character as the evidence for His miracles, His teaching, His sinless life, His resurrection, and even that He lived and died at all, with fewer witnesses but just as worthy of belief. The record is true and trustworthy New Testament history and an old landmark of Christian faith to be held with loyalty. To disbelieve on this point undermines confidence in the rest, because the Bible must be trusted altogether or not at all as authority over conscience and life, and denying the virgin birth belongs with denying much in the Old and New Testaments, denying the miracles of Christ, and denying His resurrection.

With Luke, the verse testifies to the virgin birth as the manner of His birth in the infancy narratives, upholding His deity and His office as Saviour together with His bodily resurrection and the rest of the Gospel records. Its truth decides whether Matthew and Luke are credible witnesses and competent historians. To cut it out as gullible, ignorant, romantic invention or deceit discredits them at every other point, for if they were easily deceived or ready to invent and deceive others in palming off this birth account they commit a gross and historically unpardonable blunder or crime and can no longer be trusted as historians at any other point. Faith cannot long deny the virgin birth while holding the resurrection, the deity of Jesus, and the reliability of the Gospels, but must choose between criticism and faith.

The truth of this birth belongs to the Bible's account of Christ, and rejecting it means rejecting the Word that records it and the Christian faith founded on that Word. His virgin birth reveals the union of the divine and the human in Jesus, who is both Son of God and Son of man, and is central to the gospel's claim that Christ is divine and that the gospel has power to save. Denying the virgin birth rejects this mystery of Christ's divinity and reduces the gospel to powerless moral teaching, for Jesus Christ the foundation of the Christian system was miraculously conceived and not begotten by any natural law of ordinary generation.

To deny the miraculous conception and virgin birth is subtle infidelity, higher criticism, modern theology, and rationalism that robs Jesus of His divinity, aligns with Unitarian and humanistic rationalism, tears the Bible to pieces, and shakes the faith of hearers. Denying it belongs with denying the supernatural and the biblical miracles, minimizing the miraculous and diminishing Christ. Denying that Jesus was born of a virgin rejects this Gospel truth, while the Bible rather than creeds or human opinion is the authority for settling the matter. Holding the doctrine belongs to faith in the Bible in its entirety as divine revelation and to belief that Jesus is divine, the divine Saviour of men, not merely the highest type of man differing from other men in quantity and not in quality.

Faith in this birth stands together with faith in the inspiration of the Bible, and to begin to doubt it is dangerous because doubt of inspiration leads to doubt of His miraculous work and character and then to general unbelief. This miraculous birth shows His divine character and essential deity in His person, not a divine mission only, which makes Him an adequate Redeemer for a lost race. Denial leaves Jesus as merely human and liable like other men to mistakes of judgment, stumbling and wrong conclusions in boyhood and in intellectual, moral, and religious processes.

Denying the miraculous conception rejects what the verse says, for Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost before Mary and Joseph came together, so Joseph was not His biological father, and to teach that Joseph was His father denies the account of His divine conception. The virgin birth is part of the gospel story, and denying it means being unable to affirm that story in preaching, prayer, or song. The verse is testimony to Jesus' miraculous birth, not legend or a claim lacking authentic testimony, and is invoked against the claim that His conception was not miraculous and was merely a fable. The account of Christ's miraculous birth cannot be explained away to satisfy modern science.

The miraculous conception and Joseph's intention to put Mary away, followed by the angel appearing to Joseph in a dream and warning him to take her as his wife, were among the facts of Jesus' birth known and referred to in the second century. The miraculous conception belongs to the early Christian account of Jesus' birth while betrothed to Joseph before they lived together, and similar stories in later Buddhist accounts are additions influenced by the Christian story. The Nazaraeans accepted this birth from a virgin through the Holy Ghost while also keeping the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic law.