4th Sunday of Advent, Year B
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic word, we focus on two details in the Gospel reading for this upcoming 4th Sunday of Advent, which is taken from Luke 1:26-38. One of the two is read in tandem with the first reading, taken from 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16. The apologetical topic that it relates to is Jesus’ Messiahship. The other detail deals with the Blessed Mother, particularly her perpetual virginity.
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Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In this episode, I’m going to focus on two details in the Gospel reading for this upcoming 4th Sunday of Advent, which is taken from Luke 1:26-38. One of the two is read in tandem with the first reading, taken from 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16. The apologetical topic that it relates to is Jesus’ Messiahship. The other detail deals with the Blessed Mother, in particular her perpetual virginity.
Let’s get started. Luke records,
The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
“Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her.
The first detail is Gabriel’s announcement that Jesus would sit on the throne of David and that his kingdom would have no end. This announcement can only be appreciated against the backdrop of a portion of the first reading, verses 11-14a, and verse 16:
The LORD also reveals to you
that he will establish a house for you.
And when your time comes and you rest with your ancestors,
I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his kingdom firm.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.
Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me;
your throne shall stand firm forever.”
Given this background, Gabriel is announcing that Jesus is the Messiah, and Luke believes it to be true. So, Jesus’ Messiahship is front and center for this upcoming Sunday’s Gospel.
Now, there are a few details here that concern the Blessed Mother. One of them is Gabriel’s announcing Mary to be “full of grace.” This normally ties into Mary’s sinlessness. I’m going to pass over this detail in this episode. For a great treatment of this, I recommend Tim Staples’s Behold Your Mother.
The detail concerning our Blessed Mother that I want to focus on here is Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel’s revelation that she would bear the Messiah. Mary says, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” (KJV). In Scripture, the term know (Greek, gin ōskō) commonly refers to sexual relations (see Gen. 4:1; Matt. 1:25).
The angel tells Mary she will conceive a child, but Mary is puzzled as to how that could possibly happen. Why would Mary inquire as to how she is going to conceive a child if she were in a normal, soon-to-be-consummated marriage with Joseph? Luke 1:27 has already told us that Mary was “betrothed” to Joseph.
Her question suggests that she isn’t planning on a normal marriage. This is why Gabriel’s response explains the miraculous nature of the conception that will take place: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35).
The idea of having a vow of virginity within marriage would not have been totally out of bounds for the ancient Jews. In Numbers 30 we find instructions given for a woman still living in her father’s house (vv.3-5)—a married woman (vv.6-8) and a widowed or divorced woman (v. 13)—concerning her oath to “afflict herself.” According to Torah scholar Jacob Milgrom, this is an idiom among ancient Jews that refers to fasting and refraining from sexual intercourse.[i] And as the context bears out, in the case of the married woman her vow remained if the husband did not object.
So, if Mary had made such a vow after their betrothal, and Joseph didn’t object, then the instructions in Numbers chapter thirty would provide a historical basis for such a situation. And even if Mary made the vow before betrothal, the instructions would still provide a historical context that would make her vow intelligible.
Now, as I point out in my book Meeting the Protestant Response, Protestant James White offers a counter to this reading. He argues that the angel was “speaking about an immediate conception,”[ii] and therefore Mary’s response has to do with her being a virgin at the time Gabriel announces to her that she is to bear the Messiah. To quote Ron Rhodes, her response basically amounts to, “I am a virgin, and my upcoming marriage will not take place for close to a year. So how will this pregnancy you speak of come to fruition?”[iii]
White gives two reasons for his claim. First, he says Mary was “only engaged to Joseph, but not married.” From this he infers that “at that time [Mary] could not possibly conceive in a natural manner, since she did not ‘know a man.’” He thinks that’s what prompts Mary’s question.
White’s second reason is “the present tense, ‘I do not know a man.’” For White, if Mary had a vow of perpetual virginity, she would have said, “I have pledged never to know a man,” or “I will never know a man.” Since Mary doesn’t say such things, White again concludes she must be thinking of not conceiving a child at that time.
As I show in my book, we can refute each of the reasons behind this argument. Let’s take first the claim that Mary was “only engaged to Joseph, but not married.” This simply is not true.
Consider, for example, Matthew 1:18. There Matthew writes, “When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” Matthew uses the same Greek word for “betrothed” (mnēsteuō) as Luke does in Luke 1:27, right before Gabriel makes the announcement to Mary.
For Matthew, this “betrothal” was a real marriage. Immediately after, in verse 19, Matthew tells us Joseph sought to divorce Mary quietly. Why would Joseph seek to divorce her if they were not legally married? Couldn’t he just leave her with no qualms about it?
Furthermore, in verse 19, for example, Matthew refers to Joseph as Mary’s “husband” (Greek, anēr). Anēr also means “man,” but the context concerning Joseph’s contemplation of divorce confirms its marital sense. Then in verse 20, Matthew quotes the angel: “Do not fear to take Mary your wife (Greek, gunē[iv]).”
Now, some translations (ESV, NIV, NLV) translate verse 20 as “take Mary as your wife,” allowing for the meaning that Mary is not Joseph’s wife yet. But this directly contradicts verse 19 where Joseph is said to be Mary’s “husband,” a translation that both the ESV and NIV agree on. The NLV (The New Living Translation), however, renders verse 19 as “Joseph, to whom she was engaged.” But this is clearly an interpolation, since, as mentioned above, the Greek word for husband, anēr, is used to describe Joseph, and it’s within the context of Joseph contemplating divorce. Joseph is Mary’s “husband.” Mary is Joseph’s “wife.” That’s language of a real and legally binding marriage.
The point of Matthew’s narrative is that Mary was found to be with child during the interim period between vows and consummation. It was customary in ancient Israel that a man and woman would become legally married, the husband would go off to prepare a place for his bride, and then come back to take his wife to begin their life together in one household, at which point consummation would occur. It’s this interim period that both Matthew and Luke describe as “betrothal” (mnēsteuō).
Now that we have shown that Mary was legally married to Joseph at the time of the Annunciation, the significance of her question, “How shall this be?” comes into greater focus. Apologist Tim Staples explains the significance this way:
Think about it: If you were a woman who had a ratified marriage and someone at your reception said— or “prophesied”— that you were going to have a baby, that would not really be all that much of a surprise. That is the normal course of events. You marry, consummate the union, and babies come along. You certainly would not ask the question, “Gee, how is this going to happen?” Mary never doubted; she simply asked a very valid question. She believed the message of the angel— that she was going to have a baby— but she did not know how it was going to happen. If she had been betrothed in the normal course, she would know precisely how it would happen because St. Joseph would have had a right to the marriage bed. Her question indicates she was not planning on the normal course of events in her future with her husband.[v]
What about the second point, regarding the present tense of know?
One response is that although Mary’s statement, “I do not know man,” is in the Greek present tense, it’s a present tense that indicates an ongoing or permanent state of affairs (known as the habitual present).[vi] On this reading, Mary’s statement that she does not know man would suggest that she expects to remain a virgin on an ongoing basis. So, rather than the present tense undermining an appeal to this verse for support of Mary’s perpetual virginity, it converges with it.
A second response is that the only way it would have entered into Mary’s mind that the angel was speaking of an immediate conception is if the angel indicated she was to conceive immediately, or at least before she and Joseph consummated the marriage. But there’s no such evidence. In fact, the evidence points in the opposite direction. The angel places everything he says prior to Mary’s response (and even after) in the future:
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:31-33).
It would be strange for Mary to think the angel was referring to an immediate conception when the future tense is used seven times and there’s no revelation yet as to the supernatural nature of the conception. Mary would have every reason to think the angel was thinking of a regular conception that would occur after the consummation of her marriage with Joseph. The supernatural character of the conception doesn’t come until after she queries, “How shall this be?”
Even if Mary’s statement, “I do not know man,” referred to her not knowing man during the interim period between the vows and consummation, still her question as to how she’s going to conceive a child wouldn’t make sense, given the fact that in normal circumstances, she would eventually consummate the marriage, after which a child would be conceived.
In the end, the Protestant who denies Mary’s perpetual virginity is forced to read into the text something that is not there—namely, that Gabriel indicated an immediate conception (that is, one before she and Joseph begin living together as husband and wife). This is not stated by the text. You’d have to go beyond what the text says for this argument to work.
Well, my friends, that does it for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. The readings for this upcoming Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year B, equip us for the topic of Mary’s perpetual virginity.
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I hope you have a blessed Fourth Sunday of Advent. Until next time, God Bless!
[i] See Jacob Milgrom, Harper Collins Study Bible n. Lev 16:29; citing Targum Pseudo-Jonthan; cf. Brant Pitre, “A Biblical Basis for Mary’s Perpetual Virginity,” March 13, 2008, www.thesacredpage.com.
[ii] James White, Mary—Another Redeemer? (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 1998), Chap. 3, Electronic Edition.
[iii] Rhodes, Reasoning with Catholics from the Scriptures, 297.
[iv] Gune also means simply “woman,” but like marital context indicates “wife” as the appropriate translation.
[v] Tim Staples, Behold Your Mother: A Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines (El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers Press, 2014), 134-135.
[vi] See Daniel B. Wallace, 521–522; cf. Manual Miguens, The Virgin Birth, an Evaluation of the Scriptural Evidence (Westminster, MD, 1975), 81; William H. Carroll, A History of Christendom, Vol. I (Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 1985), 310.