21.1 Let It Be
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus …” Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”
And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God …” Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:30-38).
What Is Word?
In the very moment that Mary said, “Let it be to me according to your word,” Jesus was conceived in her womb.
Now, many Christians define “word” as ideas from the Bible and “faith” as our assertion that these ideas are correct. They may protest differently, but when you reduce their actual thinking down to its essence, ideas are the only thing left. The problem, of course, is that this approach to “word” is called death by the Bible.
Here is God’s definition of word. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63b). – The seed is the word of God (Luke 8:11b).
Motive and Means
Look at the progression of word in the story of Mary. First, the word comes as words, but words that are clearly the Lord Jesus Christ. You will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus.
Then Mary asks, “How?” In hearing the purpose of God, the motive, Mary asks next for the means of God, “How?” The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you.
The motive of God is the Word become flesh, and the means of God is the overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit.
Opportunity
What about opportunity? What opportunity does God have actually to fulfill His purpose?
When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith in the earth? Will God have the opportunity to fulfill His purpose, many sons, just like Jesus, the Word become flesh in many?
Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” Without Mary, God’s grand scheme would have been dead in the water. Our asking, believing we have received, is God’s opportunity.
The Same Jesus
Let’s bury an anti-Christ piece of nonsense.
Christ lives in your hearts by faith (Ephesians 3:17a). – My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you (Galatians 4:19). The Lord Jesus Christ conceived, formed, and birthed out from Mary’s womb is the EXACT same Christ, conceived in my heart, formed in me, and coming forth into the full light of day.
God Incarnate. – God in the flesh. I am not a “christ” separate from Jesus. It is Jesus who is Christ, revealed now through me, the same Jesus that was conceived in Mary.
The Seed
The Word is the Seed of God; the Word is God’s sperm. That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life.”
But word alone cannot bring forth life. Two other things are REQUIRED, the immediate overshadowing of the Holy Spirit and the seed of a woman.
Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For … the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest (Hebrews 4:1-3a).
God Incarnate
This asking and believing that we have received, as you can see, is not incidental, it’s not a “good idea.” We are speaking, not only of life versus death, but of the very intentions of Father God. Will He have what He wants? God cannot have what He wants apart from you and me.
You see how the writer of Hebrews joins utterly these two things – we are partakers of Christ IF welded together with Word entering into Faith. God Incarnate in us is not blasphemy, and God is not a criminal. God Incarnate in us is God’s original determination. God Incarnate in us is the normal Christian life!
The Holy Spirit
The Word coming to us is the same Word that came to Mary. And the Holy Spirit that came upon Mary is the very same Spirit that has come upon us and for the exact same purpose.
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you. – You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses (Acts 1:8).
I have not developed the role of the Holy Spirit in the means of God, and that is a mistake. Let me correct my mistake. Because the Holy Spirit is always pointing us to Jesus, remaining in the background, we sometimes fail to underline the essential place of that Spirit.
Overshadowing
Without the immediate and miraculous overshadowing of the Holy Spirit over every word God speaks on the one hand and over our own hearts and minds and believing on the other hand, then word can be only death and never life. If we want to know God, we must be immersed into and filled with the Holy Ghost, spirit, soul, and body.
And the Holy Ghost comes upon us as the means of God, to accomplish God’s purposes in our lives, by the exact same mechanism that births the Word, Christ Jesus, in our hearts. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you … If you … know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Luke 11:9-12).
That We May Know Him
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true (1 John 5:20). “Understanding” is the wrong English word to translate the Greek, dianoia, or “through-mind,” though it carries some of the meaning. No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received … the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God (1 Corinthians 2:11b-12).
If you have not yet asked God to immerse you utterly into His Spirit, then do so now, and wait upon God until you KNOW.
Jesus the Christ
Jesus and Spirit are not and can never be separated. God is Person and always, utterly personal, revealing Himself ONLY in, as, and through Ppersons. Christ, the anointing, is the Holy Spirit, yes, but never ever separate from Jesus. Without Jesus there is no Christ; without the Spirit, there is no Sending. If it’s the Holy Spirit, then a bony finger is always, every moment, pointing us to Jesus.
When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but … He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you (John 16:13-14).
A Teenage Girl
We have this picture, then. Two things, Word and Spirit, come to Mary, both together, utterly entwined together. Though two, they are always one.
Let us understand fully the heart and faith of this teenage girl, the daughter of her father, David. “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”
| Idou, hē doulē Kyriou. |
| Behold, the handmaid of the Lord. |
- Behold/idou-eidó means, very simply, “Look at me.” Where are you, Mary?
Here I am. Look at me. I am here, all that You see. I am only as You find me to be, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I can do nothing of myself; I have no sufficiency in myself. Yet I will not hide behind trying or pretending. I stand here, Father, fully in the light. Look at me.
- Doulé: female slave, bondmaid. I belong to you, my Father, utterly and without reservation. All that I am is Yours; You possess me in full.
- Kurios: lord, master. You are utterly responsible for me, my Father. You are my Lord and Master. I attempt nothing of myself. I wait only upon You.
| Genoito moi kata to rhēma sou. |
| Be it to me according to the word of you. |
- Genoito/ginomai: to come into being, to happen, to become. I come into being; I am born; I become; I come about; I happen.
- Gínomai – properly, to emerge, become, transitioning from one point, realm, or condition to another. Gínomai fundamentally means "become" (becoming, became) so it is not an exact equivalent to the ordinary equative verb "to be." (adapted from biblehub.com)
According to Vincent’s Word Studies, gínomai means a manifestation implying motion, movement, or growth. Thus it means the unfolding of God out from His ALL HERE NOW, but invisible being, into being known in time and space.
The following descriptions of the verb inflection, genoito, or “let it be” are quoted from http://www.ntgreek.org/ - aorist tense; optative mood; middle voice.
- Tense: The aorist is said to be "simple occurrence" or "summary occurrence", without regard for the amount of time taken to accomplish the action. This tense is also often referred to as the 'punctiliar' tense. 'Punctiliar' in this sense means 'viewed as a single, collective whole,' a "one-point-in-time" action, although it may actually take place over a period of time.
- Mood: The optative is the mood of possibility. Often it is used to convey a wish or hope for a certain action to occur.
- Voice: The Greek middle voice shows the subject acting in his own interest or on his own behalf, or participating in the results of the verbal action. In overly simplistic terms, sometimes the middle form of the verb could be translated as "the performer of the action actually acting upon himself" (reflexive action). For example: "I am washing myself."
The Intended Completion
- Katá: down, against, according to.
- Katá: "down from a higher to a lower plane, with special reference to the terminus or end-point." (adapted from J. Thayer).
- Katá, according to, means to bring down exactly to the intended completion.
- Rhēma sou: Your word. Rhḗma – a spoken word, made "by the living voice." Rhḗma is commonly used for the Lord speaking His dynamic, living word into a believer through faith (adapted from J. Thayer).
Shall Not Remain Void
One more thing before we bring this all together. After speaking of the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary, the angel Gabriel says this. For with God nothing will be impossible (Luke 1:37). Every time I have stated that God CANNOT do many things, that God cannot sin, this word has always hovered in the background.
Martin Vincent in his Word Studies corrects the false translation of Luke 1:37. Here is what God really said. No word from God will ever remain void of power, but every word God speaks will accomplish all that God intends. (Compare with Isaiah 55)
Ask and Believe
God does nothing apart from His Word. The Word accomplishes nothing apart from faith.
When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith in the earth? – Let it be to me according to Your word.
Do you know what, dear reader? With all my heart I want Jesus to find His own faith, Himself, in me. – And you also.
Ask and believe that you have received is far more than a Christian practice of receiving benefits from God. – Ask and believe that you have received is the very means of divine procreation, God becoming seen and known, the Father walking as one person together with you and me.
Let Us Ask
Look at me, God, I stand before You naked and unashamed. I belong utterly and absolutely to you; just as I am. You are entirely responsible for me.
Let every single Word that You speak, the Lord Jesus Christ, come into me, find its full resting place in me, and here, inside of me, all through my being and person, let that Word, the Lord Jesus, be all that He is, down to the exact intentions and results that You, Oh Father, have determined.
Ask and believe that you have received is the very means by which the DNA of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, coming out from the Father as every Word God speaks, enters into us, into our hearts of faith, as that same Word, now our only life and identity.