The Greatest Blessing Mary Received

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! (Luke 1:42)

Mary was unique in human history. It is absolutely true. She was “blessed among women” (Luke 1:42), and among men as well. She received the singular holy gift of being the mother of our Lord (Luke 1:43). God dwelled inside of her body in human form. Then he lived in her home and was under her care until adulthood.

The mystery woven into Mary’s calling as Jesus’s mother has tempted some to attribute near divine status to her and worship her. It was a temptation from the very beginning, even when Jesus was still walking the earth. We get a glimpse of this when a woman in a crowd shouted out to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed” (Luke 11:27)!

We don’t know exactly what was in this woman’s mind when she said this. But the human heart, which makes idols out of almost anything, can easily progress from considering a womb blessed by Jesus’s presence (which it was) to believing that the womb must have somehow been worthy of such a blessed presence (which it was not).

Jesus knew the woman’s line of reasoning was dangerous. So he responded to her, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27–28)!

Do you see the guarding grace in Jesus’s response? In a single sentence he was protecting Mary’s true blessedness and protecting us from idolatry — if we listen to him. The blessing is not in bearing the Son, it’s in believing the Son. The blessing is not in caring for the Word of God made flesh (John 1:14) but in keeping the Word’s word.

Gabriel told Mary that she had “found favor with God” (Luke 1:30). Certainly bearing and raising the Christ Child was an incredible favor. But it was not the greatest favor God bestowed on Mary — not by a long shot. Though he gave Mary a completely unique calling, the most important way God favored her is the same way he favors you and me and all his children.

The biblical canon nowhere teaches that Mary was sinless. She was not immaculately conceived. Like us, she “was brought forth in iniquity” (Psalm 51:5). Unless God did something to remove her sin, his wrath would have remained on her like any other fallen human.

This means that God’s favor on Mary was unmerited. The grace he showed to her was of staggering proportions, and I’m not even referring to her calling as the mother of The Child. The greatest blessing Mary received was that her Child saved her from her damning sins (Matthew 1:21) so that he could bring her to God (1 Peter 3:18) — the same blessing that is given to everyone who believes in him (John 3:16).

That’s why Jesus directs our attention away from Mary, whom he loved, to his Word in Luke 11:28. He wants our attention on the gospel he came to proclaim: the free gift of eternal life (Romans 6:23) to all who believe in him (1 John 5:13). Mary’s vocational calling as the mother of Jesus was a great blessing, but it was nowhere near the blessing of having her sins paid for by the fruit of her womb.

God was “Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14) to Mary in a way no one else has experienced and in that way she was “blessed among women.” But the most important way God dwelled with Mary was the same as he dwells with all his children: through faith (Ephesians 3:17).

So as we ponder Mary’s experience this Christmas, let us join her relative, Elizabeth, and say of her: “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:45). Because God’s greatest blessing is given to those who believe him.

Repentance for the Greatest of All Offenses — Charles Spurgeon

“Testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” – Acts 20:21

C.H. Spurgeon,

The penitent man sees that the greatest offense of all his offenses is that he has offended God. Many of you think nothing of merely offending God—you think much more of offending man. If I call you “sinners” you do not repel the charge. But if I called you “criminals” you would rise in indignation and deny the accusation. A criminal, in the usual sense of the term, is one who has offended his fellow man—a sinner is one who has wronged his God. You do not mind being called sinners, because you think little of grieving God. But to be called criminals, or offenders against the laws of man, annoys you. For you think far more of man than of God.

Yet, in honest judgment, it were better, infinitely better, to break every human law, if this could be done without breaking the Divine Law, than to disobey the least of the commands of God. Know you not, O Man, that you have lived in rebellion against God? You have done the things He bids you not to do and you have left undone the things which He commands you to do. This is what you have to feel and to confess with sorrow. And without this, there can be no repentance.

Near the vital heart of repentance, right in its core, is a sense of the meanness of our conduct toward God. Especially our ingratitude to Him, after all His favor and mercy. This it is that troubles the truly penitent heart most—that God should love so much and should have such a wretched return. Ingratitude, the worst of ills, makes sin exceeding sinful. Sorrow for having so ill requited the Lord is a Divine Grace. A tear of such repentance is a diamond of the first water, precious in the sight of the Lord.

True repentance is also toward God in this respect—that it judges itself by God. We do not repent because we are not so good as a friend whom we admire but because we are not holy as the Lord. God’s perfect Law is the transcript of His own perfect Character and sin is any want of conformity to the Law and to the Character of God. Judge yourselves by your fellow men, and you may be self-content. But measure yourselves by the perfect holiness of the Lord God and oh, how you must despise yourself! There is no deep repentance until our standard is the standard of perfect rectitude, till our judgment of self is formed by a comparison with the Divine Character. When we behold the perfection of the thrice holy Jehovah and then look at ourselves, we cry with Job, “Mine eyes sees You. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

To sum up—evangelical repentance is repentance of sin as sin—not of this sin, nor of that, but of the whole mass. We repent of the sin of our nature as well as of the sin of our practice. We bemoan sin within us and without us. We repent of sin itself as being an insult to God. Anything short of this is a mere surface repentance and not a repentance which reaches to the bottom of the mischief. Repentance of the evil act and not of the evil heart is like men pumping water out of a leaky vessel but forgetting to stop the leak. Some would dam up the stream but leave the fountain still flowing. They would remove the eruption from the skin but leave the disease in the flesh.

All that is done by way of amendment without a bemoaning of sin because of its being rebellion against God will fall short of the mark. When you repent of sin as against God, you have laid the axe at the root of the tree. He that repents of sin as sin against God, is no longer sporting with the evil but has come to grips with it. Now he will be led to change his life and to be a new man—now, also, will he be driven to cry to God for mercy and in consequence he will be drawn to trust in Jesus. He will now feel that he cannot help himself and he will look to the strong for strength. I can help myself toward my fellow man and I can improve myself up to his standard. But I cannot help myself toward God and cannot wash myself clean before His eyes. Therefore I fly to Him to purge me with hyssop and make me whiter than snow. O gracious Spirit, turn our eyes Godwards and then fill them with penitential tears!

taken from: Two Essential Things
, Sermon No. 2073, March 3rd, 1889.

The Greatest Enemy of Our Hunger for God

Christian fasting is not only the spontaneous effect of a superior satisfaction in God; it is also a chosen weapon against every force in the world that would take that satisfaction away.

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.

Jesus said some people hear the word of God, and a desire for God is awakened in their hearts. But then, "as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life" (Luke 8:14). In another place he said, "The desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful"(Mark 4:19). "The pleasures of this life" and "the desires for other things"—these are not evil in themselves. These are not vices. These are gifts of God. They are your basic meat and potatoes and coffee and gardening and reading and decorating and traveling and investing and TV-watching and Internet-surfing and shopping and exercising and collecting and talking. And all of them can become deadly substitutes for God. (A Hunger for God, Crossway, 1997)

On November 2–3 in Minneapolis John Piper will be leading a seminar on A Hunger for God. This is a free event and we'd love to have you join us!