Conceived by the Holy Spirit

Why does the Creed say this?

The writers of the Apostles' Creed seem to be determined to show that the birth of Jesus was entirely the work of God. The Gospels make it clear that there was no man involved in this birth for in Luke 1:34 Mary asked " How will this be, since I am a virgin ?" In a sense this is the negative view of the virgin birth . The Creed echoes scripture in telling us also the positive side: that it is God, through the power of the Holy Spirit that has brought this miracle into being. Jesus was not only born of the Virgin Mary but also was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

It should also be made clear that at no time has Christian belief suggested that God's part of this miracle was sexual. It has sometimes been interpreted that way by members of other religions and that is part of the reason why Muslims find the concept of God having a Son as repulsive.

What do the Scriptures say of the Holy Spirit in this context?

(Matthew 1:18 NIV) This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

(Luke 1:35 NIV) The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

(Matthew 1:20 NIV) But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

It is clear from these verses that, in the words of William Barclay, "The Holy Spirit of God was specially and uniquely the cause of the birth of Jesus" ( The Plain Man looks at the Apostles' Creed ) . They stress the miracle of the conception as well as the birth of Jesus.

Calvin said:
[The birth of Jesus] "was effected by the miraculous and secret agency of the Spirit . . . "

What Does This Mean for Christian Doctrine?

In the early days of the Church all kinds of stories were put about in order to discredit the Gospel. Some of those stories involved slanderous suggestions that Jesus was Mary's illegitimate child. The Church actually laid itself open to such suggestions when it used expressions like "son of Mary" because the custom of the time was to use the father's name, e.g., "son of Joseph". The Gospels and the Creed alike declare that Jesus was uniquely conceived by the Spirit of God. Far from being the illegitimate "son of the woman", he was hailed as the blessed Son of God. Karl Barth wrote:

"Jesus, in the sense of the Creed and the early Church alike, was God, with no reservation and no ambiguity. In Christ it is God himself who became man, and not a half-god, not an appearance of God.
Karl Barth - The Faith of the Church.

(All full biblical quotations in this article are taken from the New International Version and have been inserted into the text using "QuickVerse for Windows" from Parsons Technology .)