“How long will you gad about, O you backsliding daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing in the earth–A woman shall encompass a man.”
– Jeremiah 31:22 NKJV
Long ago, the Preacher, in great wisdom concluded: ” … there is nothing new under the sun.” – Ecclesiastes 1:9b NIV. This is also the opinion of the modern intellectual establishment who will be saying in the last day: “…All things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” – 2 Peter 3:4b
In Jeremiah 31 God reminds us, however, that He has indeed created one new thing on the earth. Since only God can “create” (wherever this verb occurs in the Bible, God is the subject), a really new thing (not just a new combination of existing things) would have to be produced directly by the LORD Himself. Of course, God had completed His original work of creating all things long ago (Genesis 2:1-3), including the marvelous mechanism of human reproduction. Nevertheless, because of man’s sin He very soon had to begin a work of reconciliation, and this included an ancient promise that the Seed of the woman would come one day to accomplish this great work (Genesis 3:15). Since all normal reproduction requires the male seed, such a miracle would mean God would have to create a new thing when the appropriate time would come. At that time, as Isaiah prophesied many years later, “the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,” and that Son would be “almighty God,” who would establish His kingdom “with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever” (Isaiah 9:7).
In our passage above, Jeremiah reminds God’s forgetful people of this same great promise. God would create, by His mighty power, a new thing; a perfect human body without inherited sin or physical blemish, and with no contribution from either male nor female in the womb of a specially called virgin. Notice how Doctor Luke calls Jesus “that holy thing” in Luke 1:35 (KJV). It is striking that the embryonic Jesus in Mary’s womb is called “that holy thing”; not the babe or the the child or anything else. There is no human word to fit. Actually the word “thing’ is not in the original—just “the holy” or perhaps “the holy One.”
Are you amazed at the word of God like I am?
Mary was the first to hear the words, “Son of God” as applied to the Holy One who entered her womb!
Now that is a reason to “fall down and worship Him” this Christmas! (Matthew 2:11)
In Christ,
Dale
dale@daleebel.org