[W]e should not say we say that Jesus got his “male humanity” from Mary. If Jesus’s human nature had been derived solely from Mary’s physical body, he would have been her clone, and therefore he would have been a woman. The doctrine of the virgin birth must be understood in a way consistent with Matt. 1:20, which says, “That which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirt.” What was conceived in Mary’s womb was a human baby, and it was “from the Holy Spirit,” which suggests that half of the genetic material that Jesus received was miraculously created by the Holy Spirit, and half was from Mary. (Wayne Grudem, “Doctrinal Derivations from Evangelical-Feminist Arguments about the Trinity,” in One God in Three Persons: Unity of Essence, Distinction of Person, Implications for Life, eds. Bruce A. Ware and John Starke [Wheaton, Illin.: Crossway, 2015], pp.17-45, here, p. 26 n. 18; emphasis in original).
I agree with Grudem to claim that there was no genetic contribution from another person other than Mary results in a perverted understanding of the humanity of Jesus; the New Testament, after all, emphasises the true, full humanity of Jesus Christ, and condemns those who reject such (cf. 1 John 4:1-3). Of course, in LDS theology, it is the person of the Father, not the Holy Spirit, that is the “father” of Jesus vis-à-vis His humanity. With respect to Matt 1:20, such has to be read in light of the parallel text in Luke 1:35:
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 be born will be called holy, the Son of God." (NRSV)
The term translated as “Most High” is ὕψιστος which corresponds to the Hebrew עֶלְיוֹן which is a title of God (the Father) in the Old Testament and intertestamental literature. This is further strengthened by the fact that Luke is borrowing language from the LXX that speaks of God's glorious presence at work:
Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on each stage of their journey. (Exo 40:35-36 NRSV)
The term translated as "settled upon [the tent]" is επισκιαζω, the same verb translated as “overshadow” in the Lucan text.
The same holds true of Psa 91:4 (90:4, LXX):
He will cover (επισκιαζω) you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. (NRSV)
Some, such as James Dunn (Christology in the Making) and Raymond E. Brown (The Birth of the Messiah), among others, have argued that the person of the Holy Spirit is not in view in Luke 1:35, but it is to be understood as a form of parallelism, with “holy Spirit” and “Most High” being synonymous with one another, and the locution, “holy Spirit” to be interpreted as the operational presence of God, not the person of the Holy Spirit. In light of the Bible’s penchant of synonymous parallelism, as well as other types of parallelism, such is more than plausible an exegesis of the text.
The person of God the Father is presented as being the one who “overshadows” Mary, through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit, no doubt, in part, to allow Mary to withstand the presence of deity (cf. D&C 67:11); in that respect, it is plausible to also understand God the Father as being the “father” of Jesus, vis-à-vis His humanity, with the same “genetic contribution” from the Father as Mary, Jesus’ biological mother (without going into “how” such genetic material was created [ex nihilo or some other means]).
See my related posts on this issue here:
