And the angel answered and said unto her, The
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee (επερχομαι), and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow (επισκιαζω) thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born
of thee shall be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:35)
Catholic
scholar Elizabeth A. Johnson wrote the following about Luke 1:35 which supports
the Latter-day Saint belief that, with respect to the humanity of Jesus, the father thereof was not the Holy Spirit but
the Father:
. . nowhere
in scripture is the Spirit’s action that “comes upon” or “overshadows” a person
analogous to sexual intercourse. Rather, these verbs indicate the presence of
God who empowers and protects.
Eperchesthai (“come upon”) in Greek literally
signifies the coming and going of persons or things such as ships. This
rootedness in physical movement in space equips the word to function
figuratively to point to the intangible approach of the living God. Carrying
the motion of onrushing, overpowering vitality, it tells of divine presence on
the more creating something new. A prime example is Jesus’ saying in Acts that
assures his disciples after his resurrection, “You will receive power when the
Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts
1:8). When this does indeed happen, the women and men of his circle are
empowered to preach the good news to the ends of the earth. This same sense of
empowerment is well attested in the Hebrew Bible. After Samuel’s anointing, “the
Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David
from that day forward,” beginning his march toward kingship (1 Sam. 16:13).
Isaiah foretells devastation “until the Spirit comes upon us from on high,” when a period of blessed refreshment
will begin (Isa. 32:15). These and other biblical examples make clear that the
Spirit “coming upon” someone is not sexual but creatively empowering in a
broader sense. It connotes the approach of the power of God in a decisively new
way.
Episkizein (“overshadow”) in Greek
literally means to cast a shadow on something . . . When used in scripture with
reference to God, “overshadowing” [has] the positive meaning of manifesting
powerful divine protection over a person or even the whole people. The word is
often coupled with concrete images such as a moving cloud or sheltering wings
under whose shadow persons find refuge, figurative ways of speaking about God’s
protection from harm . . . Two other instances closely parallel this verb’s
meaning in the annunciation text. In the exodus story a cloud settles on the
tent of meeting that Moses pitched in the desert: “the cloud overshadowed it and the glory of the
Lord filled the tabernacle” (Exod. 40:34ff.). When the cloud rose, the people
followed it and trekked on; when it settled down on the tabernacle, they
rested. Casting a shadow by day, shot through with fire at night, “the movement
of the cloud directs the journey toward freedom.” What is being spoken of here
is the presence of God. Signified by the cloud, this presence protects,
refreshes, directs, liberates. Again, all three Synoptic Gospels uses the same
verb in their account of Jesus’ transfiguration: “Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud
there came a voice . . . “ (Mark 9:7; Matt. 17:5; Luke 9:34). As in the Sinai
story, the action of the cloud, itself a metaphor of divine presence, brings
God close to the scene with gracious, redemptive intent. The voice speaks the
same message about Jesus’ being the Son of God as was already heard at the
baptism, and the two scenes are parallel. The Spirit descends like a dove, the
cloud of glory overshadows, and Jesus’ messianic identity is revealed. (Elizabeth
A. Johnson, Dangerous Memories: A Mosaic
of Mary in Scripture [New York: Continuum, 2006], 90-91)
This
supports Latter-day Saint theology that the God the Father provided the
humanity of Jesus (with Mary, of course--if Mary was the sole source of Jesus' humanity, Jesus would have been a clone of Mary) and not the Holy Spirit—the presence
of the Spirit allowed Mary to withstand the presence of God (cf. D&C 67:11;
Moses 1:2) while the Father, miraculously, impregnated Mary with Jesus.
For a fuller
discussion, see Appendix 2: The Virginal Conception in Latter-day Saint
Theology, pp. 184-207 of my book Behold
the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology (2017)
