.
. . it must always be kept in mind that the humanness of Jesus was a product of
generation, gestation, and birth. Thus he is indissolubly linked with the old
creation. The work of the Holy Spirit in fashioning the humanity of Jesus did
not break this tie. God was faithful to his promises to David and to Israel by
having Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, born into a Jewish family (cf. John
4:22), whose ancestral line could be traced back to the Davidic monarchy. And
God was gracious to humanity in general, for although the Holy Spirit did
create Jesus as the prime source of a new humanity, he did this in such a way
as not to destroy the connection that united him with the old. Just as God did
not create the first Adam ex nihilo but chose to form him from the dust
of the ground, from the earth he was subsequently to inhabit and over which he
was to rule, so the Spirit of God did not create the Law Adam, Jesus, out of
nothing but shaped him from the substance of a human mother. He thus maintained
the organic connection between the two humanities. (Gerald F. Hawthorne, The
Presence and the Power: The Significance of the Holy Spirit in the Life and
Ministry of Jesus [Dallas: Word Publishing, 1991], 86-7)
