face of the Lord to prepare His ways' and shows that the title 'The Highest'

here refers not to God in Heaven, but to the Incarnate Son on earth.  He was

both the Son of the Highest, yet at the same time the Highest Himself.  We

have therefore to remember that the Scriptures group together The Son of the

Highest, the sons and servants of the Highest, the Priest and Prophet of the

Highest, as factors in the salvation of the world.  There is one more use of

the word 'Highest' that must be considered.  In answer to Mary's reasonable

objection 'How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' the angel answered

'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall

overshadow thee'.

Here, the Holy Ghost is spoken of as the power of the

Highest, and the words 'come upon' and 'overshadow' take the place of normal

parentage.  Sudden unpreparedness is implied by the words 'shall come upon'

as the other references in Luke will reveal.

'When a stronger than he shall come upon him' (Luke 11:22).

'Men's hearts failing ... those things which are coming on the earth'

'As a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the

whole earth' (21:35).

Luke, who wrote the words of the angel in 1:35 'The Holy Ghost shall

come upon thee', wrote also the words of Acts 1:8, descriptive of the day of

Pentecost 'After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you' and when this power

did come it came 'suddenly' and irresistibly 'as a rushing mighty wind' (Acts

Overshadow.  This word is used of the Transfiguration, and from the

overshadowing cloud came a voice saying, 'This is My Beloved Son, hear Him'

(Luke 9:34,35).  The miraculous element of this overshadowing is seen in Acts

5:15 where the sick lined the streets 'that at the least, the shadow of Peter

passing by might overshadow some of them'.  In some verses the LXX episkiazo

'overshadow' translates the Hebrew verb shaken, 'to dwell as in a tabernacle'

and is associated with a 'cloud' (Exod. 40), but the verses are not given

here as they do not coincide with those of the A.V.  In Psalm 91:4 we meet

the word again 'He shall cover thee with His feathers', in Psalm 140:7,

'O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, Thou hast covered my head in

the day of battle'.  While the same Greek word is not used in the LXX, the

same Hebrew word (sakak) is employed in the sentence, 'Thou hast covered me

in my mother's womb' (Psa. 139:13) which has a bearing upon the context of

Luke 1.  This same Hebrew word is used to describe the mysterious office of

the anointed cherub (Ezek. 28:14,16), and in English the word is used for the

mating of the lower animals, especially of a stallion, and for the covering

of a clutch of eggs by a hen.  In these two expressions therefore is

compressed suddenness, protection and brooding or incubation.  The Author of

this is called 'The Holy Ghost', and His power is called the 'power of the

We see therefore that 'The Highest' is the title of the God of the Old

Testament (Gen. 14:18-22), the title of the Father (Luke 6:35,36), and the

title of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35), and of the promised Saviour (Luke

1:76).  Thus far we have examined what terms are used in this annunciation to

settle the problem of paternity that naturally troubled the Virgin Mary.  We

now note the nature of this Son.  He is in one verse called (1) 'The Son of

the Highest' and (2) His father was David.  He is spoken of as 'that holy

thing which shall be born of thee' and as 'The Son of God' (Luke 1:32-35),