“The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God’” (Luke 1:35).
Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were too old for Elizabeth to conceive and bear John the Baptist; therefore, God used supernatural means to help them. Even though John had human parents, the Holy Spirit supernaturally indwelt him before he was born (Luke 1:15). For this reason, the Holy Spirit called John “the prophet of the Most High,” and John prepared the way for Jesus and His successful ministry (see Luke 1:76). Unlike John, the angel Gabriel told Mary that Jesus would be called “the Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32). When Mary asked how this could happen because she was not yet married to Joseph, the angel explained that the Holy Spirit would achieve this miracle when the power of the Most High overshadowed her. Just as the presence of God overshadowed the tabernacle Moses set up and later the temple King Solomon built, so the presence of God would conceive Mary’s child without the need for human intervention. She only needed to wait in a way similar to how Jesus would tell His disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them. The Spirit of God actively participated in the creation of the world, in the conception of Jesus the Messiah, and in the new creation of everyone who trusts in Jesus as the Son of God and their personal Lord and Savior. Because of the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit all believers can now serve God “without fear, in holiness and righteousness” (Luke 1:75).