WWUTT 2257 Mary's Song, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-49)

The Magnificat as Mary’s Song of Praise

In Luke 1, 46 to 56, we have what is called the Magnificat, Latin for magnifies. This is the song that Mary sings unto God. My soul magnifies the Lord. What a great prayer when we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Luke chapter one, we are up to that portion of text that is referred to in Latin as the Magnificat or the Song of Mary. Here in Luke 1, 46 to 56, hear the word of the Lord.

And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.

And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home. Now, remember when Mary came to Elizabeth, Elizabeth was six months pregnant. So she remains there for three more months in the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth until the birth of John the Baptist.

And then Mary returns to her home in Nazareth. And by the time she shows up there, she's several months pregnant. And the people would have noticed this and realized because Mary's been gone, Joseph's not the father.

But we'll talk about that later. Let's focus today on the song of Mary. We'll actually be reading this, studying this between today and tomorrow. A lot of Old Testament references here. So what Mary is saying is not just, you know, spontaneous spiritual ecstasy.

She is actually saying things that have been promised in the scriptures that she's repeating, recognizing what God is fulfilling through her in choosing her to be the mother of the savior of the world, of God incarnate who would come in human flesh.

And so Mary begins this song by saying, my soul magnifies the Lord. And that's where we get the name Magnificat for this song. The word magnifies would be Magnificat in Latin, hence the title. Now, when Mary says this, my spirit rejoices in God, my savior, as she breaks out into this song, which appears to be done here in the presence of Elizabeth.

Or maybe Mary has gone off on her own and is praying to God, we don't know. It doesn't really set up a scenario outside of the conversation that Mary and Elizabeth have had with one another, which was what we looked at yesterday in verses 39 to 45.

So after Elizabeth says the things that she says to Mary, from verses 42 to 45, then Mary breaks out in this song. What Elizabeth says is God inspired because she is filled with the Holy Spirit in verse 41 and exclaimed with a loud cry, blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And so when Mary says that from now on, all generations will call me blessed, it is in light of this revelation that Elizabeth has given to Mary. So the way she starts here with my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior, that's a parallelism.

We've talked about Hebrew poetry before where you have a line that is repeated. The first line being, my soul magnifies the Lord, it's repeated again with slightly different words. And my spirit rejoices in God, my savior.

So same thing is being said twice, just with different wording. Charles Spurgeon, by the way, the great preacher, great London preacher of the 19th century, he said that whenever you say something and you repeat it, you should repeat it with different words.

This was advice counsel that he was giving to preachers to make their points more effective. It's a discipline that I've tried to use in the way that I preach and teach. It's just kind of an aside, but it's kind of taking the nature of the Hebrew parallelism, a form of Hebrew poetry and applying it even to our teaching because this was common in the way that Hebrews wrote and apparently here, even in the ways that Jews rejoiced in God.

Mary is certainly inspired by the Psalms, the way that she sings here. Psalm 34 begins like this. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord.

Let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. That's the beginning of Psalm 34, sounds a lot like the beginning of Mary's song here, right? Now, I didn't really provide an outline for this particular song.

It could be broken up into two parts, might be three parts. It begins with Mary rejoicing in God because of what God has done for her. But then we read in verse 50, his mercy is for those who fear him.

He has shown strength with his arm and scattered the proud in the thoughts of their heart. So that's verses 50 and 51. And then we have kind of this back and forth where God has shown favor to this group of people, but rejected this group of people.

He's brought down the mighty, exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things. The rich he has sent away empty. And then it ends with this statement about Israel. The recognition that God has been faithful to his promises all this time.

He's helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. So I guess the three parts in that way would be that Mary rejoices in the Lord for what he's done for her.

And then you have those contrasts where God has helped those who fear him, verses 50 and 51, scattered the proud in their thoughts. And then that being part of those contrasts, brought down the mighty, exalted those of humble estate, filled the hungry, the rich he sent away empty, and then closing with that recognition of him helping his servant Israel.

He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. So let's come back up then to my soul magnifies the Lord, verse 47, and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. Notice the reference to soul and spirit that are said there.

I just taught in my church this past Sunday night, we were finishing up the book of Ecclesiastes. And at the end of chapter 11, and also in the middle portion of chapter 12, there is a reference to the soul and the spirit.

So at the end of chapter 11, it says, as you do not know the way, the spirit comes to the bones and the womb of a woman with child. So you do not know the work of God who makes everything. And then we read in chapter 12, that when a man dies, that his body goes back to the dust that it came from, this is Ecclesiastes 12, seven, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Now, why do I mention that? Why do I bring that up? In light of what Mary says here in the Magnificat. Well, there is this common belief. I mean, it's pretty common. I wouldn't say it's the most dominant belief among Christianity, but it's still pretty common.

I run into it. People who believe, professing Christians who believe that we don't really have a soul, that all we are is pretty much mind and body, which is a very naturalistic way of thinking about things, that we don't have a soul at all.

And it's just the chemical processes, I suppose, that make up our bodies. But yeah, like I said, these are even professing Christians that believe these things. And when you die, your body goes into the ground and that's it.

There's no soul. So the soul doesn't go to be with God. What happens is your body even remains in some kind of a stasis. You're not conscious of anything that is going on until Jesus comes back. Because as said in 1 Thessalonians 4, the dead in Christ will rise first.

So at that point, you're resurrected, you're given a new body, and then you go on living forever with God. But only then, there is no eternal soul. There is no place that your soul goes to live while we're waiting for Christ's return and our bodies to be resurrected anew, our lowly bodies to be transformed and made like his glorious body, as said in Philippians 3.

The Hebrew roots guys are one group of people that believe this. The human being doesn't really have a soul. It's just body. And that's completely contrary to scripture. Like I said, it's not the dominant view, but it's still pretty common.

You'll run into people who do believe this, but the Bible plainly says that there is a spirit. God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground and he was not alive yet until God breathed his breath into him, gave him a spirit, gave him a soul.

And as we read plainly here in Ecclesiastes 11 and 12, there is a spirit or a soul that goes back to God who gave it when the person dies, where the body goes into the ground, returns to the dust from which it was made.

Mary is expressing something that comes from a part of herself that is more than just having the feels. She from her very soul knows God and loves him and rejoices from the very core of herself, mind, soul, body, spirit, everything.

She rejoices in God for the favor that he has shown to her. And surely there's all kinds of emotion that is pouring out of her when she is praying like this, when she's singing like this. You know, sometimes even as cessationists, we can be rather dry with our emotions and think that we shouldn't be emoting at all.

Whenever we sing songs to God, the person who is rejoicing in the Lord, why hold them back from the joy they would express and how good God has been to them? Why would we tame that? Why would we say to a person that they shouldn't express themselves in such ways?

And we do need to be careful not to lose control of our emotions, not to be governed by our emotions, but to feel tears or even overwhelming joy at singing a certain song unto the Lord. Perfectly wonderful for a Christian to experience such a thing in worship, whether by themselves or with the saints.

And so Mary pouring herself out here before the Lord to say that my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. I don't know if you saw the movie that came out back in, well, it would have been last Christmas.

So the fall of last year, Journey to Bethlehem, I'm pretty sure was the name of it. It was the musical of the birth of Jesus. And it was such a wretched movie, horrible film. One of the worst depictions of Mary that I have ever seen in a television series or in a movie.

It's just the worst depiction of Mary I've ever seen. Maybe outside of Our Lady of Guadalupe or Our Lady of Fatima or something like that. But as far as a play or a presentation or a show or something like that goes, Mary was such a miserable character.

She was joyless, very influenced by modern feminism. The Mary of 2000 years ago certainly would not have been anything like the Mary in that particular movie. Just a reprehensible character, joyless as all get out.

And it was incredible to me that you have a musical about the birth of Christ, the nativity, essentially. Everything that we know about Christ's birth, even with the shepherds and the wise men and everything else, there were no shepherds in that movie, believe it or not.

The wise men were just comic relief. It's just a horribly written movie. But anyway, it was a musical. And what a perfect opportunity to take the song of Mary and put it to music and make it like a centerpiece to this film.

Just like Let It Go would be to Frozen or A Whole New World would be to Aladdin. You know, there's that key song that you remember from those Disney films. Beauty and the Beast is to Beauty and the Beast.

It's even the title of the film. So you could have a musical about the nativity. And finally, we're gonna see a great song from Mary, the Magnificat, as we would find it in scripture, put to music. What a perfect venue to be able to write such a song and make it like the focus of your musical movie.

They didn't do that. Didn't even attempt to do it. Wasn't even that they did it badly. They just didn't do it. There was no Magnificat, no Song of Mary in that film. Absolutely astonishing. What a missed opportunity.

But like I said, it was a worthless movie. Don't bother watching it unless you're gonna just criticize it the whole way through, which was what I did. You can still find my review of it on my blog. If you Google like Pastor Gabe and the review of Journey to Bethlehem, it will come up.

Oh, I did a what video on it too. So you can get the short two-minute version if you don't wanna read the whole blog. So this is a great song. Mary singing with Elizabeth. Maybe Elizabeth joins in with her and singing certain phrases over again.

We don't know. But this is a song that is very much patterned after the way Psalms were written. And you even have references to Psalms that come up in this. As Mary says in verse 48, he, the Lord is looked on the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed. I wonder how much Mary was inspired by Hannah in some of the things that she sings here. Hannah was Samuel's mother. And if you'll remember from 1 Samuel 1, she prayed continually that God would give her a child.

And finally he blessed her and she was gonna have a son who of course would become Samuel. And then he would end up serving in the tabernacle. That was Hannah's pledge unto the Lord. You give me a child, I will give him to your service.

And he becomes the last judge of Israel, the one who anoints both Saul and David to be the first two kings of Israel. But before you get to the song of Hannah, which is really in 1 Samuel 2, Hannah says, oh Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life.

Now, Mary is a virgin. It's not like she's been praying her entire life for a child, though she may have, may have been praying to God that he would bless her with offspring. As an expectant mother would, or I'm sorry, an expectant wife.

She's gonna be married. She wants to be able to have a family. So she would ask God that he would bless Joseph and Mary, bless their union with children. So maybe she had prayed that as a virgin girl, desiring to be a wife and a mother, but it wasn't like, it wasn't in the same circumstances Hannah, who had no children for many years and had been praying for a child.

Nonetheless, remembering the words of Hannah, she says here that you looked, he looked on the humble estate of his servant, very similar to something that Hannah said. We also read in Psalm 138 .6, for though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty, the proud, he knows from afar.

And that may have been influential also in what Mary sings here. Now, the next line is at the end of 48, for behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed. And again, this is in light of the blessing that Elizabeth just gave to Mary.

Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And indeed there is not a woman on earth in the history of the earth that is perhaps more celebrated than Mary, the mother of our Lord Christ.

Now, there are many religions, of course, that take their veneration of Mary too far, their honoring of Mary or their admiration of Mary. They go too far. They go into worship, as we have discussed going through various aspects of Luke chapter one here.

The angel Gabriel was not praying to Mary when he greeted her. Greetings, oh favored one, the Lord is with you. That's not a prayer. Elizabeth was not praying to Mary when she said that blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

Both of these greetings, the one from Gabriel and the one from Elizabeth are part of the rosary prayer. That's something that I've condemned even as we've been doing this study in Luke chapter one, where you have 10 Hail Marys, 10 prayers to Mary for every one our father, every one prayer to God.

It is an idolatrous prayer. A person who fears God, a person who knows his word and desires to honor the Lord should never pray such a prayer as the rosary. Stay far away from it. For it is an idolatrous prayer.

And even Mary would herself be disrespected by such a prayer. She would not be honored by such a thing because so much attention is given to her and not to the Lord. Who is she singing to here as she sings?

It is not of herself. She sings to God. When she says behold from now on all generations will call me blessed. It is not to exalt herself. It is in praise to God because of how much he considered her, showed her favor.

And that's what we get in verse 49. For he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name. Psalm 89, eight, O Lord God of hosts, who is mighty as you are O Lord with your faithfulness all around you.

Zephaniah 3, 17, the Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. And as Mary says, he has done great things for me.

Remember Psalm 71, 19, your righteousness O God reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things O God, who is like you. And Psalm 126, two, then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue was shouts of joy.

Then they said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. And the reference to God's name being holy. We remember Psalm 99, three, let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he.

So you see how much the Psalms even have influenced this song that Mary lifts up to the Lord. Now this concludes the first portion of that song where Mary rejoices in God because of the kindness that he has shown to her.

What we look at next time when we come back to this song tomorrow are those contrasts, the way that God has shown favor to those who fear him, but he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He brought down the mighty, he exalted the humble, he has filled the hungry, the rich he has sent away empty. And then we will also consider that last phrase where God has remembered his servant Israel and has been faithful to every one of his promises.

That's when we finish up the Magnificat tomorrow. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we've read here. And as you had shown such great kindness to Mary, so you have shown great kindness to us through the savior of the world, Jesus Christ who was given, he who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Knowing this may our souls magnify the Lord and our spirits would rejoice in God our savior for great things you have done for us through Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray, amen.

The Soul, the Spirit, and Christian Worship

Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.

Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word when we understand the text.