Mary Rejoices in Her Savior

Mary’s encounter with Elizabeth wherein John leaped in his mother’s womb at the presence of Jesus (Luke 1:39–45) clearly had a significant impact on the mother of our Lord. As we see in today’s passage, Mary worshiped our Creator in the aftermath of her meeting with Elizabeth, breaking forth in a song of praise that is known as the Magnificat.

Luke 1:46–50 features the opening words of this song, which has parallels to other hymns in Scripture, most notably the song of Hannah recorded in 1 Samuel 2:1–10. Hannah praised God because the birth of her son, the prophet Samuel, represented a decisive act of salvation, for through Samuel God would institute the monarchy and provide a king to deliver His people from their enemies (see 1 Sam. 16). Mary’s conceiving Jesus the Messiah was an even greater act of salvation, since He is the Savior who provided the final, sufficient sacrifice to reconcile us to God and to destroy the devil (see 1 John 2:1–2; 3:8). Thus, it was especially fitting for her to praise the Lord.

Note particularly Mary’s address of God as her “Savior” (Luke 1:47). Mary recognized her own need of salvation at the moment of her song and did not present herself as one who had already been redeemed before birth from the stain of original sin, as taught by the Roman Catholic Church in the doctrine of the immaculate conception. Mary, no less than any other human being besides Jesus, was a sinner and was not preserved from the effects of the fall. Consequently, her greatest joy and hope was not that she had the honor and privilege of being the mother of the Savior but that she herself would be saved by her Son. Matthew Henry comments, “Even the mother of our Lord had need of an interest in him as her Savior, and would have been undone without it: and she glories more in that happiness which she had in common with all believers than in being his mother, which was an honor peculiar to herself.”

After acknowledging God’s special blessing on her and the Lord’s majestic holiness, Mary declared that our Creator’s mercy “is for those who fear him” (vv. 48–50). She refers to the “fear of the Lord,” which is commended throughout Scripture and consists not in the unredeemed sinner’s abject terror of God but in the reverent awe and respect that redeemed people have toward the Lord (Prov. 1:7). John Calvin comments, “Under the fear of the Lord is included the whole of godliness and religion, and this cannot exist without faith.”