The question was asked, “How is God the Father if Jesus (Christ) came from the Virgin Mary?” The answer is simple and also refers to the previous post. Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, was begotten by God the Father before any creature – human or otherwise – was created:
In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through Him. All that came to be had life in Him and that life was the light of men (Jn 1:1-4).
Jesus was, in His divinity, in His Father’s Divine Heart before His human mother, the Virgin Mary was created in the flesh. In fact, in the very beginning there was God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (the Holy Trinity) – and silence. Nothing else; no one else. God the Father always was, is, and will be a Father because He always willed to have a Son, Jesus Christ. At no point in being was the Almighty Father ever without His Son. And Jesus always was, is, and will be a Son – the Son of God – because He was begotten by God the Father from eternity, for eternity. Jesus is divine in nature. However, a need arose.
After God the Father created Lucifer, the first and most beautiful of all the angels, the morning star (Is 14:12), rebellion arose out of pride and envy. Loving His creatures with intensity as He did and always does, the Almighty Father progressively disclosed to Lucifer – at that point, still His confidante and friend – that He intended to create human beings in the Trinity’s own image and likeness (Gn 1:26, 2:7), both to dwell in them Himself with the fullness of His Spirit and to give to His Son, Jesus Christ:
For in Him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignties, Powers – all things were created through Him and for Him. Before anything was created, He existed and He holds all things in unity (Col 1:16-17).
The Father also told Lucifer that He intended for Jesus to live not solely in His bosom, His Divine Heart (Jn 1:18), but also among humankind as their Head, so that God could become one and live fully with His human creatures whom He loved so much – God among gods:
I have said, “You are gods, children of the Most High; all of you” (Ps 82:6).
To that end, the Almighty Father disclosed to Lucifer that He intended to create a human mother, the Virgin Mary, for His Son, Jesus Christ, so that Jesus could have a human nature in addition to His divine nature (the hypostatic union), thus becoming able to dwell like and with humankind in the flesh. The Father additionally told Lucifer that it was fitting that Mary, once created, would be ranked above him and all the other angels despite her inferior nature to them, since she would be the mother of His divine Son.
This threw Lucifer into a rage. As the first created being, Lucifer demanded with impunity that he be the bearer of the hypostatic union, not the Father’s divine Son, Jesus Christ. Lucifer also declared that he would never accept Mary as above him in rank, since the Father had created him with a higher, preternatural nature. The Father rejected Lucifer’s demand and declaration. Lucifer decided to betray God the Father. He incited and led those angels who would follow him in the famous rebellion against the Most High God, resulting in him losing all privileges and beauty, becoming Satan:
And now war broke out in heaven, when Michael with his angels attacked the dragon. The dragon fought back with his angels, but they were defeated and driven out of heaven. The great dragon, the primeval serpent, known as the devil or Satan, who had deceived all the world, was hurled down to the earth and his angels were hurled down with him (Rv 12:7-9).
How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, star of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who enslaved the nations! For you have said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the Mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.” Yet you have fallen down to Sheol, to the very bottom of the abyss! (Is 14:12-15).
After being banished from the presence of God for his betrayal, Satan refused to learn his lesson. He remained malcontent and plotted revenge on both His Creator and humankind. Since the human creatures the Almighty Father had already made – Adam and Eve (Gn 2:4-25), our first parents – now ranked higher than Satan did and continued enjoying all the privileges he once had, the Devil could not stand this. He decided to provoke them into losing the Father’s favor:
The serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that Yahweh God had made. It asked the woman, “Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat he fruit of the trees in the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, “You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death.” Then the serpent said to the woman, “No! You will not die! God knows, in fact, that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised that they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loincloths. The man and his wife heard the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from God among the trees of the garden. But God called to the man. “Where are you?” He asked. “I heard the sound of You in the garden,” he replied, “I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” “Who told you that you were naked?” God asked. “Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?” The man replied, “It was the woman You put with me; she gave me the fruit and I ate it.” Then God asked the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman replied, “The serpent tempted me and I ate.” Then God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, be accursed beyond all cattle, all wild beasts. You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust every day of your life” (Gn 3:1-14).
God the Father also banished Adam and Eve – as a consequence, all of humankind – from His presence for their similar, albeit not identical, betrayal of His goodness. But He never lost His love for the human creatures who were His handiwork; who had been created by Him with such joy in the very image and likeness of the Trinity (Gn 1:26, 2:7). In fact, being a Father, always having been a Father, and never able to stop being a Father first and foremost despite being God, He loved them even more intensely now that they were no longer in His presence, under His immediate, protective gaze. The Almighty’s Divine Heart ached with grief for Adam and Eve, for what had happened, and for what would happen to their intergenerational offspring. So the Father asked all His heavenly court who would go to redeem His creatures, His people, in order that they could be rejoined:
Whom shall I send, who will go for Us? (Is 6:8).
Silence ensued. Then Jesus Christ, His divine Son, being Goodness from Goodness, replied from within the Father’s bosom:
Here Am I; send Me (Is 6:8).
It was then that it was decided by the Holy Trinity that Jesus would not only become the Son of Man from the Virgin Mary to live among and be like humankind as their Head, but also to redeem, reconcile, and rejoin humankind to God the Father, healing and restoring the broken union between the Creator and His human creatures past, present, and future. The Almighty Father proclaimed to Satan:
I will make you enemies of each other: you and the Woman, your offspring and Her offspring. S(He) will crush your head and you will strike at Her(His) heel (Gn 3:15).
Because the Virgin Mary had always been in the mind of the Father as the mother of His divine Son, even before she was created, the Spirit also proclaimed:
Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a Woman, adorned with the Sun, standing on the moon and with twelve stars on her head for a crown (Rv 12:1).
When the appointed time arrived (Gal 4:4-5), God the Father sent His messenger to the Virgin Mary in Nazareth, to ask if she would consent to become the mother of His divine Son, Jesus Christ, thus giving Him her body and blood to become His Body and Blood:
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, “Rejoice, so highly favored! The Lord is with you.” She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, “Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favor. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a Son and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; He will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and His reign will have no end.” Mary said to the angel, “But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?” “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” the angel answered, “and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the Child will be holy and will be called Son of God” . . . “I am the handmaid of the Lord,” said Mary, “let what you have said be done to me” (Lk 1:26-38).
This is how Jesus Christ is both the Son of God the Father and the Son of Man by the Virgin Mary, in and through the Holy Spirit.
