*** it-2 p. 56 Jesus Christ *** The inspired Record says: “But the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way. During the time his mother Mary was promised in marriage to Joseph, she was found to be pregnant by holy spirit before they were united.” (Mt 1:18) Prior to this, Jehovah’s angelic messenger had informed the virgin girl Mary that she would ‘conceive in her womb’ as the result of God’s holy spirit coming upon her and His power overshadowing her. (Lu 1:30, 31, 34, 35) Since actual conception took place, it appears that Jehovah God caused an ovum, or egg cell, in Mary’s womb to become fertile, accomplishing this by the transferal of the life of his firstborn Son from the spirit realm to earth. (Ga 4:4) Only in this way could the child eventually born have retained identity as the same person who had resided in heaven as the Word, and only in this way could he have been an actual son of Mary and hence a genuine descendant of her forefathers Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and King David and legitimate heir of the divine promises made to them. (Ge 22:15-18; 26:24; 28:10-14; 49:10; 2Sa 7:8, 11-16; Lu 3:23-34; see GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST.) It is likely, therefore, that the child born resembled its Jewish mother in certain physical characteristics.
Mary was a descendant of the sinner Adam, hence herself imperfect and sinful. The question therefore is raised as to how Jesus, Mary’s “firstborn” (Lu 2:7), could be perfect and free from sin in his physical organism. While modern geneticists have learned much about laws of heredity and about dominant and recessive characteristics, they have had no experience in learning the results of uniting perfection with imperfection, as was the case with Jesus’ conception. From the results revealed in the Bible, it would appear that the perfect male life-force (causing the conception) canceled out any imperfection existent in Mary’s ovum, thereby producing a genetic pattern (and embryonic development) that was perfect from its start. Whatever the case, the operation of God’s holy spirit at the time guaranteed the success of God’s purpose. As the angel Gabriel explained to Mary, “power of the Most High” overshadowed her so that what was born was holy, God’s Son. God’s holy spirit formed, as it were, a protective wall so that no imperfection or hurtful force could damage, or blemish, the developing embryo, from conception on.—Lu 1:35.
Since it was God’s holy spirit that made the birth possible, Jesus owed his human life to his heavenly Father, not to any man, such as his adoptive father Joseph. (Mt 2:13-15; Lu 3:23) As Hebrews 10:5 states, Jehovah God ‘prepared a body for him,’ and Jesus, from conception onward, was truly “undefiled, separated from the sinners.”—Heb 7:26; compare Joh 8:46; 1Pe 2:21, 22.
