The Meaning of the Magnificat

In Luke 1, Mary’s song sounds nothing like Christmas as we understand it. This is because Mary understood Christmas in its covenant context. Here, at last, was the firstborn of an eternal dynasty.

“All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” (Matthew 24:8)

Watching old movies on TV as children, we always rolled our eyes when somebody suddenly, and for no apparent reason, broke into song. The musical interludes which appealed to audiences of the 1950s and 1960s were now quaint artifacts of a sentimentality which seemed trite next to the gritty cinema and ear-splitting music of the 1970s.

Of course, the songs in the Bible are even worse. Not only do they interrupt the storylines we know so well, and for no apparent reason, but the lyrics also seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with the stories.

Like Hannah’s song (1 Samuel 2:1-10), the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55, named for its first word in the Latin translation), dredges up extraneous and embarrassingly earthy themes from the Old Testament. It is deemed to be an artifact of a culture which has passed away, one of the elements of Scripture which must be discarded as part of the now irrelevant “cultural husk” in our quest to distill the “essential truths” contained within it. But the truth is that the Bible contains no chaff. What is lacking is our own understanding and assessment of the text.

Covenant History in Mary’s Song

Mary sings of themes that are not only disturbingly political, they are entirely foreign to our “pietistic” understanding of Christmas. Peter Leithart writes:

When the Old Testament is mentioned at all, Christmas hymns tend to reach back to Adam. Jesus is the “Second Adam from above” who has come to “efface Adam’s likeness.” Jesus is David’s Son, but how many Christmas hymns mention Abraham? It’s as if the whole history of Israel has not happened. Christmas hymns do not seem to fulfill the longing expressed in Advent hymns, but some other longing.

What did Jesus come to do? Listening to Advent hymns, you’d think He comes to restore Israel, comfort Jerusalem, bring light to the nations, to do some global geo-political restructuring. Listening to Christmas hymns, you’d think He comes to do something quite different. He comes “to free all those who trust in Him from Satan’s power and might.” He will “stamp His likeness” in the place of Adam’s. “He hath oped (oped ?) the heavenly door, and man is blessed forevermore.” “He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found.” All true enough – but where is Abraham? Where is Israel? Where is exile and the fulfillment of Israel’s longings? It’s as if the whole history of Israel has been bypassed. It’s as if Jesus was born just outside Eden, immediately after Adam’s sin.¹Peter J. Leithart, “How N.T. Wright Stole Christmas,” CREDENDAagenda, 26 December 2009.

Jesus warms our hearts at Advent and breaks our hearts at Easter, and He will come to wipe the tears from our eyes at the final resurrection, but Mary’s song makes little sense to Christians who believe that since the kingdom of God is within us, or “in our midst” (Luke 17:20-21), it must have no political ramifications. Indeed, Jesus goes on to speak of the imminent judgment of the rulers of the day (Luke 17:22-37). But to those who are ignorant of first century history, when Mary sings of kings toppled and the humble exalted, her legal “covenant” claims are reduced to poetic sentiment. The subsequent complaint of the Jews that the apostles were turning their world “upside down” (Acts 17:5-6) should give us a clue concerning the fulfillment of her prophetic words.

Christian teachers rarely speak about the events which the Magnificat predicts, either because it is considered to be possibly offensive to modern Jews, or because it does not proclaim a message deemed positive enough for modern Christians. But Mary’s song is not about modern times. It is about the events which immediately resulted from the words and deeds of her firstborn.

Moreover, Mary sings of unspeakable things, events with which we are more comfortable when they are relegated to the bloodless confines of ideology. Certainly, the Gospel now has a history of bringing down “generic” kings, but Mary sings of deliverance for Israel from the tyrants of the day. The end of the Herods and their collusion with the Roman state against the saints would actually require the terrors of the persecution of the firstfruits Church—a tribulation greater than any saints would ever suffer again (Matthew 24:21)—and the subsequent horrors of the Jewish war. As Peter Leithart writes,

Martyrdom is more than a sign of impending doom. Martyrs are agents of apocalypse. Martyrdom strips away pretense to expose the true face of the world—the harlotry of the harlot and the bestiality of the beast. Martyrs also bring about apocalyptic endings. When Babylon drinks holy blood, she becomes drunk and ultimately falls.²Peter J. Leithart, “The Look of Revelation: Christian Formation in Our Apocalyptic Age,” Touchstone, May/June 2017.

The water and blood of the virgin birth would be “magnified,” leading to that poured out by the Roman spear at the crucifixion, then beyond that to the end of the Temple at the hand of Roman troops, and the consummation of all sacrifices for sins in the baptisms of “blameless” witnesses across the empire. The world was only Divided by circumcision (blood and death) that it might be Conquered by the Gospel (living water).

The Magnificat does indeed begin in the Garden, but not in the imagined personal sanctuary of self-absorbed pietism. It is a song of the enmity between the Seed of the Woman and the seed of the serpent, an ode with global implications. However, although God had promised deliverance for all nations, between the Garden and the World there remained the enmity between Jew and Gentile in the Law of Moses: the Promised Land. In Jesus, all of Judaism became a veil of flesh to be torn, all the Land a four-horned altar to be bloodied, all Jewish history a door to be opened, and all Levitical culture a mystery to be revealed.³This is the subject matter of the book of Revelation. For an analysis of the prophecy in the light of the Pentateuch, see Michael Bull, Moses and the Revelation: Why the End of the World is not in … Continue reading The “day of the Lord” was a great Day of Atonement: the blood of the apostles and prophets flowing in the streets as the “first goat,” followed by the slaying of the “second goat,” their persecutors, who would be devoured by “the birds and the beasts” of the gathered Gentile troops. The child in Mary’s womb had indeed come to bring a sword (Matthew 10:34).

A Veiled Threat

Since Mary’s song follows the Bible’s covenant-literary “matrix,” it is also a subtle retelling of Israel’s history, one which includes both Adam and Abraham. Read in this light, the song is not only a celebration of promises soon to be fulfilled for all humanity, but also the pronouncement of a threat to “the kings of the earth” (Revelation 6:15; 17:2; 18:9; 21:24). These were the rulers of the oikoumene, a social construct based upon the sacred architecture which existed before the flood: the Pharisees (Garden), the Herods (Land) and the Caesars (World). This “liturgical” confession of Mary is every bit as threatening as the curses upon Israel from the lips of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:26; 43-44).

OVERVIEW

ANALYSIS

CREATION
Transcendence – Light – Genesis – Initiation – Sabbath

And Mary said, Magnifies my soul the Lord,
and rejoices my spirit in God, my Saviour.

The first step concerns a call to service (Genesis) or, in sacrificial terms, the choosing of the blameless animal. Mary is “the Woman” who magnifies the Lord by doing His will on earth. Her reference to God, then to herself, fulfills the first commandments of Moses. It is a word-and-response, a sacrifice of flesh (her life) and then a sacrifice of praise. Genesis begins and ends with a young man given charge over the food for the nations. Filled with the Spirit of God, Joseph was the offspring of a barren womb who ruled over the nations and tried the hearts of his brothers with serpentine wisdom.

DIVISION
Hierarchy – Firmament – Exodus – Delegation – Passover

For he looked upon the humiliation of his handmaiden;
Behold indeed from henceforth will count me blessed all generations.

The second step concerns the setting apart, or sanctification of the new servant (Exodus). In sacrificial terms, the offering is cut and bloodied. At this point in prophetic texts, the prophets fall on their faces, humbled before God, and are then exalted and given a new job to do, a new word. In Mary’s case, this was the Word incarnate. The reference to generations alludes to circumcision as a ceremonial “cutting off” of kingly human seed, like that of Cain and Canaan and Esau, in order that priestly seed like Abel and Shem and Jacob might inherit the promises.

ASCENSION
Ethics: Priesthood – Land & Primary Fruit Bearers – Leviticus – Presentation – Firstfruits

For has done to me great things the mighty one, and holy is his name. And his mercy is to generations and generations, to those fearing him.

Step three is the lifting up of the sacrifice as a legal representative, or tithe (Leviticus). The action here is entirely objective, passive, priestly. Mary is the dry land of Day 3, a Canaan in famine, which is given the potential to bear seed through the creation of plants bearing grain and fruit. That which was humbled is now exalted, the flesh and blood presented as bread and wine at God’s table.

TESTING
Ethics: Kingdom – Governing Lights – Numbers – Purification – Pentecost

He has shown strength with his arm, He has scattered the proud in the thought of their heart.

The right arm is the sword bearer, the king as the legal representative of God, judging on His behalf in the Land. Day 4 concerned the creation of the governing lights, symbols of the kings of the earth. Here, the priest-king deals with those who exalt themselves (Numbers). In sacrificial terms, true kingdom comes down in seraphic tongues of fire, incinerating the old body, and stars fall from the heavens. The heart of this sin was Satan, who was cast out of heaven at the ascension of Christ. But that “Sanctuary” act in heaven brought repercussions on the earth.

MATURITY
Ethics: Prophecy – Swarms/Hosts/Clouds – Deuteronomy – Transformation – Trumpets

He has brought down rulers from thrones and exalted the humble.

Holy fire transforms the flesh into fragrant smoke, a new kind of Body, which ascends to heaven as a memorial (Deuteronomy). But this memorial, like the cry of Abel, is a witness against those who tread the blood of the sacrifice underfoot. The nations are subject to their kings, but Israel’s kings were always subject to the prophets of God, those who, like Nathan, reminded them of the conditions of their rule (submission to heaven) and warned them of impending judgment if they did not repent. On God’s behalf, Moses took the Promised Land from an idolatrous Israel and gave it to a new generation. On God’s behalf, Samuel took the kingdom from Saul and gave it to David. On God’s behalf, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and the other prophets took the kingdom from a murderous, adulterous, idolatrous Israel and gave it to an Israel chastened through 70 years of exile. Likewise, the apostles of Christ would soon take the kingdom from the Herods and give it to a people who would bear the fruits of righteousness, an Israel where everyone of the Lord’s people is a Spirit-filled prophet (Numbers 11:29). The Herods would persecute Christ and His Church in the way Saul persecuted David, but God would once again use this period of suffering in the wilderness to prepare the humble for rule.

CONQUEST
Oath/Sanctions – Animals and Man – Joshua – Vindication – Atonement

Those hungering he has filled with good things,
and those being rich he has sent away empty.

In sacrificial terms, the offering is accepted and the world is reconciled in God’s blameless representatives. Food is Adamic, and riches are Bridal. Here, the blessings and curses of the covenant are poured out in a dual action which alludes to the two-edged sword of the redeemer: for the humble to be avenged, the proud must be cut off. The land and vineyards of the spiritual Canaanites would be given to those who were circumcised in heart (Joshua). In the Revelation, this is expressed in the slaying of the harlot and the glorification of the Bride. The culmination of this was the siege of Jerusalem, a city which was “circumcised” like Jericho, where Jews once again became cannibals according to the curses of Moses, and Roman and Syrian soldiers cut them open, dead or alive, searching for the gold which some swallowed to smuggle out of the city. All of Judah suffered the fate of Judas, and for the same sins, sent from the table as the Azal goat. Just as a sword would pierce Mary’s soul, the Word-sword that Jesus would bring would divide the Old Covenant people in two to make something new (Luke 2:35; Matthew 10:34; Revelation 1:16).

GLORIFICATION
Succession – Rest and Rule – Judges – Representation – Booths

He has helped his servant Israel, remembering mercy,
As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed, forever.

With Israel purified, she can now witness to the nations as the “invested” representative of God (Judges). Christ and His Church are Adam and Eve departing with God’s full blessing to subdue the World. However, the difference between the dominion mandate and the Great Commission is the difference between “forming” and “filling.” The apostles turned the world upside down because it was time for the second half of the chiasm, the “filling” of the nations rather than their forming. Jesus, the fulfillment of Judaism, was a Jew who had no children, which heralds the shift if the covenant sign from a bloody circumcision of flesh to a spiritual circumcision of heart (baptism). The mercy of God was demonstrated to Israel in God’s long-suffering between AD30 and AD70. She was not cut off like Sodom or the other Canaanite kingdoms. She was made fertile like Sarah, but with a new kind of son, born of the Spirit.

Receiving the Implanted Word

Mary’s song is indeed political, but she sings as part of a triune process, one sourced in heaven but measured out on the earth. Once the architectural significance of the Magnificat is understood, its beauty becomes even more apparent:

Like the Magnificat, the structure of the chapter that contains it (Luke 1) is itself covenant-shaped. The Annunciation at the center of the structure is flanked by the announcement of the birth of John and its fulfillment, which correspond symmetrically. Zechariah is the faithless Adamic “Covenant Head” at Ascension, and Elizabeth and Mary are the silver trumpets of the “Covenant Body” at Maturity. Finally, Zechariah becomes an “Abraham” at Glorification, a son of heaven who by faith (Oath) becomes a father on earth (Sanctions).

Conclusion

The life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus led not only to the destruction of Mary’s own culture, the sacrifices for sin, the city of Jerusalem, and the tyranny of the Herods, but also to the end of the incumbent Roman dynasty, the beginning of the conversion of Rome. This first victory of the Church of Jesus Christ changed history forever. The songs of Miriam, Deborah, Hannah and Mary are the songs of the Warrior Bride, the Church militant, still saving the humble and deposing tyrants in the power of God through sacrificial service, suffering, and song.

For further structural background, please refer to Bible Matrix: An Introduction to the DNA of the Scriptures.
If you are new to this method of interpretation, please visit the Welcome page for some help to get you up to speed.