Mary A Trinitarian?

Christmas is about the incarnation, about the Word becoming flesh to dwell among us. But that's no excuse for exegetical mayhem! So I want to make a quick note about the angel's annunciation to Mary, which story we find in Luke 1:30-34.

"And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold,  you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and  you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God  will give to him the throne of  his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob  forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of  the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born  will be called  holy—the Son of God."

 We tend to read this and see in the name "Son of the Most High" and "Son of God" a full-blown Trinitarian orthodoxy. The Angel is telling Mary that God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, is going to be conceived in her. Well in hindsight, that is what is happening, but it isn't what the angel meant and it isn't what Mary understood. No one on earth at this point had conceived of anything like the Trinity. That aspect of who God is was not realized until at least Jesus' Upper Room discourse, perhaps not until well after Pentecost, and definitely not clearly articulated and defined until Nicaea in 325AD.

So what did the angel mean, and what did Mary understand? The text gives us two hints. Jesus' "sonship" is related to two things: 1) His inheritance of the throne of David, and 2) His conception owing to the power of the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary.

I would suggest that at least in this passage, Jesus being the "Son" means not that he is the second person of the Trinity and God himself incarnate (though he is), but that he is the messianic king and that he is a new Adam - the inception of the new creation.

One of the main things that the title "Son of God" means, in Old Testament terms is, basically "king." That comes from II Samuel 7:14, where God covenants with David and with David's house, and says: "I will be to [your son] a father, and he shall be to me a son." So for the angel to announce that Mary's son would be the "Son of the Most High" and inherit the throne of his father David is simply a fulfillment and expansion of this promise, not a reference to the Trinity.

But second, Jesus is called the "Son of God" because it's by the power of the Holy Spirit that he is conceived, without an earthly father. Who else was created by the power of the Spirit, without an earthly father? Adam. And in fact the gospel of Luke itself goes on to refer to Adam in Jesus' genealogy as the "son of God" (Luke 3:38). Jesus is a new start for the human race. He is - as far as his humanity is concerned - a new creation by the Spirit, and so a new "Son of God."

To what extent if any Mary understood that she was literally the "God-bearer" we may never know. But that isn't what the angel's announcement is about.