Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Matthew 1:25 - 1:25
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
It is piously believed, though not positively in scripture asserted,that the Virgin had no other child but our Savior: it is a very probable opinion, though not an infallible article of faith, as the Church of Rome would make it: for the word until signifies in scripture as much as never.
So Gen_28:15. I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have promised; that is, I will never leave thee.
So the words following, Her first-born son, do not imply that she had any child after, but that she had none before. That child which first opened the womb, is usually in scripture called the first-born, though there was no other born after.
Thus Joshua 18 Machir is called the first-born of Manasseh, though he had no more children. So that Christ, not only as God, but as also he was man, was the first-born and only son. St. Austin expounds and applies Eze_44:2 to the virgin Mary; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it; because the Lord God of Israel hath entered in by it; therefore it shall be shut. And others of the ancients say, that as Christ lay in a tomb, in which none lay before or after himself. But he said, Quid post partum secutum erat curiose none est quarendum. What the Virgin was afterwards, is of small concern to the mystery, therefore not to be inquired after. And yet it is now passed by some into a matter of faith, that the Virgin Mary was ever a virgin, and it has been styled a heresy to hold the contrary; but how is it consistent with good divinity, to make that an article of divine faith, which is founded on no divine revelation. Or to make that necessary to be believed, which confessedly is not contained in the Holy scripture, let the Church of Rome answer.
Editor's Note: it would benefit the reader to cross-reference Mar_6:3; Gal_1:19, etc., to put this matter to rest.