Luke 1:18

The Message

Zachariah said to the angel, “Do you expect me to believe this? I’m an old man and my wife is an old woman.”

Cross References

Genesis 15:8

Abram said, “Master God, how am I to know this, that it will all be mine?”

Genesis 17:17

Abraham fell flat on his face. And then he laughed, thinking, “Can a hundred-year-old man father a son? And can Sarah, at ninety years, have a baby?”

2 Kings 7:2

The attendant on whom the king leaned for support said to the Holy Man, “You expect us to believe that? Trapdoors opening in the sky and food tumbling out?” “You’ll watch it with your own eyes,” he said, “but you will not eat so much as a mouthful!”

Luke 1:34

Mary said to the angel, “But how? I’ve never slept with a man.”

Romans 4:19

Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.