Matthew 1:21

She shall bring forth. The angel did not tell Joseph that his “wife” would bear him a son, as he had told Zacharias concerning John (Luke 1:13). Jesus was to be born “the Son of God,” not the son of Joseph (Luke 1:35), but from the moment of Jesus’ birth Joseph was to be as His father. Like other children, Jesus would be benefited by a father’s companionship, guidance, and protection.

Call his name. Joseph was to have the privilege of naming his “Son,” an act usually considered to be the paternal prerogative (see Luke 1:59-63). Mary was also to participate in the naming of Jesus (Luke 1:31). Names of Jewish children were officially bestowed a week after birth, on the child’s eighth day, when the rite of circumcision was performed (Luke 2:21).

Jesus. See on v. 1.

He shall save. The name Jesus means “Jehovah is salvation” (see on v. 1). The word translated “he” is emphatic, as if the angel had said, “For he it is who shall save,” etc.

Echoing down through the ages of antiquity had sounded the promise, “Lo, I come” (Ps. 40:7; Zech. 2:10; Heb. 10:7). For centuries the Hebrew people — His people — had waited expectantly for the coming of their Deliverer. Now, “when the fulness of the time was come” (Gal. 4:4), the finger of destiny pointed to the One who was to fulfill these expectations. See on John 1:14.

From their sins. Sin had bound men (Rom. 6:16; 2 Peter 2:19) in its prison house (Isa. 42:7). Christ came that He might loose the bonds, open the prison doors, and deliver the captives from the sentence of death (Isa. 61:1; Rom. 7:24, 25). He came to save us from our sins, not in our sins. He came, not only to save us from sins actually committed, but from our potential tendencies that lead to sin (Rom. 7:23-5; 1 John 1:7, 9). He came to redeem us from “all iniquity” (Titus 2:14), including every hereditary and cultivated tendency to evil (DA 671).

Christ did not come to save His people from the power of Rome, as the Jews fondly hoped, but from the power of a far more formidable foe. He did not come to “restore again the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6), but to restore the dominion of God in the hearts of men (Luke 17:20, 21). Christ did not come primarily to save men from poverty and social injustice (Luke 12:13-15), as many apostles of the social gospel claim today, but from sin, the fundamental cause of poverty and injustice.