The Magnificat and God’s ‘Great Reversal’

On meeting her cousin Elizabeth, Mary recognizes that God has given her a special role in his plan of salvation by choosing her to bear the Messiah. Everything she declares in the Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55) is scriptural. Her song clearly proclaims divine truths taught elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. She borrows many words and expressions from the Old Testament. Here is one example of such parallelism.

Hannah says:

The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
he brings low, he also exalts.
He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honour. 

[Hannah’s prayer from 1 Samuel 2].

Mary proclaims:

[The Mighty One] has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

[From the Magnificat in Luke 1].

The humble, the hungry, and God’s servant Israel, are the penitent believers who despair of their own righteousness before God and cling in faith only to Christ and his righteousness, which he gives them freely in the gospel. They fulfill the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 37:11: ‘Blessed are the anawim [= the poor seeking God for deliverance] for they shall inherit the earth.’ God has filled the desire of those hungry for Christ’s saving righteousness while he has sent away empty-handed all those who think they are rich in themselves before God. 

This is God’s principle of ‘the great reversal’, as it has been called. It is the paradoxical great reversal Jesus speaks of in many of his parables. ‘Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted’ (Luke 14:11; 18:14; Matthew 23:12). ‘There are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last’ (Luke 13:30). Through the mighty, sanctifying work of his Holy Spirit, God makes his people holy, set apart for himself and his holy purposes for us.