“The reader has no doubt inferred from what has been said that, in order to have a correct knowledge of Jesus, his mission and our relation to him as our Savior, it is absolutely essential to believe that he was the son of Joseph and Mary, in the sense in which we are the children of our parents. We meet here the strong preconceived idea on the part of some of our readers that if any part of the Scriptures is not infallible, then no part of it is infallible. This is a childish thought.
The Lord Christ said, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The truth is not all comprehended in the Bible. Truth is the facts concerning things that are, in contradistinction to the ideas concerning things which are not. Therefore, to know the truth, no matter where we find it, is a saving quality. Truth is vital; error is dark and disintegrative. This brings us to the question: Were the teachings of the apostles – the immediate successors of our Lord – infallible? That is, were the apostles incapable of mistake or error? We must admit, if we allow our reason to have its normal sway, that they were not infallible.
An illustration of this may be found in the Gospel according to John. Of all the disciples, not one was so near to the Lord Christ as the beloved disciple, John; not one has given to the world such valuable thought, for his Gospel is a book superior to all other books in existence. Admitting this, and also admitting, as many of our leading clergymen do, that if the entire Bible except the Gospel of John should be destroyed, the Christian church would still have sufficient vital truth to go right on with its work; yet, in the last verse of this beloved disciple’s Gospel, we read these words: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that should be written.” (John 21:25). Think of this statement! What a wonderful exaggeration; shall we not say a thoughtless exaggeration? for, if there ever has been a man that has been honest and true, the beloved disciple was that man.
But let us use our reason. The Greek tongue is as compact as our own, and if there had been a disciple who had followed the Lord Christ from his birth to his crucifixion and resurrection, and had recorded every step he took, every word he uttered, yet the book that contained it all would be no larger than a moderate volume of our time. To say that he supposed the world would not contain the books necessary to give a full account of the Lord’s acts, is readily seen to be a great error, but, as we have said, it is an error in judgment. It is also evident that there is a tendency to abbreviate in all the Gospels.
Now, it is possible that Matthew and Luke may have become familiarly acquainted with Joseph or Mary or both, and that Mary or Joseph informed them concerning the remarkable experience prior to the conception and birth of the Lord Christ, for there is a law – let us make the statement without the elaboration necessary to prove it – that in reincarnating, the soul always presides at the conception of the body in which it is to incarnate. There are now in the world, we believe, thousands of men and women, and especially women who can tell you that they were vividly conscious of being overshadowed at the time of the conception of their child.
If the soul of the ordinary man is strong enough to produce marked conditions at the time of conception, what must the conditions have been when Yahveh Eloah overshadowed Joseph and Mary with his great glory and power. If this is a fact, it alone is enough to suggest to our mind the thought that if such a soul should come near enough to enter into the life-currents of a man and a woman in order to procure a physical body, his power would be sufficient to overpower, for the time being, all the conscious ego and to possess them wholly – to an extent that neither of them would be conscious of what had taken place.
This may explain what Matthew said in his Gospel, that when Joseph found Mary with child, “he was minded to put her away privily”, but the angel of the Lord informed him in a dream that he should take to himself Mary his wife, because the conception was by virtue of the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. This is the kernel of the whole matter.
In Luke’s Gospel we find that the conversation between Mary and the angel was prior to conception, for the angel said, “the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee”. The whole account is in the future tense, because the account in Luke’s Gospel is simply prophecy. Therefore, it tells of something which had not yet happened. The only point that remains to be cleared up is the fact that Joseph was unconscious of what had taken place.”
Hiram Butler
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 