A Sip
Greetings blogworms! With Christmas right round the corner, I thought it would only be appropriate to write a seasonally themed post. And what better topic than the central celebration of Christmas – the Virgin birth and the incarnation!
Spring Time!
The Virgin Birth has traditionally been held to be something of great significance and attested to by the early church, remaining relatively unchallenged until the Enlightenment. The doctrine teaches that Jesus was miraculously and divinely conceived by the Holy Spirit inside Mary, who was a virgin at the time. This is a unique characteristic attributed to Jesus – He is the only person in history to have entered the world through a virgin’s birth canal. But as John Piper rightly explains, this doctrine is not some irrelevant recorded fact in the Gospels, it has significant implications on our understanding of who Jesus is as the Son of God, and ultimately as God the Son.
It is to no surprise then that I was troubled when I recently read an argument diminishing the Virgin Birth in a book by popular contemporary Christian author Rob Bell called “Velvet Elvis”. In the book, Bell argues that:
“What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if, as you study the origin of the word ‘virgin’ you discover that the word ‘virgin’ in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word ‘virgin’ could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being ‘born of a virgin’ also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? What if that spring were seriously questioned? Could a person keep on jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart?…If the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring, then it wasn’t that strong in the first place, was it?” (pp.26)
In Bell’s defense though, he did affirm that he himself believes in the Virgin Birth on the following page. But nonetheless, the basic presupposition that he puts forth is that whether Jesus was virgin born or not is irrelevant to our Faith. It just doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. I (and many respected Christians such as Mark Driscoll and John Piper to name but a few) would argue to the contrary.
1) THE PROPHECY
The prophecy that Bell references in his diatribe and is central to the importance of the Virgin Birth is found in Isaiah 7:14:
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
The context for this verse is that God would give a sign to King Ahaz and his people to indicate when He would lay waste Judah’s enemies, Syria and the Northern Kingdom of Samaria – the young age of a boy born of an ‘almah’. Now there has been considerable debate on what this Hebrew word almah means. Some argue it means virgin, whilst others argue it simply means young maiden. I will not go into this as I think it will not profit my general discussion. You see, I and many Biblical scholars such as Matthew Henry and Ravi Zacharias view this prophecy as an example of compenetration.
Compenetration means that a prophecy given has a dual fulfillment; an imminent fulfillment with a small sample of the latter’s impact, and a later fulfillment (usually Messianic in nature) with much broader and greater impact and implications. This prophecy had an imminent fulfillment when the almah of Isaiah’s time (his own wife as some argue) gave birth, but also when Mary who was a virgin gave birth to Jesus 700 years later. Therefore, whether almah only means virgin or not is irrelevant, as long as it CAN mean virgin. And from what I have read, this Hebrew word when used in the Old Testament usually only refers to virgins (unmarried young women who have not yet ‘known’ a man). Nonetheless, the dual nature of the prophecy at the very least refers to a young woman (not a virgin) in Isaiah’s time and a virgin (Mary) later on.
2) PROPHECY FULFILLED
The primary Biblical texts which confirm and record the Virgin Birth are the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Matthew’s account says:
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” - which means, “God with us.” (Mt 1:18-23)
Luke’s account expands on this:
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” (Lk 1:26-37)
It is important to note that Matthew includes that Jesus’ birth is a fulfillment of the aforementioned prophecy in Isaiah. If anyone believes both the Reformation doctrine of Sola Scriptura and Biblical inerrancy, then it is quite clear that the prophecy was Messianic in nature and fulfilled by Jesus. Whether Isaiah fully knew that it was to be later fulfilled by the Messiah or not is irrelevant, as the Holy Spirit which inspired Isaiah’s and Matthew’s words clearly did. And this is important as it further shows the Jews that Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament Messianic prophecies.
It is also important to notice that prophecy aside, both Gospel writers, who were not stupid men (Matthew being an ex-tax collector and Luke a physician), expressly recount and believe that Mary was a virgin, Luke especially. They use the Greek word ‘parthenos’, which means one who has not had intercourse with a man. They make it quite clear so as to dispel Bell’s theory on the ambiguity of the word used. But this established, does it really matter?
3) THE SUPERNATURAL
The Virgin Birth is a supernatural occurrence. It is a divine promise and divinely fulfilled by God through the work of the Holy Spirit. Science and history cannot explain it away. It is only fitting that the way Jesus, who worked many miracles in His life on earth, entered into the world is a miracle itself (as is the way He left it for that matter). The Virgin Birth is just one example of the supernatural miracles the Father worked during Jesus’ life to attest to His divinity .
And if you do not believe the Virgin Birth, you will be scarce to believe anything else miraculous contained in the Gospels, or the whole Bible for that matter. As Donald Macleod writes in “The Person of Christ”, “the virgin birth is posted on guard at the door of the mystery of Christmas; and none of us must think of hurrying past it. It stands on the threshold of the New Testament, blatantly supernatural, defying our rationalism, informing us that all that follows belongs to the same order as itself and that if we find it offensive there is no point in proceeding further.” (pp.37)
There is also a sense that the life of the Messiah is not only a fulfillment but a summary of Old Testament stories and prophecies. This is also true of the Virgin Birth. Throughout the Old Testament, many great leaders and rulers of Israel’s history were born in miraculous ways and through divine promises such as John the Baptist from Elizabeth and Isaac from the barren Sarah. These supernatural births all foreshadow Christ’s birth, but with Jesus’ birth still having greater unusualness and uniqueness than all births preceding it. Paul relates this in Galatians 4:22-29 to Christians as a body, saying:
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise...Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now.
As Paul rightly says, not only is Christ’s birth miraculous and extraordinary a greater realisation and fulfillment of Isaac’s birth, but through Christ our rebirth is also divine, supernatural and through a divine promise to Abraham. But the real crux of the importance of the Virgin Birth is in its implications in regard to the nature of Christ and man.
4) MEN CANNOT REDEEM THEMSELVES
In my opinion, the most important message we get from the Virgin Birth is that humans are utterly and completely inadequate to save themselves. The World’s Redeemer and Saviour did not come from us. We could not, and are not able to, produce someone to save us ourselves. This is because in order to completely satisfy the just punishment of the World’s sins, a perfectly spotless and sinless human sacrifice was needed rather than the insufficient blood of rams and calves. However, using the words ‘sinless’ and ‘human’ to describe someone are contradictory in nature since all men are sinful by nature, so such a person has not, cannot and will not exist naturally. Thus, since only God alone is immutably good (NB: see my previous post called ‘The Good, The Bad & The Vine’) and eternal God had to offer Himself as a sacrifice in human flesh. This is explained with clarity in Hebrews 7:23-28 and 9:11-28:
Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest meets our need - one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever...When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance - now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant...In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness...For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
5) GOD SHOWS INITIATIVE
Whilst man needed God to save us, God did not on the other hand NEED to save us. God could have been perfectly just to condemn the lot of us to Eternal Damnation and saved not a single one of us. But instead, God through the Virgin Birth and Incarnation takes the initiative to save us. The fact that the Angel in Luke’s account TELLS Mary that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and conceive Jesus rather than ask for her permission to do so shows that God fully intends to accomplish His redemptive plan for mankind whether they resist Him or not (and in our Total Depravity, we certainly will resist). This speaks miles about God’s love for His Church, that He did not need to save us, but He wanted to anyway. What a loving and merciful God we have!
6) THE GOD-MAN
Lastly, the Virgin Birth demonstrates both Christ’s deity and His humanity. Jesus was both conceived by God, the Holy Spirit, and carried and born through the frail human flesh of Mary. His conception and birth show the unlikely and mysterious unity of the divine with mankind in one person, the Theanthropos. For Jesus both was God in all senses, nature, power, will and likeness, and born of a woman, taking on the likeness of sinful flesh yet remaining sinless; fully God and fully man. The union of the natures of the eternal Son of God and Son of Man; the Hypostatic Union. This is explained in the opening verses of John’s Gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it...The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (1:1-14)
This is also shown in Colossians 2:9-10, which says, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” Finally, Jesus’ humanity is conveyed in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Because Jesus is both God and man, He can mediate between both parties perfectly; to God, He can perfectly obey the Father and relate to Him in will and nature; to us, He can relate to our every temptation without having sinned (Heb 4:15).
God could have been incarnated a number of different ways, none of which involving a virgin birth. God did not have to enter the world through a human virgin, but He chose to. Because He chose to, we should take note and believe it. As Wayne Grudem in his ‘Systematic Theology’ says:
“God, in his wisdom, ordained a combination of human and divine influence in the birth of Christ, so that his full humanity would be evident to us from the fact of his ordinary human birth from a human mother, and his full deity would be evident from the fact of his conception in Mary’s womb by the powerful work of the Holy Spirit.” (pp.530)
7) DOES IT MATTER IF WE DON’T BELIEVE THE VIRGIN BIRTH?
If you do not believe the Virgin Birth, who’s to say you won’t stop there? If you don’t believe the Virgin Birth clearly recorded in Scripture, maybe you will soon not believe in other parts of Scripture like the parting of the Red Sea, or Jonah being swallowed by the fish, or God forbid, the Resurrection! As Mark Driscoll argues (ironically against Rob Bell):
“If the virgin birth of Jesus is untrue, then the story of Jesus changes greatly; we would have a sexually promiscuous young woman lying about God’s miraculous hand in the birth of her son, raising that son to declare he was God, and then joining his religion. But if Mary is nothing more than a sinful con artist then neither she nor her son Jesus should be trusted. Because both the clear teachings of Scripture about the beginning of Jesus’ earthly life and the character of his mother are at stake, we must contend for the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.”
Through the Virgin Birth, I pray that this Christmas your eyes are (further) opened by the Holy Spirit so as to see that, “the Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” (Heb 1:3) May His Bride all proclaim with unified voices, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!” (Rev 5:12)
Amen!
It is to no surprise then that I was troubled when I recently read an argument diminishing the Virgin Birth in a book by popular contemporary Christian author Rob Bell called “Velvet Elvis”. In the book, Bell argues that:
“What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if, as you study the origin of the word ‘virgin’ you discover that the word ‘virgin’ in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word ‘virgin’ could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being ‘born of a virgin’ also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? What if that spring were seriously questioned? Could a person keep on jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart?…If the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring, then it wasn’t that strong in the first place, was it?” (pp.26)
In Bell’s defense though, he did affirm that he himself believes in the Virgin Birth on the following page. But nonetheless, the basic presupposition that he puts forth is that whether Jesus was virgin born or not is irrelevant to our Faith. It just doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. I (and many respected Christians such as Mark Driscoll and John Piper to name but a few) would argue to the contrary.
1) THE PROPHECY
The prophecy that Bell references in his diatribe and is central to the importance of the Virgin Birth is found in Isaiah 7:14:
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
The context for this verse is that God would give a sign to King Ahaz and his people to indicate when He would lay waste Judah’s enemies, Syria and the Northern Kingdom of Samaria – the young age of a boy born of an ‘almah’. Now there has been considerable debate on what this Hebrew word almah means. Some argue it means virgin, whilst others argue it simply means young maiden. I will not go into this as I think it will not profit my general discussion. You see, I and many Biblical scholars such as Matthew Henry and Ravi Zacharias view this prophecy as an example of compenetration.
Compenetration means that a prophecy given has a dual fulfillment; an imminent fulfillment with a small sample of the latter’s impact, and a later fulfillment (usually Messianic in nature) with much broader and greater impact and implications. This prophecy had an imminent fulfillment when the almah of Isaiah’s time (his own wife as some argue) gave birth, but also when Mary who was a virgin gave birth to Jesus 700 years later. Therefore, whether almah only means virgin or not is irrelevant, as long as it CAN mean virgin. And from what I have read, this Hebrew word when used in the Old Testament usually only refers to virgins (unmarried young women who have not yet ‘known’ a man). Nonetheless, the dual nature of the prophecy at the very least refers to a young woman (not a virgin) in Isaiah’s time and a virgin (Mary) later on.
2) PROPHECY FULFILLED
The primary Biblical texts which confirm and record the Virgin Birth are the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Matthew’s account says:
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” - which means, “God with us.” (Mt 1:18-23)
Luke’s account expands on this:
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” (Lk 1:26-37)
It is important to note that Matthew includes that Jesus’ birth is a fulfillment of the aforementioned prophecy in Isaiah. If anyone believes both the Reformation doctrine of Sola Scriptura and Biblical inerrancy, then it is quite clear that the prophecy was Messianic in nature and fulfilled by Jesus. Whether Isaiah fully knew that it was to be later fulfilled by the Messiah or not is irrelevant, as the Holy Spirit which inspired Isaiah’s and Matthew’s words clearly did. And this is important as it further shows the Jews that Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament Messianic prophecies.
It is also important to notice that prophecy aside, both Gospel writers, who were not stupid men (Matthew being an ex-tax collector and Luke a physician), expressly recount and believe that Mary was a virgin, Luke especially. They use the Greek word ‘parthenos’, which means one who has not had intercourse with a man. They make it quite clear so as to dispel Bell’s theory on the ambiguity of the word used. But this established, does it really matter?
3) THE SUPERNATURAL
The Virgin Birth is a supernatural occurrence. It is a divine promise and divinely fulfilled by God through the work of the Holy Spirit. Science and history cannot explain it away. It is only fitting that the way Jesus, who worked many miracles in His life on earth, entered into the world is a miracle itself (as is the way He left it for that matter). The Virgin Birth is just one example of the supernatural miracles the Father worked during Jesus’ life to attest to His divinity .
And if you do not believe the Virgin Birth, you will be scarce to believe anything else miraculous contained in the Gospels, or the whole Bible for that matter. As Donald Macleod writes in “The Person of Christ”, “the virgin birth is posted on guard at the door of the mystery of Christmas; and none of us must think of hurrying past it. It stands on the threshold of the New Testament, blatantly supernatural, defying our rationalism, informing us that all that follows belongs to the same order as itself and that if we find it offensive there is no point in proceeding further.” (pp.37)
There is also a sense that the life of the Messiah is not only a fulfillment but a summary of Old Testament stories and prophecies. This is also true of the Virgin Birth. Throughout the Old Testament, many great leaders and rulers of Israel’s history were born in miraculous ways and through divine promises such as John the Baptist from Elizabeth and Isaac from the barren Sarah. These supernatural births all foreshadow Christ’s birth, but with Jesus’ birth still having greater unusualness and uniqueness than all births preceding it. Paul relates this in Galatians 4:22-29 to Christians as a body, saying:
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise...Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now.
As Paul rightly says, not only is Christ’s birth miraculous and extraordinary a greater realisation and fulfillment of Isaac’s birth, but through Christ our rebirth is also divine, supernatural and through a divine promise to Abraham. But the real crux of the importance of the Virgin Birth is in its implications in regard to the nature of Christ and man.
4) MEN CANNOT REDEEM THEMSELVES
In my opinion, the most important message we get from the Virgin Birth is that humans are utterly and completely inadequate to save themselves. The World’s Redeemer and Saviour did not come from us. We could not, and are not able to, produce someone to save us ourselves. This is because in order to completely satisfy the just punishment of the World’s sins, a perfectly spotless and sinless human sacrifice was needed rather than the insufficient blood of rams and calves. However, using the words ‘sinless’ and ‘human’ to describe someone are contradictory in nature since all men are sinful by nature, so such a person has not, cannot and will not exist naturally. Thus, since only God alone is immutably good (NB: see my previous post called ‘The Good, The Bad & The Vine’) and eternal God had to offer Himself as a sacrifice in human flesh. This is explained with clarity in Hebrews 7:23-28 and 9:11-28:
Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest meets our need - one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever...When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance - now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant...In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness...For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
5) GOD SHOWS INITIATIVE
Whilst man needed God to save us, God did not on the other hand NEED to save us. God could have been perfectly just to condemn the lot of us to Eternal Damnation and saved not a single one of us. But instead, God through the Virgin Birth and Incarnation takes the initiative to save us. The fact that the Angel in Luke’s account TELLS Mary that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and conceive Jesus rather than ask for her permission to do so shows that God fully intends to accomplish His redemptive plan for mankind whether they resist Him or not (and in our Total Depravity, we certainly will resist). This speaks miles about God’s love for His Church, that He did not need to save us, but He wanted to anyway. What a loving and merciful God we have!
6) THE GOD-MAN
Lastly, the Virgin Birth demonstrates both Christ’s deity and His humanity. Jesus was both conceived by God, the Holy Spirit, and carried and born through the frail human flesh of Mary. His conception and birth show the unlikely and mysterious unity of the divine with mankind in one person, the Theanthropos. For Jesus both was God in all senses, nature, power, will and likeness, and born of a woman, taking on the likeness of sinful flesh yet remaining sinless; fully God and fully man. The union of the natures of the eternal Son of God and Son of Man; the Hypostatic Union. This is explained in the opening verses of John’s Gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it...The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (1:1-14)
This is also shown in Colossians 2:9-10, which says, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” Finally, Jesus’ humanity is conveyed in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Because Jesus is both God and man, He can mediate between both parties perfectly; to God, He can perfectly obey the Father and relate to Him in will and nature; to us, He can relate to our every temptation without having sinned (Heb 4:15).
God could have been incarnated a number of different ways, none of which involving a virgin birth. God did not have to enter the world through a human virgin, but He chose to. Because He chose to, we should take note and believe it. As Wayne Grudem in his ‘Systematic Theology’ says:
“God, in his wisdom, ordained a combination of human and divine influence in the birth of Christ, so that his full humanity would be evident to us from the fact of his ordinary human birth from a human mother, and his full deity would be evident from the fact of his conception in Mary’s womb by the powerful work of the Holy Spirit.” (pp.530)
7) DOES IT MATTER IF WE DON’T BELIEVE THE VIRGIN BIRTH?
If you do not believe the Virgin Birth, who’s to say you won’t stop there? If you don’t believe the Virgin Birth clearly recorded in Scripture, maybe you will soon not believe in other parts of Scripture like the parting of the Red Sea, or Jonah being swallowed by the fish, or God forbid, the Resurrection! As Mark Driscoll argues (ironically against Rob Bell):
“If the virgin birth of Jesus is untrue, then the story of Jesus changes greatly; we would have a sexually promiscuous young woman lying about God’s miraculous hand in the birth of her son, raising that son to declare he was God, and then joining his religion. But if Mary is nothing more than a sinful con artist then neither she nor her son Jesus should be trusted. Because both the clear teachings of Scripture about the beginning of Jesus’ earthly life and the character of his mother are at stake, we must contend for the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.”
Through the Virgin Birth, I pray that this Christmas your eyes are (further) opened by the Holy Spirit so as to see that, “the Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” (Heb 1:3) May His Bride all proclaim with unified voices, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!” (Rev 5:12)
Amen!
Waves
Well, I hope this has shown you a little better the Glory within the story of the Virgin Birth, but also the eternal Glory of Christ. If you would like a more concise and simple explanation, go to: http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/991_the_virgin_birth/. It is a blog written by David Mathis and proved to be very helpful to me in structuring my blog. But anyway, I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas and look forward to writing many more blogs in the New Year. So in the spirit of the season, put that in your cloud and snow it (Jude 12).
Christus Regnat,
MAXi
Christus Regnat,
MAXi
Well done Max,
ReplyDeleteA great article on exploring the Virgin birth. Rightly so this is an essential topic in scripture and theology. If this cannot be proven correct, then what is the validity of the rest of the Bible?
Point 4 'Men cannot redeem themselves', as you've correctly pointed out, is the most important message to get through when it comes to the Virgin Birth. As we rightly know, it all comes back to the the cross =). As a result of the Fall we are in essence 'born' into sin. We are under a curse and that is eternal separation from God Himself. Therefore if any person born of natural conception was to try redeem us it would not happen because they too would be 'cursed'. They are powerless to save anyone let alone themselves. In order for someone to qualify as our redeemer they need to fully human, sinless and fully divine. The premise by how this can be achieved is 1) to be born of a woman 2) to be conceived by the Holy Spirit (who is holy and without sin) and 3) have God as their Father. This person as well know is Christ Jesus.
Thought it'd be good to flesh out that point a little bit more =)
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
God bless,
Phil
PS: I wonder if you figured out who it was when I mentioned the cross =)
Whoa, Max, that was a brilliant read. My mind is racing with all sorts of relevant thoughts.
ReplyDeletei think we tend to be underwhelmed by Mary a lot of the time. When we think of her we think of the Virgin Birth, as though that one event sums up her matter of importance. Even if she hadn't been a virgin (and even if she hadn't, it wouldn't necessarily mean that Jesus actually had a human, biological father and wasn't conceived of the Spirit), though i certainly believe she was, there was a reason God chose her.
You said it yourself once - there are no coincidences. She wasn't just some randomly picked virgin, and she knew she was going to have Son that would be persecuted; how faithful a woman she must have been. And the trust she had in her husband's faith was incredible too. (And here i have to commend Joseph's faith, because, really, how many men would seriously believe their pregnant virgin wife is carrying the Son of God?)
So, yes, okay, i know you're talking about the Virgin Birth and i'm not talking about it, but i really feel like the faithfulness of Mary and Joseph ought not to be overlooked. Like, seriously, they were a whole bunch of awesome, and if it weren't for them, Christianity would not be quite what it is. The story would be different, right from the birth of Jesus. But they trusted in God's plans, and He knew that they would, so it is what it is. How incredible.
Love you
xoxox
Yes Megan, you are quite right, Mary is an incredible case study...pity the Catholics take it the wrong way though. As Mark Driscoll says, Mary should not be an object of our faith, but she makes a pretty amazing example of our faith :)
ReplyDeletexo