SLTJ:Ch 17

© L.D. Underwood 2011

The Virgin Birth of Christ

The fancy term for the virgin birth is called “parthenogenesis.” By way of introduction that when we discuss the virgin birth of Christ, this should not be confused with the immaculate conception. You will recall that the immaculate conception is a Roman Catholic dogma announced in 1854 by Pope Pious IX. It was the view that the Virgin Mary’s conception was without original sin—that she suffers the temporal penalties of Adam’s sin; that is she had bodily limitations; she experienced sorrow; she ultimately died; but that the act of essence of original sin was excluded from her from the moment of her conception. That is a view that we as protestants would not hold, but we should remember however that this refers to Mary and not to Jesus himself.

What we would say of course is that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. That the conception was miraculous, but that the birth was normal. So even though we use the phrase “virgin birth” we’re really talking about virgin conception. Because there is nothing particularly miraculous about the birth, though there was about the conception. In thinking about this, there are probably at least four different kinds of birth on this earth. For example, Adam certainly had a unique birth. Created by the direct word of God, without the agency of either a man or a woman. Eve’s birth was also unique, where she was created by being taken from the side of Adam, so that we have man without woman. Then of course there is natural generation, natural birth which we regards as pretty ordinary because it occurs every second, but which is also quite miraculous and mysterious and comes as a result of the union of man and woman.

The fourth kind of birth is the virgin birth of Christ, again quite unique. We have a number of verifying witnesses throughout scripture to this important event. Lets look at the Old Testament first of all. In the old testament, miracles in general would certainly be in harmony with this belief or this event. In other words the virgin birth of Christ is not anymore illogical than any other previous prior act of God, because miracles are characteristic of God. One author has said they are the “incandescent points in the throbbing circuit of the supernatural.” It is natural to see birds in the tree, and cows eating daisies in the meadow, I suppose if we saw a cow in the tree singing and birds eating daisies, that would be a miracle. In other words, God’s very nature and his very actions are characterized by miracles and when God does produce a miracle he is not necessarily breaking or suspending natural law. If for example someone holds up a book, he is not suspending the power or the law of gravity, he is simply introducing a higher power. Therefore I believe that both miracles and natural law are part of God’s plan and purpose. He doesn’t have to violate one in order to accomplish another. So if we can believe in any of the miracles in scripture, it seems to me that the miracle of the birth of Christ should not be that difficult to believe. We could talk about prophecies in general because the Old Testament provides some very interesting prophetical detail. It tells us for example that the messiah is to come from a particular nation—the Jewish nation. It tells us in the Old Testament that messiah will come from a particular tribe within that nation—namely the tribe of Judah. That he will come from a particular family within that tribe—namely the family of David. And that he will come from a particular mother—a virgin. So even prophecies in a general way point forth to this miraculous event.

To be more specific, there are several passages, the first of which would be Genesis 3:15. We refer to Genesis 3:15 as the protevangelium. The word means, first gospel. If we look for a moment at Genesis 3:15, if a very interesting statement is made. It says, “and I (speaking of God); I God will put enmity between thee, (meaning Satan)—I [God] will put enmity between Satan and the Woman; between Satan’s seed and the woman’s seed, namely Jesus Christ. It, the woman’s seed, Christ, shall bruise Satan’s head, and you [Satan] shall bruise the heal of the woman’s seed, or Christ’s heal. So in Genesis 3:15 we have the first annunciation of the gospel, that Satan would be in conflict with the seed of the woman—namely the Messiah—and that the woman’s seed would crush or bruise Satan’s head which would be a lethal blow and that Satan would bruise the heal of Christ; that does not ultimately destroy him. So, if some like to revel in the fact that it was by a woman that sin was introduced into the world, it is also interesting that by a woman a savior from sin is also given.

The second passage is interesting, alluding to, Isaiah 7:14 and is a battlefield of controversy, as it involves both local and universal prophecy. We have this familiar statement made in Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, ‘behold a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name, ‘Emanuel.’” The problem is with that translation is from is the Revised Standard Version where we have the word, ‘young woman’ and other versions we have the word, ‘virgin.’ When the Revised Standard Version came out for the first time in the early fifties, there were preachers that would take it to task because of the mistranslation that we had here of “young woman” rather than “virgin.”. This just might proved that the people on that committee were anti-supernaturalists, that they were against miracles, and thus were trying to distort what the word of God was saying. Some knew that it was communist inspired, because even the Bibles had red covers on them. Even now we might find institutions that will not sell a copy of the Revised Standard Version because of this kind of a bias which they feel. Many years have passed since that edition came out—the Revised Standard Version—and perhaps we can have less clamor and commotion and more light on the subject.

There are two Hebrew word that can be translated ‘virgin’ in the Old Testament. One word is בְּתוּלָה. (bethuwlah) the word for unqualified virginity. Speaking of a virgin pure and unspotted. The second word would be עַלְמָה (almah). ‘Almah’ means a young woman of marriageable age who may or may not be a virgin. Now we might think that the passage in Isaiah would be the first of those words where there is no questions about virginity, but actually the Holy Spirit deliberately avoids that first word and uses the second word ‘almah’ instead. Therein lies a very interesting story. Many Old Testament prophecies have more than one fulfillment or one stage of fulfillment. That is to say, we often think of prophecy as being foretelling the future because that is the most interesting part of prophecy to us. But most of what a prophet would say in the Old Testament would have to be forthtelling—speaking to his own day and generation. ‘Forthtelling’ by definition is not the same as ‘foretelling.’ It wouldn’t do much good for the people listening to the prophet to hear about what was going to happen thousands of years later, they obviously would have to have a message to their own day and age. Therefore, often times in the course of making a prediction, we have an immediate fulfillment, which would be partial in nature; and then secondly a future fulfillment which would complete and round out all that was said by the prophet. This happens frequently in the Old Testament. In the context in Isaiah 7 it deals with the birth of a child and he is to be a God-given sign to king Ahaz indicating the imminence of the conquest of the kingdom by the king of Assyria. The child would obviously have to be born in the lifetime of King Ahaz if he was going to be a sign to the king. Therefore there is a local fulfillment, that there is a son born to Isaiah’s wife and he has a fascinating name, Mahershalalhashbaz, that we read about in Isaiah chapter 8—the succeeding chapter. That was the local fulfillment of that Prophecy. Yet on the futuristic side, it referred also to the birth of Jesus because Matthew, in his gospel (1:23) refers back to Isaiah 7 and mentions a virgin who will conceive. Now the interesting thing is that there are two Greek words for ‘virgin.’ One word again would be unquestionably one who was a virgin. The word παρθένος (parthenos) is the word for unqualified virginity, one who was without question a virgin. There is another word Matthew could have used— νύμφη, (numphé) which means “young woman.” Now the interesting thing is that Matthew uses the one for unqualified virginity when quoting from the Isaiah 7 passage. So he uses the stronger term even though Isaiah used the weaker term. The reason is this avoids the possibility of having two virgin births. We have a young woman of marriageable age who bears a child in Isaiah’s day, that is the initial partial fulfillment as assign to Ahaz. We have a woman bearing a child who is unquestionably a virgin, that being Mary bearing Jesus Christ. So, this establishes that Mary was indeed an undefiled chaste maiden. By putting young woman in Isaiah 7, it is actually making it truer, more in line with the facts of reality rather than having a local virgin birth then a future virgin birth. We could also refer to Isaiah 9:6-7—which is also a verse that would indicate something that no human in history could possibly fulfill as far as the specifications are concerned where “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (KJV). Perhaps there are other verses in the Old Testament as well. But these are simply samples of specific predictions in the Old Testament of the future birth of Messiah.

The same thing would be true in the New Testament. We discuss miracles again generally. In the Gospels we have, for example, in Matthew 1 Joseph’s affirmation. We have that genealogical table mentioned before and all the way through it we have one male begetting another male, until you reach verse 16. The word ‘begat’, so and so begat so and so refers to the work of the male. That is why the men are mentioned in that list. But the word born, “of whom was born Jesus” uniquely refers to the work of a female. If there were any doubt about that when it says, to whom, or of whom Jesus was born, the whom there is in the feminine gender in Greek, proving that it is referring to Mary, and not to Joseph in this instance.

We also have Mary’s affirmation in Luke 1. She was troubled at the Angels saying, not so surprised at the angel’s appearance apparently. But certainly surprised at what the angel said. “How shall this be seeing I know not a man?” And the word γινώσκω (ginōskō) ‘know’ there both in Old and New Testament can refer to sexual intimacy, when Adam “knew” Eve it talks about the intimacy of sexual relations. So the angel revealed to Mary that she would give birth to a son. That affirmation is given very clearly in Luke 1: “And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS” (KJV).

We even have the affirmation of Jesus himself in Matthew 22 (a verse that will be examined later when we come to passion week) where he affirms there his double role as son of David and God of David. We could also refer to John 1:13. (This as a very weak evidence, but the way we take it in John 1, perhaps we should look at that for just a moment by way of an aside). In John 1:13 we have the statement made “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (KJV).

In other words those born of God were not born from these other methods but were the one’s who believed savingly in Jesus; it’s in the plural referring to all those who respond to Jesus believingly. But it is interesting that we have here a couple of weak manuscripts that put that in the singular, and if it changes from the plural to the singular where it says who were born, if instead it said, “who was born” it would be referring back to those who believe in his name, and would possibly be a reference to Jesus Christ if it was in the singular. But he was not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but born of God. So some manuscripts may indicate the singular and that would be another substantiating proof of the virgin birth of Christ, although it is a weak argument it seems. Then in addition to these references in the gospels we have also a reference in John 8, where some of the people surrounding Jesus say to him, we were not born of fornication. Jesus indicates in response that his was a birth with a unique paternity.

It is true that Mark and Paul are apparently silent in their explicit comments on the virgin birth. And as any student of logic would know, arguments of silence are very precarious forms of argumentation. The fact that they don’t mention it does not mean it is not true. The doctrine could have been so well known by the time that Paul writes about it that he merely assumes that the people to whom he is writing already know about it and already believe in it. Furthermore, how many times does a doctrine have to be treated in the scriptures before it’s believed. There are less scriptural references to the Lord’s supper and to heaven than to the virgin birth of Christ. As someone wisely said, “Oh, consistency, thou art a jewel.” We have Old Testament proofs and we have New Testament witnesses that verify the virgin birth and we also have extra biblical witnesses—meaning either creeds or statements by some of the early church fathers. One of the great creeds of the church every Christian should memorize and work their way through on a daily basis is the Apostles’ Creed. In the Apostles’ creed we have the affirmation that Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the virgin Mary. So outside the Bible we have the witness of the Apostles’ Creed that dates from a perhaps before the fourth century AD, reading:

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting."

We could also examine a number of church fathers, church leaders in the early church which verify this doctrine as being believed by everybody, everywhere in the early Christian church. However, as we know, there are people who have objections to this doctrine. For example, some people today say that the virgin birth merely expresses the psychological truth that a good number of people dislike sex, but like babies. Or that the virgin birth is simply a myth to indicate the significance of Christ’s incarnation. Or they say that the majority of writers in the New Testament are silent about the virgin birth, implying that it must not have been very important or it wasn’t preached on much, it is only mentioned in Matthew and Luke, and therefore it is questionable because of not being referred to so frequently throughout the writings of Scripture. Also, there are some who object because they say other religions contain similar legends of miraculous conceptions of great people.

However, except for a few heretics in the early church, such as the Ebionites, those who deny the deity of Christ, and the Gnostics, denying the humanity of Christ—except for those few groups, there was basically no question in the acceptance in the early church of this doctrinal truth. Therefore, most of the challenges have come in the last couple of generations within the church. People who question whether this is an essential part of the Christian faith. It seems as if most of them have one of two or three basic objections, one would be mythological. That is to say, some people assert the fact that this story was invented by the early Christians to dramatize the origin of their Lord. If they were trying to dramatize the story, they surely didn’t succeed very well. How can an account of the birth of a baby in a manger in the presence of some carpenters, and a few shepherds survive the competition with some of the pagan stories? For example there is the story of the birth of Palice Athena who supposedly was born by no mother and sprang out of the head of Zeus, full-grown, and in full armor. Now that is dramatic. And certainly the story in scripture couldn’t complete if that was the intent of the early church. Another objection that people have would be biological. They say this a violation of natural processes and they are unwilling to face the fact of supernatural miraculous elements. But my response to that is, which is the greater miracle, the creation of this universe or the conception of a child in the womb of Mary?

Those are historically the primary objections but it seems to me in more recent times we have a different friend, that of neither affirming this doctrine, nor denying it. That is, there are people who will say, if you want to believe it that is fine for you, but perhaps others don’t accept it and lets just leave it in that neutral ground. It is not an essential part of the Christian faith. This would have been the view for example of bishop Pike, or of some of the seminary professors in a number of institutions today.

A good response is in the words of J. Oswald Sanders, who writes, “The ‘how’ of the birth, is easily received, when the ‘who’ of the birth is taken into account. That is to say, we do have mystery here; and don’t be afraid of mystery because the presence of mystery is the footprints of the divine. Our world naturally finds all of this difficult and impossible. There are no miracles some people cry today. Only problems, and so they try to dismiss it if it cannot be proved. Those demands of our scientific society are simply earthbound, and we go on record as affirming that which we cannot always explain. We do not subject Christianity to the limitations of our own brain. Our task is to think God’s thoughts after Him, not to tell God what He should have thought, or what we would like Him to have said. And therefore, I raise the questions, “Is the virgin birth of Christ an essential doctrine?” Because there are many who are asserting today, that they feel that this fact is not vital for faith; that we can be good Christians, and not hold to this particular truth. Yet, I want to assert very clearly that I believe this doctrine if vital for the facts upon which our faith rests. For if Jesus was not sinless, he cannot be our Savior. If Joseph was his father, then he was not sinless.

Before looking at some of the proofs of this, this doctrine can be pushed too far. We can have it saying more than it was intending to say. Therefore it can be hurt more by its friends than by its enemies, if we’re not careful. For example, those Christians who try to make Christ’s sinlessness as the result of his virgin birth is maybe going too far because the absence of human paternity in no way guarantees sinlessness. To say that it does is to make men the sinners and women creatures of perfection. It begs the question, “When is the sperm more sinful than the egg?” The virginity of Mary doesn’t enhance the perfection of Christ; the reason for her chastity being important was for her reputation on earth, not for the perfection of the sacrifice, Jesus Christ—he came in perfect form. So, he was not God, he was not deity simply on the basis of his virgin birth, that didn’t make him deity. On the other hand, without the virgin birth, he would have been disqualified. So certainly the virgin birth goes hand-in-hand with his deity, but we cannot say it made him divine—that would be pushing this doctrine too far.

Or if some were tempted to say the incarnation would be impossible apart from the virgin birth, that would be limiting God; God could have chosen some other means had he willed to do so. That fact is He didn’t, but He could have. We can’t say that is the only way the incarnation would have been possible is with the virgin birth; that would be putting restrictions upon God. We should not push the doctrine farther than what it was intended to say. It does seem that there would be all kinds of alternatives if one did not believe in the virgin birth. For example, the New Testament narratives would be proved untrue. This Bible would be robbed of its authority. Just take that first opening section in the book of Luke which says, basically, I carefully investigated all of these facts, and I carefully recorded all of these truths. Suppose Luke was wrong in the very first matter that he discusses, that he investigated so clearly, after claiming perfect understanding of all things from the very beginning. How would we be able to place any confidence and trust in the rest of what Luke wrote if he was wrong at the outset?

So, the virgin birth is closely related to the trustworthiness of God’s Word. Mary, instead of being blessed among women, would be branded and unchaste woman, because Joseph made it very clear that Jesus was not his son. Therefore, the choice is not between virgin birth and parenthood; the choice is between virgin birth and illegitimacy. There is no other explanation that would go in harmony with his peerless character and his sinless life. The whole redemptive work of Christ is in harmony with his supernatural conception. Helmut Tiliche, one of the greatest among German pastors and theologians, makes a statement in one of his books where he says, “The crib and the cross are both of the same wood.” So we can make it very clear that the virgin birth was morally necessary, divinely possible, authentically recorded and experientially affirmed. Ultimately our response to the teaching of the virgin birth will hinge upon our view of how unique Jesus Christ is.