Understanding the Virgin Birth of Christ is a Key Creed of the Faith
This last Sunday, the pastor of our church preached a solid message on the virgin birth of Christ, and why it matters. The virgin birth is a key belief anchor for the Christian faith, but how many really understand why?
Fully God, Fully Man
Born as God
The message our pastor offered provided some key facts about the virgin birth. If Jesus had just appeared, ex nihilo if you will…out of nothing, and started walking around preaching and doing miracles at 30 years of age, he might have very well been seen as a God, or perhaps even the Messiah. Since the Scribes and Pharisees didn’t really seem to be paying much attention to scripture, they might have missed that one as well.
Without the virgin birth, Jesus would not have been fully man, and thus could not relate to the suffering of man. Dying on the cross, if even possible, would not have carried the same weight or meaning…if any. A non-man God figure would, in theory, not be able to suffer on the cross, rendering Isaiah 53:5 as unfulfilled; “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
Coming directly from heaven without the virgin birth would have also left Isaiah 7:14 unfulfilled; “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel”. Our God is faithful to fulfill all of His prophecies!
Born as a Man
If however, he had been born in the traditional way with both a natural father and mother, then he would not have been fully God. He would be just another man claiming to be a prophet, the Messiah, or even God himself. All of these are true about Jesus, however it would have been a tough sell to the Jewish population at that time.
Even if he possessed all the same powers and performed all the same miracles, there would always be doubters that knew his parents, saw him be born, perhaps even assisted in the birth, that could never believe he was God. To quote the late, great Keith Green from his “Song to my Parents”;
“Isn’t it Joseph and Mary’s Son?
Well, didn’t He grow up right here?
He played with our children
What? He must be kidding
Thinks He’s a prophet
Well, prophets don’t grow up from little boys
Do they?”
Jesus’ birth was already scandalous, but there was a sufficient lack of evidence of any foul play or consummation that it was not really challenged outright. Certainly in John 8:41 the Pharisees alluded to the fact of his questionable virgin birth when they said “We were not born of sexual immorality.”
The Virgin Birth Ties It All Together
By being born from a virgin, Jesus can lay claim to being 100% God, and 100% man. All the prophecies are fulfilled, and everything we read about Jesus in the Bible is accurate, relevant, and true. Jesus acted as God when needed, and felt and suffered as a man. It makes his death real, as well as his resurrection. We could go on here for several paragraphs, but it’s not the actual point I want to get to.
What really interested me is what I have learned and thought about another transforming implication of the virgin birth, and that’s what I want to share here now.
The Virgin Birth Removed Jesus from the Line of Adam
Early in my faith walk, I thought Jesus was here to prove man could live on the earth and not sin. Even after moving past that, I wondered how Jesus managed to not sin at all. Sure, he’s 100% God, but he’s 100% Man. I kind of think that if I was in a bathrobe reclining around a table and a young woman started kissing my feet and wiping them with her hair…well, you can deduce the rest. Besides His deity, what was it that made Jesus so different?
The difference was, Jesus was not born from Adam’s seed, like every other human on the planet. Every other person born of a woman inherited the sinful nature of Adam’s seed through their male counterpart. Jesus did not. He did not come from Adam, he came from God…through a perfect seed. He was able to resist sin because he did not have that sinful nature built in, like the rest of us.
Romans 5:12 says: ” Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned “
Jesus Felt the Experience, Not the Sin
So while Jesus could feel and experience all of the facets of being human, he was not compelled to sin. It was literally not in his DNA! Jesus could feel love, hurt, joy, whimsy and more…but he did not feel the urge or the draw towards sin.
This makes His death on the cross, when God laid on Him the sin of the world all at once, more dramatic than ever. Not only was it the quantity of sin He was feeling, but he also felt the actual act of sin, presumably for the first time in His life.
Jesus didn’t come to earth to prove man could go without sin. He came to prove that we could not, and that we desperately needed a savior. He came to be that savior, and to make us right with the Father. Never let anyone tell you the virgin birth wasn’t necessary, or it was a myth, because everything rides on the fact that it was not.