I was driving along in my car one day and was extremely
tired. I was fighting to stay awake.
The reason I can be so sure I was extremely tired was that when one of my tires went flat my first response was, “Well, that’s ok. It’s a rear tire. I can keep driving without that tire.”
It actually took me a while to realize there was something
major wrong with that thinking.
When we hear people attack the virgin birth of Jesus as a fraud our first response might be that Christianity can work without the virgin birth; there are still enough wheels on Christianity for it to work. Let’s just keep mum about that.
But then we slow down a bit and start thinking deeply
and realize, hey, wait a minute, the virgin birth is not a spare tire of Christianity. It is an absolutely essential tire
without which Christianity will not work.
While we want to be polite to those who rip the virgin
birth to shreds, we can’t agree with them. Way too much is at stake.
Let’s first look at those attacks on the virgin birth. When did those attacks begin? Where do these attacks come from?
John 8:41
You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”
In the language in which this was originally written
the emphasis is on WE. WE were not born of fornication.
WE are not illegitimate.
Well, if WE aren’t illegitimate, who might be? What they don’t say but obviously mean was, Jesus, you were born of fornication. Do you really know who your father is?
Look through Jewish literature and you’ll find Jesus
described as the illegit son of Mary. Hints that Jesus was illegitimate were widespread among both non-Jews and Jews in 2nd and 3rd centuries.
In the 18th century there was a revolution in thinking called
the Enlightenment which thought it was really cool to doubt
miracles. Since miracles are so uncommon, they doubted miracles could happen at all…….and that would include the virgin birth.
Did it ever occur to them that their idea of history without
miracles was a myth……and what they called a myth (the virgin birth for example) was actually history?
Today we’ve got feminist cranks who say Mary was
degraded, used by the conception of Jesus. Do you see
Mary complaining?
Today we’ve also got a group of liberal scholars who
gathered together and denied the virgin birth. They voted that Mary must have had sex with Joseph or some lover.
You might be interested to know they also said the visit of the wise men was a fabrication, the slaughter of the innocents a fiction, and the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt an allegory.
They said they came to those conclusions based on factual
empirical evidence. How do you do research on someone’s virginity 20 centuries ago? But they consider themselves to be great scholars. Just ask them.
If you study literature of the gods in Greek times you won’t have to look far to find stories of Olympian gods having sex with women, and some “scholars” seem to put the virgin birth in the same category.
So much for a rehash of attacks on Jesus all the way
back through 2000 years.
Every once in a while on TV you’ll see footage of a huge
building being demolished. The demolition company in
charge doesn’t bomb the building or shoot rockets into it. They send experts into the building and tie dynamite onto the few key supports of the building, blow up those key supports, and the entire building comes crashing down – slowly, but surely into a huge pile of rubble. It doesn’t take a lot of dynamite. It only takes wisdom to find the key supports to that building.
The virgin birth is one of the absolute key supports of
Christianity. Tie dynamite to it, blow it up, and slowly but surely all of Christianity will come crashing down. Satan knows what is important to God. He specializes in attacking what is important to God. He wants to destroy what is important to God – which is the reason He especially attacks marriage and sex and the family.
But even more – the reason He attacks the virgin birth.
Your response might very well be, so what?
A wise person picks his battles carefully. Is this a battle worth getting involved in? Why should it matter to you? Why bother to stand firmly for the virgin birth?
There are several reasons why we should stand solidly for
the virgin birth, but these are not in any particular order.
If there is no virgin birth, God is not with us.
Matthew 1:18-23
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed[b] to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
An angel is talking to Joseph here, and you know Joseph
needed someone to talk to him explaining how the woman
of his life is pregnant.
Not only is Joseph told the Holy Spirit is responsible for this
pregnancy, he is also told this baby will be called “Immanuel,” God with us.
This baby who has existed from eternity past just like God
the Father and God the Holy Spirit, who is equal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit would one day roam planet earth.
He would learn by experience the sorrow we have on planet
earth. He would learn by experience what it means to work by the sweat of his brow. He would learn by experience what it means to be tempted. He would learn by experience what it means to be rejected. He would learn by experience what it means to suffer.
Those who trust in Him would learn by experience what it
means to die to sin, to be buried with Him to our old life,
to rise with Him, to ascend with Him, to be triumphant over sin.
Except – if the virgin birth never happened, Jesus wasn’t God. Jesus was just an ordinary man. God isn’t with us.
There is nothing for us to learn.
If the virgin birth never happened, Jesus is not a Savior and is disqualified as the perfect sacrifice for our sins.
That baby in the manger cannot be separated from that
body on the cross suffering for our sins. “Separate Christmas from Good Friday means Christmas is doomed. Doomed to decay into sentimental, meaningless mush.”
2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
A key verse we need to memorize and meditate on. A verse that tells us about the transaction that needs to take place so we can follow Christ.
Let’s see – our sin is put on Jesus so that His righteousness can be put on us. That doesn’t seem to be a fair exchange.
He gets to be nailed to the cross and suffers for our sins so that He can give us the righteousness we do not have on our own?
He gives us something we don’t deserve, haven’t worked for, can’t work for, and can never repay? My dirt for His holiness? My hopelessness for His hope? My misery for His certainty?
What kind of businessman would arrange a transaction like
this? He get the short end of the stick. He gives away a lot and gets rags in return. No strings attached and no complaining, whining, grumbling!
Now do you see why His love is called unconditional?
If you say that you follow Jesus, now do you see why you
should love people the way He does: expecting nothing in return, frequently receiving nothing in return but doing it anyway – enthusiastically with no grumbling, complaining, whining?
But if the virgin birth never happened, this transaction falls
apart. If no virgin birth, that means Jesus isn’t God which means He was just a man which means He has sin like you and I do which means when I give my sin to Him, He has nothing of value to give me in return. It’s just two sinners exchanging sin.
It means there is no way out of my sin problem. It means we are all going to hell.
CS LEWIS, the great Christian author, wrote “The Son of
God became man to enable men to become the sons of
God” which can be true only if the virgin birth happened.
“The stunning point of Christmas is that God considered my
needs and the worth of my relationship to Him to be sufficient cause to go through the trauma of changing
places.”
If the virgin birth never happened, we don’t know what God is like.
Critics of Christianity say Jesus never claimed to be God.
Too bad they choose to ignore this verse.
John 10:30
“I and the Father are one.”
God the Father and Jesus are one essence, have the same
nature, traits, characteristics, features, qualities, attributes.
God the Father loves you, Jesus loves you.
God the Father is Holy, Jesus is holy.
God the Father is kind, Jesus is kind.
God the father is eternal, Jesus is eternal.
God the Father is wise, Jesus is wise.
God the Father is all powerful, Jesus is all powerful.
God the Father is patient, Jesus is patient.
Whatever God the father is, Jesus is exactly the same.
What is God like? He is like Jesus Christ.
Fact: we know nothing more about God the Father
than we have seen through the Word of God, living and
written…… which means reject Jesus Christ as God and there is no hope of knowing God. None.
So we come to John 14:8
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
That verse occurs the night before Jesus is to go to the
cross. He has spent 3 years with His disciples. Yet Philip makes a frustrating request: Jesus, all your teaching has not been enough. I want to see God the Father.
If there was ever a time when Jesus wanted to bang His
head against the wall in frustration, surely this was it.
John 14:9
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Jesus had spent 3 years of His life being open about His own character
His purpose
His attributes
so that mankind could see what His father was like.
And Philip is saying – Sorry, Jesus, that is not enough. I
want more.
Sorry, Philip. You won’t get any additional revelation about
what God the Father is like than Jesus. You don’t need any more additional revelation about what God the Father is like because if you take the time to listen, Jesus has already showed us what the Father is like in great detail.
Instead of asking for more, why not appreciate and value and learn from what Jesus has already taught you?
Except – if the virgin birth never happened, Jesus is not
God so you and I have no idea what God the Father is like
which means all of us can go to any public library, grab the
books that talks about God, and guess if any or all of them
are right……. because if the virgin birth never happened,
that means Jesus was just a man and not God which means He didn’t know what the Father was like which means you will never learn what God is like, either. You don’t know God at all and never will.
If the virgin birth never happened, start working your way to heaven.
Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If you have a job, you get wages for your work. If you sin, you get wages for your sin. Those wages are death –
eternal separation from God. Sin is no joke. You make the choice to sin, and sin gives you the consequences –
eternal separation from God. Eternal death.
If you choose to do nothing about your sin, that is your
future. End of story.
But to people warped and filthy in sin God offers gifts.
God gives us something we can’t earn: eternal life in Jesus
Christ.
If you have received this gift of salvation in Christ, you are a
Christian. On the other hand, if you have studied this gift,
looked at this gift, analyzed this gift, thought about receiving this gift but never gone further, you are not a Christian.
This gift is a relationship with Jesus Christ who is qualified and willing to forgive your sins and give you new life.
This gift must be received because it is the only cure for sin.
Nothing else can free you from sin. Nothing.
But if Jesus wasn’t born of a virgin He can’t be the cure for sin so what recourse do you have but trying to work your way to heaven?
“The Virgin Birth is a sign of God’s judgment against all efforts to achieve salvation by human initiative and self-actualization.”
There are additional consequences if Jesus is not virgin born
such as the Bible not being truthful, but we have looked at the main ones.
If the virgin birth never happened
God is not with us.
We don’t have a Savior
We don’t know God what God is like.
Salvation is by works.
Enough of that.
HOW DO WE KNOW VIRGIN BIRTH HAPPENED?
Critics say it is only mentioned on two occasions in the New
Testament – Matthew and Luke. It is not mentioned explicitly anywhere else in NT.
The response to that should be abrupt: how many times does something have to be mentioned in the Bible to be true?
It is also mentioned explicitly in the OT Isaiah 7:13,14
And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel…….
which doesn’t mean we understand it completely.
How did the Holy Spirit package the Son of God into a
womb? What was it like to be God and be in a womb?
I don’t know, but it happened.
Ever seen someone start pulling on a piece of yarn from a
sweater and slowly, steadily, surely the entire sweater unravels?
Pull this thread of the virgin birth out of Christianity,
and the whole thing unravels into one big mess just as your own life will unravel into one big mess.
If you do that you’ll find one day you are guilty of robbery –
robbing yourself of incredible wonder “This is the most stupendous and astonishing wonder which could ever engross the human mind – that the eternal, infinite Creator of the universe should enter our human life, and assume our human nature by being born as a baby of a human mother.”
That baby in that animal trough made the wood and straw
and planet He is resting on.
Nothing can alter the fact that we live on a visited planet.
God didn’t delegate. Didn’t send a substitute. He is not watching us from a distance. He wants to share His divine life with us.
Can you believe the extent to which God was willing to go
to become our redeemer?