The Virgin Birth

The Virgin Birth THE VIRGIN BIRTH
By Glenn L. Wallace The Psalmist said, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” When the foundation is weakened the whole building is weakened. Those today who tamper with Christianity by trying to take from its foundation some of the stones that prove Jesus to be the Son of God, weaken the building. We recognize that an attack upon the Christian religion does not actually weaken it, for the church is built upon a foundation that cannot be shaken; the attack does weaken the faith of many. One of the foundation stones that helps to prove Jesus to be the Son of God is his virgin birth. The story has been frequently assailed. The skeptics of the past and the modernists of today, attack the story as being utterly impossible and unworthy of the acceptance of any .sane man. They charge that none but a prejudiced and blinded mind could believe in such a variation from the rules of nature. The Christian believes that Jesus was born as the Scriptures teach. He believes that Jesus had an earthly mother but that his father was God the Father of the universe. He believes that if Christ was not born of a virgin, then he was but a man and deserves respect only as a man. He believes that if Christ was not born of a virgin then the whole of the Bible is unworthy of the consideration of man as an inspired Book; for the Book most assuredly presents Christ as born of a virgin; and if this story be a mistake, then the whole book is a mistake. The Christian cannot account for his supernatural works and claims and his undying influence in the history of the world, except by his supernatural birth. Christ was supernatural and more than just Jesus the man of Galilee, the carpenter of Nazareth, a great leader, or a Master Teacher. He was Jesus the Son of God. If Jesus be the Son of God, it is true that he was born as the gospels present the story.

What of Miracles

There are some who cannot accept any miracle. They say, “Miracles are incredible and so contrary to the experiences of the world that miracles just cannot hap-pen.” Because men have never seen one born of a virgin they insist that Jesus could not have been. Some even insist that they would not believe in a miracle if they saw one performed. They' are so wise that even to witness one would not produce faith. To believe in miracles we simply ask for testimony. As to the amount of testimony necessary to produce faith, the Christian replies that it is no greater than that which would be required to establish any unusual and extraordinary event. If I should meet a friend today in whom I have great confidence and one I know to be sane and honest, and this friend should tell me a story of a most unusual accident, perhaps I would not believe it. Since nothing like it has ever happened be-fore and since it is the humanly impossible, I could not accept the story as true merely because one friend told it. I soon meet another friend, equally honest who tells me the same story. I meet another and another. All these claim to be eye witnesses to the unusual accident. Soon I would become convinced because of the straightforward, honest, independent testimony of these men. If I should persist in doubting the story, it would be evident that I considered only my word as being worthy of consideration. When one turns to the Bible and to contemporary history, he finds a parade of honest men who testify of the virgin birth and of the other miracles of the Scriptures. The miracles of the Bible become more interesting when one considers that those who gave the records were not men who were likely to be dreamers or visionary in any way. Matthew who records the virgin birth was a hard-headed business man. Luke was a physician and one we would surely expect to keep his feet on solid ground. Neither of these were men who would likely be swept off their feet and lose their reason, because of reports of an enthusiastic and emotionally upset group of disciples. They would not write of something they did not know to be a fact. Paul, a great scholar and one educated at the feet of a famous teacher in Jerusalem, one who lived in the very shadow of the events described by Matthew and Luke, one who was a traveling companion of Luke, makes an unquestionable reference to the supernatural birth of our Lord. The virgin birth of Jesus was a miracle and the Christian finds no more difficulty in believing this miracle than any other one. He cannot agree with man who says, “Accept the New Testament as a book of religion and not of science. Since the virgin birth invades ithe field of known-science, and since no one has ever been born without "father and mother of this earth, then this story should have no part in the Christian’s belief.” Others say: “Accept Jesus as a Master Mind, and one who knew and conquered the hearts of men.” There are many so-called Christians who reason this way. These skeptics further reason: “The authority of the Bible lies wholly in the field of external history. What care we how Jesus entered into the world ?” Some go so far as to say, “I can believe in Christianity independent of Jesus as a living man.” William Jennings Bryan well said, “The supernatural element cannot be eliminated from the account of the birth of Jesus except by the application of rules that will strip the Bible of every thing supernatural.” The Christian who gives up belief in the virgin birth, one of the foundation stones of the Christian religion, compromises his religion. When he begins such a process of compromise, he soon turns out like the lady of Niger.

“There was a lady of Niger,
Who went for a ride with a tiger,
They returned from the ride,
With the lady inside,
And a smile on the face of the tiger.”

Meaning of the Virgin Birth

Jesus is the Son of God and this means that he had to have a virgin birth. By the virgin birth we mean he was born of Mary, miraculously, outside the ordinary laws of human generation. The angel: made explanation to Joseph of what the Christian accepts. “That which, is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20). The miraculous element was not in the formation of the body of our Lord nor in his deliverance, but in the begetting. The birth of John the Baptist was miraculous. His mother had traveled far beyond the age when it was possible for her to conceive and bear children. A. T. Schofield said, “Both births were supernatural; that to Elizabeth because it was too late, that to Mary because it was too soon.” Jesus the Son of God depends upon his virgin birth, his vicarious death, his glorious resurrection from the dead and his triumphant ascension to the right hand of God. The God that made the world and made two people, Adam and Eve, and gave to them the power of reproduction, simply transferred that power to one person, the virgin Mary. That is the virgin birth.

Reason vs. Faith The apostle Paul lays down the rule of the Christian’s life in this language, “We walk by faith and not by sight.” There is no need to argue that it is impossible to believe in anything that cannot be demonstrated today, for there are too many miracles, mysteries, and secrets around us that the human mind cannot explain yet accepts. Therefore, a Christian does not seek to explain HOW Christ was born of a virgin. It shall not be mine to deal with the mystery of how such could be possible. When I approach this wonderful truth, I take off my shoes for I tread on holy ground. Consider: The Ancient of Days began as a Babe in Bethlehem.
He who thunders in Heavens, cried in the cradle.
He who gave to all their meat, .sucked the breast.
He who made all flesh, became flesh and dwelt among us.
His mother was younger than the child she bore.
He who could call legions of angels, was wrapped in swaddling clothes.
The mighty God became a helpless babe. When one considers the marvels of the virgin birth he is made to say with one of old, “I can scarce get past his cradle in my wondering, to wonder at his cross. The infant is in some views a greater marvel than Jesus with the crown of thorns.” We cannot know the scientific side of the virgin birth. We simply trust him who made even the rules of nature, and know that he who made the wonders of the physical birth as we know it, could also give the world one born of a virgin. The b;rth of our Lord is a glorious Scriptural fact and not a natural fact.

Testimony of the Early Church

Belief in the virgin birth is common today and there is no doubt that belief in it can be traced even to the middle of the first century. At the close of the second century it was regarded as an essential part of Christianity. The fact that belief was so common at this date shows of course that it must have originated at a much earlier time. Universal acceptance of this story did not happen over night. As early as 100 the virgin birth was accepted by the Christian world and was being assaded by the enemies of the church. It has been said that probably one of the first to’impugn the virgin birth was a Jewish Gnostic, whose name was Gerinthus. He lived about one hundred.

He ascribed, to Jesus a purely human origin. Like others of the Gnostics he believed that Jesus had a dual personality and made a great difference between Jesus the Son of God and Jesus the man. The Gnostics held that communication of divine life was to Jesus at his baptism of John in the Jordan River. The Christ part dwelt in him until he died and then went back to God. In the second and third centuries there was a sect known as the Ebibonites who rejected belief in the virgin birth. They held that Jesus was the son of Joseph and born as any other man. With the exceptions of these two small sects, it is said at this early date that belief in the supernatural birth of Jesus was universal among Christians. It is evident from history without the New Testament record that the early Christians believed Jesus to have been born of a virgin.

Within seventy years after, the church was established, men were reading the accounts of Matthew and Luke. If belief in the virgin birth was accepting something that had been faked, then thousands of men and women were being deceived by a story that they could easily have disproved.

Testimony of the Scriptures

I believe the word of God. It has survived and marches on today crushing sin and defeating Satan, so it is to the word that I turn for testimony that convinces the Christian. The first promise of the coming of the Lord in a miraculous way is found in Gen. C: 15. Here in the early morning of creation, four thousand years before the birth of Jesus we find the first man and woman disobeying God. Jehovah God, walked in the cool of “the evening” and found Adam and Eve who were ashamed and had hidden themselves. They had fallen and at this early date God made a promise of one who should raise man from a fallen state. Speaking to the serpent he said, “Cursed art thou above all the cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed; he shalt bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Here it is definitely stated that it was to be the seed of the woman who was to bruise the head of Satan and thus completely conquer him. No man with an earthly father could ever fulfill the promise made here. Jesus with an earthly mother and with God as his Father fulfills this grand promise.

Reference to the virgin birth is found in Isaiah 7:14. This is called the “great Immanuel prophecy.” The Messiah and his miraculous birth is presented in these words, “The Lord himself shall give you a sign: behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call his name Immanuel.” The name was to be “Immanuel” or “God with us.” When one looks to the New Testament and sees the sinless life of Jesus; his mission of mercy as he raised the dead, healed the leper, opened the blind eyes, loosed the dumb tongue; he is made to exclaim, “God indeed is with us.” The son of a virgin mentioned in Isaiah 7:14 is without a doubt the same one extolled in Isaiah 9:6-7. In this we read, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called Wonderful, Councillor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness.” This prophecy is quoted as fulfilled in Matthew 1:23.

Objections to this Scripture come from critics who have said that the Hebrew word of “virgin” of Isaiah 7:14 does not mean a virgin in a strict sense, but merely a young woman of marriageable age. It has been said that this same word occurs about six times in the Old Testament, and each time it carries the idea of an unmarried woman. It was said of Martin Luther that he made a challenge long ago that has never been accepted. He said, “If a Jew or a Christian can prove to me that in any passage of Scripture the Hebrew word for virgin means a married woman, I will give him 100 florin, although God alone knows where I shall find them.”

Isaiah reveals that the virgin’s son should come to sit upon David’s throne, and it should be a reign of peace. Jesus, Immanuel or God with us; or as the New Testament pictures him, “The Word was God, the Word v, as made flesh and dwelt among us,” only Jesus could fulfill this prediction. It is true that not many references are made to the virgin birth in the Old Testament, yet this does not L'ake the faith of the Christian. For God to speak once should produce as much faith as if he had spoken one hundred times. When one turns to the New Testament he finds two of the gospel writers giving us accounts of the birth of our Lord. There is every evidence that these men were sane, honest and credible witnesses. They would be accepted as such in any court today. Even if it be true that no other New Testament writer makes mention of this event, the testimony of these two would be enough; for in the “mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”

We consider first Matthew’s record. “Now the birth of Jesus was on this wise: When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband being a righteous man, and not willing to make her a public example was minded to put her away privily. But when he thought on these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for it is he that shall save his people from their sins.” This language is plain and simple. It is not veiled in words hard to be understood. It bears every evidence of a sincere and honest writer. It is stamped with purity; there is nothing vulgar about it. The record is not one that has crept into the translations, but is found in the oldest manuscripts. It, along with the whole of the New Testament, is either true or false. It is not a copied record, but stands as an independent story. In this record we see that Joseph was perplexed when he heard the announcement of Mary’s condition. Hers was the most humiliating condition that could be imagined. She was a young woman engaged to be married to Joseph. They had not yet come together and the marriage had not been consummated. With her reputation, her honor and her life at stake, when she knew her condition, she told Joseph. Only a deep faith in God and the assurance that God was with her could have supported her in that trying hour. The fears of Joseph were soon removed when God revealed that “that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” His original purpose to put her away privately was set aside, and in a gracious and unquestioning way he followed the directions of the Loid. Matthew as a Jew in simple language wrote for Jews. He wrote not as a dreamer or one who had lost his reason but honestly and plainly to his fellowmen.

Luke’s record is just as beautiful and straightforward. “Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came unto her and said, “Hail, thou art highly favored, the Lord is with thee. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and cast about in her mind what manner of situation this might be. The angel sa:d unto her, fear not Mary for thou hast found favor with God. And behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son and shalt call his name Jesus, lie shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High: and the Lo^d God shall give him the throne cf his father David, and he shall reign over the house cf Jacob forever: and of his kingdom there shall be lo end. And Mary said unto the angel, how shall this thing be seeing I know not a man, And the angel an-swered and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall over-shadow thee; wherefore also the holy thing which is be-gotten shall be called the Son of God. And Mary said: Behold tne handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me ac-cording to thy word.” From the standpoint of a physician in tender language, Luke describes the events. He makes known her great call; her fears as a young maiden; her chaste pure life; her humble submission to the will of the Lord; then her unbounding joy that she was to be the mother of Jesus the Savior. In the second chapter Luke makes known the condition under which Jesus was born. In the day when Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem, to attend to the demand of the law, Mary was great with child. It was time that she should be delivered and the hour had come when the glorious promise made four thousand years before should be fulfilled. In crowded Bethlehem with the doors of all homes and hotels closed, this humble man from Nazareth took' the godly Mary into a stable for the night. On that night the greatest event the world had ever known transpired. “She brought forth her first born son; and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Both of these records come from men of the apostolic age, and their records are found in the oldest of manuscripts. Matthew does not copy from Luke, and Luke does not copy from Matthew. The records are independent, yet they are not contradictory. They are complementary. It takes the two to make a complete story. These revelations were accepted by the early Christians and today the genuine Christian says, “Lord I believe.”
We believe it unworthy of a Christian to notice the vulgar charges of the skeptics that these beautiful stories are the product of the early Jewish Christians, or that the Christians borrowed them from some vulgar myths about them.

There are some who charge, that since only Matthew and Luke mention the virgin birth, then it is evidence that the other writers of the New Testament knew nothing of it. Yet when we consider the story, it is a very delicate one and all that could be said upon it, was said by Matthew and Luke. Had the other writers given it, it would have been but a repetition. Then it is very plain to the Bible student that both John and Mark write of the life of Christ from a different view than that of Matthew and Luke. Mark reveals Jesus as the servant. John pictures him as the Son of God, and goes back beyond all human genealogies, and presents Jesus as having existed in the beginning. John knew of the miraculous birth of Jesus or what could his words mean in chapter 1 and verses 1 and 2 of his gospel, “in the beginning was the Word, the Word was God—the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” It was not the purpose of the second and fourth gospel writers to present the circumstance of the nativity. At least John shows the divine descent of Jesus and how the Word became flesh he does not say.

It has been further suggested that because Paul, one of the chief writers of the New Testament does not directly mention the virgin birth, that he was un-acquainted with it. Certainly one is taking too much liberty to say that Paul was ignorant of this great event. He was a companion of Luke; and as these two traveled about on their missionary tours, surely they often discussed this great truth presented by Luke. Paul did write of the pre-existence of Jesus, and of his redeeming love and divine dignity. He. presented him to be from God and the head of the church and the Savior of the world. Such a one as Paul reveals could not have entered into this world in the ordinary way. We believe that Paul taught the miraculous birth of the Lord in these words, “Who existing in the form of God, counted not being on the equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as a man” (Php_2:6-8). “When the fulness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman under the law” (Galatians 4:4). John, Paul and all the New Testament writers who present Jesus to us in his dignity, holiness, purity and sinlessness; surely they knew of his being born as Matthew and Luke decribed.

Even the silence of the other writers of the New Testament would not disprove the record as presented by Matthew and Luke. From a recent issue of the Gospel Advocate, I quote from H. Leo Boles: “Many events which are generally accepted are recorded by only one or two writers of the New Testament. A criminal could find one hundred witnesses that did not see him commit the crime to one who did see him but the failure of the many to see the crime committed, does not prove the falsity of the one who did see it committed.”

Why Should Jesus Be Born of a Virgin

Jesus came as a revelation of God. He was with God in the beginning. He said, “None knoweth the Son save the Father, neither doth anyone know the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will- eth to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27). If Jesus was the Son of God, it was necessary that when he came to man to reveal God, he should have none but God as his Father. In Jesus we see God. Because he was God in the flesh he could speak with “all authority.” He reveals that God is interested in us, and in Jesus we can truly say, “God is with us.”

Jesus not only had a divine side but a human side. This could not have been, had both his parents been of this earth. From his virgin mother he took the flesh, and in the flesh he experienced all our problems. He wept with the sad. He was hungry and thirsty. He knew the sorrows of being forsaken by friends, and even saw some of his disciples turn away from him, “He was tempted in all points like as we, yet without sin.” His life in the flesh make him; thoroughly acquainted with man.

Let us thank God for Jesus, the Son of God, born of the virgin Mary, our Savior and King. Of his great supernatural birth let us say:

“I will seek to believe rather than to reason: to adore rather than to explain; to give thanks rather than to penetrate; to love rather than know; to humble myself rather than to speak.”