In looking at the virgin birth of Christ, we need to think deeply and honestly. Both are necessary: we must be honest, and we must engage in concentrated thought. One question needs to be asked. Why would God's Son have to enter the world through a virgin? Or more simply put, why was Christ born of a virgin? Why was a virgin birth necessary?
(Note: Mary confirmed that she was a virgin, Luke 1:34.)
1. The birth of God's Son required a miracle.
He could not be born through the natural process as other men are. If He had been born as other men, His very birth would indicate that He was no more than mere man. Very simply, any person who enters the world through a man and a woman is a mere man or a mere woman. He or she can be nothing more. But this is not so with Christ. Christ already existed. Therefore, if God willed to send His Son into the world, He would have to choose another way. All Christ needed was a body. As He Himself said to God the Father: "A body hast thou prepared for me" (Hebrews 10:5).
2. The birth of God's Son required a combined act on God's part and on woman's part.
If God's Son was to become a man and identify with men, He had to come through the process of conception through a woman. Why? Because man can only come through the woman. Therefore, if God willed to send His Son into the world as a man, He would have to perform a miracle, causing Mary to conceive by an act of His divine power.
Thought (1) A question needs to be asked. Why is it so hard to believe that God can cause Mary to miraculously conceive? Why is it so hard to believe that God exists and that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
Thought (2) Just imagine what science can do in the fertilization of female eggs today. Is God not able to do so much more? How foolish our unbelief causes us to act. The problem is not God, but our faith: "With God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37; Luke 18:27Hebrews 11:6, which is a warning to all.)
3. The birth of God's Son required a miraculous nature—both a divine nature and a human nature.
a) He had to be born of a woman to partake of human nature. (Hebrews 2:14-18.)
b) He had to be born by a miraculous act of God so as not to partake of man's corruption. This was critical if we are to escape corruption and live forever. Think about it. Our faith must be in an incorruptible Savior if we are to be covered by His incorruption. God had to identify with us by becoming one with us and by conquering our depraved and doomed nature.
4. The birth of God's Son required the birth of a perfect nature. Why?
Because a perfect life needed to be lived. Righteousness, that is, perfection, needed to be secured. An ideal life (that is, a perfect, righteous life) had to be lived so that it could stand for and cover all men in perfection and in righteousness. Honest thought confesses that no man has been or is perfect. Man comes short. His coming short of God's glory is tragically pictured in the ultimate fate of life: death.
But God acted. God did everything to secure righteousness and perfection for man. He took every step and performed every act necessary to save His people from their sins and from death. He did it from beginning to end, from birth to exaltation. God sent His Son into the world, not through a man and a woman, but through a miraculous act of His own upon the virgin Mary. Jesus Christ was thereby the God-Man. This says at least four things.
a) As God-Man, Christ was able to consummate both the human and divine. He had the capacity and innate power not to sin. Therefore His Godly nature empowered Him to live righteously, never doing wrong and always choosing and doing right (Hebrews 5:8; 2 Cor. 5:21). By living a sinless life, Christ was able to secure righteousness, the Ideal Righteousness that will cover and stand for all men.
b) As God-Man, Christ was also able to bear the sins and the judgment of sin for all men. When He died, He died as the perfect and ideal man. Therefore, His death is able to cover and stand for all men.
c) As God-Man, Christ was able to arise from the dead. Note the phenomenal words: "...His [God's] son Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh [that is, made a man]; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead" (Romans 1:3-4). He lived a perfect and holy life by which He became the perfect and ideal man; therefore, His resurrection covers and stands for every man.
d) As God-Man, Christ was exalted to sit at the right hand of the Father—to live eternally in the heavenly dimension of being, in God's very own presence. As the perfect and ideal man, His exaltation into the heavenly or spiritual dimension is able to blaze the path into heaven for every man. He is the forerunner into heaven for every man (Hebrews 6:20). His exaltation as the ideal man covers and stands for the exaltation of every man.
5. The birth of God's Son required the creative Word of God.
God created the world by simply speaking the Word. God always creates by the power of His Word and the power of His Word alone. Therefore, when God chose...
· to create a body for His Son, He created that body by simply speaking the Word (Hebrews 10:5).
· to send His Son into the world, He sent His Son by simply speaking the Word.
It is the same with the new birth or the re-creation of man's spirit. It is by the Word of God, God simply speaking the Word, that man is born again. The act of the spiritual birth, of the re-creation, is not seen, felt, or touched. Nothing physical happens, but the re-creation does occur. It occurs by the Word of God (1 Peter 1:23).
6. The birth of God's Son required the virgin birth because Christ is the only begotten Son of God.
He is God's only Son, who possesses all the nature and fulness of God Himself (Phil. 2:6-7; Col. 2:9). Therefore, His birth had to be different. He had to enter the world differently from others, for He is different by the very nature of His being. He had to enter the world in such a way as to proclaim His divine nature, yet in such a way that would allow Him to partake of human nature. This is critically important. His birth had to involve both the act of mankind and of God Himself. Why? Because the Son of God had to be proclaimed to be the Son of God.
a) There is no salvation apart from His being the Son of God.
b) There is no salvation apart from His being proclaimed to be the Son of God.
Man can be saved only if the Son of God is, only if He exists, and only if He is proclaimed. The Son of God must exist, and we must hear of Him if we are to be saved. He and His message are both essential. His virgin birth proclaims Him to be the only begotten Son of God, the only Son sent into the world by the direct and miraculous intervention of God.
7. The birth of God's Son required a second Adam, a second man...
· born just like the first Adam, by the Word of God using natural substance.
· born to become what the first Adam failed to become: the Representative Man, the Ideal Man, the Pattern, the Perfect One in whom all men could find their Representative, their Ideal, their Pattern, their Perfection.
· born to be what Adam failed to be: the Man who always chose to love and obey God in all things, thereby passing on the nature of the ideal righteousness and perfection that can stand for and cover all men.
· born to become what the first Adam failed to pass on to man: the Way to God, the Truth of God, and the Life of God which all men can trust and follow (John 14:6).
· born to offer what the first Adam failed to pass on to man: the nature of righteousness and life, both life abundant and life eternal (Romans 5:15-19; John 10:10).
8. The birth of God's Son required an espoused state, and not a single or married state. Why?
a) Because a single woman would cause far more questioning and heap far more contempt upon Christ and His followers.
b) Because a married woman would not be a virgin and God's Son had to be born of a virgin as indicated by the points above.
The espoused state provided the ideal marital relationship for God to use in sending His Son into the world. The fact that Jewish society was using the espoused relationship as a preparation for marriage shows how God was preparing the world for the coming of His Son.
"But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law" (Galatians 4:4).
Jesus (iesous): Savior; He will save. The Hebrew form is Joshua (yasha), meaning Jehovah is salvation or He is the Savior. The idea is that of deliverance, of being saved from some terrible disaster that leads to perishing (cp. John 3:16). (Luke 9:23; Romans 8:3; Galatians 1:4; Hebrews 2:14-18; Hebrews 7:25.)
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