INTRODUCTION TO AFFIRMATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
As time marches on and the aging process begins to cast a shadow on my short-term memory, my mind seems sharper now than ever regarding long-term memory. It is interesting to me that, at 85 years of age, I am still recalling interpretations of Christian beliefs that have been hallmarks of my ministry for three score and more years.
After all, I have sat under the preaching, on a right regular basis, of no fewer than a dozen inimitable pastors with whom I was associated in my role as Church Consultant, Christian Educator and Community Counselor. In my associations, and during those years of Christian service, each of my pastors involved me in the ministries of preaching and teaching the Word.
Living in the latter days of my life on this earth, with the 21st century well under way, I find myself “up against it” regarding a lot that I read today, and hear, about endeavors by more than a few Christian ministers to re-define basic Christian doctrines – beliefs that, for me, were and still are “pillars” upon which to build one’s Christian life.
In our world of instant communication, we pick up on much negativism as to the validity of our Christian Faith - for instance, the brazenness with which professing Christians embrace ways other than Jesus Christ for being saved – even by folks who know that Jesus proved what He said: “I am the way, the truth and the life . . . No one comes to the Father except by me.”
An illustration of how some folks are thinking occurred at one of my favorite places for fellowship with friends - The Waffle House: One morning while sitting at one end of the coffee shop, I and everyone else could hear a guy at the other end waxing eloquent about religious issues. Although I for the most part had tuned him out, my ears perked up when he started talking about how one goes to heaven. Don’t know how the subject came up, but what I heard this guy say was: “All people of all religions will go to heaven if they’re good.”
Now folks, I’m in favor of everyone being good; and I’m in favor of everyone going to heaven; but it doesn’t matter what I am in favor of, or what the Waffle House customer’s view was; the fact is that the Bible tells us who will and will not go to heaven; and nowhere in the Bible does it say that “all people from all religions will go to heaven if they are good.”
Later in this series, I share my understanding of a Christian view of “how to go to heaven”. The “who and how” of receiving, by grace through faith, God’s gift of eternal life ought to be a major objective of all Christian preaching and teaching.
Pursuing an evangelistic objective, however, in no way diminishes but enhances the importance of affirming and acting upon all other major Christian doctrines – the necessity of which motivated me to reaffirm my Christian beliefs.
There were basically ten tenets which I felt the need to reexamine and work through in my own mind until I could say, “This I believe.”
Yes, reflected in my statements of belief are numerous interpretations and perspectives gained from a lifetime of intensive Bible study, as well as listening with an attentive ear to good teachers and preachers, not to mention all the research done through the years in preparation for teaching teachers – probably the most rewarding aspect of my ministry. Amen.
AFFIRMATIONS – SERMON V: BELIEF IN THE DIVINE CONCEPCION OF JESUS
From my earliest recollections of Bible study – a twelve-year-old in Sunday school all the way through seminary, followed by years of serving with some highly respected Bible teachers and preachers – no one with whom I was associated questioned the miracle of Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit of God and his birth by a virgin named Mary.
If the Bible IS the divinely inspired Word of God – and I believe that it IS in the sense that holy men of God were led by the Spirit of God to record God’s revelation of His purpose and will for His creation – then we would certainly be wise to take seriously the prophecy of the virgin birth and the fulfillment of it as recorded in Scripture.
Isaiah prophesied the virgin birth of Jesus: “Therefore the Lord will give you a sign; the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
Matthew quoted the prophet and defined “Immanuel”: “The virgin shall be with child, and will give birth to a son, and they shall call him Immanuel, which means, ‘God with us.’” Would you agree that, if God came to be with us, His coming would have had to be a miraculous divine event?
Telling the story of Jesus’ birth, Luke’s gospel stressed the divine aspect of the conception: “In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendent of David. The virgin’s name was Mary; and the angel said to Mary: ‘The Holy Spirit of God will come upon you and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; so, the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.’”
About these and other scripture passages concerning the divine conception of Jesus: The Word of God says it; that settles it; I believe it.
Yes, there are passages of Scripture in the New Testament that refer to Mary and Joseph as the parents of Jesus . . . refer to Jesus as the carpenter’s son . . . mention Jesus as the son of Joseph – all of which speak of the earthly relationship Jesus had with the father of the household in which Jesus grew and developed into manhood.
Being reared in a home in which the “father” may be a “second daddy” rather than the biological father is something familiar to boys and girls who grew up in orphanages. Several friends that I went to school with in Hapeville, Georgia – the town where, in those days, the Georgia Baptist Children’s Home was located – looked upon the manager of the children’s home, Mr. John Warr, as their “father.” Some called him “Daddy Warr.”
My older childhood and teenage experience was like theirs, since my biological father died when I was five years of age and a gentleman by the name of “Slim Wasden” – related to me only through Sunday school and church membership – became the fatherly influence in my life as a youngster.
Slim taught me how to drive a car . . . gave me an allowance . . . took me to work with him from time to time so that I could learn how to become self-reliant . . . encouraged his daughter to hold my hand in the backseat of the car on our way home from church so that I would learn to like girls . . . on and on I could go relating experiences of the “father-son” relationship that I enjoyed with my “second daddy.”
Joseph the carpenter, husband of Mary the mother of Jesus, was the dependable kind of father who provided not only for his supernaturally born son, Jesus, but also for Jesus’ half brothers and sisters born naturally to Joseph and Mary; I have no problem understanding the close relationship between Joseph and his “adopted” son Jesus even though Jesus was looked upon by neighbors and other friends of the family as a son of Joseph.
There is ample scriptural documentation of Joseph’s understanding, revealed to him by God’s messenger, as to the special nature of his wife Mary’s pregnancy. Apparently, after much agonizing over the situation, Joseph became convinced of the authenticity of the miraculous conception, and therefore accepted, with love and devotion, his God-ordained role as the earthly father of the divinely conceived Son of God, to be born to his beloved wife-in-waiting, the Virgin Mary.
Numerous theories having to do with skepticism as to the believability of the divine conception of Jesus have floated around for centuries – true with regard to any and all miracles recorded in the Bible. Skeptics abound!
There always have been – always will be – doubters who cannot bring themselves to the point of accepting miracles associated with the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus – most likely due to the absence of egotistical ability on their part to explain the miracles; the inability to do so constitutes, to them, a threat to their elevated opinion of themselves.
Did you ever know anybody who appeared to be “too smart for their own good”?
Folks, we hear a lot of discussion these days, both from without and within the church, calling for the re-examination of basic Christian beliefs, the doctrine of divine conception and the virgin birth – the stated objective of the re-examiners being to reject the authenticity of any doctrine they cannot scientifically prove or theologically explain. These folks, of course, are entitled to their own opinion.
As for me, I have no problem accepting the scriptural proposition that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit of God and born to a virgin named Mary, wife of Joseph the carpenter from Nazareth.
It’s not that I have never thought it through; I have – many times; yet, I find myself coming back to the logic of a divine conception and birth, along with unswerving faith that allows me to accept, without reservation, the scriptural teaching of the divine conception of Jesus, born of a virgin.
Am I saying that anyone who believes otherwise cannot be a Christian? No, I do not suggest that intellectual acceptance of the divine conception of Jesus is essential to salvation. What I do suggest is that no MERE human being could atone for sins by dying on a cross – even if he died many, many times on our behalf. Why is that?
God required that the sacrifice for “obliterating sin” be a perfect sacrifice – offered by a sinless person; and the only way a person could have lived a sinless life was for that individual to be divine. Jesus was the only One who ever met God’s criteria for being both human and divine.
The Bible plainly tells us that Jesus never sinned – which means that He was the only perfect person who ever lived on earth. Everybody else is found under the umbrella of that verse in Romans that says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
Folks, how could any human being be born into a world of sin and shame, and never sin? As nice as most of you are, and as good a life as many of you have lived, each one has to admit that all of us fall into yet another scriptural category: “There is none righteous, no, not one.”
Jesus Christ, Son of God, our only Lord of life, presented himself to God the Father as the perfect sacrifice, “without spot or blemish.” The Bible tells us that Jesus, Son of God, “paid the debt” of sin and shame on behalf of sinners. God so loved the world that He accepted His Son’s perfect sacrifice of himself so that the world through Him might be saved.
Therefore, I affirm my belief in the divine conception and virgin birth of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Granted, it may be that one’s belief in the virgin birth is not essential for one’s salvation; God could have offered salvation in any way that He desired, but He chose to offer His Son – conceived by the Holy Spirit, birthed by a virgin, lived a sinless life, died on the Cross for our sins, rose from the dead to prove that He was indeed the Son of God; and He declared:
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes unto the Father except by me.” So, my dear friends, the Word of God says, “If you will confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Amen.
