Christmas B.C.: The Birth
Rev. Brian Bill
12/24/00
I love how kids enjoy Christmas, but sometimes I wonder how much they really understand. I heard about a young girl who came home from Sunday School recently. She was pretty pumped when she ran up to her mom and said, “Mommy, my teacher said that I drew the most unusual Christmas picture she has ever seen!”
The mother studied the picture for a while and agreed with the teacher -- it was rather strange. The mother, wanting to understand the art work, but also not wanting to offend her daughter, asked very gently: “This is great, but who are all these people riding on the back of the airplane?”
“That’s the flight into Egypt.”
“Oh,” the mother said cautiously, “Well, who is this mean-looking man at the front of the plane?”
“That’s Pontius, the Pilot!” the girl responded.
“I see. And here you have Mary and Joseph and the baby.” As the mother studied the picture some more, she summoned up the courage to ask, “But who is this large man sitting behind Mary?”
The little girl sighed. “Can’t you tell, Mom? That’s Round John Virgin.”
As we continue in our series called, “Christmas B.C., we’ve identified several key Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled specifically and with precision when Jesus was born on that first Christmas. We don’t have to guess what they mean because they are clearly evident in the pictures of Scripture.
Three weeks ago, we learned from Genesis 3:15 that Jesus is the ultimate seed of Eve who would one day crush the serpent’s ugly head. Two weeks ago we spent some time looking at several Old Testament pictures and predictions found in Genesis 22 and Exodus 12 that depict Jesus as the ultimate sacrificial lamb.
Last week, we established from Micah 5:2 that Jesus had to be born in a place called Bethlehem. Just as the place of Jesus’ birth was prophetically identified 700 years before it happened, so was the process of his birth. According to Isaiah 7:14, the birth of Immanuel would be mysterious and miraculous because He would be born of a virgin.
The Gospel According to Isaiah
As has been our practice in this series, let’s look first at the context surrounding the Old Testament prophecy before we focus on its fulfillment. Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah was a contemporary of Micah and was considered one of the most prolific prophets in Israel. He ministered during the time of Israel’s decline. The book that bears his name is filled with predictive prophecies about the birth of Jesus – we see them in chapters 7, 9, and 11. And, of course, chapter 53 is filled with startling predictions about his substitutionary death.
Jerome, a church leader from the 4th Century, said this about Isaiah: “He should be called an evangelist rather than a prophet because he describes all the mysteries of Christ so clearly that you would think he is composing a history of what has already happened rather than prophesying about what is to come.”
In chapter 6, when Uzziah was king, Isaiah describes his call from God in vivid and powerful language. This vision of Yahweh in the Temple colored his whole view of life. He had seen God as the holy one of Israel and he would never forget it. To him, sin was appalling and God’s awesome purity was cleansing. He had been forgiven and taken into God’s service.
When we come to chapter 7, Uzziah’s grandson, Ahaz is on the throne. Ahaz defied God and as a result his kingdom came under attack from all quarters. In 2 Kings 16 we get some further insight into what kind of man Ahaz was. In verse 2, we learn that he “did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God.” Verse 3 tells us how far south he had slid spiritually: “He…even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.” He was a wicked king. In verse 5, two kings gather together to come and fight against him.
Now let’s go back to Isaiah 7. Look at verse 2. “So the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.” He’s shaking like a leaf. Instead of turning to the Lord, he begins to think about allying himself with the evil empire of Assyria. At this crucial time, God in His great love and mercy toward the house of David, took the initiative and sent Isaiah the prophet to help King Ahaz.
Isaiah said to Ahaz in verse 4: “Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood…” The two countries fighting against him could do no harm to him. Why? Because God himself had made a covenant with David that his kingdom would endure forever and ever. But what did Ahaz do? He didn’t want to listen to God.
Ahaz blew Isaiah off and disregarded God’s message. In verse 10 we read that he was supposed to ask for a sign that would help him believe. God often sent signs in the Old Testament. Gideon got one in Judges 6. Hezekiah received a sign when God miraculously caused his shadow to go backwards while he was sitting down in 2 Kings 20. Signs tell us many things: they point, they explain, they guide and they direct.
In verse 12 we see that Ahaz refused to ask for a sign. This lights Isaiah up in verse 13: “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also?”
Then we come to this remarkable prophetic passage in verse 14: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.”
I want to make four observations from this verse.
1. The Lord Himself will give the sign. Have you picked up this common thread woven through the last two messages? Micah 5:2 says about this about Bethlehem, “Out of you will come for me.” This includes the idea “of me” which indicates that the coming ruler would come from God himself. That’s similar to the phrase we focused on two weeks ago when Abraham said that “God himself will provide the lamb” in Genesis 22:8. The lamb would come from God, just like the Ruler will come from Him. And now, in Isaiah 7, we see that God himself will give a sign. A sign is something that only God can perform.
2. The sign was given to all of us. The word “you” in this passage is plural, indicating that it was not just a sign to Ahaz. We read later in 2 Kings 16 that Ahaz eventually sent the money in Judah’s treasury to Assyria, which resulted in great trouble for the people of God. Because of his actions, Judah was dominated by Assyria, and then Babylon and then Persia, and then Greece, and finally by Rome. Six hundred years of domination and devastation! While these prophecy had application to his context, it was God’s way of saying that the virgin birth was a sign to the whole world as the angel made clear in Luke 2:10: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
3. The sign will be a son born to a virgin. In the Hebrew, there is a grammatical interjection that is not always translated cleanly into English. This phrase should read, “Behold, the virgin will be with child…” This is how the New American Standard and the King James Version render it. This word is very common in the Old Testament. It’s used to arrest attention, to indicate the importance of what is about to be said. This is no ordinary pregnancy and no ordinary birth. A virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son. This would certainly stand out as a miraculous sign. The word used for “virgin” refers to an unmarried woman who has not had any sexual relations.
By the way, in some medieval works of art, Mary is typically found reading Isaiah 7:14 at the moment Gabriel arrives to announce the Messiah’s conception. In a 13th Century painting, Isaiah is hovering in the background, pointing to the Virgin Mary as she holds a lamb in her arms.
4. The Son would be God incarnate. The name Immanuel means, “The strong God with us.” While this was not Jesus’ proper name, it was a name that belonged to him as an attribute. This is who He is. From the point of this miraculous birth on, God would himself be present among His people. Jesus will have two natures: human and divine. He will experience all that we experience, and He will give all that we need: salvation.
Did Ahaz understand all this? No. Was all this fulfilled during his lifetime? No. It was a prophecy, focusing on the future, given to all people so that God could be with all people for all time.
The Jesus Seminar
Christmas is the first great miracle of the Christian faith. The virgin birth is a doctrine often taken for granted in our circles, yet from the very beginning there have been those who have doubted. 80 years ago controversy over the Virgin Birth tore the Christian church apart. Until then, it ranked with the Resurrection and the Second Coming as one of the fundamentals of the faith. Ever since then, liberals have denied it, while Bible-believers have defended it.
Some began calling the Virgin Birth an unnecessary and irrational doctrine. Harry Emerson Fosdick said, “Of course, I do not believe in the Virgin Birth . . . I do not know any intelligent minister who does.”
In case you wonder if such views have become outmoded, let me update you on the work of the Jesus Seminar. About 15 years ago a group of liberal scholars began meeting to try and determine the true words of Jesus. They voted on the sayings and teachings of Christ using colored beads. Black meant the statement was definitely not genuine, pink meant it probably was, and red meant it was legitimate. After they were done slicing and dicing, the ballots showed that of 176 events in the Gospels, only ten were given a red rating.
Several years ago these supposed scholars blackballed the Virgin Birth as a legend that has no historical validity. The scholars decided that Mary must have had intimate relations with Joseph or with some unknown person before she became pregnant with Jesus. W. Barnes Tatum from Greensboro College called the gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth “theological fiction.”
While we may be tempted to laugh this off as the work of a few radical kooks, we ought to take this seriously. Behind the well-publicized Jesus Seminar stands an insidious theology that attacks the central truth of Christian faith--that God became a man in the Person of Jesus Christ. You see, it’s only a short step from denying the Virgin Birth to denying the deity of Jesus Christ. First you attack the birth, and then you assault the baby. If you discount the miracle, then you can disavow the man. Once you mock His miraculous entrance into the world, it’s a short step to deny His deity, or that He ever existed at all. Incidentally, the vote against the Virgin Birth was 24-1.
That’s the ultimate goal of the Jesus Seminar: To “demythologize” Jesus so that he is no longer the Son of God from heaven who came to earth as the God-Man to die for our sins. In fact, when those scholars are through, the Jesus of the Bible will be replaced by a pale imitation, who is neither Savior nor Lord.
That’s exactly what happened when ABC aired the Peter Jennings’ special called, “The Search for Jesus” this past June. Four of the seven scholars who were interviewed on the program were from the Jesus Seminar. It was painfully obvious as I watched that these “experts” had an anti-supernatural bias about all things theological and biblical.
When focusing on the birth of Jesus, this program came up with three different explanations in an attempt to blast the biblical account. First, some of them believe that the early church just made the whole thing up. Second, trying to discredit both Micah and Matthew, they said that Jesus was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem. And third, if that’s not crazy enough, Jennings then interviewed someone who compared Jesus’ virgin birth to the “divine” impregnation of a Roman woman by a snake. This junk was on prime time and was watched by 16 million Americans!
Hershael York, who received his doctorate in New Testament studies, provided an excellent critique of the program when he said, “It was the most slanted, biased and myopic presentation of the life of Christ imaginable…I hope there’s a sequel to the ‘Search for Jesus’ because they sure didn’t find him in the first one.”
Incidentally, Dr. D. James Kennedy has produced a sequel by putting together a Christmas program called, “Who is this Jesus” that will give the biblical answer to the search for Jesus. I don’t think it will be on TV in our viewing area but it will be broadcast in several major cities on December 26th. Dr. Kennedy reports that he couldn’t sleep for two nights after watching Peter Jennings’ special. In his line up he will offer broad-ranging evidence to support the Gospel record by focusing on ancient non-Christian sources and archaeology. He will also highlight the 300 Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled by Christ.
Reasons to Believe the Virgin Birth
The Virgin Birth of Jesus is essential to our faith, and is critical to understanding what really took place that first Christmas. Instead of just taking a vote, let’s go back and take a look at the evidence.
1. What the Bible teaches. Let’s start by doing a brief survey of 13 different passages that provide us with a biblical basis for believing in the Virgin Birth.
· Genesis 3:15 says that the Messiah will be born of the “seed of the woman.” The reference to “her seed” is very interesting in Hebrew because the male is considered the one who has the seed. When the Messiah was born, He was the “seed of the woman” because in His conception by the Holy Spirit, there was no male seed! He didn’t come in the usual way; He came by means of a miraculous virgin birth.
· We’ve already established that Isaiah 7:14 clearly describes that Immanuel would be born of a virgin.
· Matthew 1:16 stands out in the genealogy of Jesus. If you notice carefully, verse 2 begins with “Abraham was the father of Isaac,” and then goes all the way through to the first part of verse 16, mentioning that so-and-so was the “father” of so-and-so. Look at verse 16: “And Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” Did you catch it? Joseph is not referred to as the father of Jesus because he wasn’t the biological father. He is known as the “husband” of Mary. The text goes out of the way to help us see that Jesus was born to Mary, not to Mary and Joseph.
· Matthew 1:18 indicates, “Before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” She was pregnant and yet had never had sexual relations.
· Matthew 1:19 clearly shows that Joseph knew that he could not have been the father. Because he was a good guy, he had decided to break off the relationship with her quietly. If Joseph wasn’t the father, who was?
· The word used for “virgin” in Matthew 1:23 can only mean a woman who has never had any relations with a man: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son…”
· Matthew 1:25 says this about Joseph: “But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son.” It can’t be any clearer than that, can it?
· Luke 1:27 refers to Mary as a “virgin” twice: “To a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.”
· Luke 1:34 reveals that Mary herself knew she was a virgin when she asked the angel a pretty obvious question: “How will this be since I am a virgin?” This is a perfectly natural question. Mary is engaged but not formally married. She has saved herself for her husband. How then can she become pregnant and have a son?
By the way, the accounts in Matthew and Luke are quite different. Neither writer seems to have known the other’s story. Yet Matthew and Luke have one major point in common—that Jesus was born of a virgin through the power of the Holy Spirit. This agreement, amidst otherwise diverse presentations, suggests that a common tradition regarding the Virgin Birth existed before either writer recorded his account.
· In Mark 6:3, people wonder who Jesus is and ask, “Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son…” In a patriarchal society, to identify someone by reference to his mother and not his father would have been unusual. The implication is that Mary was the mother but that Joseph was not the biological father.
· John 1:14 tells us that the “Word became flesh,” which refers to what happened at the first Christmas. The eternal second person of the Trinity was born to reveal God to us. This certainly implies a supernatural entrance into the world.
· 1 Timothy 3:16 summarizes the birth of Jesus by saying that he “appeared in a body.” He did not come into the world in the usual way, but by a miraculous work of God so that he could “emerge” in a body. God appearing in human form is declared to be the “great” truth so long concealed from human view, but now revealed as the fundamental doctrine of the gospel.
· Galatians 4:4 states that “when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman.” This unusual phrase seems to mean that Jesus did not just magically appear as a full-grown man. He was born of a woman. His birth was real. And, He came when the “time had fully come.” King Ahaz didn’t see the Virgin who was pregnant. Micah didn’t see the baby in Bethlehem. Abraham saw the ram caught in the thicket, but couldn’t imagine Christ on the Cross. Eve’s seed gave birth to Jesus even though she didn’t understand it. Jesus, who existed from all eternity, came at just the right time, born of a virgin.
The Bible is very clear. As someone has said, “It is extremely difficult to make the terminology of the Virgin Birth refer to something other than the Virgin Birth.” I would change “extremely difficult” to “impossible.”
2. What various churches teach. Most Protestants believe in the Virgin Birth. Almost all evangelicals hold to this belief. The Catholic Church strongly affirms this doctrine as well as the various Orthodox churches. The only churches that don’t believe it are those who have capitulated to liberalism and politically correct theology.
3. The Creeds of the Faith proclaim it. The major historic statements of faith recognize the virgin birth.
· The Apostles’ Creed: “…and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary…”
· The Nicene Creed: “…who for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man…”
· Luther’s Small Catechism: “I believe in…Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary…”
Friends, we are on solid historical and biblical ground when we assert our belief that Jesus was indeed conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. It is a thoroughly Christian doctrine that all true Christians have believed and still believe today.
What Does It Mean?
Why is it important that we tenaciously hold to the Virgin Birth? What does it teach about the true nature of Jesus Christ? And what are the implications of denying this truth?
1. The Virgin Birth is a mystery. After all is said and done, we still don’t understand exactly how it happened. We can no more explain the Virgin Birth than we can explain walking on water. It’s a reversal of all known human processes because it’s a direct miracle of God.
2. The Virgin Birth is presented as sober historical truth. Luke 2 anchors the event to certain specific historical indicators. The Virgin Birth happened during the reign of Caesar Augustus, when he issued a decree for a census of the entire Roman Empire. This census took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. These are facts that can be checked and verified in secular history. Luke doesn’t say, “Once upon a time in a land faraway a young virgin gave birth . . .” No, this isn’t a fairy tale or a bedtime story. This is the truth! It really happened exactly as the Bible says.
3. The Virgin Birth fits with everything we know about Jesus. The Bible presents Jesus as being a fully human person. He was born like us, lived like us, and died like us. Whatever it means to be truly human, that was true of Him also. He was as much a man as any man who ever lived. He was not an alien or an angel or a half-man, half-God creature.
The Virgin Birth is, after all, a virgin conception. The miracle took place nine months earlier at the moment of conception. He developed in the womb as all babies do, was delivered in the same way babies are delivered today, nursed at his mother’s breast just like babies today.
But that is only one part of the story. He was also fully divine, fully God. That is why miracles marked both his entrance and his exit from this world.
In Luke 1:35, the angel answers Mary’s question about how she can get pregnant since she is a virgin. First he deals with the biological issue by saying that the power of the Holy Spirit will overshadow her – and this divine activity will result in conception. The last phrase of this verse deals with something that Mary did not ask, “…So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”
There are two important truths held in tension in this verse.
1. It was necessary for the Savior of the World to be born of a woman, so that he would be of the same nature as those whom he came to save.
2. It was just as imperative that he should be holy, sinless, and blameless in order to be the sacrificial lamb.
In this one verse Gabriel is making clear the glorious fact that both of these requirements are fulfilled in the life of Jesus. He is fully man, yet fully God. Here the mystery of the incarnation and the virgin birth are held in tension. As C.S. Lewis has said with penetrating insight, “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”
It fits perfectly. He was born of a woman . . . he was born of a virgin.
· He was just like us . . . and yet, He was nothing like us.
· He walked among us . . . and yet, He came from God above.
· He was the Son of Mary . . . and yet, He was the only-begotten Son of God.
· He grew up in Nazareth . . . and yet, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
· He is our friend . . . and yet, He is our Savior and Lord.
· Little children love him . . . and yet, He baffles the greatest minds.
· He was called “son of Mary” . . . and yet, He is the “Son of God”
Do You Believe It?
Can a true Christian reject the Virgin Birth? The answer is no. The Virgin Birth was never meant to stand-alone. It is not a random truth plucked from thin air. God never says, “Pick and choose what you want to believe.” The story of Jesus is a seamless garment woven by the Holy Spirit. Take out his miraculous birth and you have ripped the whole garment to shreds.
History teaches us that when people begin to doubt the Virgin Birth, they do not stop there. One doubt leads to another until the Jesus they believe in is not the Jesus of the Bible. In truth, the Virgin Birth is no more miraculous than the Resurrection. They stand or fall together.
Do I understand everything about it? No.
Do I believe it? Yes.
Why? Because that’s what the Bible teaches. Another verse in Isaiah draws us back to what really matters. Isaiah 40:8 says, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
Can we still believe in the Virgin Birth? We can and we must. There is a miracle here. Do you believe it? There is enough evidence to believe for those who wish to believe. There is enough reason to doubt for those who care to doubt. Miracles are like that. They don’t force us to believe. They invite us to make our own decision.
Martin Luther once remarked that the Incarnation consisted of three miracles:
1. God became man.
2. The virgin became a mother.
3. The heart of man should believe it.
If you say, “Miracles can’t happen,” then you will find some way to explain the Virgin Birth. And you won’t be the first person to do so. From the very beginning, some found the story too incredible, too mysterious.
Voltaire, a French atheistic philosopher who lived 300 years ago, is reported to have said, “If a miracle occurred in the market place of Paris and in the presence of two thousand men, I would rather disbelieve my own eyes than the two thousand.” Facts alone, irrespective of how well they are presented, will never bring a person to Christ.
Some of you are fighting. You’re holding out. You’ve inoculated yourself from the explosion of the incarnation. You don’t really care about Christmas and in your heart you don’t believe it.
The Heart of Christmas
One Saturday afternoon a father was watching his children while his wife went Christmas shopping. He was dozing in the den, half-watching a football game, when one of his daughters came in and said, “Daddy, daddy, we made a play. Do you want to see it?” He didn’t especially want to but he went into the living room, a one-man audience. He saw quickly that it was to be a Christmas play.
At the foot of the piano stool was a flashlight. It was turned on, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a shoebox. Then Rex, age 6, came in wearing dad’s bathrobe, carrying a mop handle. He was followed by Nancy, age 10, who declared, “I’m Mary and this is Joseph.” Then Trudy, age 4, entered with pillowcases over her arms, which she waved around saying, “I’m an angel.”
Finally, in came Ann, age 8, riding on a camel. At least she moved as though she was riding a camel because she had on her mother’s high heeled shoes. She was bedecked with all the jewelry she could find in the house. And she carried a pillow on which were three Christmas presents. She went over and bowed before Joseph, the Virgin and the Light and announced in a loud voice, “I am all three wise men. I bring gifts of gold, circumstance and mud.”
That was all. The play was over but daddy did not laugh. He did not correct his daughter. But rather he cried and then prayed because he realized how near to the truth she had come. As she mixed up the words, she had captured the core message of Christmas.
Jesus wants us to bring Him everything that is important to us. He also invites us to give Him all of our circumstances, the good ones and the bad ones. And, He waits for us to give Him the mud in our lives.
Will you do that right now?
