Luke 1:26-38 – Offspring of the Virgin’s Womb, Part 1
(Read passage.)
The little girl was sitting with her grandmother, who had presented her with her first little children’s Bible, in an easy-to-read translation, when she was very young.
Now, a decade or so later, the old lady was ready to spend a few sweet moments handing down the big old Family Bible, in the time-honored King James Version, to her only grandchild.
Understandably excited, the youngster was asking a number of questions, both about the family members whose births and deaths were recorded therein, and about various aspects of the Scriptures themselves.
Her grandmother was endeavoring to answer all the child’s questions in terms she could understand; but the one that stopped her cold was this sincere inquiry:
"Which Virgin was the mother of Jesus? Was it the Virgin Mary, or the King James Virgin?"
Tonight we are looking at the topic of the virgin birth: that part of Christian doctrine that insists that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived inside her body. Tonight we are actually starting a 2-part series on the topic. Tonite we will look at one reason why God chose a virgin to bring about His Son into the world. Next week, we will look at what it means for us. Why does it matter? Why is it important that Mary was a virgin? The 2 may overlap a little, but I’ll try to keep each message distinct from the other.
Now, to start off, the virgin birth is fairly disputed. In fact, Millard Erickson says, “Next to the resurrection, the most debated and controversial event of Jesus’ life is the virgin birth.” Some people really stumble over this issue. Matthew mentions it, and Luke mentions it. The other NT writers don’t mention it right out, but they don’t detract from it, and they certainly don’t contradict it, either. The Gospel writers include it as history, even if the other NT writers don’t elaborate on it.
The doctrine of the virgin birth has been around in the church since the beginning. The church has always believed it. It wasn’t a later addition to our theology. It’s been around since the beginning. Ignatius, a church leader who lived at the end of the 1st century, wrote about Jesus being born of Mary and also of the Holy Spirit.
Many people today reject the Virgin Birth because they say it is impossible to believe in an age of modern science and think that the early Christians believed in it simply because they were ignorant. CS Lewis comments on this attitude in his book, Miracles:
“Thus you will hear people say, ‘The early Christians believed that Christ was the son of a virgin, but we know that this is a scientific impossibility.’ Such people seem to have an idea that belief in miracles arose at a period when men were so ignorant of the course of nature that they did not perceive a miracle to be contrary to it.
“A moment’s thought shows this to be foolish, with the story of the virgin birth as a particularly striking example. When Joseph discovered that his fiancée was going to have a baby, he naturally decided to repudiate her. Why? Because he knew just as well as any modern gynecologist that in the ordinary course of nature women do not have babies unless they have lain with men.
“No doubt the modern gynecologist knows several things about birth and begetting that Joseph did not know. But those things do not concern the main point – that a virgin birth is contrary to the course of nature. And Joseph obviously knew that.”
The early church believed in the Virgin Birth, not because they were stupid or un-enlightened, but because they believed that a miracle happened. Now, we can’t prove it. But if we believe that Jesus walked on water or fed 5000 with scarcely anything, then we should be able to believe in the miracle of the Virgin Birth.
So, why did it happen this way? Why did God pick a virgin to bear His Son? Well, as I said, I’m going to touch on one issue tonight, but I still want to leave room for next week, too. You may think of other things when I’m done, but I still want to address some things next week too.
The reason I’m looking at tonight about why God chose a virgin to bring His Son into the world was the fulfillment of prophecy. There are several areas in the OT that speak of this. The topic can be found way back in Genesis 3:15, which describes God’s curse upon Satan. It says: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
It says that the offspring of the woman would crush Satan’s head. It wouldn’t be the offspring of the man, though technically there were a lot of fathers in between Adam and Mary. It would be the offspring, the child of the woman, who of course was Jesus. The virgin birth fulfills this prophecy.
The more well known prophecy is found in Isaiah 7:14. It says, “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.” The same verse is quoted in Matthew 1, meaning that the prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus. A virgin gave birth to a child.
Now, I must add, that it’s possible that originally Isaiah 7:14 simply referred to a young woman. But let me elaborate. True, the Hebrew word used in Isaiah, almah, can be translated as "young woman." Irenaeus, in 180AD, himself knew this, so the objection isn’t a new one. However, the translators of the Septuagint, which is the Greek Old Testament, finished over one hundred years before Christ, translated almah as "virgin". And Matthew used the Septuagint to quote his OT references. So, clearly virgin is a possible translation.
Keep in mind too that the prophecy could have had an original, local meaning, referring to a "young woman," possibly Isaiah’s wife, giving birth. However, regardless of how the original Jews would have understood the prophecy, the Church believes Isaiah was also predicting the final and more complete fulfillment of his words in Jesus. It’s called the 2 mountains of prophecy. One person standing on top of a mountain sees another mountain off in the distance. He does his best to describe it. He describes what he sees.
What he doesn’t see is another mountain right behind the 1st one. So as he describes what he sees, he also describes what he doesn’t yet see. Prophecy is like that. Isaiah did that. He described a young woman in the near future, but he also described Mary 800 years later.
What’s more is this: you have to look at the 2 accounts of Jesus’ family tree, given in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. They are different. At 1st glance, they both look as though they are tracing the family line of Jesus through His earthly father Joseph. Matthew 1:16 says that Jacob is Joseph’s father, while Luke 3:23 says that Heli is the father of Joseph.
Well, most conservative Bible scholars assume Luke is recording Mary’s genealogy and Matthew is recording Joseph’s. Matthew is following the line of Joseph (Jesus’ legal father), through David’s son Solomon, while Luke is following the line of Mary (Jesus’ blood relative), though David’s son Nathan. There was no Greek word for "son-in-law," and Joseph would have been considered a son of Heli through marrying Heli’s daughter Mary.
Now, I’ll show you why this matters. I have to take you back to Jeremiah 22:28-30. These verses carry a prophecy that there could be no king in Israel who was a descendant of King Jeconiah. If Joseph, who was a descendant of the evil king Jeconiah, had been Jesus’ father, Jesus would not have been able to claim the legal rights to the throne of David. Jesus would have been of the cursed lineage.
Unlike Joseph’s lineage, there was nothing in Mary’s genealogy preventing Jesus from sitting on the throne of David. Mary’s descent from David comes through his son Nathan, not Solomon or one of David’s other children. Nathan was the older brother of Solomon, but the younger brother took the throne. To fulfill His promise to establish David’s throne forever, God honored Nathan by making him the ancestor of the promised King who would sit on David’s throne throughout eternity.
So you see, if Joseph had been Jesus’ father, Jesus could not have been the ruling Messiah. Mary had to be a virgin in order for prophecy to be fulfilled. Both genealogies are included in the Christmas story for a reason. The one in Matthew is there to say that Joseph could not be Jesus’ father. The one in Luke is there to say that Mary’s family line makes Jesus eligible to rule.
All this shows that Jesus was born of a virgin. He was not the illegitimate child of Joseph. He was the son of Mary and the Son of God. And we see this because of the power of prophecy.
What all this does is boost our faith in the scriptures. Jesus’ birth was predicted 800 years before. That gives us confidence in the truth of God’s Word. We can believe this – it has proven itself true time and again.
Prophecy ties the Bible together. It connects the OT and the NT. It’s a bridge that attaches the old times and the new. What prophecy does is increases the validity of God’s word. It helps us see that the Bible is not just a bunch of disconnected thoughts all strung together at random. Prophecy shows that God is the real author of the Bible, not men throughout the years. Prophecy shows that all Scripture, Old and New, is God-breathed, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Prophecy brings us hope. Prophecy helps us to find strength in the Bible, better than if it were filled with inconsistencies. Prophecy strengthens our faith in the Word. We can believe in the Virgin Birth because it makes sense with things written hundreds of years earlier. It still takes faith, sure, like any other miracle. Like prophecy shows that the miracle is not unheard-of or far-fetched. It was in the mind of God long before Jesus was in the womb of Mary.
So you can believe that the Virgin Birth is real, and you can believe in the truth of God’s word. The Virgin Birth is not a stumbling block to faith, but a stepping-stone to faith. Allow it to increase your faith in God and in God’s Word this season.
