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Many Christians believe that
Jesus Christ was the product of a virgin's womb but fail to
understand the tremendous spiritual significance of it all. "Why
was it necessary that Jesus Christ be born of a virgin anyway?"
Just a glimpse into Matthew's
gospel will reveal a few of the facts surrounding Christ's
birth.
"Now the birth of Jesus Christ
was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
before they came together, she was found to be with child of the
Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not
wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away
secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an
angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph,
son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife,
for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And
she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus,
for He will save His people from their sins.' So all this was
done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord
through the prophet, saying: 'Behold, the virgin shall be with
child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,
which is translated, God with us.' Then Joseph, being aroused
from his sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and
took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought
forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus." (Matt.
1:18-25)
I'm Going to Have a Baby!
I cannot begin to imagine the
anxiety that slammed into Joseph's heart when he heard these
words from his fiancé. To be engaged to be married, according to
Jewish custom, was as binding as if the couple were already
married. An angel from God appeared to Mary and informed her
that she would have a baby. This baby would be fathered by the
Holy Spirit and would be the very Son of God (Luke 1:32).
Joseph reacted to the news like
any man would have under the same circumstances. Perplexed as to
what to do, he decided to at worst, "put her away," or, at best,
call the whole thing off. God intervened and told Joseph that
the child in Mary's womb was indeed by the Holy Spirit. Joseph
must have been first relieved to hear this news and then
excited. He must have felt ashamed for doubting Mary's purity
and love for him.
Is it difficult to believe in a
virgin birth? Yes, if you question the existence of a God who is
capable of such miracles! There are those today who think of
Jesus Christ as just a religious man who was a teacher or even a
prophet, but not the Son of God. This belief would lead to the
conclusion that Jesus Christ is an illegitimate child, born out
of wedlock, and that His death was nothing more than that of a
martyr.
Mary's condition soon became the
talk of the town as family and friends calculated the timing of
the pregnancy. But this did not diminish the couple's joy and
belief that God had given them something very special. Why did
God choose this means of entering the world?
Adam's Death
If we believe the Bible is true,
then we must also believe its teaching that the entire human
race had its beginning in a man called Adam. Many today enjoy
the challenge of looking back into historical records and
tracing their ancestral heritage. Sometimes we like what we find
in our forefathers, and sometimes we do not. If Adam and Eve
were the first parents of the human race, then the genetic
building blocks for every human being were found in them. When
Adam ate the forbidden fruit, he died (Gen. 2:16-17). He did not
die physically at that moment, but he died! He died spiritually,
meaning that he was separated from God.
But he was not alone in his
death. Every human being who would ever live was “in him” at
that moment. We were all in him genetically. Think of where we
would be if our great-great grandfather had died without
children. We would never have known life because we would have
died physically in him. Likewise we all died spiritually “in
Adam.”
“In Adam all
die.” (1 Cor. 15:22)
The sting of Adam's death touched
the entire human race. Since the fall of Adam, every member of
the human race has come into this world physically alive but
spiritually separated from God.
God's Plan
God, because of His great love,
planned from the beginning to satisfy His just demands against
our sin by extending grace and mercy to those who would believe
in Him. In order to satisfy His divine justice against sin, He
had to die. However, God, who is eternal life, could not die. In
order to die, He had to take on human flesh and come into the
slave-market prison that Adam had created.
But how was God to accomplish
this? If He came into the world through the normal birth
process, He would be contaminated with Adam's spiritual death.
Was God perplexed? Was He sitting up in heaven and ringing His
majestic hands worrying about how to accomplish this great feat
of grace? Absolutely not! He had both predicted and prepared the
way hundreds of years earlier.
Eve Was Tricked; Adam Willfully
Rebelled
God foretold the means of His
coming into the world way back in the first book of the Bible.
"And I will
put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed
and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall
bruise His heel." (Gen. 3:15)
The seed of the serpent (the
offspring of Satan) would wound the heel of the seed of the
woman (the Son of God). But the Son of God was to deal a
death-blow to the seed of Satan. Notice-it is the seed of the
woman, not the seed of the man. This is because ‘the
spiritual death virus’ had contaminated the seed of the man.
How can one born of the flesh of
a woman ultimately defeat Satan? The answer has everything to do
with the infinite wisdom of God in His order of creation
and the specifics of the fall. Because God fashioned Adam
from the soil and created him first, He marked out Adam as the
one who would represent the entire human race. He was
responsible directly to God.
Eve, created second, was taken
from Adam's side and became responsible to God through the
man. In the garden, God allowed Satan to legitimately
deceive Eve by flattery and lies such as, "If you will eat this
fruit, you will be like God Himself." Eve was tricked into
eating the fruit, but Adam knowingly sinned against God.
"For Adam was first formed then
Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being
deceived, fell into transgression." (1 Tim. 2:13-14)
Both Adam and Eve were sinners
before God, and both died. Because Adam knowingly sinned, and
because He was the representative head of the race, he (not the
woman) became the transmitter of the sin nature-the spiritual
death virus-to the human race.
"Moreover as by one man
sin entered the world and death by sin, and so death passed on
all men for all sinned." (Rom. 5:12)
God, foreordaining the future,
allowed the woman to be deceived, which left her womb
spiritually free from the contamination of Adam's sin. What a
wonderful God we have!
Christ’s mother Mary was not
sinless, nor "the mother of God." She was the daughter of a son
in the genetic line of David named Heli (Luke 3:23). She, like
everyone else, was a sinner. Matthew 13:55-56 tells us that she
had other children by Joseph, all born physically alive and
spiritually dead, and all in need of a Savior. But in the wisdom
of God, the Holy Spirit in the spiritually sterile womb of the
virgin Mary conceived Jesus Christ.
Here is the importance of the
virgin birth.
"Behold, the virgin shall be with
child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel."
(Isa. 7:14)
"Immanuel" means God with us, and
that is what the virgin birth is all about.
Jesus Christ came into this world
a sinless redeemer. He was not contaminated with the sin of
Adam. He could then go to the cross and “become sin for us.” He
could die the death that was meant for us and give us His life.
And that is precisely what He did.
"For He has made Him, who knew no
sin, to become sin for us that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21)
By His death He pulled Adam’s
death sting from those who will believe in Him.
”O
death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;
but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:55-57)
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