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Introduction
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where someone was in the process of unwittingly contradicting themselves?
For instance, I remember a Christmas party years and years ago where one individual was loudly and unequivocally expressing their hatred of venison, while simultaneously singing the praises of the (one hundred percent venison) sloppy joe she was eating.
It’s hard not to feel a little embarrassed on their behalf, but at the same time pretty entertaining, isn’t it?
I have to say that watching the world around us celebrate Christmas feels more than a little bit like that—truly, if the culture we live in really understood the ingredients of Christmas, they would not be so eager to consume it.
To be sure, the world around us tries to drown the substance of Christmas the way someone tries to drown out the taste of a meal by dumping it with ketchup—piling the holiday with “Deck them halls and all that stuff… Santa Claus and ho ho ho and mistletoe and presents for pretty girls...” in order to cover up the essence of what this day represents:
Matthew 1:21 (ESV)
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
And so Christmas is an especially good time for us to reaffirm some of the foundational truths of our faith.
And one of the most crucial, non-negotiable truths of biblical faith is established for us here in our text this morning—the virgin birth of Christ.
The doctrine of the virgin birth as we hold it states that
VIRGIN BIRTH: Jesus’ birth was the result of a MIRACULOUS CONCEPTION whereby the Virgin Mary conceived a baby in her womb by the POWER of the HOLY SPIRIT, without a HUMAN father.
(Adapted from Sproul, R. C., ed.
(2015).
The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) (p.
1782).
Reformation Trust.)
We see this doctrine established in the words the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary:
Luke 1:31–35 (ESV)
31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
We make it a regular practice to affirm our belief in the virgin birth of Christ as part of our observance of the Lord’s Supper when we read the Apostles’ Creed, which states
I believe in Jesus Christ, [God’s] only Son, our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
The reason that we are so careful to affirm this doctrine so carefully and so often is because of the way this doctrine is stated in another creed we use in our worship, the Nicene Creed, which states that Christ “came down from heaven; He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human” for us and for our salvation.
And so what I want you to see from the Scriptures this morning is how absolutely foundational Christ’s virgin birth is to your salvation—the way I want to say it is:
If Christ was not VIRGIN BORN, you cannot be BORN AGAIN
And so the way I want to support that aim is by showing you first the importance of this doctrine for rightly understanding who Jesus is, and then by showing you why Jesus’ virgin birth is such good news for us.
So look with me at our text this morning.
We see here first that
I.
The virgin birth means that Jesus is truly HUMAN (Luke 1:31)
Luke 1:31 (ESV)
31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
There are some theologians and scholars who, instead of the term “virgin birth”, will refer to the “virgin conception” of Jesus, since—technically speaking—Jesus actual birth was exactly the same as every other human being who has ever lived on this planet!
When we affirm the virgin birth of Jesus, we are affirming that
He was not a man in APPEARANCE only
—He was truly and completely human.
In the centuries after Christ’s earthly ministry a particular heresy called docetism began to infect the church.
Docetists taught that since matter and the physical realm was intrinsically evil that the purity and perfection of Christ’s deity could not have actually been associated with a real human body.
So instead the Docetists insisted that Jesus only looked like a man, but in reality was just a manifestation of the Divine that appeared human.
A modern manifestation of this heresy is found in Islam, which teaches that Christ only appeared to die on the Cross, but Allah took Him away before He could die:
And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger — they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them...
But Allah took him up unto Himself.
Allah was ever Mighty, Wise.
(Quran 4:157-158)
But this is why the affirmation that Jesus was fully human is so crucial to our salvation.
Because
If he was not human, He could not be your SUBSTITUTE (Romans 8:3-4)
This is why the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:3-4:
Romans 8:3–4 (ESV)
3...
By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
This is why we say that if Jesus was not virgin-born you cannot be born again: Because in order for Jesus to pay the penalty for your sins, He had to be one of us.
Because we are flesh and blood, He had to be flesh and blood in order to represent us.
A god who looked like a man could not represent you—only a man who shared your nature could represent you before God.
But here we come across a major obstacle: How can we be represented by a man, if all men share in the guilt of sin?
If we say that Jesus was fully and completely human, aren’t we saying that He therefore was a sinner as well?
Since all flesh has sinned, how can we say that Jesus is not a sinner like us?
And this is the second non-negotiable truth that this doctrine establishes for us:
II.
The virgin birth means that Jesus is truly GOD (Luke 1:32-33, 43)
Look again at what Gabriel told Mary about the baby she would bear:
Luke 1:32–33 (ESV)
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
See that the angel is making it clear that Mary’s Son would be the
Son of the MOST HIGH God (v.
35; cp.
Daniel 4:2; Mark 5:7)
We see it again in verse 35:
Luke 1:35 (ESV)
35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
The phrase “Most High God” is used in Daniel 4:2 to describe YHWH Himself:
Daniel 4:2 (ESV)
2 It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me.
And when the demon-possessed man cowered before Jesus in Mark 5, they called Him the same thing:
Mark 5:7 (ESV)
7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”
Now, the phrase “son of God” has been misapplied when talking about Jesus—early in the Third Century a priest in Alexandria, Egypt named Arius began teaching that Jesus was a created being, Who had divinity applied to Him; that He was inferior in His divine nature to God the Father.
(A modern-day example of Arianism is found in cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who teach that Jesus was an inferior being created by God).
But the problem with that teaching about Jesus is that the Scriptures do not describe Him as inferior to God—the Scriptures demonstrate that Christ is God Himself!
One quick example will have to do for now—and this is a demonstration from the Scriptures that you can share with JW’s when they visit you.
Turn to Psalm 102 (page 502 in the pew Bible).
Verses 25-27 say:
Psalm 102:25–27 (ESV)
25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, 27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.
Now—who are those verses talking about?
It’s clear that they are talking about YHWH (“Jehovah”, as the Witnesses like to say).
Now—turn to Hebrews 1 (p.
1001).
Starting in verse 8 that the writer is quoting Old Testament passages about the Son.
And in verses 10-11 the passage from Psalm 102 is quoted about Jesus Christ:
Hebrews 1:10–12 (ESV)
10 And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; 11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, 12 like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed.
But you are the same, and your years will have no end.”
To call Jesus the “Son of the Most High God” is not to say that He is inferior—it is to say that He is the “exact imprint of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3), so that Jesus could say clearly to Philip in John 14:9, “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father” and in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.”
Jesus is God.
Utterly.
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