Who God is

106. The Virgin Birth

Virgin Birth? How could it be? Why is it needed? How can I comprehend this? These are all good questions.

Who do you say Jesus really is? Is He all God and all man?

The virgin birth has been one of the most controversial subjects of the Bible. Even some so called Christians and ministers do not believe in it.

Romans 1:3-4 states, “concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”

Can you imagine asking the teenager Jesus, “Who are your parents?” Jesus might say, “Well, you see on my mamma’s side, I am from the family of David, but on my Dad’s side, well, I AM.”

Why did God need a virgin birth?

To understand why, we need to look at the problem. Adam was created from the dust of the earth, but God breathed in His Spirit to give him life. The problem, from God’s point of view, was that Adam, as a free-willed person, had disobeyed His creator and therefore gave up his right to be a container for God’s Spirit.

God either needed to wipe out this race of humans and start over, or else find out a way to change the nature of this sinful man without killing him completely. God could have just let man wipe himself out, but God is love. In spite of man’s rebellion God loved him, but still lingering was the death penalty for rebellion.

The laws of inheritance were working against man. Every time a child was born, he/she was born with this sinful nature, separated from God.

That doesn’t seem fair, but there is a solution: The Law of Substitution.

This basically means that people may be born into a certain family, and from that family lineage they will receive blessings and curses as their inheritance, but the curses can be changed. If the blood was shed and swapped from people who did not have the same curse, then the blessings would be transferred; but so would the curses. The only way a curse could be removed is if the other person did not have that sin or curse.

Tribes in Africa, in American Indian culture and some Asian type societies have always looked for ways to swap or trade blessings and curses with other people.

Before the Foundation of the World, God prearranged to have Jesus crucified according to the ETERNAL Spirit, which means that the substitution principal was in effect before any man was created.

Revelation 13:8 says, “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

A good example of the law of substitution was the Passover.

Exodus 12:13-14 says, “Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.”

However, the killing of a perfect animal was only a temporary covering of one’s sin, and it had to be done once every year.

Exodus 12:5 says, “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.”

God foretold that the FINAL law of substitution would take place in the new covenant.

Jeremiah 31:29-34 says, “In those days they shall say no more, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. ‘Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah – not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

It was fulfilled in the New Testament.

“‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,’ then He adds: ‘Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.’ Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin” (Hebrews 10:16-18).

Hebrews 9:12-14 says, “Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

The substitute for sinful mankind was not to be an animal, and it could not be an imperfect person.

Notice in Exodus 12:5 the lamb (which was a picture of what Jesus would be) needed to be perfect. The substitute must be a man, and it must be a PERFECT man. If this substitute would have been born of a natural man, he would have inherited Adam’s sinful nature. So God arranged for a supernatural birth which by-passed the Adamic race. Jesus was born with the blood of His Father, God Himself!

Scientists tell us that the woman’s blood does not mingle with the baby in the womb, and that somehow blood is inherited from the father (even if the baby has the mother’s blood type). The sperm makes the egg develop blood – the mother’s egg has no blood until it’s fertilized by the sperm.

John 1:29 (KJV) says, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

The Cross of Jesus Christ is the final solution for every person for eternity, if they just believe.

So now we know WHY God needed a Virgin Birth, the question is, HOW did He do it?

The question is, who, or what man, could be offered as a substitute for Adam’s race? It had to be a perfect man. Was there a perfect man? No, or at least not yet. Anyone born of Adam’s race would have Adam’s sin, so he would be an unworthy substitute.

As we have pointed out, it is a fact that the mother’s blood does not mix with the blood of the fetus, so Jesus’ blood was not contaminated by Mary’s Adamic blood. In the conception of Jesus, He received His blood from His Father God; the blood was in the sperm, which was the Word.

Yet at the same time, this baby must be all human in order to substitute for the sins of all men. Who had perfect father blood? Only God the Father!!!

God would have to get Himself, or His Son mixed with a human. God’s Son was the Word, so God could accomplish this miracle by His Word.

God spoke many times, more than we can put on this page, His Word about the virgin birth.

The first time was right after Adam and Eve rebelled.

Genesis 3:14-15 says, “So the LORD God said to the serpent: ‘Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. 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.”

This sentence spoken to Satan could have only meant the virgin birth.

A woman was never thought of as having a SEED, or offspring. It was always the man. So in saying the seed of a woman would wipe out Satan, God was referring to a virgin birth.

Another time God spoke it out in Isaiah 7.

Isaiah 7:14 says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” The sign, at that time when this was written, was that their enemies would be defeated. This is a prophetic picture of Jesus defeating our enemy Satan through the virgin birth.

Eventually, over thousands of years, God spoke this Word about a virgin birth and the Messiah so many times that it had to come true. God’s Word is a seed, and eventually it must bring fruit. But God’s Word needs some human to believe and agree with it so much that they speak it out.

God found a humble teenage girl with a pure heart in Israel, named Mary, who would believe. Luke 1:26-38 says, “Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, ‘Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!’ But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.’ Then Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I do not know a man?’ And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.’ Then Mary said, ‘Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.”

Also read about Joseph in Matthew 1:18-25.

In times past we have learned that the Word of God is a seed. A man’s sperm is also called a seed. The angel spoke the seed into the womb of Mary and when she believed, she conceived.

The result was Jesus the Christ; all man and yet all God. He came as the Word of God with a body of a man.

John 1:1-3, 14 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. [14] And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Hebrews 2:17 says, “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

Eventually we are born the same way.

1 Peter 1:23 says, “…having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”

What does this mean to me today?

What kind of life would you live, what would you spend your time doing if, just if, you knew for sure that this same kind of Virgin Birth had taken place in you? What if you knew for sure that the Son of the Creator took residence inside of you? What if you were convinced that God Almighty was living in you? Imagine for a minute, the One who was uncreated, that always existed from forever past, was born inside of you.

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