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?
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, "regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God, by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord."
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 were 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 that those can be changed. If the blood was shed and swapped from a 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 other 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, "And all those dwelling in the earth will worship it, those of whom the names had not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb having been slain from the foundation of the world."
A good example of the law of substitution was the Passover.
Exodus 12:13-14 says "And the blood shall be a sign to you upon the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the plague shall not be upon you for a destruction when I smite in the land of Egypt. And this day shall be a memorial to you. And you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by a law forever."
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 "The animals you choose must be year-old males withoutdefect, and you may take them from the sheep or 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 not say any more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the sons are dull. But every man shall die in his iniquity. ---but this shall be the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel: After those days, says the LORD, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the LORD; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more."
It was fulfilled in the New Testament.
"This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds. Then he adds: 'Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.' And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin" (Hebrews 10:16-18).
Hebrews 9:12-14 says, "He - Christ - did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may 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 is fertilized by the sperm.
John 1:29 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."
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, not yet at least. 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, "And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt 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 was in Isaiah 7.
Isaiah 7:14 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 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 "In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.' Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; his kingdom will never end.' 'How will this be,' Mary asked the angel, 'since I am a virgin?' The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.' [means, that no Word from God is without its own power to produce.] 'I am the Lord's servant,' Mary answered. 'May it be to me as you have said.' Then the angel left 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. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. [14]And the Word was made 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, "For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people."
Eventually we are born the same way.
1 Peter 1:23 says, "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed (sperm), but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God."
What does this mean to me today?
What kind of life would you live, what would you spend you 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.