From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 14 of a series. Read part 13.

The virgin birth of Jesus Christ is a non-negotiable, essential fact of authentic Biblical Christianity. No one can deny the Messiah's virgin birth and be saved. Why is this the case?

Thus far, Charles Jennens' libretto for Handel's Messiah has consisted of Scripture passages that announce both the first and second comings of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Messianic prophecies of the salvation of a remnant from among all peoples are indeed a comfort to the people of God. At the same time, the message of the early passages recited in this oratorio is a pronouncement of woe upon the unbelieving:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. (Romans 1:18-19)

No one can listen to a performance of Handel's Messiah and claim to have never heard the Gospel.

A Non-Negotiable Fact of the Faith

Having summarized the great prophecies declaring that the Messiah is both Redeemer and Judge, Jennens' libretto turns to focus upon the question of how the Messiah would come into the world:

Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel, God with us. (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23)

The virgin birth of Jesus Christ is a non-negotiable doctrine of the Christian faith. We find many of even the most reputedly conservative Bible commentators and preachers in our time referring to Messiah's virgin birth as an "important" doctrine. Such a statement vastly understates the case. The fact of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ is not merely important, it is essential. It is indispensable to authentic Biblical Christianity, and to saving faith. One cannot deny the doctrine of the virgin birth of the Messiah and be a Christian, for to deny the virgin birth is to deny who Jesus Christ is: God manifest in the flesh. "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9).

In the Gospel records, we find the full account of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ in fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah:

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. (Luke 1:26-38)

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found 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 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. (Matthew 1:18-25)

Why Is the Virgin Birth Essential?

Why is the doctrine of the virgin birth of the Messiah absolutely essential to authentic Biblical Christianity? It is so, first of all, because Scripture declares that God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, existed from eternity, is God from all eternity, and is the Creator of all things (John 1:1-3, 8:58). He is spoken of as "the Son" as early as Psalm 2:12. The writer of Hebrews (1:8-13) cites three passages from the Psalms (45:6-7, 102:25-27, and 110:1) and says that they all address and describe "the Son," Jesus Christ.

Before His incarnation the Son was, according to Philippians 2:6, in the form of God (morphe, His outward appearance being in agreement with inward essence), and equal with God (isa, the same as). Jesus Himself claimed to be equal with God (John 5:19-31). In His incarnation, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, not of a human father (Isaiah 7:14, Luke 1:31-35, Matthew 1:20). The virgin-born Christ was given the name Immanuel, "God with us" (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23). In the incarnate Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in a body (Colossians 2:9). He is fully God and fully man.

Scripture repeatedly emphasizes the deity of the Son of God. It teaches Christ's deity in His names (e.g., Hebrews 1:8, John 20:28, Titus 2:13, Matthew 22:44, John 5:25). Scripture also teaches Christ's deity in His attributes. These include omnipresence (Matthew 28:20, John 14:23, Ephesians 3:17, Colossians 1:27, Acts 7:55-56); omniscience (e.g., Matthew 9:4, John 2:25, John 16:30); omnipotence (e.g., Matthew 28:18, Mark 2:5-10); immutability (e.g., John 8:58, Hebrews 1:12, 13:8); and the fact that He is life itself (e.g., John 1:4, 14:6; 1 John 5:11). Scripture further teaches Christ's deity by His works as creator of the universe (Proverbs 30:4; John 1:3); sustainer of the universe (Colossians 1:7, Hebrews 1:3); forgiver of sin (Mark 2:1-12); and performer of miracles (e.g., Psalm 146:8, John 9:32).

Only God is to be worshipped (Deuteronomy 10:20, Mathew 4:10, Acts 10:25-26), and Jesus said that He is to be worshipped just as God the Father is to be worshipped (John 5:23).

How Can God Have a Son?

One of the principal reasons that Muslims reject Christianity is that they cannot accept the idea that God could have a Son. The problem is that their concept of sonship is a naturalistic one - in order to produce a son, they say, God would have to engage in a sexual relationship with a wife. They consider this idea the worst sort of blasphemy. And indeed it would be; it is the blasphemous heresy of cults like Mormonism, which teaches that "God" had multiple wives (including Mary) and fathered children.

But the Bible teaches that the sonship of Jesus Christ is relational, not naturalistic. God did not produce a son; God has always been the Son. Being born of the virgin Mary did not make Jesus the Son of God any more than it made Mary the wife of God. The purpose of the virgin birth of Christ was to facilitate the entrance of the eternally existent, sinless Son of God into the world in human form, to die for sinners.

Jesus was not born of a physical union between a man and a woman. At Gabriel's announcement of God's choice of Mary to be the mother of the Messiah, recorded in Luke chapter one, she could only say in wonderment, "How can this be, since I do not know a man [I am a virgin]?" (Luke 1:34). Gabriel gave God's answer to her - and to all men, sincere questioners as well as blasphemous deniers - in the next verse: "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...For with God nothing will be impossible" (1:35-37).

The Problem of Every Doubter and Disbeliever

Mary, in submission to the supernatural nature of that which was about to take place, responded, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word." And Matthew records that Joseph, Mary's husband, "...did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her [kept her a virgin] till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus" (Matthew 1:24-25).

The problem of every doubter and denier of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, God the Son, is simple unbelief. God calls upon all men to have the same attitude that Mary expressed in words, and Joseph in deeds: "Let it be to me according to Your Word." As Paul puts it, "Let God be true but every man a liar" (Romans 3:4). But many self-described Evangelicals today, along with the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, refuse to submit to God in this vital matter of doctrinal truth.

Jesus is the Son of God from eternity. Micah's prophecy of His birth in Bethlehem says that Jesus' "goings forth are from of old, from everlasting" - literally, "from the days of eternity." Jesus, referring to Himself as the Son of God the Father, said to the Pharisees, "Before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58). He is called "the Son" in the Old Testament before His incarnation (e.g., Psalm 2:7 and 12).

Jesus' own teaching in the Gospels speaks exclusively of the eternal relationship between the Son and the Father, never of sonship that had a beginning point, and never of sonship based on naturalistic conception and birth. The relationship between God the Son and God the Father is a relationship of subordination: "For I have come down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of...the Father who sent me" (John 6:38-39). And on the night before He went to the cross, Jesus prayed, "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was" (John 17:5).

How Is It With You?

Dear reader, do you believe in and worship the authentic, virgin-born Christ of the Bible, or do you believe in a Satanic counterfeit - a mere human being, born of Adam's sinful line, who could never be the Savior of sinners?

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. (Hebrews 1:1-4)

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is [i.e., that He truly exists as He is], and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)

Next: Good Tidings to Zion

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