The virgin birth is one of the most contended arguments about the miraculous life of Jesus. The second being his resurrection. Never in history has such a birth taken place because of its biological inconsistency. Such is one argument that Christ needed a father to provide the seed for conception. However the Scriptures state that it was God who was the father. How is that possible? What need is there for a virgin birth in the scope of God’s salvation plan for the world? This article will answer these questions.
The Need of a Perfect Sacrifice
God is holy and perfect as the Scriptures clearly state (Leviticus 11:44; 19:2; 20:7; Matthew 5:48). Because it is in his nature to be holy, he cannot have anything besides perfection in his presence. Likewise, all things that he does are the reflection of his perfect character.
The Fall of Mankind
When God created the world in Genesis chapter one, he created everything good. When he made man out of the dirt into his image and breathed into him the breath of life (1:26–27; 2:7), God called man good too (1:31). In chapter two, God determined that Adam needed a partner (vs. 18) and created a woman out of Adam’s rib while he slept (vv. 21–22). It is one of the reasons that a man leaves his father and mother to join his wife and become one flesh (vv. 23–24). The joining of male and female is how mankind reproduces itself (4:1–2).
God gave Adam and Eve one command to follow while they lived in the Garden of Eden. They could eat from any tree in the garden except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they ate the fruit, they would die (2:16–17). This death was both a physical death (5:1–32; 6:3), and spiritual death in that they could not live in the presence of the LORD because of their transgression (Genesis 3:22–24; 4:16; Isaiah 59:2; Revelation 20:14–15).
The Reason for Sacrifice
Because of mankind’s sin, God demands a payment made by the sacrifice of a life (Leviticus 4:35; 5:10); without that sacrifice there is no forgiveness of sins (Leviticus 17:11; Hebrews 9:22). God demonstrated the first sacrifice by clothing Adam and Eve with animal skins (Genesis 3:21). The animals did nothing wrong to deserve death; but their death was a foreshadow of what God would now demand for recompense. This gave mankind a taste of the debt which sin subsists of, and how much God values holiness and perfection.
Because of Adam’s transgression, sin entered the world. Sin and its consequences pass down from generation to generation. All of Adam’s descendants were present in him potentially, seminally (that is, in seed form), and/or legally (judicially), since as the head of the race of humans, he was their legal representative. Theologians call this the “imputation of sin.” Every human comes from the loins of Adam (his seed); thus, sin is imputed naturally to his descendants.
Humans are sinners not only because they sin, but because it is now in their nature to do it (Psalm 51:1–5). Therefore, humans fall short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23) and cannot naturally redeem themselves. God needed to make a way for their redemption and required payment for the debt of sin (Romans 6:23). The sacrifice of an outwardly, spotless animal throughout the Old Testament demonstrated the cost of the payment. Its completed redemption started with the birth of an inwardly, spotless human.
Sufficiency Found in Prophecy
For mankind to be redeemed fully, God needs a sufficient sacrifice that is perfect. If the sacrifice of one animal was enough, then there would be no need for another substitute and animal sacrifices would cease. However, it is impossible for the blood of animals to take away sins (Hebrews 10:1–14). Since man sinned against God, the payment would need to come from man. The sacrifices in the Old Testament and the Law were a foreshadow of the necessity for perfection, and man is far from that state naturally. The animals did nothing wrong to deserve death. They acted as a substitute for the sins of the one offering the sacrifice and in hope of the perfect substitute that was prophesied to come.
John Walvoord distinguishes the contrast between the Old Testament and New Testament sacrifice well, “animals were unintelligent and involuntary in their substitution; [but] Christ willingly dies and intelligently offers himself as a sacrificial Substitute for sinners.” This spotless Lamb of God (John 1:35) came because God saw no other person who could bring salvation; so, God created the plan to bring redemption himself (Isaiah 59:16-17). From the beginning of time, God had the plan worked out (Ephesians 1:3–12) and slowly presented it throughout time to the world by the prophets.
Each prophecy about the coming Messiah does not refer directly to Jesus himself; but the Old Testament slowly lays out the plan throughout hundreds of years of history. These prophecies are vital in understanding the nature of Christ’s purpose in coming to earth, and what to look for when that time comes. J. Barton Payne listed 127 Messianic predictions which involve more than 3,000 Scripture verses, 574 of them referring directly to the Messiah. Some of the main ones are as follows.
Prophecies of the Virgin Birth and Coming Messiah
Old Testament
The first prophecy about a coming Messiah and virgin birth is in Genesis 3:15. Although it does not directly mention Christ, this prophecy says that a child from the seed of the woman would be born and would crush Satan (the serpent). This means that this child would be distinct from any other human birth in which the male seed would have been needed for conception. This is the first hint of the virgin birth which Isaiah will prophecy about hundreds of years later.
The LORD speaks through Isaiah (Isaiah 7:10–16) to Ahaz, king of Judah, and gives him a sign. “Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel (meaning “God with Us”) (v 14).”
The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem of Judah (Micah 5:2); and would be called “Wonderful Counselor,” “Prince of Peace,” and “Everlasting Father,” and would possess an eternal kingdom (Isaiah 9:6–7). This eternal kingdom would come from the line of David (2 Samuel 7:16). He would ride righteously into Jerusalem on a donkey, coming in gentleness and bringing with him salvation (Zechariah 9:9–10).
The Messiah would be pierced for the world’s transgressions and crushed for their iniquities (Isa 53:5). He would die among the wicked and be buried with the rich (v. 9); but would not undergo decay because God would resurrect him (Psalm 16:10). He would be the “Sun of Righteousness” who all would revere as they wait for his coming (Malachi 4:2) on the clouds as the Son of Man (Daniel 7:13–14).
New Testament
An angel appeared to Joseph (Matthew 1:20–23) and Mary (Luke 1:26–38) and told them that they would have a son through the power of the Holy Spirit. He would be called the Son of God and would save his people from their sins. The name “Jesus,” which is from the Hebrew word “Jeshua,” means “Yahweh saves” or “the LORD is salvation.”
When laid out in order of Christ’s life as written in the four Gospels, one can see that Jesus truly was the predicted Messiah. He lived righteously with the purpose of saving the world from God’s judgment because of sin. To atone for such a judgment required a human living perfectly, and willingly sacrificing himself for that reason, which Christ did. Therefore, to do that, one would have to start with the birth of a sinless being, and that is why Christ was born of a virgin through the work of the perfect Holy Spirit rather than the seed of sinful man.
Perfection Is Found in God
God’s plans do not always unfold in a way that humans would assume or could perceive. His choosing of a teenage girl, Mary, to be the mother of the Messiah is most astonishing and out of the ordinary.
John MacArthur said this about God’s selection of Mary: “Out of all the women He could have chosen—queens, princesses, sisters or daughters of the wealthy and influential—He chose an unknown, unassuming young woman named Mary from an obscure village called Nazareth.” As Ryrie put it: God overshadowing the virgin Mary “served as a sign of the uniqueness of the person who was born.” One must be careful in questioning the methods of God, because all of God’s ways are perfect and right (Isaiah 55:8; Deuteronomy 32:4). His decision for the virgin birth supersedes man’s thinking and imagination.
Hypothetically, the child could have been born of two human parents. The child could have been born and lived a perfect life with the Holy Spirit strictly guiding him — kind of like the Holy Spirit being upon John the Baptist at birth (Luke 1:15) — but God saw fit to bring salvation to the world by his own hands because of human failure (Isaiah 59:16–17). God needed a sacrifice that would perfectly meet his requirements for the satisfaction of sins without fail. Therefore, he personally came to earth to fulfill that requirement; and this is one of the reasons why God was the father in this unique birth.
The Dichotomy
The boy, Jesus, could not be fully God if he was not brought forth by God. The Holy Spirit worked through faithful men throughout the Old Testament; but none of them were God in essence. It was necessary for God to be the father for Jesus to possess all attributes of God, and to be his very essence. Being his very essence also brings with it perfection. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).” Because God’s “seed” is perfect, the birth through a virgin woman produced a perfect son; and a divine son at that.
On the same token, it was necessary for Christ to be human too. As Paul said, it was through one man which sin entered into the world, and death through sin. Death, then, spread to all men, because all sinned; nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come (Romans 5:12, 14).
Paul argues that the free gift of grace and having peace with God comes through Christ who brings justification for sins (vv. 18–19). Christ needed to be man and to live obediently to the point of death to reverse sin and death which came from disobedient man. Not only did Christ need to be God to live a perfect life; but without being man, Christ could not have died since God is eternal.
Christ’s incarnation is most vital to one’s relationship with the Father. By being both human and God, Christ reveals the Father to mankind (John 1:18; 14:7–11). Because Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh (Romans 8:3), the revelation of God has been personalized for anyone to learn more of him through study of his Word.
Through the perfect incarnation of Christ, humans have a living example of a pattern to live by (1 Peter 2:21; 1 John 2:6). Jesus identifies with man’s weaknesses because Satan tempted him in the same ways man is (Matthew 4). God cannot be tested; so, it is important that he was human in order to be a sympathetic priest (Hebrew 4:15). He is the God-man, so he can reign on the thrown of David. Since Christ is the perfect Son of Man and God, he will be the judge who judges the world at the end of the age (John 5:22; 27).
Being God makes his judgment true and right, and being man will enable him to put away all excuses that people try to make.
Discussions Concerning the Virgin Birth
Translation
Some liberal scholars challenge the translation of “virgin” for the Hebrew word alma, in Isaiah 7:14. They state that the word bethulah should have been used if Isaiah’s purpose was to mean “virgin.” Almah can mean a sexually mature, marriageable maiden; while bethulah means a separated woman, usually a virgin, but not always (Esther 2:17; Ezekiel 23:3; Joel 1:8).
There is no instance that the word almah designates a young woman who is not a virgin, even though, technically, it does not mean “virgin.” It refers to a young woman whose characteristics is virginity (Genesis 24:43). The Septuagint translates the word with Parthenos (virgin) in two of its seven occurrences as does the Gospel of Matthew (1:23). Therefore, the word means a young woman of marriageable age who has the characteristics of virginity, which is necessary in fulfilling the prophecy of Christ’s birth.
In Galatians 4:4, Paul refers to Jesus being born of a woman. He is speaking back to Genesis 3:15, in that the Savior would be born of a woman. In the Jewish patriarchal culture, one is born of the male (father), and so Paul’s statement would show something was unusual in Christ’s birth.
Genealogies
The genealogical record is crucial in determining if Christ was truly a descendent of David. Matthew took great care in guarding the fact of the virgin birth (Matt 1:6). He recorded that it was by Mary alone “by whom” Christ was born, even though Joseph was Mary’s husband. “By whom” is a pronoun that is feminine singular and shows that Christ relates to Mary in birth only and not Mary and Joseph.
Matthew and Luke both demonstrate Christ’s lineage to prove that the prophecies of Christ make him out to be who he claimed to be. Matthew traced Christ’s lineage forty-two generations from Abraham, to David, and then to Christ. Luke mentions seventy-seven names and traces Christ all the way back to Adam. Both genealogies show Christ as a descendent of David, making him eligible to reign on David’s throne. It is worthy to note that Jesus’ claim of kingship to David’s throne was never disputed in his lifetime.
It is also important that Jesus is the first-born son because the inheritance is passed on through the male members. The first-born son received the larger portion of the inheritance, and since Christ is the first and only son of God, he will receive everything (Colossians 1:13–20; 1 Corinthians 15:28).
Disagreements of Deity
There are many arguments to whether Jesus was born at the time of the virgin birth; or had always been with God (preexistent) from the beginning. Since Jesus is said to be the second person of the Trinity (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), he must be equal with God and thus have all his attributes.
If Christ came into existence at the virgin birth, then he was not eternal, and the Trinity of God does not exist. Jesus would be a liar and the prophecies about him can be thrown out. In fact, all of Scripture is unreliable, then, and man is still condemned before God—that is if there was a God who had made himself known to humans.
John 1:1 says that the Word was in the beginning with God and was God; and then he became flesh (v. 14). This would mean that Christ (the Word) would have had to been existing before the virgin birth took place. But what was Christ doing before he was born into the world? He created the world (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2). He created everything to work for his purpose of coming into the world as the God-man. He sustains his creation because in him, all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). These things he did and does while in heaven. Before his actual birth and fulfillment of prophecies, he prepared the scenes for his incarnation.
Angel of Jehovah
Throughout the Old Testament, God came to visit man as the theophany, Angel of Jehovah (Genesis 16:7–14; 21:17–18; 22:11–18; 31:11–13; Exodus 3:2; Judges 2:1–4; 5:23; 6:11–22; 13:3–22; 2 Samuel 24:16; Zechariah 1:12; 3:1; 12:8). This Angel of Jehovah brought messages and accompanied Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 14:19). In the New Testament, the Rock who was with Israel was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4).
The Angel of Jehovah is considered a member of the Trinity—namely Christ—because his appearances stop at the incarnation of Christ. Christ was the messenger on earth in both the Old and New Testament. This shows that Christ is not created but is God and works the will of God in all things. Because God set up the plan and laid out the scenarios throughout history; it was perfectly enacted and will end how he predicted it will.
Summary
What was the purpose of the Virgin birth? Just as through one man, Adam, came death from sin; through one man, Christ, came the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. Therefore, it was necessary for Christ to be born of a sinless seed so that sin would not be imputed to him. The only perfect being that could accomplish that is God himself. God worked this miracle by biologically doing the impossible in order to fulfill the spiritually impossible requirement for sins. By his own arm he brought salvation (Isaiah 59:16-17) and became first-born over heaven and earth (Colossians 1:13–20; 1 Corinthians 15:28).
For Further Study
(Amazon Affiliate links below)
Basic Theology. Charles C. Ryrie – Buy it here!
Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy: The Complete Guide to Scriptural Predictions and Their Fulfilment. — J. Barton Payne – Buy it here!
God in the Manger. — John MacArthur – Buy it here!
Jesus Christ Our Lord. — John F. Walvoord – Buy it here!
Systematic Theology: God/Creation, vol.2. — Norman Geisler – Buy it here!