Last Sunday we looked at two different passages:
The first was from Romans 3:27-31 – The Faith that Justifies
The second was a look at the Virgin birth – several people have asked about this being online….Why is it such a stumbling block for some people?
Al Mohler “Must one believe in the Virgin Birth to be a Christian? This is not a hard question to answer. It is conceivable that someone might come to Christ and trust Christ as Savior without yet learning that the Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. A new believer is not yet aware of the full structure of Christian truth. The real question is this: Can a Christian, once aware of the Bible’s teaching, reject the Virgin Birth? The answer must be no.”
The following is the Rod Liddle poem I cited in the morning:
“This reckoning became, for me, the point of Christmas tide,
A view which has not altered in the years since my mum died. A special time of nastiness, vindictiveness and greed. And of pigging out on turkey until your insides bleed.
The punch ups outside Argos in the sales which never end. Those saccharine injunctions from John Lewis that we must spend.
On vacuous appurtenances – a bright green reindeer candle! And the Channel 4 Christmas address by some deranged jihadi.
The drivel on the telly. Fake bonhomie, Fake cheer, Fake love, fake compassion – and those two words you scarcely hear, Absent from our winterval lest someone takes offence- Jesus Christ.
Oh, Him! Yes – rings a bell. In some half-forgotten sense. And yet as I grow older I can now discern a reason, For this strange, misshapen jamboree we call the festive season.
For month by month and without fail, we give it our best shot- Then Christmas time reveals to us everything we’re not.
Everything we could be – should be – but always fall short., In our frailities and our failures. That’s the lesson, yearly taught.
And as the snowman slowly deiquesces on the lawn, The cattle still are lowing, the snail is on the thorn,
WE are not yet forsaken: somehow from up above, He watches…. …amused, appalled, distraught – who knows? Yet still we have his love”
And finally a Christmas song for you from St Petes…
Hi David, interesting article on the virgin birth. I must admit that although I consider myself an Evangelical I have for some time had my doubts as to whether it is meant to be taken as literal or merely to illustrate the uniqueness of the event and the one who is born.
The gospel accounts tend to substantiate their claims on the basis of Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled, even though some of these prophecies are taken out of their original context.
The Old Testament prophecies are key to understanding the fulfilment of God’s promises of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.
Of great importance, therefore, are the covenants which God made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David regarding the promised seed. In other words God preserved a seed or genealogical line through which Messiah would come. This is confirmed in Matthew’s list of Jesus’ descendants beginning with Abraham and ending with Joseph. It is further confirmed in Paul’s use of the titles, Son of David, Son of Abraham, Son of God with the Jewish understanding of that title being Messiah, as in Isa 9:6-7; Ps 2.
William Barclay in his book, ” Jesus as they saw him “, mentions the occasions when Jesus is called son of Joseph in the gospel of John more than once, and concluded that this was how he was known by his family and companions. More importantly he concluded that if Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus then the genealogy in Matthew’s gospel was pointless.
The greatest concern for those who have reservations about the virgin birth doctrine is that it undermines the full humanity of Christ on which the whole of the New Testament bears witness to.
Can we truly say that Jesus is the promised messiah of the Old Testament if he is not truly of the seed of Abraham, Judah, David and Joseph? Note that the seed in Matthew’s genealogy is always reckoned from the male line. Incidentally, Mary the mother of Jesus was a Levite, a descendant of Aaron, as was her relative Elizabeth.
The apostle Paul, writing to Timothy to remind him of the necessity of preaching the true gospel at a time when many ” false gospels ” we’re prevelent, adjured him to ” Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel. ” 2 Tim 2:8.
Does that not confirm the promises of God to David that his throne would be established for ever?
John of Revelation was weeping when one of the elders consoled him with these words. ” Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. Rev 5:5.
The penultimate word of Jesus Christ himself in Revelation 22:16, again confirming the true apostolic gospel, ” I am the Root and the Offspring of David.”
Thanks. David. It’s Christmas so just a few brief responses.
1). The Virgin Birth cannot be to ‘illustrate’ the uniqueness of the event. Why would God lie to illustrate something (as an evangelical you do accept that the Scriptures are God breathed?). Besides which if Jesus was born by ordinary means what was unique about his birth?!
2) The NT prophecies are not taken out of their OT context
3). Of course Jesus was known as the son of Joseph. How else would you expect him to be known? Was the whole world told of his miraculous conception? Jesus was not known by his community as the Son of God. Does that mean his claim to be so was false?! It’s a strange kind of logic.
4). The greatest concern about those who have reservations about the Virgin birth is not that it undermines the humanity of Christ (it doesn’t) but rather that they don’t belong eve either that God can do miracles nor in the Divinity of Christ. If Christ is God then by the same criteria they espouse it means that he cannot also be human
5). The point about being of the root of David is irrelevant to the Virgin birth and does not affect or contradict it.
Your post actually serves up to illustrate why it is necessary to believe in the Virgin birth. To deny it is to disbelieve the Scriptures, to worship a different Christ and ultimately to deny the faith. No ‘evangelical’ would go against the ‘good news’ in such a way!
This is nice. It addresses the virgin birth and other factors that used to be stumbling blocks for believing in the historicity of the infancy narratives, such as the timing of the census and the star from the east. It looks like a lot of the problems and doubts Catholic theologian Raymond Brown raised in the 1990s have now been answered:
https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13053&page=0