THE NECESSITY OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH
Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
I. The Controversy Concerning the Virgin Birth.
A. Beginning in the early nineteen hundreds liberal theologians began to debate in Christian circles over whether belief in the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ is something necessary for Christianity. Is it possible for an intellectually astute and mature adult today to believe or is it merely something from Christianity’s superstitious past which really isn’t vital anyway.
B. A poll of 7,441 Protestant clergy showed a wide variation in belief. The following ministers do NOT believe in the virgin birth: American Lutherans 19%, American Baptists 34%, Episcopalians 44%, Presbyterians 49%, Methodists 60%
C. Some of the most recent modern translations of the Bible translate the Hebrew “almah” in Isaiah 7:14 as a young woman not a virgin, or they paraphrased the text to play down that it would be a virgin who would conceive the promised Immanuel.
II. The Need for a Unique Savior.
A. The Need for a unique Savior is seen in two facts Man’s Sinfulness and God’s Holiness.
B. Man’s Sinfulness
1. Genesis 2:16-17 “And Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may freely eat of every tree in the garden, but you shall not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”
2. Romans 5:12 “Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men inasmuch as all sinned.”
3. Man stands in need of a savior because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
C. God’s Holiness
1. Psalms 145:17 “The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.”
2. Habakkuk 1:13 “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity…”
3. Isaiah 59:2 “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”
4. That separation ultimately finds itself in being eternally separated from God in a place of unending torment.
D. There is a danger of forgetting that the Bible reveals, not first the love of God, but the intense, blazing holiness of God, with his love as the center of that holiness. - Oswald Chambers (1874-1917). The hope that God is too kind to punish sinful man is a deadly deception.
E. Because of his lost estate man stands in need of a unique Savior. Since the penalty for man’s sin must be meted out only a man could stand as the vicarious substitute for the penalty. But ALL men are sinners. And if you could find a man without sin, which one cannot, at best he could not satisfy the debt of the sins of the whole world and bridge the gap between both God and man.
III. The Unique Savior
A. The Need for a Proper Mediator
1. Job 9:33 “Neither is there any daysman betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both.”
2. In the ancient world, businesses and families were not separate institutions; they were combined in the institution of the household. There was no legal document that corresponded to our power of attorney; the son possessed the father’s power of attorney by virtue of being his son. If a man had no son, but had a trustworthy slave, it was a common practice for him to adopt the slave as a son so that he would be empowered to run the business. By virtue of the virgin birth Christ is both all God and all man. He is therefore called in the Word of God both the Son of God and the Son of Man. The proclamation that Jesus is the Son of God has two meanings: it means He shares God’s essence, and it means He is God’s authorized representative whose acts have the legal force of divine acts. The proclamation that Jesus is Son of Man (Humanity) also has two meanings: it means He shares our human essence, and it means He is the authorized representative of the entire human race, whose acts are binding and effective on all. The phrases ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of Man’ express both essence and agency. Jesus is both truly human and truly God; Jesus is simultaneously the attorney-in-fact for the human race and attorney-in-fact for God. - borrowed
3. 1 Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God, and ONE MEDIATOR between God and men, the man CHRIST JESUS.”
4. Apart from the virgin birth we would have no mediator. But 1 John 2:1 declares, “…we have an advocate with the Father--Jesus Christ the righteous.”
B. The need for a Spotless Sacrifice
1. The whole emphasis of the Bible is on Redemption by the shedding of the Savior’s blood. It is the Scarlet Thread that runs through the pages of Genesis to Revelation. The Bible is a book of blood.
2. Hebrews 9:22 “Without shedding of blood is no remission."
3. Where can blood be found so pure, so rich so precious so infinitely powerful to pay the vast debt of sin and satisfy divine justice?
4. Dr. James Orr quoting Gray’s Anatomy states that it is an established physiological fact that the mother’s blood is neither the source nor supply of the blood in the unborn infant’s veins. It is the contribution of the male, which leads to the development of the blood. Without that vital contribution no blood could be produced because the female of herself does not produce the elements essential for the production of this new blood.
5. If Christ had been born of an earthly father he would have born that blood. He would have also inherited His father’s sin nature. But being virgin born Christ is the spotless, sinless Lamb of God and a fit and proper candidate to be the Sacrifice for our sins.
6. There are at least 43 references to the blood of Christ in the New Testament, all testifying to its great importance in the salvation and daily life of the believer. Judas the betrayer spoke of it as “innocent blood (Matthew 27:4) and Peter called it “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (I Peter l:9). It is the cleansing blood of I John l:7 and the washing blood in Revelation l:5, stressing that it removes the guilt of our sins. Paul refers to it as the purchasing blood in Acts 20:28 and the redeeming blood twice in Ephesians l:7 and Col. 1:14.
7. 1 Peter 1:18-19 “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
C. The Need for a Sufficient Savior.
1. The sufficiency of Jesus Christ’s death to pay the penalty for all fallen mankind and be the Savior rests in His being infinitely divine as well as man.
2. Romans 5:7-8 “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
3. In Christ we have a sacrifice that involved none other than the Second Person of the Godhead. The infinite sufficiency of Christ is demonstrated by His bearing the sins of the whole world.
4. 1 John 2:2 “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”
5. When God sent His Son, Jesus Christ to the cross, He offered Him as a substitute sin bearer in the place of guilty sinners who make up the entire human race. No other could have made such a sacrifice but the virgin born Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God. Christ’s death as God’s Lamb met all the requirements of divine justice and enabled God to offer forgiveness to any who accept Christ’s work of redemption.
6. After World War 1, 900 German soldiers who had violated international law were summoned to appear before the World Court. Their condemnation was certain. In a dramatic move, however, the former crown prince of Germany volunteered to be their substitute. His offer included taking upon himself both the accusation against them and their penalty. This act, though most noble, was impractical. Although he was royalty, he did not have in his own person the value of the 900. There is another Prince who took upon Himself the judgment due the entire human race. Unlike that German leader, He is not implicated in any evil. Because of His sinless humanity, He could be “delivered for our offenses.” Because of His deity, He could be “raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). He was able to pay in full the ransom demanded by God’s holy law, because in Him was the intrinsic worth needed to provide salvation. Yes, the Father laid upon His sinless Son the iniquity of us all. Our redemption has been purchased by Heaven’s Crown Prince. - Our Daily Bread, April 17
7. Acts 4:12 “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Conclusion: In Matthew 1 we find that Christ fulfilled Isaiah 7:14’s prophecy and is the Lamb of God who takes away our sin as our sin bearer and bridges the gap between God and man. Jesus rightfully stands and declares that, “He is the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but by Him.”
