The Virgin Birth

a. Man’s wisdom (1:18-21)

b. God’s power (1:22-25)

Matthew 1:18-25

1. INTRODUCTION

a. The idea of a miracle is something of an anomaly. Miracles are things that cannot be expressed or understood by natural or scientific laws and therefore is considered to be work of a divine agency. Interestingly enough that the definition of miracle constitutes and associates itself with a divine agency. Yet, a lot of people don’t believe in God, yet do believe in miracles. We say phrases like “that was a miracle” or “meeting my wife was a miracle.” People believe miracles to happen by chance.

b. Similarly in the Christian realm, miracles have been sweeping across the church and it’s been around since its inception. The church has always dealt with miracles because well, that’s how the ministry of Jesus began. Jesus is God and is man, and yet performed miracles to prove His divinity. Through His miracles, miracles have followed suit and come down the church.

c. Now I don’t want to preach a message of whether I believe in miracles or not, but I will say this. I do believe in miracles. There are miracles happening today. What do you mean miracles are happening today? Well, I believe dead people come to life even as we speak. Obviously, I am speaking in a non literal understanding here. But we can’t say miracles are not happening.

d. When we have a non believer come to faith in Christ, that is nothing short of a miracle. The simple fact that a man or woman who hated God, who now loves God, is drawn to Him, wants to grow in Him and grow in their understanding of God and love for others, is nothing short of a miracle. In that sense, I do believe miracles are happening today.

e. Well, that brings us to the topic of what we are embarking on. The virgin birth, again, is nothing short of a miracle. It is the divine hand of God at work. This goes to show that by definition, miracles do align with divine agency.

2. BODY

a. Man’s wisdom (1:18-21)

i. We have to start with the context. Remember the first 17 verses were in place to explain how Jesus fit into David’s family. But not only that, it helped us to see how Jesus’s family was full of sin, and yet, we are confronted with the reality of, how could a sinful father and mother, give birth to a sinless savior? This question is immediately answered in our text for today.

ii. Verse 18 starts with Matthew introducing how Jesus the Christ came into the world. Again, the first 17 verses told us about His lineage and how He was enjoined into the family of David, how the Davidic kingship would be apart of Jesus’s family history. This helps us understand how and why kingship is such an important theme in the book of Matthew.

iii. So what happens? Matthew writes that when Mary, Jesus’s mother was betrothed to Joseph. What does this mean? We as westerners have a different understanding. We tend to think that Mary and Joseph were engaged, but in reality, we know that it was marriage. How? Verse 19 tells us and Joseph being her husband. So right there, we know that they were married. So how did betrothals work? Though the couple were not yet living together, it was a binding contract entered into before witnesses which could be terminated only by death. So what happens? The husband goes away (John 14:3) where he will make a place to live with his new wife. So the husband would take roughly a year to make this place to live with his wife and return. Upon returning, the husband would take the wife and they would live together.

iv. This is why here in verse 18. It says that before they came together, which is talking about being joined together, living together after the husband had made a place to live, Mary was already with child.

v. Verse 19, we learn a lot about what type of man Joseph was. It says that he was a righteous man. We can’t take this lightly because righteous here tells us that he was a man who was careful to keep the law. This tells us that Joseph was a religious man, he was a man who was aware of the law and he knew what he was to do. Deuteronomy 22 is the law that most people refer to, and most likely would be the place that Joseph would have turned to because it speaks of a woman not to be found a virgin at the time of marriage. But Deuteronomy 22:13-21 is more dealing with rape, when a woman is raped. So I don’t think that would correctly apply, but what I do understand would apply is Deuteronomy 22:22, where it speaks about if a man lies with a married woman, then both of them should be killed.

vi. This is where it gets tricky. If Joseph was a righteous man, a man clearly seeking justice by law, he should have had Mary tried and publicly humiliated. But righteous here seems along the line of compassionate. Although he recognized Mary’s sin and the severity of that sin, he was righteous, merciful, compassionate, that although He knew the law, He would not judge her by the Law. Rather, He would eat the penalty for her mistakes and let her go.

vii. This is more likely, which is why because Joseph was a righteous man, he didn’t want Mary and this other fellow to be humiliated and murdered, that he was willing to send her away privately.

viii. This decision here gives us a lot about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Joseph shows us the heart of the Gospel clearly here, where he was willing to take the brunt of Mary’s sinfulness and let her away without facing the just punishment for her misdeeds.

ix. Verse 20, when Joseph had come to conclusion that he would allow her to go away secretly, an angel of the Lord came to Joseph in his dream and spoke to him. Look at what the angel calls him. He calls him Joseph, son of David. Again the emphasis here is that Jesus is apart of the family lineage to the king David through Joseph. We saw this earlier in the genealogy but clearly, here the Bible is telling us what was at stake. If Joseph were to let Mary go, Jesus would not be fully be accepted as within the royal pedigree He was prophesied to be.

x. So the angel comes to Joseph and tells him that the child was conceived, impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Verse 21, the Angel even tells Joseph what he must name his son. This is closely bridging the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah 7:14, where it is prophesied that a virgin will give birth a son and he shall be called Immanuel. How do we know this? Because the name Jesus means, which actually means Joshua in the OT which stands for Savior or God is Salvation. So when the angel calls Joseph to name his son Jesus, the angel is bridging this idea that Joseph’s son, Jesus will be the savior of the world and He will bring upon salvation to the world. This Jesus, in the words of the angel, will save His people from their sins. This is indeed, how He will save the world. So two things happen here. First, Joseph must accept the story that he’s been given. He must accept and keep Mary as his wife and second, he must give the child a name, which will accept Him into the royal line to David.

xi. What I love about this message from this angel is, how Jesus would save His people in the world. The first thing to take notice is, His people. This means there will be a specific group of people who would be His people. This does not include everybody. It is too specific. But secondly, He would save His people, how? From their sins. This goes against many people’s understanding as if Jesus was going to save His people in the world by giving them more wealth. No, it states clearly here, that He would save His people from their sins. Jesus came to save His people from their sin, not someone else’s sin. Jesus came for our sin. This tells us clearly that all of us have sin and we need saving. This is why He came.

b. God’s power (1:22-25)

i. Verse 22 begins Matthew’s defense for his statement of how Mary was pregnant by the Spirit. All of these things happened, all the stuff with David and to now, Joseph, all of these things happened to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. Verse 23 begins with Matthew quoting Isaiah 7:14. One of the biggest issues with this verse deals with the word here virgin. The word that is commonly used for virgin. It’s strange that virgin is used, because Mary should have been considered a woman, as she was betrothed.

ii. The strange aspect of this word is to emphasize that not only was she a virgin, but also a virgin even though she was married. This goes to suggest that something other than a normal childbirth would occur.

iii. Verse 24, Matthew continues now with the narrative and focuses back to Joseph. It states in verse 24 that Joseph now awoke from his sleep and did as the Angel of the Lord commanded him. What did the angel command of him? The angel commanded him to take Mary as his wife and not to let her go. This goes back to verse 20, where the angel tells Joseph, don’t be afraid to take Mary as his wife. Verse 25, but not only this, Joseph kept Mary as a virgin until she gave birth to a Son, and he called Him Jesus. It’s interesting to read that Joseph kept Mary a virgin, to take away any doubt of the supernatural birth of Christ.

iv. But the importance of verse 25 here helps us to see that Joseph had obeyed all that the angel told him to do, in accepting Mary as his wife but also naming him Jesus. Why was this naming of Jesus significant? Because it helps us understand that Mary had fully accepted Jesus as his own son and this would mean that Jesus would now be fully adopted into the family of David. This would now fully secure the prophecy concerning Christ, given to us in Isaiah 9:6-7.

3. CONCLUSION