Conceived & Born of a Virgin

Welcome and Recap

Good morning, church family!  Welcome back to week three of our Apostles’ Creed journey.  Last week, we confessed Jesus Christ—God’s only Son, our Lord.  We asked ourselves, “If that’s true, what response does it call for?”  All-in commitment, no holding back.  We saw that attachments kept some from following Jesus, but Gideon answered God’s call with conviction.  Today, we step into the miracle that makes all of that possible: “who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.” This short line holds the wonder of the incarnation—the eternal Son of God stepping into our world as a real baby.  It’s not just a Christmas story; it’s the hinge of our salvation.

Transition

As we just sang in our worship, “In the darkness we were waiting without hope, without light ‘Til from Heaven You came running, there was mercy in Your eyes.”  We just celebrated, throughout Advent and the Christmas season, reflecting on how the King of all became a vulnerable child for our sake, taking on flesh in a mission that was a retelling of the first Adam, but not a ‘plan B!’ It was always the plan—God completing His creation through the Word made flesh.  We read in John 1 how this is interpreted and read into the beginning…:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  2 He was with God in the beginning.  3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.  12Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.  14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

After each day of creation, God looked over all that he had made, and though it was incomplete, he said, “It is good.” In the Garden, we were without sin, but we weren’t virtuous.  Only after receiving knowledge of good and evil could we then be virtuous, but we were no longer without sin.  The incarnation of God was no plan B, because it was more than a restoration; it was the completion of His creating work.  Only now, through Jesus, can we be both virtuous and sinless.

But just as the Angel Lucifer forgot his purpose and whose likeness was forever obscured, he has successfully obscured the likeness to their creator, many people, by having them forget their purpose.

Illustration

Australian theologian Ben Myers likens many people to Lewis Carol’s Alice, in a conversation she has with the White Queen:

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.  “Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone.  “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”  Alice laughed.  “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.  “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day.  Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Myers says, “To them, the idea of the virgin birth is a relic of bygone days when people were simpler and found it easier to believe in impossible things.  We can handle the rest of the creed, but the virgin birth stretches [trustfulness] too far.”

Explanation

The trouble starts when we take this line and view it in isolation, like finding a bicycle chain if you had never seen a bicycle.  You might struggle to make sense of the strange object: what is it for?  Is it a weapon?  Or an uncomfortable piece of jewelry?  To understand the bicycle chain, you have to see it in its proper context.  It’s the same with the virgin birth.  If we take it in isolation, we might conclude that it’s just a spectacular miracle or even a logical absurdity.  And then it becomes a matter of suspending reality—it requires effort to try to believe it—as if saying the baptismal creed were the same as trying to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

If we look at how the virgin birth fits into the whole story of Scripture—a story in which miraculous births play a starring role—it makes so much sense that it actually casts doubt on its denial as the obscure take!

Throughout Israel’s story, God has worked through miraculous births at every major turning point.  Sarah laughed in astonishment when she bore Isaac in old age.  Hannah wept until God gave her Samuel, the prophet who anointed kings.  Samson’s mother received an angelic promise of a deliverer.  Even in exile, Isaiah sang of a barren woman bursting into song because her children would fill the nations (Isaiah 54:1–3).  Pregnancy and birth became the way God’s promise moved forward—each newborn child a reminder that the blessing to Abraham would reach the world.

Against this backdrop, the virgin birth isn’t strange or outdated.  It’s the climax.  The promised Messiah enters through another faithful woman—Mary—who responds in simple trust and joy.  “The secret of history is revealed when a woman, insignificant to the eyes of the world, responds in joy to God’s promise and bears that promise into the world in her own body.”  When we confess “born of the Virgin Mary,” we’re seeing Jesus in the context of the whole story of Israel’s hope.  The promise has arrived.

Point:

This line in the Creed protects two huge truths: Jesus is fully God and fully man. 

‘Conceived by the Holy Spirit,’ Jesus didn’t come into existence the usual way.  The eternal Son—always existing with the Father—was miraculously formed in Mary’s womb by the Spirit’s power (we read in Luke 1:35 that, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you... therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God”).  No human father means no inherited sin nature.  Only a sinless Savior can pay our debt.

John 1:14 reminds us of the breathtaking reality, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” God didn’t send a message; He moved into the neighborhood—close enough to be seen, touched, and known.

Born of the Virgin Mary: Jesus is truly human—flesh, blood, hunger, tears, growth.  He enters our world completely, so He can represent us completely.  As Hebrews 2:17 says, He had to be “made like his brothers in every respect” to be a merciful high priest.

This should be comforting, Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”

This is the incarnation—God didn’t stay far off.  He came close—close enough to be born in a stable, close enough to die on a cross, close enough to rise and live in us by His Spirit.

Philippians 2:7 describes the humility of it all: “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” The Son who held the universe chose to lay aside glory and become small—for us.

This miracle fulfills what Isaiah promised centuries earlier: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14)—meaning “God with us.” The eternal Son steps into history to keep every promise God ever made.

C.S. Lewis captured the wonder this way: “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”

And Mary’s response?  In the face of the impossible, she said yes—with trust, not fear: “I am the Lord’s servant... May your word to me be fulfilled” (Luke 1:38).  Obedience in wonder.  That’s our model too.

In the face of the impossible, say yes—with trust, not fear.  “I am the Lord’s servant.”

Transition

If this is true—that the eternal Son became flesh in Mary’s womb—what does it mean for us today?  How does it change how we live?  Let’s unpack that.

Application

The incarnation answers our most profound need: a bridge back to God.

1 Timothy 2:5 declares it plainly: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” We don’t need more priests or rituals; Jesus is the bridge.

Now, I want to pause right here for a moment—many people hear, “We don’t need more priests,” and this is perhaps why people stop coming to church, or stop maturing in their Christian walk after learning “Jesus loves me, this I know.”  Let me differentiate Priestfrom Pastor.  A Priest is ordained for the purpose of performing specific sacraments; channeling God’s grace and serving as a mediator—offering propitiation—appeasement of God’s anger, and pronouncement of forgiveness.

Pastors are spiritual leaders focused on preaching, teaching, and shepherding their congregation.

I want to read Ephesians 4:11-13 real quick.

11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

Justification has already come—glorification is in the future, this journey on Earth is about sanctification.  I am entrusted with and responsible for—I will give an answer.  Read James 3:1: the Brother of Jesus says, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”

Many who have stopped coming to church—not all, please don’t hear me saying that—but for those who have done it because they say they don’t need edification, preaching, teaching, and shepherding, do so out of arrogance, and have become their own preacher, teacher, and shepherd.  Just as Adam and Eve thought they could parse and judge for themselves good and evil. 

We’re not with Christ yet.  Preaching, teaching, and shepherding are still necessary; channeling God’s grace and appeasing His anger—not so much.

Nevertheless, in a world that feels distant and divided, this truth hits home: God isn’t aloof.  He came close.  He understands our loneliness, our pain, our questions—because He lived them.

Romans 8:3 explains why the virgin birth was necessary: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.  By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.” Sin’s power was broken in our flesh because it was broken in His.

Only God could pay the infinite debt of sin.  Only a human could stand in our place.

Jesus is both fully God and fully man, inseparably united in one person.  Without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.

John Stott put it this way: “The doctrine of the incarnation is the Christian answer to the problem of how an infinite God can have a personal relationship with finite human beings.”

This changes everything:

· God understands our struggles—He felt hunger, fatigue, and temptation (Hebrews 4:15).

· God can truly save us—His divine power defeats sin and death.

· God is with us—Immanuel means “God with us,” not “God watching from afar.”

Application

If the Son of God became a baby, it means God values us enough to enter our mess.  It implies humility is the way of God—power laid aside for love.  It means our ordinary lives matter.  God, who became small, calls us to serve the small, the overlooked, the vulnerable.

1 John 4:2 gives us a test of true faith: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” Confessing “come in the flesh” isn’t just words; it’s a life that embodies God-with-us. Be present, embodied love—visit the lonely, touch the hurting, stay in the mess.

Christ is the hero of the story—He didn’t just send help; He became the help.  So, we live as little “Immanuel” people: God with others—through us.  When we forgive the unforgivable, sit with the hurting, or choose humility over power, we echo the incarnation.

We see how the old system worked in Isaiah 1:13: “Stop bringing meaningless offerings!  Your incense is detestable to me.  New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations— I cannot bear your worthless assemblies,” The prophet Amos adds (5:21), “Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.” With priests, that is continued—but that’s not what Jesus came to install, he came to fix it.

And it means hope in hard times.  Colossians 1:19–20 reminds us: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things... making peace by the blood of his cross.” If God reconciled the universe through a baby and a cross, our small acts of reconciliation matter.  Forgive quickly, pursue peace, and pass this hope to your children.  

God’s plan started in a manger.

God came once in weakness to save; He will come again in glory to finish what He started.

Challenge

So, if this is true, then what?  How do we live in light of the incarnation?

· Cultivate a Fresh Sense of Wonder.  Read the biblical accounts of the incarnation this week, perhaps in John 1 or Luke 1.  Ask God to show you the personal significance of “the Word became flesh” and moved into our world, not as a familiar story, but as a life-changing reality; what does it mean to “Go and do likewise” or “bear daily, your [own] cross?”

· Embrace Incarnational Humility.  Reflecting on how the Son of God “emptied himself,” choose a specific way this week to serve where it’s inconvenient and love where it costs.  Be present for the overlooked, the small, and the vulnerable.

Perhaps most importantly,

· Live as “Immanuel” to Others.  Be the tangible presence of “God with us” for someone in your life.  Forgive quickly, pursue peace, and share the hope that God came to be with us, so we could be with Him forever.

Close

This isn’t abstract.  The confession that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin isn’t just a bit of theological eccentricity.  It’s not a random miracle story.  It’s a reminder that our faith has deep roots in Israel’s story and Israel’s Scriptures.  The coming of the Savior wasn’t just a new thing.  It was the culmination of the whole story of God’s loving faithfulness to His people.  When we confess that Jesus is “born of the Virgin Mary,” we see him silhouetted against the backdrop of God’s promise to Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, the rule of the judges, the coming of the prophets, and the promised deliverance from exile.

I keep bringing up the Hero’s Journey formula in stories, how they serve one of two purposes: to draw on what is encoded within, what we know to be true, it rhymes with the Gospel and the author of creation’s playbook; or to replicate it and make it sound preposterous.

Scripture speaks of one unforgivable sin—a heart that refuses to acknowledge the Spirit’s work (Matthew 12:31–32).  If you’re worried about it, you haven’t committed it.  It’s the heart that rationalizes away miracles—like George Clooney’s character in “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” If you’re going to explain away something as unlikely as a cow on the roof of a cotton gin, even after being told it was going to happen, as ‘a complex chain of events,’ that’s a heart that is unforgivable—not because God withholds forgiveness, but because that’s a heart that would never ask for it.  Even when confronted with, “That ain’t the tune you were singin’ back there at the gallows!”

God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27a).

Whatever uncertainties lie ahead, remember: Inasmuch as Jesus was in the very elements of the eucharist at the last supper, as He handed it to each of His disciples, saying, “take and eat, this is my body, broken for you,” that same presence exists today when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  And inasmuch as the Holy Spirit filled Mary, making a virgin capable of delivering a baby to the world—the Spirit enters our lives today.  He’s not distant—He’s with us.