Why the Virgin Birth

Christmas Series

Isaiah 7:14

I was at a church years ago when several Bible studies were dismissing; it was during the Christmas season and there were some people standing around in the halls and two ladies were talking about the Virgin Birth. One woman was saying to the other, “I don’t see what the big deal is about the virgin birth. What difference does it make if Jesus was virgin born or not? After all, isn’t who He was and what He did more important than how He was born?”

It was obvious that the other woman (who believed in the Virgin Birth) didn’t know what to say. I can understand that feeling… but we need to see why the Virgin Birth is crucial to our faith. This Christmas, I want to spend some time explaining the importance of the Virgin Birth. If by chance you never thought the Virgin Birth of Jesus had any real importance – I want to give you some facts that will take that option away.

I want to begin in the Old Testament with Isaiah 7:14. This is the verse Matthew quoted in his gospel as one of the prophecies fulfilled by the birth of Jesus. If you have your Bible, let’s look at Isaiah 7:14 and get into the rich background of this key text. In honor of God and His Word, let’s stand for the reading of these verses. Let’s read vv. 13-14…

Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

[Prayer] Matthew’s quotation of Isaiah 7:14 confirms that the prophet did in fact predict the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. That was the apostle’s inerrant interpretation of Isaiah 7:14. As with other OT prophecies, this prophesy has two purposes. First, it was a prophecy to Ahaz and the people of Israel which had a local and immediate fulfillment in their history. But second, it also had a future fulfillment; it was looking in anticipation for one who would be born of a virgin and would literally be “God with us” in the truest sense. That’s what Jesus was.

We need to understand the historical context. The prophet Isaiah made this prophecy during the reign of Judah’s wicked and idolatrous King Ahaz. The king faced a major military threat from the Israelite king, Pekah; and the Syrian king, Rezin; both of whom wanted to overthrow Ahaz.  They wanted to replace him with a more compliant ruler. Instead of seeking the Lord’s help during that crisis, King Ahaz turned to Tiglath-Pileser, the brutal ruler of the pagan Assyrians. Ahaz even induced their assistance by offering them gold and silver stolen from God’s Temple.

Ahaz refused to listen to Isaiah’s report that God would deliver the people from Pekah and Rezin. Therefore the prophet spoke the remarkable prophecy of Isaiah 7:14, which told Ahaz that no one would destroy the people of God or the royal line of David. And sure enough, although Tiglath-Pileser destroyed the northern kingdom (Israel), deported its population, and overran Judah four times, God ultimately preserved His people just as He promised.

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Isaiah also said that before another child (Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz) was very mature or aware of events, the territories of Rezin and Pekah would be abandoned (Isa. 7:15–16). Again, the prophet’s divinely inspired words were completely accurate. Before the other child, who was born to Isaiah’s wife, was three years old, the two enemy kings were dead. Just as God fulfilled that ancient prophecy about Isaiah’s son, so He was about to fulfill the one concerning the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Both were signs from the Lord that He would not abandon His people, but the greatest of the two was obviously the second one: that His Son would actually be born of a virgin, live among His people, and die for their sins.

In his original pronouncement in 7:14, Isaiah used the Hebrew word ’alma for “virgin.” That is a significant term, and it’s important to understand why the prophet used it. ’Alma occurs six other times in the Old Testament (Gen. 24:43; Exod. 2:8; Ps. 68:25; Prov. 30:19; Song of Sol. 1:3; 6:8), and in each instance it connotes or denotes “virgin.” Until recent times, both Jewish and Christian scholars always translated the word that way.

In modern Hebrew either ’alma or betula can mean “virgin.” But Isaiah did not use betula because in Old Testament Hebrew betula can refer to a married woman who is not a virgin (Deut. 22:19; Joel 1:8). It’s apparent, therefore, that he used ’alma in 7:14 with the clear, precise conviction that the woman who would bear the Messiah would indeed be a young woman who never had sexual relations with a man.

This is the set-up for the predicted sign. After all, a woman giving birth to a child is not by any means unusual. While every birth is a unique work of providence, it’s the most natural thing in the world. There are thousands of births every day. So that’s no sign at all. But if a virgin gives birth to a Son – that’s unusual – that would be a sign of something different. So verse 14 is not merely talking about a natural childbirth, or a young woman giving birth to a child, this is a virgin giving birth to a Son – and that’s a sign.

Matthew’s use of Isaiah’s prophecy followed directly in the prophet’s path. The apostle was not giving ’alma a Christian “twist” to make its usage fit a theory of the virgin birth. Instead, Matthew gave the term the same meaning as Isaiah intended, demonstrated by his translation of ’alma with the Greek parthenos, the same word used by the Jewish translators of the Greek Old Testament.

Although the credibility of the virgin birth does not rest solely on the use of a Hebrew word, a general understanding of the background and usage of ’alma strengthens our belief in Christ’s unique birth. It also helps us to see that Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, knew exactly what he was doing when he related Isaiah 7:14 to the birth of Jesus and declared again the equally amazing truths that “the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel.” In His virgin birth, Christ was, in the most literal sense, the Son who was “God with us.” Apart from the virgin birth, we have no doctrine of the incarnation of Christ.

All of Matthew’s explanation of the significance of the virgin birth came within the revelatory dream God gave to Joseph, Mary’s fiancé. Such extraordinary, direct communication evidently occurred while Joseph engaged in the ordinary activity of sleeping. Matthew doesn’t record any detail of Joseph’s immediate reaction, except to say that he woke up and obeyed the angel’s instructions: “Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus” (1:24–25).

You can imagine how great Joseph’s feelings of amazement, relief, and gratitude must have been once he realized what the Lord, through the heavenly messenger, had told him. Not only could he go ahead and gladly take Mary as his wife with honor and righteousness, but also he could rejoice at the privilege of being allowed to bring up God’s own Son.

The wedding ceremony of Joseph and Mary likely took place soon after Joseph received the angel’s announcement. Matthew makes it clear that Mary remained a virgin until after Jesus was born, implying that normal marital relations began after that time. That, along with the references to Jesus’ brothers and sisters (Matt. 12:46; 13:55–56; Mark 6:3), proves Mary was not a virgin for her entire life, as some claim.

Finally, Joseph followed through on God’s command in Matthew 1:21 and named the baby Jesus, indicating, as we’ve already seen, that He was to be the Savior.

The amazing fact of Jesus’ supernatural birth is the only way to explain the perfect, sinless life He lived while on earth. Christ’s virgin birth is a necessary component that helps us believe and make sense of the entire story of His person and work. His extraordinary conception and birth, not before or since equaled, is an amazing reality that we should with joy and gratitude never take for granted. 

So in answer to the earlier question, what’s so important about the Virgin Birth of Jesus? Apart from the Virgin Birth we have no doctrine of the incarnation, we have no basis for the deity of Christ, and we wouldn’t have a Savior who was fully God and fully man so as to reconcile God to man by His death on the cross.

When we speak of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, we’re speaking of the eternal Son of God, the second person of the trinity, who took on human flesh in the womb of Mary. This was the work of the Holy Spirit who overshadowed Mary (Mt. 1:18, 20). As the second person of the trinity, Jesus has always existed. He is the Creator of all things. Through Him all things came into being and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. The Son was not created, but He Himself is the divine Creator of all things, both visible and invisible.

Therefore the Chalcedonian Creed takes great care to say that the Son was “begotten” and not created; that’s why Isaiah 9:6 says: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given…” The Son wasn’t born because He has always eternally existed; but in taking on human flesh a child was born, but the Son was given (and that’s the meaning of begotten). He is very God of very God, light from light eternal; He is the Word of the Father now in flesh appearing. John Francis Wade beautifully put to music many of the words from the Chalcedonian Creed in his famous Christmas hymn, O Come, All Ye Faithful.

And Charles Wesley wrote in his great hymn, Hark, the Herald, Angels Sing…

Christ by highest heaven adored; Christ the everlasting Lord!

Late in time behold Him come, offspring of the Virgin’s womb;

Veiled in flesh the God-head see; Hail th’ incarnate Deity,

Pleased as Man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel.

That’s what Isaiah was saying in 7:14. That’s what Matthew was recording in the first chapter of his gospel. Without the Virgin Birth, we have no Savior and our faith is in vain; but thanks be to God, we have a virgin born, sinless Savior, fully God and fully man who perfectly fulfilled all that the prophets foretold.

Let’s pray.

(c) Charles Kevin Grant

2004