IS ANYTHING TOO HARD FOR GOD

One of today’s most seriously questioned doctrines taught in Scripture is the virgin birth of Christ. The attack usually follows this line of approach: (1) A virgin birth is contrary to the natural laws of human birth. (2) Two of the Gospel writers do not mention it, nor is it confirmed by Paul (3) Belief in the virgin birth of Christ is not vital to the faith of the Christian nor the teaching of Jesus. (4) Such a birth account can be explained by stories of miraculous births in other religions of the world. (5) The value of the doctrine can be preserved in a figurative way without actually accepting a literal virgin birth.

The fact that these objections exist and continue to arise, ought to cause us to be that much more tenacious in our conviction and appreciation of the truth of this doctrine as opposed to a denial of it. Did you all hear me? The arguments against the virgin birth are designed to cause you to deny the truth of the virgin birth.

Okay, I get it, you don’t want to identify as gullible or even stupid for accepting something of this magnitude simply at face value. I can hear some of your objections right now as you doubt the validity of scriptures to even suggest such a thing. But before you let your rational and reason shipwreck your faith, consider what denying this doctrine means.

To Deny

Luke: Unlocking the Scriptures for You The Virgin Birth

To deny the virgin birth because it would necessitate a miracle involves one’s belief in God and His power. If it is impossible, in one’s thinking, for God to perform such a miracle, this simply reflects the skepticism and limitation imposed by the individual. His god is restricted, having the power to do some things but not others. In addition, the very basis for imposing this limitation is significant. Some refuse to accept any claim that lies beyond their own experience, and this leaves them with provincial limitations. Such an insistence confines what one believes to his own small sphere of observations and tests. If one is to confront the evidence for the virgin birth of Christ honestly, he must accept at least the possibility of its truth: that is, Jesus of Nazareth, who lived at a particular time and place in history, was born without human father, being conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary by the power of God through the Holy Spirit.

THE VOICE OF RATIONAL AND REASON

TIONAL AND REASON

In Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus, he tells us that Joseph is informed of the Mary’s pregnancy by the angel of the Lord. Then he comments that “all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet ().

Isaiah 7:14–16 NASB95

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. “He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good. “For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.

The dilemma facing the believer today is simply this “Do you believe in Miracles?”

This text would have been a slam dunk, it would have been cut and dry, if it were just v.14 alone. The addition of verses 15 and 16 make it extremely problematic to place into the current context of the virgin birth of Jesus. Hold on a minute, I’ve got to share some important information with you.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 7:1–2

Rezin, king of Aram, northeast of Israel, and Pekah … king of Israel (752–732) had made an alliance

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 7:1–2

They threatened to replace Judah’s King Ahaz with a puppet king, “the son of Tabeel” (Isa. 7:6).

Ahaz was scared to death; but the Lord sent Isaiah and his son to reassure him that Judah would not be conquered by these enemies. God told Ahaz to request a sign so that he could be confident that he was safe, but he wouldn’t. So God said I will tell you what the sign would be...

a boy named Immanuel. Three elements pertain to the sign: (1) The boy would be born of a virgin (v. 14). (2) He would be raised in a time of national calamity (v. 15; on the curds and honey see comments on v. 22). (3) While he was still a youth, the two-king alliance would be broken (v. 16).

“Virgin” translates ‘almâh, a word used of an unmarried woman of marriageable age. The word refers to one who is sexually mature. It occurs elsewhere in the Old Testament only in (“maiden”); (“girl”); (“maidens”); (“maiden”); (“maidens”); 6:8 (“virgins”). It also occurs in (alamoth) and in the title of (alamoth may be a musical term). The child’s name Immanuel means “God (is) with us.”

Most Bible scholars hold one of three views on the virgin in : (1) The boy of whom Isaiah wrote was conceived shortly after Isaiah spoke this message. A young woman, a virgin, married and then had a baby. Before he would be old enough to tell the difference between good and evil the northern Aram-Israel alliance would be destroyed. According to this view the woman was a virgin when Isaiah spoke his prophecy but was not when the boy was born because he was conceived by sexual relations with her husband. Some say this child was born to Isaiah (8:3–4). They point out that 8:1–4 corresponds in a number of ways to 7:14–17. But this view must be rejected because (a) Isaiah’s wife already had a child (Shear-Jashub, v. 3) and so was not a virgin, and (b) the second child born to Isaiah’s wife was not named Immanuel (8:3). In this view Ahaz would have known this woman, and hearing of the child’s birth and his name Immanuel he would understand that Isaiah’s prophecies were correct.

(2) A second view sees the predicted birth as exclusively messianic and the virgin as Mary, Jesus’ mother. It is argued that in the virgin is said to be with child (lit., “the virgin is or will be pregnant”). It is also argued that Matthew, stressing the fact that Joseph and Mary’s marriage was not consummated till after Jesus’ birth (, ), affirmed that Jesus’ birth fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy ().

Proponents of this view point out that since Isaiah spoke this prophecy to the house of David () and not just to Ahaz himself, the sign was given not just to the king but to the entire kingly line and the entire nation. However, if the fulfillment did not occur until Joseph and Mary’s day, how does the prophecy relate to Isaiah’s point that the Aram-Israel confederacy would soon be defeated? And how does the birth of the Lord Jesus relate to the eating of curds and honey (v. 15) and to the breaking of the alliance before the boy was old enough to know good and evil? (v. 16) Proponents of this view answer that the time is similar: the two years of Jesus’ babyhood (before He would know between right and wrong) point to the same time segment, two years, within which the Aram-Israel threat would be gone.

(3) A third view, a combination of the first two, sees the prophecy as directed primarily to Ahaz regarding the breaking of the alliance. The ‘almâh was a virgin when Isaiah spoke his message, but then she would marry and have a baby. When the Aram-Israel alliance was broken the boy would still be young. Centuries later the Holy Spirit led Matthew to quote as a statement that was also true of a virgin birth (i.e., a birth to a woman who was still a virgin). This is the first of many prophecies about the Messiah given by Isaiah. (See the chart “Messianic Prophecies in the Book of Isaiah.”)

The sign must have had some significance for the historical situation in which it was given. The sign involved not only the birth and the boy’s name (Immanuel, “God [is] with us,” would assure the people of God’s presence), but also a designated length of time: before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings … will be laid waste.

John A. Martin, “Isaiah,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 1047–1048.

Some Evidence for Reason

John A. Martin, “Isaiah,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 1047–1048.

Luke: Unlocking the Scriptures for You The Virgin Birth

The following points corroborate the actuality of the miracle. (1) The miracle was predicted hundreds of years before its occurrence (Isaiah 7:14; cf. Matthew 1:22, 23). (2) The virgin birth was attested early and clearly (Matthew 1:18–25; Luke 1:26–38). (3) It was accepted early and fully (in creeds used by Irenaeus and Tertullian, and prior to this in Ignatius [Smyrna 1.1] and Justin Martyr).

The belief in the virgin birth is aided by the following observations. (1) The Christian faith is constantly associated with the miraculous in the life of Jesus (the incarnation, Jesus’ power to work miracles, the atonement, the resurrection, the ascension). (2) When the descriptions of the virgin birth are accompanied by descriptions of the life of Jesus, who claimed to be the Son of God, and His claims are matched with His teaching and the miracles He performed, one is compelled to accept His miracu lous beginning as commensurate with the whole. (3) If Jesus is the unique son of God, one would expect a beginning that would be more than ordinary. (4) Although one would acknowledge that God could have sent His Son in a number of different beginnings, as a matter of fact, the way that is described in Scripture is the virgin birth. (5) The fact of the virgin birth is more easily accepted than any of the alternatives suggested in denying it.

Why We Must Not Deny the Virgin Birth

Luke: Unlocking the Scriptures for You The Virgin Birth

Finally there are those who would relegate the virgin birth to an optional area where one can interpret these two Gospel accounts either literally or figuratively. This is but a polite way to deny the testimony of Matthew and Luke. They have presented their material in a literal, historical way as part of the whole cloth of the Gospel. Neither textual differences nor labeling a passage as a later interpolation can remove the clear, intended presentation of the birth of Jesus of the virgin Mary. It is not repeated each step of the way through the New Testament, but it is consistent with the whole and vital to an understanding of the incarnation of Christ, when the Word became flesh and lived among mankind. The virgin birth of Jesus is so closely associated with other Biblical doctrines that invariably, when one denies it, other Scriptures are dismissed as well. When one acknowledges the power and the wisdom of God, the humble submission of the virgin Mary, the willing acceptance of the steady Joseph, and the baby Jesus in the manger—one opens his mind and his heart to an understanding of the good news God has delivered to those made in His own image.

Conclusion

My God is Bigger

He is Able and He won’t fail

Tell me who can make a mountain Move out of my way And who can make a miracle Because of my faith And when the doctor says no Who can still say yes And when I'm in trouble Who's right there to help me pass every test

God is able, God is able God is able and He won't fail

Tell me who can make a river Out of a little stream And who can tell the clouds To roll back so that the sun can look at me And who can tell the wind to whistle through the trees And when I'm in trouble who is the same God That will come down and rescue me