Theological Tuesdays: Virgin-Birth

Haven't you always wondered how Jesus could really have been born from a virgin? And is that really what happened or did it come from some mythological influence? We're gonna tackle these questions and more and see where we can get.

So why is this question important? Well if Jesus really was born of a virgin then this establishes beyond question the life of Jesus as a supernatural intervention of God. Now why should we believe that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary? Because if we believe in a God in heaven who created the universe and hung the stars in the sky, then we have to believe that miracles are possible. The virgin birth is nothing more than a miracle of God. So if you don't believe in miracles then it will be hard for this argument to convince you.

But there is some evidence in the Bible besides the gospel accounts to support the virgin birth. The first hint can be found in what I think is the earliest Messianic Prophecy (prophecy of a coming Messiah), which is in Genesis 3:15. In this verse God is speaking to the Serpent:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

This idea that the coming Redeemer will be the offspring or seed of a woman is very important. Why? Because in the patriarchal culture of the day, descendants were always traced through their father. Even in Matthew, when Jesus' geneaology is mentioned it is traced through his legal father Joseph. So this unique phrase, seed of the woman implies that the Messiah will come by a woman but not a natural father.

And finally to keep this thing from getting too long, lets look at the famous text in Isaiah 7:14.

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. [Immanuel meaning: God with us]

This pretty much seals the deal in my book. Here we have a text written some 700 odd years before the birth of Jesus which predicts the virgin birth of a son who will be called God with us and some 2700 years later we still sing songs about Jesus calling him Immanuel. So there is no reason for us to not believe the literal biological virgin birth of Jesus if we claim to know the Living God. The prophecies were there in the Old Testament, the disciples wrote about it in the New Testament and we sing praise to the same God today, so I think we should be able to trust in Him by now and believe in the virgin birth. Besides it would be hard to claim you were Son of God if your father wasn't God! And that's exactly what Jesus did.