The Supernatural Origin of Christ

Read Matthew 1:18-25

No dad would believe it. Sure, dads are gullible at times, but if your teenage daughter came to you and said, “I’m carrying a child, and I have not had sexual relations,” you’d be furious. That, however, was the exact predicament of Mary’s father. She was a virgin.

The virgin birth is a concept that is beyond and contrary to all nature we know. The reason that God chose this miracle was to emphasize the supernatural origin of Jesus Christ.

The virgin birth, however contrary to our experience, is clearly taught in the Bible. It was predicted in Isaiah 7, and those prophetic words are not fulfilled by Israel or by anyone else – until the coming of Jesus of Nazareth.

The NT confirms this in both Matthew and in Luke. When Matthew calls this the work of the Holy Spirit to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy, we also can see that Matthew’s endorsement of the inspiration of Scripture. Matthew knew that what was predicted would come about. God never fails to keep his promise, and our lives still rest on that living truth. The Bible is always true, and while all other sources fail, God’s Word will not.

Matthew tells us this repeatedly in this first chapter of the Gospel:

1. In v. 18, Mary was “with child” before she and Joseph “came together.”

2. In v. 20, what Mary was carrying was “conceived . . . of the Holy Spirit.”

3. In v. 23, the fulfilled prophecy predicted that a “virgin” would be with child.

4. In v. 25, Joseph “kept her a virgin” until Jesus was born.

Yet despite the clarity of the biblical record, it remains an article of faith among skeptics that this could never have happened. Previous and present liberals guffaw at this gospel truth. They often identify it as a fable, similar to mythological stories of procreation between humans and the gods. Even today these liberals still roll their eyes and chuckle at the mention of it. They reject it not because it is unclear or taught by an unreliable source. Liberals and skeptics reject this first truth because of their assumptions, and biases, their presuppositions. They don’t believe because of their own philosophy, which is valued more than God’s clear teaching.

This truth is not merely theoretical either. If we jettison the virgin birth, then several other key pillars of our gospel collapse.

1. The trust we have in Scripture is severely diminished if not altogether destroyed. If we cannot trust Isaiah’s prophecies and Matthew’s interpretation of them, then where and when can we trust the Bible? Some explain it away, saying that only certain parts of the Bible are inspired and reliable. But the scripture itself does not mark off reliable truth from relative truth.  All scripture is inspired by God.

Thousands of historical persons and events are mentioned in Scripture, and if those persons are not historical, then as Paul admits about the resurrection, we might as well retire the faith, for it would be little more than myth and we would be left in our sins. (1 Cor. 15:13-17).

2. Also, the belief that miracles are possible in general is threatened with a denial of the virgin birth. The supernatural origin of Christ clearly exceeds the norms of nature. That is why this is both so beautiful and so powerful. If God himself cannot suspend the laws he created, then those laws are greater than he is. Of course, the Almighty can trump nature. That is what a miracle is. Believers in all ages should be careful not to let a desire to fit in with the state of knowledge in our day to govern so much that we eliminate the category of miracle in the process. Rejecting the virgin birth is one way to become worldly and not rest in the truths of the Gospel.

3. Our faith in the dual nature of Christ may also be compromised. If the supernatural dimension of Christ’s birth is conceded then it is hard to retain faith both in his full deity and in his sinless humanity. This kind of supernatural birth is necessary to preserve both the full humanity and the full deity of our Lord. He shares our nature—totally—but did not choose to sin; he receives full deity from his divine paternity. The virgin birth is essential for embracing Christ as our full and perfect Savior.

This is not a side issue. In the virgin birth we see the foundation of the whole gospel. We see the supernatural intervention of a gracious God who brings his Son into the world, uniting him to human flesh, that he might save us from our sin.

So, this is taught in the Bible as one of the first truths of the first gospel.

The virgin birth is also confessed in creeds and throughout Christian history in the major confessions. The early church held to this; so did the Medieval church. The Church of the Reformation certainly held this doctrine to be unquestionable.

When the virgin birth is rejected, it is normally discounted for one of two reasons:

1. It is not in our experience; or
2. It requires miracles.

However, true biblical faith embraces miracles and is not limited to our experience.

So what is at stake? Simply put:

If you throw out miracles, and you throw out our biblical faith.

If you reject the virgin birth this affects the deity of Christ: It was God’s method of combining human and divine nature in the Messiah.

How we respond to miracles is also connected with our view of creation. If we can believe in creation—and it is clearly taught all throughout the Bible—then miracles can be seen as lesser creative events. Since there is an all-provident Creator, and since this magnificent world did not self-produce, then it is not hard to accept smaller, individual miracles like the virgin birth.

It becomes clear that if Jesus’ birth were purely natural, then he would have inherited sin just like all others have; he would himself need redemption from sin. And if Jesus had a natural birth, he could not be the Redeemer to give his life as a substitutionary atonement.

Jesus had dual parentage but is one person. Mary passed on his full humanity; God the Father passed on his full Deity. He has both natures and this was necessary to be the only Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5). There is no other birth like this; and there is a reason for this.

To be our Savior the Messiah had to be a man, because only man could die for the sins of the human race. The wages of our sin is death (Rom. 6:23) and that penalty must be paid either by the sinner or by an acceptable substitute. But that substitute must himself be without sin. Furthermore, he must be more than a man to die for the sins of the whole human race. He must be God in human flesh.

J. Gresham Machen summarized well at the end of his classic, The Virgin Birth of Christ:

How, except by the virgin birth, could our Savior have lived a complete human life from the mother’s womb, and yet have been from the very beginning no product of what had gone before, but a supernatural Person come into the world from the outside to redeem the sinful race? We may not, indeed, set limits to the power of God; we cannot say what God might or might not have done. Yet we can say at least that no other way can be conceived by us. Deny or give up the story of the virgin birth, and inevitably you are led to evade either the high Biblical doctrine of sin or else the full Biblical presentation of the supernatural Person of our Lord.[1]

The virgin birth is also a wonderful picture of the new birth that God offers to every sinner. The initiative and power are totally from God. Mary could do nothing except passively trust what God would do for her. She couldn’t offer her best efforts, she didn’t need to promise to strive and exert her effort to carry the Messiah. She models faith when she simply says, “Be it done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). God did it all. You cannot save yourself by your own efforts. All one can do is receive what God has done in Christ.

Let this stunning biblical truth, exhibited so clearly in the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel, lead us to:

• Wonder—that God is so great.
• Praise—that God is so wise.
• Love for miracle—nothing can stop God.
• Liberation—from our sin by the Only One who can save us.