CAN WE STILL BELIEVE IN THE VIRGIN BIRTH?
by Eldridge L. Miller Vol. IX, No. 2, February 1996
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Sallisaw, OK
[This is the annual sermon preached to the 1995 Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma meeting at Edmond, First. Messengers voted to print the sermon manuscript in its entirety. It is reprinted from The Baptist Messenger, the paper of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.]
With a feeling of inadequacy, but with gratitude that you have honored me with this privilege, I stand before you to ask a question: "Can we still believe in the Virgin Birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?" And by this I refer to His virginal conception and subsequent birth from the womb of a Jewish virgin whose name was Mary.
To ask this question is to imply that belief in such a birth has been a tenet of the Christian faith over the centuries, so, to begin at the beginning, let us consider, first:
I. The Biblical Basis for Belief.
The passage read by Brother Wade (Burleson) just a few moments ago (Matt. 1:18-25), clearly reveals that Matthew intended to report such a birth. He stated that before the betrothed couple, Mary and Joseph, were married, she was made pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. Matthew did not mention Gabriel's visit to Mary, as Luke did, but he did write of an angel of the Lord visiting Joseph, assuring him that Mary had not been unfaithful to her betrothal and that he should proceed with his plan to marry her. He further stated that this had come to pass in order to fulfill a prediction made by the prophet, Isaiah, centuries before. He, then, reported that Mary and Joseph did not physically consummate their marriage until after Jesus was born.
I fail to comprehend how it is possible to read this passage and conclude anything other than that Matthew recorded a miraculous virgin birth through the intervention of God, Himself.
In Luke, chapter 1, verse 26 and following, this gospel author and historian wrote that an angel, Gabriel by name, visited the village of Nazareth to inform a virgin named Mary that she had been chosen by God to give birth to His Son. Mary, being a virgin, reacted with awe and disbelief. "How will this be," she asked, "since I am a virgin?" Gabriel explained that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her so the Holy One to be born would be the Son of God! "He shall be called," said Gabriel," the Son of the Most High. The Lord will give to Him the throne of His father, David," and He will reign over the never-ending kingdom of God!
Here, Mary was faced with a dilemma. If she, an unmarried maiden, lived through a beclouded pregnancy and gave birth to a child, the collective tongue of Nazareth would never stop wagging. Further, Joseph would possess the legal right to expose her pregnancy and have her stoned. And beside these things, according to Deuteronomy 23, she would become a temple outcast and for ten generations her descendants could have no part in temple worship.
Would she risk sacrificing her marriage, her social status, her family, and possibly, her very life? The answer is yes, she did. Her response was a total abandonment of self-interest, and in an act of complete commitment to God's will for her life and future, she responded: "I am the Lord's servant, may it be to me as you have said."
Later, in Luke 3:23, he gave the genealogy of Jesus, and began by stating that Jesus was the "supposed" son of Joseph, obviously making it clear that Jesus was not the biological son of Joseph.
Again, can anyone read this testimony of the inspired writer, Luke, and fail to understand that Gabriel promised Mary, a Jewish virgin of Nazareth, she would miraculously conceive and bear a son, the very Son of God, who was to be given the name, Jesus? To conclude otherwise is to reject the biblical record because of ignorance, prejudice, or unbelief.
Was Jesus aware of the nature of His birth? It is true, Jesus never used the word "virgin" to describe His birth. He never used any words at all. He never mentioned His birth in all His teaching. However, some things He did say make it patently obvious that He knew from whence and how He took the form of flesh.
For example, at age 12, Jesus was accidentally left in Jerusalem when His family began their trek back to Nazareth. Joseph and Mary went back to search for Him and found Him in the temple having discussions with the teachers there. His troubled but relieved mother exclaimed, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been searching for you!" Jesus asked, "Didn't you know that I had to be in my Father's house?", or in the words of the King James, "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" In this response, Jesus made it clear He knew that God, in whose house He was and whose business He was about, was His real father, and not Joseph. (Luke 2:41-50)
Once, to the Pharisees, Jesus said: "My Father is always at work to this very day, and I, too, am working." Something about the way Jesus phrased this caused the Pharisees to conclude that Jesus was claiming God as His only Father, for John reported that "For this reason the Jews tried to kill Him; not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God," (John 5:18).
Also, to the Pharisees a bit later, Jesus said: "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world," (John 8:23). To this they inquired, just "Who are you?" Jesus replied, "Just what I have been claiming all along." Later, He said, "Why is my language not clear to you?" (John 8:43). They, however, seemed to understand His claim of an unusual birth, for they retorted, "we were not born of fornication," clearly implying that Jesus was. And, indeed, if Jesus were not virgin born, He was a child of fornication!
In challenging the virgin birth, some argue from the silence of Paul on the subject, that it must not be true, or important at all. However, Paul did not mention Jesus' baptism, His parables nor any of His miracles. On the basis of "argument from silence," one could conclude that Paul did not believe any of these things which he chose not to write about.
However, to say that Paul knew nothing of the virgin birth is a baseless assumption. Luke, who researched and reported on Jesus' miraculous birth, was a missionary traveling companion of Paul in many of his travels. To opine that Luke never broached this subject to Paul is an incredible assertion, indeed! In fact, a case can be made that Luke penned much of his Gospel while in Caesarea where Paul spent two years in prison. Paul never described Jesus' birth, but he made it clear that he knew. Why, if he knew not, did he write that Jesus was "made of a woman," and say nothing of a paternal father? In fact, he used the Greek word, "ge-nom-e-non," in preference to "gen-na-o," which, if used, would tend to associate the husband with the birth. He also said that Jesus was not just born, but was, according to A. T. Robertson, a "preexisting" God-sent Son! About this passage in Galatians 4, Robertson wrote: "Whatever view one holds about Paul's knowledge of the virgin birth, one must admit that Paul believed in His actual personal preexistence with God, not a mere existence in idea. The fact of the virgin birth agrees perfectly with the language here."
In Romans 1, Paul also said that Jesus was, "as to his human nature a descendant of David," but "was declared with power to be the Son of God" by the Spirit. Jesus truly was a descendant of David, but through Mary, and not Joseph, because God had declared, in Jeremiah 22, that no descendant of Jehoiakim would ascend to the throne of David. Now, Joseph was a descendant of Jehoiakim, and Jesus would have been, too, if Joseph had been His biological father. So, if Jesus were not virgin born, and if Joseph had been His real father, then Jesus was, by the fiat of God, disqualified to assume David's throne and be the God-sent Messiah, as Gabriel promised Mary!
The New Testament designations of Jesus as "God, manifest in the flesh," (I Timothy 3:16), as "the express image of the invisible God," (Colossians 1:15), as "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His Being," (Hebrews 1:3), and as the one who is now sitting "at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven," (Hebrews 1:3), are highly inappropriate for a solely human illegitimate offspring!
Following the New Testament period, a number of early church fathers attested to their belief in the virgin birth, including Ignatius of Antioch, circa 110 A.D., as did Tertullian, Aristides, Irenaeus, and others. Justin Martyr said it was a cardinal item of Christian belief. Jerome not only believed in the virgin birth, but stretched the idea to argue for Mary's perpetual virginity.
The Apostles' Creed, an early extra biblical document, though in the Latin text consisting of only 75 words, yet affirms that "Jesus Christ ... our Lord, was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary." Bernard Ramm cites Philip Schaff, who, in his book, The Creeds of Christendom, lists 11 creeds which were built upon the Apostles' Creed, nine of which affirm the virgin birth. According to James Orr, "The early church, in all its branches, held this doctrine," and the virgin birth "has stood from the beginning in the forefront of all the great creeds of Christendom." Karl Barth vigorously defended the virgin birth, though Emil Brunner denied its reality, calling it "inconsequential." Almost all our Baptist confessions of faith attest to belief in the virgin birth, and our Baptist Faith and Message records that "in His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary." Let us move on to examine:
II. The Opponents of Orthodoxy, the Foes of the Faith.
To ask the question, "Can we still believe in the virgin birth," is also to suggest the doctrine has come under vicious attack which requires us to reaffirm and defend this precious truth against all foes. Along the way there have been those both without and within the Christian communion who have denied and opposed belief in the virgin birth. Cerinthus, a contemporary of the Apostle John, denied the supernatural conception of Christ, His bodily resurrection, and several other cardinal doctrines, and was so hateful in his attacks that it was said the great apostle of love would not even speak to him, and would leave the room if Cerinthus entered it.
The Talmud, early in the second century, stated that Jesus was actually the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier by the name of Pandira. Celsus, a Greek philosopher, circa 170 AD., used this story to deny the virgin birth, as did Voltaire and Tolstoi. In the past and present, such scholars as Emil Brunner, Rudolph Bultmann, Paul Tillich, Nels Ferre, John Baillie, and others have openly denied the virgin birth. Harry Emerson Fosdick said: "Of course I don't believe in the virgin birth, and I hope you don't either." Matthew Arnold stated: "I do not believe in the virgin birth, for that would imply a miracle, and miracles do not happen." Hugh Schoenfeld, in his best seller, The Passover Plot, wrote:
"The virgin birth is a myth. The myth takes the reader out of this world of sober reality into the world of myth ... The church in its ancient zeal fathered a myth and became bound to it as dogma."
Bishop Robinson said "the virgin birth is a story on the level of an Andy Capp comic. It is true only in the imagination."
Cecil Sherman, CEO of the CBF, while claiming personal belief in the virgin birth, also said: "A teacher who might also be led by Scripture not to believe in the virgin birth should not be fired. It is in two Gospels, but not in two others. Did Mark and John make a mistake by forgetting to list it? If the virgin birth is desperately important, Mark and John must have erred.”
To which Morris Chapman responded: "It is unthinkable to me that anyone who does not believe Jesus Christ to be virgin conceived and virgin-born would ever be allowed to teach in one of our Southern Baptist institutions."
O.S. Hawkins also replied to Sherman's statement: "Friend, how can one be led by Scripture not to believe in the virgin birth, and how can any Southern Baptist leader, in the most historic sense, question the importance of the virgin birth?"
However, since Sherman has testified that he does not believe in biblical inerrancy, and that such belief is the moderate position, it might be a bit easier for him to decide that a professor might be led not to believe that which is so clearly affirmed in Holy Writ!
The other night I tuned in to the Arts and Entertainment Network which was showing a two-part documentary on the life of Christ. The narrator began by saying that practically all the reliable information we have on the life of Christ is to be found in the four Gospels of the New Testament, and then, seemingly forgetting what he had just said, sallied forth to opine that Jesus was the human child of Joseph and Mary; that He was not born in Bethlehem, but in Mary's home town of Nazareth; that He was not a carpenter as a young man, but was probably a stone mason, and that He had no thoughts of being the Messiah until after the experience of His baptism. At that, wanting to watch something a bit more believable, I switched the channel to championship wrestling!
A few years ago, a survey taken by the magazine Christianity Today revealed that the virgin birth is denied by 60 percent of the Methodists, 49 percent of the Presbyterians, 44 percent of the Episcopalians, 34 percent of American Baptists, and 19 percent of American Lutherans. A similar poll, taken by Redbook magazine, of Protestant seminaries, both professors and students, and Protestant preachers found that only 56 percent believed in the virgin birth of Christ.
There is a pseudo-intellectual group of scholars known as the Jesus Seminar, founded in California in 1985. The task they have set for themselves is to determine just what in the Gospels about Jesus is true and what is false. Meeting twice a year, they read position papers to one another and then vote about the incidents in the life of Christ which are up for discussion. Previously, they have decided that only 18 percent of the sayings of Jesus are actually His. They have already decided that Jesus did not compose the Lord's Prayer, nor did He predict the end of the world or His return. About a year ago, they met and made decisions relative to Christ's birth.
Here are their "findings":
--Jesus did not descend from King David, and the genealogies in the Gospels are fabrications.
--Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, and the visit of the wise men did not happen.
--Christ's birth date cannot be firmly established, but it most likely did not happen at the time of the census spoken of by Luke.
--Herod the Great may have been alive when Jesus was born, but the slaughter of the infants reported by Matthew did not happen.
--Mary was not a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus, but they disagreed on whether the biological father was Joseph.
Daryl Schmidt, a scholar from Texas Christian University, and a spokesman for the group, stated that "the virgin birth as a historical event did not happen ... (and) that a close reading of the Gospel accounts suggests the writers never intended to say Jesus was born of a virgin." Such a conclusion reminds me of C. S. Lewis' caricature of some New Testament scholars when he avowed that "they claim to see fern seed and can't see an elephant 10 yards away in broad daylight!" And it makes one wonder just what the capital "C" now stands for in T.C.U.! Now, don't disparage and think you must jettison everything you believe about Jesus. These "scholars" not only cannot read, they cannot count, either, for they have published a book, entitled, The Five Gospels!
If Jesus was not virgin-born then we have to drastically change the way we celebrate Christmas! No more of this:
"Silent night, holy night, All is calm, All is bright,
Round yon Virgin, mother and child,
Holy infant so tender and mild..."
For indeed, if the skeptics be right, it is not a holy night or holy child which we celebrate. How untrue to sing of Jesus as the "offspring of a virgin's womb." It is equally untrue, if the "scholars" be right, to sing, "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity," or to sing:
"There's a tumult of joy o'er the wonderful birth,
For the Virgin's sweet boy is the Lord of the earth."
With joy which I cannot express, I am so glad that the skeptics are wrong and the Holy Bible is correct when it speaks of the Holy Child!
I conclude now by speaking of:
III. Afftrmations, Assurances and Adoration.
Many of our trusted leaders have spoken out clearly and definitively about this glorious doctrine which we hold so dear to our hearts. In recent years, W. A. Criswell, Adrian Rogers, and Jerry Vines have published sermons defending this cherished belief.
That evangelical and scholarly pastor from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., James Kennedy, in a sermon championing the virgin birth, listed 15 ancillary or derivative teachings which are dependent upon the virgin birth and which would be untrue if Jesus were not virgin born. Said Kennedy: If Jesus were not virgin-born:
1. The New Testament narratives are untrue.
2. Mary is stained with sin, the sin of unchastity.
3. Jesus was mistaken His entire life about His own paternity.
4. Christ was not born of "the seed of the woman" and is not the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy (given in Gen. 3:15).
5. Jesus was, then, an illegitimate child.
6. Jesus is, consequently, not the Godman, or Son of God.
7. He was, then, a sinner like the rest of us.
8. He is not the divine Redeemer, and therefore,
9. We have no Savior at all.
10. We are yet in our sins and need forgiveness.
11. We have no hope after death.
12. There is no mediator between God and man.
13. If there is no second Person of the Trinity, there is no Trinity.
14. Christ should have, on the cross, prayed, "Father, forgive us," not "forgive them," for He was a sinner, too.
15. If this miracle is denied, why not deny them all? Where, indeed, may we draw the line?
Adrian Rogers once preached: "I wouldn't give you half a hallelujah for your chances of Heaven if you deny the virgin birth."
W. A. Criswell asked this question: "What happened in Bethlehem on that first Christmas night? It was simply this: God in infinite mercy, in the fullness of time, came down from above and took upon Himself our nature ... Jesus was born of the womb of the Virgin Mary in a creative act of God, by which God broke through the human generation and brought the world a supernatural Being."
C. S. Lewis, as only he could iterate it, expressed it like this: "No woman ever conceived a child, no mare a foal, without Him (God). But once, and only once, and for a special purpose, He dispensed with that long line which is His instrument: once the great glove of Nature was taken off His hand. His naked hand touched her. There was of course a unique reason for it. That time He was not simply creating a man but the Man who was to be Himself: was creating Man anew: was beginning, at this divine and human point, the New Creation of all things. The whole soiled and weary universe quivered at this direct injection of essential life, not drained through all the crowded history of Nature."
And Robert G. Lee, who gave the designation "silver tongued orator" its real meaning but who was also a mighty proclaimer of gospel truth, used his fertile brain and facile pen to write:
"A virgin irreproachable! A virgin having found favor with God! A virgin and the holy thing born of her was the Son of God! Event that has occurred once, and only once, one marvelous once, in the history of the world ... His supernatural birth is the Alpha of our Christian faith. Let that be accepted and the whole alphabet follows as a matter of course. Deny it and, like a planet that leaves its orbit, there is no telling where unbelief will carry you. The virgin birth is the seal of God's approval affixed to the claims of Jesus as His only begotten Son!"
Imagine a Bible conference where, one after another, Bill Tanner, Charles Graves, Anthony Jordan, Rod Masteller, Keith Russell, Alan Day, and Sam Pace would stand and spout such blasphemy, such sacrilege, such devilish unbelief, as to sully the pristine pure and holy name of our precious Savior by denying His miraculous conception by the power of the Holy Spirit and His holy birth from the womb of a pure and chaste virgin whose name was Mary.
You don't need to attempt to imagine it because it will never happen. And why not? Because these men and hundreds of pastors across this state like them believe that the Bible is gloriously genuine, immaculately inerrant, markedly marvelous, perfectly pure, and purely perfect, radiantly royal, simply sure, totally trustworthy, unadulterated, unalloyed, unblemished, uncontaminated, undefiled, undiluted, undiminished, unexcelled, unfading, unpolluted, untarnished, unvarying, and is the ultimately unsullied Word of the living God and they never, could never deny what this blessed Book affirms!
The foes of our faith from without and the saboteurs from within may be willing to settle for a Jesus who was the product of premarital promiscuity or the bastard son of a Jewish trollop; not me, and not you, either, because we worship, serve, and defend the integrity of the One who is "the root and offspring of David," whom David called, "Lord," and who, Thomas, prostrate before Him cried out, "My Lord and my God."
We adore "the lily of the valley and the bright and morning star," the One who was before Abraham, before Adam, and before all things, who entered this sin-permeated and sin-cursed world through the womb of a Virgin, the One who is the "same, yesterday, today, and forever," the One who scooped out the valleys and piled up the mountains, but who deigns to reside in our hearts, the One who now sits at the right hand of the Majesty on High," but who has promised to "come again and receive us unto Himself," and who will come in miraculous power and with great glory to "sit upon the throne of His glory" and to reign as "King of kings and Lord of lords."
To this one, and no other, I exclaim, "All hail the power of Jesus' name, let angels Prostrate fall, bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all," to Him and Him, alone, be honor, power, glory, and majesty, both now and forever, amen and amen!