The acquainted Christmas story tells us that Jesus was conceived in a human mom with none human father—that He was conceived by “the ability of the Most Excessive” (Luke 1:35). Many trendy individuals object that such an occasion is an impossibility. Even some Christians try and downplay the significance of Mary’s virginity within the Gospel accounts.
However the Bible additionally makes clear that the way of Christ’s conception isn’t any mere story. Luke, as an illustration, wrote his Gospel after a strategy of cautious investigation of eyewitness accounts (Luke 1:1–3). As a doctor, he understood the birds and the bees. Nonetheless, he stories the virgin conception as a reality confirmed by those that skilled it. In actual fact, it’s a touchstone that reveals our fascinated with the complete story of the Gospel and the way the ability of God works on this planet.
A Marginal Doctrine?
Many purportedly Christian thinkers pronounce the doctrine of the virgin conception each unfaithful and pointless. They argue that if we’re to convey the Gospel to an unbelieving world, we should abandon it as a useless stumbling block. The important factor, they are saying, is the Bible’s message of affection and the moral mandates of passages just like the Sermon on the Mount.
That is the theological equal of keyhole surgical procedure, as if we may make a small incision, take away this gallbladder of a doctrine, and be on our toes once more in a day or two. The tip end result will supposedly be a extra palatable model of Christianity. However each of these presuppositions—that the doctrine is definitely eliminated and that it’s going to make Christianity simpler to swallow—are questionable.
How far, in any case, does the logic prolong? The virgin conception could appear marginal—however the identical reasoning for dismissing it applies to the clearly central claims as effectively: “Infants will not be born of virgins—and really, lifeless males don’t come again to life. Why make individuals stumble over the problem of the resurrection?” Now our surgical procedure is eradicating the center, propping up a corpse, and calling it a residing religion.
That’s to not point out the folly of coming to the plain teachings of Scripture and trying to guage them marginal, due to this fact unimportant, due to this fact dispensable. The very fact of Mary’s virginity was necessary sufficient for God to inform us about it—really, for multiple Gospel author to place it down! (Along with Luke 1:35, see Matt. 1:18). On the very least, the virgin conception demonstrates that the kid in Mary’s womb was to be distinctive, alerts that He can be the achievement of prophecy (Matt. 1:22–23), and explains how He could be like us and but “with out sin” (Heb. 4:15).
If we preserve fashionably silent in regards to the virgin conception, in regards to the incarnation, in regards to the atonement, in regards to the resurrection, we are going to find yourself peeling the onion of Christian doctrine all the way down to nonexistence, lowering our religion to an easy-to-swallow, bland, inoffensive, however in the end unsatisfying mess of pottage. Go to the church buildings which have tried to proclaim such a message, and you will see them largely emptying or already empty. There’s little shock {that a} gospel that confesses no miraculous energy on this planet would exhibit no miraculous energy to convey women and men into fellowship with God and with one another—particularly throughout the traces that more and more divide our fractured world.
No Tepid Protection
If some deserve blame for making an attempt to rid Christianity of the virgin conception, others ought to take duty for the limp protection they’ve provided for it. Evangelical Christianity is usually particularly responsible of answering the Bible’s critics with clichés or affirmations fairly than well-reasoned arguments.
We is not going to win individuals over to saving religion in Christ Jesus by dismissing their considerations fatuously or by ignoring their issues simply. Our pals and neighbors have severe questions in regards to the nature of Christianity, and understandably so. It might be silly for us to throw a doctrine just like the virgin conception away—however it might even be silly for us to faux there’s nothing stunning about discovering it arduous to imagine! We have to tackle our pals’ and neighbors’ doubts.
Lots of the trendy arguments towards the virgin conception have their roots within the philosophy of David Hume, who posited that earlier than accepting that an occasion passed off previously, we should be persuaded that it nonetheless takes place within the current. That is the philosophy of empiricism, which tells us to imagine solely what’s demonstrable by experimentation. If an occasion is repeatable, it’s verifiable. The virgin conception (to not point out the resurrection and each different miracle within the Bible) can’t be repeated below scientific statement—and so, on this view, it have to be doubted.
We is not going to win individuals over to saving religion in Christ Jesus by dismissing their considerations fatuously or by ignoring their issues simply.
Luke the doctor knew very effectively that he couldn’t repeat the virgin conception, nor the resurrection, nor any of the opposite miracles. They had been distinctive historic occasions, intrusions into the conventional order of issues. In the event that they weren’t, there can be little level in recording them. If Jesus had been simply one other man born to a Galilean couple who someday died and stayed lifeless, what sort of excellent news would which have been?
The empiricist doubts miracles as a result of they’re unrepeatable, however the argument is in the end round. It attracts the premise from the conclusion: “Virgin conceptions don’t occur; due to this fact, Jesus was not conceived of a virgin.” However you can not say they by no means occur until you could have already determined that, for Jesus, it didn’t occur. For those who solely want to say that they don’t usually occur—great! On that we will all agree.
For our personal half, we can’t start with the conclusion. As an alternative, we go to our supply of fact, God’s Phrase, which makes these claims about Jesus, and we topic it to the sort of testing that such distinctive claims deserve. We think about the well-documented textual reliability and historic veracity of the New Testomony. We think about the credibility of the apostolic claims, usually made towards the reputational pursuits of these making them. We think about the private and social transformation that drove the expansion of the church in its early days. We think about, too, the ability of the message in our personal lives—within the cleaning of our consciences and the renewing of our minds. How are we to account for this stuff if not for the God-Man getting into our world to one thing distinctive in all of historical past?
After which, once we come to the virgin conception, we should say, “Such issues don’t usually occur—however it’s the similar with the whole lot within the story of Christ! ‘If Jesus Christ be God and died for me,’ no declare the Bible makes to me can ever be too unbelievable.”
Childlike Belief
The important situation of coming to grasp difficult doctrines just like the virgin conception isn’t our sophistication however our simplicity. The rationale that many stay in unbelief is that they’re ready for each doctrine to fall into line in such a method that there isn’t a embarrassment for believing each.
However this isn’t, we should admit, the best way of Jesus. He mentioned that God has “hidden this stuff from the sensible and understanding and revealed them to little youngsters” (Matt. 11:25; Luke 10:21). The one who says, “I’m far too sensible to just accept that,” is definitely, in a method, proper: No man or lady will ever come to religion till they’ve come like a toddler (Matt. 18:3)—not in infantile ignorance however in childlike belief—and cried with the person in Mark 9, “I imagine; assist my unbelief!” (v. 24).
The important situation of coming to grasp difficult doctrines just like the virgin conception isn’t our sophistication however our simplicity.
In our sophistication, allow us to not abandon what the Phrase of God has put to us plainly—whether or not the virgin conception or another doctrine. If we’ve come to belief God with our very salvation, our everlasting souls, certainly we will belief Him on wonders comparable to this.
This text was tailored from the sermon “The Angel and the Virgin — Half One” by Alistair Begg.
