Isaiah 7:14

Matthew 1:18-23

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. 19And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to put her away secretly. 20But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21"And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins." 22Now all this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, 23"Behold, the virgin shall be with CHILD, AND SHALL BEAR A Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which translated means, "God with us."

Introduction: There’s a quote from author Max Lucado that always challenges me at Christmas. It’s from his wonderful book God Came Near. He describes in very graphic language the uniqueness of Jesus’ birth as well as the mystery that surrounds it. He writes, "The omnipotent, in one instant, made himself breakable. He who had been spirit became pierceable. He who was larger then the universe became an embryo. And he who sustains the world with a word chose to be dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl. God as a fetus, Holiness sleeping in a womb. The Creator of life being created. God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen. He stretched and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother. God had come near." (Max Lucado, God Came Near) Those words echo the words of one of the early church fathers, Ephraim of Syria writing in 350 AD, "Glory to the Great One, whose Son descended and was made small. Glory to the power who confined His greatness in human form, His unseen nature in human shape." (Discipleship Journal, Issue 114, "Blessed Be That Child")

Regardless of the century, the birth of Jesus at Christmas has always been a mystery to humanity. Even rock singer Joan Osbourne wrote some years ago, "What if God were one of us? Just a stranger on the bus. Just a slob like one of us trying to find his way home?" That question, "What if God was one of us?" was foretold in the prophecy of Isaiah almost 2700 years ago and fulfilled by Jesus being conceived seven centuries later in Mary’s womb without the aid of a human father. We call it the Virgin Birth and the circumstances that surround that birth have not been duplicated by any other person.

We discovered in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:16 that Jesus birth could not be traced physically to Joseph. The New Testament affirms what the Old Testament promised that the Messiah was conceived and born in a way unlike anyone before or after that time. That his birth would be and was truly unique. You see the reason that a human father is missing is that Jesus was miraculously conceived in the womb of Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit before she ever had sexual relations with a man.

This event was the result of a promise God made through the prophet Isaiah, fulfilled in the birth of Jesus and lives today as the miracle of Christmas. There is no doubt that this promise is difficult to grasp for our modern minds. We ask, "Could it really be true?" We discover, however, that we are not the first to ask because Mary was the first to question. She said to the Angel Gabriel, when told she would "conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus" (Luke 1:31 NASV), her response was, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" (Luke 1:34, NASV). So let’s spend some time this morning looking at circumstances that can’t be duplicated in his birth discovering what the meaning is for us today.

It is significant that Matthew, without any hesitancy, saw the fulfillment of this 700 year-old prophecy in the birth of Jesus (Matt. 1:22-23). Yet to grasp the clear fulfillment of the promise we need to understand the circumstances surrounding it.

You see at the time of this prophecy, Isaiah’s tiny nation, Judah, was faced with war from two powerful nations to the north, Syria and Israel. It would be the quivalent of over twenty divisions of an enemy force camped just over the Canadian border. Ahaz, who was king at the time, has gone out of the city of Jerusalem to inspect the defenses of the city. Isaiah finds him and tells him that his ultimate trust must be in God, not in his own strength or power (Isa. 7:4-11). When Ahaz protests that he would not dare to try or tempt God’s power (Isa.7:12), Isaiah promises that God’s answer to humanity’s battles would be a baby. He said, "Listen now, O house of David! Is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God as well? 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." (Isaiah 7:13-14)

Much has been debated about what that promise meant and especially the means or method of that promise’s fulfillment. The argument revolves around the Hebrew word "almah" which we translate as the word "virgin." Some claim the word should be translated "young woman" or "maiden," implying that the word would mean a married young woman. If translated this way it would negate the force of the word as being a prophecy about Jesus’ miraculous birth. To date, however, no one has produced a clear context, either in Hebrew or any other ancient near eastern language of that day, where the word "virgin" can be applied to a married woman.

What this meant to Ahaz was that the promise would not be merely fulfilled in his own son but in God’s own son, "Immanuel, God with us."(Matt.1:23) Ahaz would die and seven hundred years of time would roll by until this promise would be fulfilled. The birth of Jesus to Mary would be the "sign" that God alone can and will save his people. The promise of 2700 years ago that the solution to our battles would be a baby is our hope at Christmas.

The birth stories found in Matthew and Luke are similar yet independent from each other. Matthew writes from the viewpoint of Joseph with few details as to how the birth would occur except that it is by the work of the Holy Spirit. Luke does the same but presents Mary as the key witness to the miraculous birth. Without many details, the Angel makes it clear that the birth will not come about by the ordinary method of human generation but by a totally unparalleled action of the Holy Spirit.

This is recorded three times in the birth narratives of Jesus:

Matthew 1:18

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 1:20

But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 1:35

And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God.

It was not only the writers Matthew and Luke who affirmed this miracle but the rest of the New Testament does also. Mark, John and Paul do not dispute it but accepted it as fact. The early church affirmed it also. They continually came back to defending the challenges to Jesus not being born in a miraculous way. The Jews themselves tried to defame this in the centuries following the birth of Jesus.

However, in spite of the evidence to support such a birth, there are many today who do more than wonder, they deny that Jesus’ birth was any different from another. They say:

• It is like other stories in pagan literature. Yet there is no other record of a divine being born of a virgin.
• It is only a legend and must be understood correctly.
• The New Testament writers created it to link up with Old Testament history and prophecy. In other words it is merely a vehicle to get us from the Old Testament to the New Testament.
• Just something the early church believed and we know better now.
• Joseph and Mary didn’t understand the laws of nature. That argument falls apart in the New Testament records themselves. Joseph and Mary both knew enough biology to say they didn’t understand how this was supposed to happen.
• Some will believe in other miracles but not the Virgin birth. My question is, "Why pick and choose?"

How do we explain the unique birth of Jesus Christ? We will never know completely "how." It is and ever shall be a mystery. Yet we understand it by understanding the process of normal human generation. The conception of a child begins when a specific microscopic particle of a man’s body and a specific microscopic particle of a woman’s body are connected. In this case God took a short cut. This time God did it directly! C.S. Lewis said, "Jesus was conceived when God took off the glove of nature and touched Mary with his naked finger. Thus, Jesus did not evolve up and out of history." (C. S. Lewis, quoted by Vic Pentz, "On Beyond Zebra," Preaching Today, Tape No. 63.)

Such a unique birth was the means by which he chose to allow "Immanuel," to be "God with us!" It was not so that he would be sinless which would imply that Mary was without sin. It was not the only way God could have done it. I mean he could have arranged it so that Jesus would be born to a good father and a good mother. The problem here is he would have been all human. He could have created Jesus like he did the angels but then he would have been all-divine. He could have borrowed a body but then that body would not have been his own. What God did was allow himself to be born through the means of a virgin so that he would be God himself and Jesus himself. This was the best way for us to clearly understand the unique mission of Jesus Christ. The unique mission of Jesus points back to a unique birth.

Thomas Merton said, "For in Christ God is made man. In him God and man are no longer separate, remote from one another, but inseparably one, unconfused and yet indivisible." (New Seeds of Contemplation, p.150) The gospels tell it as a fact. It is a mystery that will never fully be understood. Yet it is not so much the fact of the unique birth as it is the purpose of the unique mission and what that means for us.

So what? What does this mean for me? You see, one thing that the truth of the Virgin Birth teaches us is it is evidence of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. This means that Jesus is God’s only, unique, particular, divine Son of God. He is not as the Mormans believe "our elder brother." Mormons believe Jesus is the spiritual and physical offspring of God and Mary procreating. Jesus is the example of what they can become. Nor is he the "a god" as the Jehovah Witness’s teach, meaning that Jesus is more angel than equal with God.

It also tells us that our salvation is supernatural. Matthew 1:21 says, "And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins." This tells us that when it comes to our sinful, rebellious life that God did it all. In John 3:5-6, Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Our salvation is not by our abilities. We were helpless to even introduce the Savior into our world. So what God does for us is incapable of being done by any human—it is supernatural.

Still the Virgin Birth is a reminder that our salvation is a gift of grace. God chose Mary for the task of being the womb in which this miracle would occur but he chose her – by grace. In Luke 1:28 and then again in verse 30 the Angel tells Mary, "Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you…Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God." Those words "favored one" and "found favor" mean graced one or the one who has found grace. God chose Mary not on the basis of her own efforts but because of his grace. When ever a person tells you that in order for God to accept you and they basically say, "Jesus is fine but "We must," "We must, "We must…" you can know that their faith is not based on grace. You want to say, "Aren’t you tired of trying to make God like you?" Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast." The uniqueness of Jesus points to a supernatural salvation and that God would chose a poor woman to enter into our world – grace!!

But finally the Virgin Birth is a reminder that our God is an awesome God. There are many miraculous births recorded in Scripture using human fathers. Yet how much more this birth. Mary was told when she doubted, "For nothing shall be impossible with God."(Luke 1:37) That He could and would do this impossible thing tells me what an awesome God He is! Any expression of spirituality that goal is for all of us to become better people falls short of God’s intention. He wants to save us from the penalty of our sins not merely make more tolerable. The Virgin Birth is evidence that the God we know, who came into the world as a baby, is an awesome God for whom nothing is impossible!

Conclusion: Ravi Zacharias, in "Questions I Would Like to Ask God," writes: "I have often referenced the quote by the talk show host Larry King, in his response to a particular question: "If you could select any one person across all of history to interview, who would it be?" Mr. King's answer was that he would like to interview Jesus Christ. When the questioner followed with, "And what would you like to ask him?" King replied, "I would like to ask him if he was indeed virgin-born. The answer to that question would define history for me." Ravi Zacharias then writes that when he requested permission through a common friend to quote Larry King, King sent word saying, "And tell him I was not being facetious." (Ravi Zacharias, "Questions I Would Like to Ask God," Just Thinking Winter,1998)

God becoming an embryo, a fetus, floating in amniotic fluid. This mystery occurs all without a human father, to display His uniqueness, His supernatural ability to save us from our sins, His grace and His awesome power. Do you need to see the mystery again…? What place does His awesome power need revealing for you?

He is God, with us!

Sunday, December 15, 2002

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

[email protected]