Some years ago, the liberal cultural commentator Garry Wills was complaining about what he saw as the fundamentalist religious bent of the American population. What prompted this was an election not going the way Wills thought it should have. He was not happy, to put it mildly. In order to prove how unhinged and stupid Americans are, he chose an interesting example. Richard John Neuhaus wrote of Wills’ argument:

[Wills’] clinching argument…is the fact that more Americans believe in the virgin birth than in Darwinism. “Can a people that believes more fervently in the virgin birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?”[1]

Now, that is a most interesting question! Can you be an intelligent, enlightened person and believe in the virgin birth?

I want to answer that this morning with an emphatic “Yes!” In fact, I want to argue that if you are enlightened you will believe in the virgin birth, for it was taught in the scriptures, has been rightly heralded by the church, and is important to our understanding of who God is and what He has done for us in and through the person of His Son, Jesus.

The Bible teaches the virgin birth.

Let us begin with the most important question: Does scripture teach the virgin birth? Let us examine the evidence.

There are two primary gospel passages in which we find the virgin birth. They are in Matthew 1 and Luke 1. Let us begin with Matthew 1.

Matthew 1, beginning in verse 18, offers an interesting insight into Mary’s pregnancy with Jesus.

¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

There are two very important details listed here.

1. “before they came together”
2. “she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit”

Meaning, her pregnancy came about before she knew Joseph in a marital way. Secondly, the Holy Spirit, not Joseph, is specifically referenced as the agent of her pregnancy.

Then, in verse 20, we read:

²⁰ But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Here we find a third piece of evidence.

3. “that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit”

Here again, it is through the Holy Spirit that Mary is found to be with child.

Then, in verses 24 and 25, we read:

²⁴ When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, ²⁵ but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Here we find a fourth piece of evidence.

4. “but knew her not until she had given birth to a son”

“Knew her not” means here knowing in the sense of the physical act of marriage. They were not together “until she had given birth to a son.” The assumption, contra what some argue, is that after Jesus was born Joseph and Mary had a normal marriage with all that that entails. But not before.

So, this is the evidence from Matthew. What about from Luke’s account? Can we add to our list of evidences when we turn to Luke? Yes, we can. In Luke 1, we read:

²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” ²⁹ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰ And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” ³⁴ And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.

The evidence from Luke is:

5. And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
6. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”

Mary’s question in #5 reveals her knowledge of the ordinary course of things. She knows how these things happen and therefore she knows how very surprising Gabriel’s words are. And, in our sixth piece of evidence, the Holy Spirit and “the power of the Most High” are identified as the means by which this conception will happen.

Here, then, are six pieces of evidence from Matthew and Luke showing that the scriptures do teach the virgin birth. There is another piece of evidence in Matthew 1:23, but it is actually a quotation from Isaiah 7, so we are going to consider this seventh piece of evidence to be Old Testament in nature. In Isaiah 7, we read:

¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Now this passage has proven controversial because many point out that the word translated “virgin” here is the Hebrew word almah which can be translated “young woman.” In other words, they argue that this text should be rendered “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son…” But this is in no way a full-proof argument against the virgin birth for a number of reasons. Gerald Bray, for instance, points out three problems with this argument.

1. There would be nothing prophetic or even remarkable about a young woman giving birth. It happens all the time, and if that were all that was involved, how would anyone know which young woman the prophet had in mind?
2. In many societies, “youth” is defined for all practical purposes by puberty and sexual experience, especially in the case of women…If that was the case in ancient Israel, then “young woman” and “virgin” would have been synonymous.
3. The pre-Christian Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) uses the word parthenos (“virgin”) here, showing that this is how almah was understood at least two or three centuries before the birth of Jesus.[2]

This third point is very important. You will notice that when Matthew, in Matthew 1, quotes Isaiah 7:14, he clearly uses the word “virgin” and not “young woman.”

²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ²³ “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel”

This is because Matthew is quoting, as Bray pointed out, from what is called the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrews Old Testament scriptures. Adam Harwood, a Southern Baptist theologian in New Orleans, observes:

Matthew’s Gospel clarifies the matter because when quoting the text in Matthew 1:23, the author uses the same Greek word used by translators of the LXX [Septuagint] in 7:14, parthenos (Greek, “virgin”). If Matthew wanted to communicate that Mary was a young woman without making any assertions concerning her virginity, then he could have used another Greek word.[3]

There are two things to note here:

1. Matthew clearly and specifically uses the word for virgin (i.e., parthenos), not “young woman,” when he quotes Isaiah 7:14.
2. And he does so because he is quoting a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures that predates the Christian era. Meaning, the Septuagint simply cannot be accused of replacing the word out of any theological desires. More importantly, the fact that the Septuagint uses parthenos instead of almah is a strong piece of evidence that “virgin” is how almah should be read, and not merely “young woman.”

So, we can confidently add a seventh piece of evidence for the virgin birth from Isaiah 7:14.

7. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son.”

Are there other evidences in scripture for the virgin birth? None as explicit as the seven pieces I mention above. However, some see an insinuation of knowledge about questions surrounding Jesus’ birth in Mark 6. There, Jesus has returned to His hometown and has shocked the people with his teaching. In that context, we read:

^3 “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Some point to the fact of the townspeople calling Jesus “the son of Mary” as curious. Normally, in that culture and at that time, a person would have been referred to as the son of his father with his father being named. Joseph is not named. Mary is. Perhaps the rumors surrounding Jesus’ birth were still lingering about.

Regardless, we can say this with confidence: the scriptures teach the virgin birth of Jesus.

And yet, almost from the beginning, this beautiful doctrine has had its skeptics.

For instance, in the 2^nd century, the anti-Christian writer Celsus argued that Mary had an adulterous affair with a Roman soldier named Pantera.[4] James Leo Garrett writes:

…Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus (1761–1851)…identified the Holy Spirit with Mary’s imagination and held that a fanatical man Gabriel, not an angel, impregnated Mary.[5]

In modern times, in her book, The Illegitimacy of Jesus, Jane Schaberg argued that Mary was raped by a man. (She was then shocked to discover that the Catholic school she taught at in Detroit was unhappy with her!)[6] The late, radical feminist theologian Mary Daly argued that the biblical picture of the virgin birth makes Mary the victim of “a mind/spirit rape.”[7] And, as we saw in our opening, Garry Wills seems to think that intelligent, enlightened people simply cannot believe in a miracle like this!

This is tragic in the extreme. The word of God clearly asserts the virgin birth of Jesus. To reject it is to reject divine revelation that we desperately need!

The Bible does not give us greater insight into exactly how the Virgin Mary came to be with child.

This is a short point, but an important one. Simply put, the fact of the virgin birth is taught in scripture, but the details of exactly how this miracle comes to be are not given to us.

The baby is “from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18) and, again, “from the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20). The clearest picture is found in Luke 1:35.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you…

We are told nothing more. And that should be enough for us.

One idea we can rule out completely is the notion that the Holy Spirit of God came to Mary in some kind of physical form and impregnated her. That idea should be anathema to us. Why? Because, as we have seen, Mary was a virgin and remained so until her union with Joseph after the birth of Jesus. She was not physically known before Christ’s birth. What is more, such an idea would necessitate a doctrine of a full but momentary incarnation for the third person of the Trinity. That is, it would hinge upon the Holy Spirit becoming flesh for the conception, an idea utterly without scriptural warrant.

No, the virgin birth was a miracle and we should stand before it with a sense of awe, not with indelicate and inappropriate speculation.

The 4^th-century church father John Chrysostom positively lit into those who try speculate about how the virgin birth came to be. He considered it inappropriate, as should we all. Chrysostom said:

Do not speculate beyond the text. Do not require of it something more than what it simply says. Do not ask, “But precisely how was it that the Spirit accomplished this in a virgin?” For even when nature is at work, it is impossible fully to explain the manner of the formation of the person. How then, when the Spirit is accomplishing miracles, shall we be able to express their precise causes? Lest you should weary the writer or disturb him by continually probing beyond what he says, he has indicated who it was that produced the miracle. He then withdraws from further comment. “I know nothing more,” he in effect says, “but that what was done was the work of the Holy Spirit.”

            Shame on those who attempt to pry into the miracle of generation from on high! For this birth can by no means be explained, yet it has witnesses beyond number and has been proclaimed from ancient times as a real birth handled with human hands. What kind of extreme madness afflicts those who busy themselves by curiously prying into the unutterable generation? For neither Gabriel nor Matthew was able to say anything more, but only that the generation was from the Spirit. But how from the Spirit? In what manner? Neither Gabriel nor Matthew has explained, nor is it possible.[8]

To this, we should say, “Amen!”

The virgin birth matters.

We have discussed the is-ness of the virgin birth (i.e., it is taught in scripture!) and the how-ness of the virgin birth (i.e., it is a miracle!). What of the why-ness of the virgin birth? Why does it matter?

First, the virgin birth matters because the Bible teaches it.

That means that rejecting the virgin birth means not merely rejecting a particular doctrine but rejecting the very idea that scripture is God-breathed and authoritative, which is specifically taught in 2 Timothy 3:16 and asserted in numerous other ways throughout scripture. Our doctrine of the Bible hinges on our accepting the reality of the virgin birth.

Second, the virgin birth of Jesus magnifies Jesus as “the second Adam” who comes to undo the curse that the first Adam ushered into the human race.

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, presents Jesus as the second Adam who came to undo what the first Adam wrought.

²¹ For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

⁴⁵ Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸ As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall^[f] also bear the image of the man of heaven.

This is significant. Adam did not have a natural father. Every person after Adam did. So the second Adam, Jesus, likewise did not have an earthly father. He too was created directly by God without the agency of a biological father. Some theologians have observed, “As the first Adam was fathered by God (see Luke 3:38, ‘Adam, the son of God’), so the second Adam, Jesus Christ, was fathered by God, not by a human male (Matt. 1:18–20).”[9]

Jesus’ virgin birth further highlights His role as the second Adam.

The first Adam had no earthly father, sinned, and brought death into the world.

The second Adam, Jesus, had no earthly father, never sinned, and brought life into the world for all who would come to Him.

The virgin birth points to the reality of Jesus being one person with two natures.

The virgin birth is, of course, bound up with the incarnation. It is how the incarnate Christ enters the world. The fact of Jesus having God as His Father and Mary as His mother also points to the reality earlier considered: that, in the incarnation, Jesus is fully God and fully man, one person with two natures. That “the Word” (the divine Christ) became “flesh” is powerfully envisioned in the grand miracle of the virgin birth!

As theologian James Leo Garrett Jr. has written:

To be the Redeemer of humankind, Jesus must identify himself with human beings and at the same time transcend the human race. Thus, he was fittingly begotten of the Holy Spirit and born of a woman.[10]

And, finally, there is a communal and corporate implication of the virgin birth.

The virgin birth offers us a new way of understanding family.

The virgin birth redefines the very nature of family and it does so in two ways. First, it shows us that family cannot be reduced to biology. Joseph was honored to be Jesus’ earthly father while knowing he was not Jesus’ true father. But the implications of the virgin birth on how we view family go beyond this.

In this coming together of heaven and earth—“the Word became flesh” (John 1:14)—Jesus was showing us prophetic glimpse of a new family that was being introduced into the world through His incarnation and His saving work. Namely this: now, through Jesus, all the people’s of the world will have access through His crucified and risen flesh to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God. Now, because of the virgin born, incarnate Christ, all who come to Jesus in faith can pray, “Our Father…”

The virgin birth is no mere, static, historical event, miraculous though it was. It is a declaration that, through Christ, the God/man, humanity can now come to God. It is a declaration that our nationalities and our families and cultural identities are now caught up in the great and grand drama of heaven coming to earth so that earth can go to heaven. The virgin birth is a sign that as God was bound to flesh so flesh can come to God. And now we are able to understand Jesus’ amazing and surprising words from Matthew 12:

⁴⁶ While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. ⁴⁸ But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” ⁴⁹ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ⁵⁰ For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

The virgin-born Christ ushers this new reality into the world!

 

[1] RJN, “While We’re At It,” First Things. January 1995.

[2] Bray, Gerald. God is Love. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), p.567.

[3] Harwood, Adam. Christian Theology. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2022), p.420–421.

[4] http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/celsus.html

[5] Garrett, James Leo, Jr. Systematic Theology. p.676.

[6] RJN, “While We’re At It,” First Things. February 1994.

[7] Garrett, James Leo, Jr. Systematic Theology. Volume 1 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1990 / Logos Version), p.681.

[8] John Chrysostom. Matthew 1-13, Ancient Christian Commentary On The Scriptures, New Testament Vol. 1a, ed. Manlio Simonettie, gen. ed. Thomas C. Oden. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), p.12-13.

[9] MacArthur, John, and Richard Mayhue, eds. Biblical Doctrine. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), p.261.

[10] Garrett, James Leo, Jr. Systematic Theology. p.682.