The Bible teaches that Jesus was conceived without the aid of a human father. Yet Jesus is spoken of as being fully man. Does it really make any difference what we believe about Jesus birth, or is the virgin birth one of the most important doctrines in the Bible?
Matthew 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.
Luke 1:34-35 Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.
First of all, the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus is important because it show that salvation must come from the Lord, not from men.
The very first prophecy in the Bible is found in Genesis 3:15 where the Lord promises that it would be “The seed of a woman” would bring salvation to all men. Interesting because the woman does not have the “seed”, that product comes from the male. In the Lord saying that the woman would have the seed, He was affirming that the woman would have the ability to bring the Savior into the world without the benefit of a human father. The conception of the child would be by supernatural means, that of the Holy Spirit.
This is an extremely important statement by the Lord in that He is affirming to all men that they cannot save themselves by any good work or behavior change. Our forgiveness for sin and salvation can only come by a supernatural work of the Lord.
Galatians 4:4-5 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Secondly, the virgin birth of Jesus made it possible for God to become a man and thereby be able to be legally qualified to redeem all human beings.
If the Father had created Jesus as a fully formed human man in heaven and then brought Him to earth without coming through the normal process of human parents, it would be very difficult for most of us to understand how Jesus could understand what it like to be one of us.
The Father could have brought Jesus into the world by a normal human father and mother and then unite Jesus nature as God into this human form later on. This would have made it difficult to understand how Jesus could really be the eternal God since He originated in the same we all of us had began.
The way that the Father chose to illustrate who Jesus is, was to supernaturally conceive Jesus in a combination of God and Human flesh in one person without the sin nature. In this way we can understand that Jesus had no real beginning as He is Himself the Creator of everything, yet He chose to humble himself and take the body of a man as a Baby and thereby become one of us.
Finally, the virgin birth of Jesus made it possible for Jesus to be a real human man, but do so without the inherited sin of all those who came from Adam. If Jesus was born under normal circumstances as a descendant of Adam, the inherited sin of Adam would have disqualified Jesus from being the Savior. This is why no normal man born with two earthy parents could ever be able to save anyone since he would himself be in need of his own savior.
The legal guilt of sin that is a part of all human beings born from Adam is not a part of Jesus. Because Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit, Jesus was Holy from conception.
This does not mean that the nature of sin comes from the father only for Mary was also a sinner in need of a Savior. The Bible seems to be saying that it is the uniting of both an earthly mother and father who descended from Adam that makes the child also a sinner from birth. Since Jesus had no earthly father, he was free of the sin nature and therby began His life perfect. All He had to do now was live the rest of His life without sin as a perfect man, then He could be the Savior of all men.
Many people today deny the fact that Jesus was born of a Virgin. Even those who claim to believe in and follow Jesus have said that Jesus was not born of a virgin, nor was it important that Jesus was born in this manner.
It is important to understand that if Jesus was not born of a virgin as the Bible so clearly describes Jesus birth, then He could not be the Savior of any human being since He would be in need of Savior for His own sins.
Thankfully, Jesus was born without sin and was the only man ever born to be able to make this claim and prove it. Jesus then lived a perfect sinless life and finally offered up His infinitely valuable life as a the eternal Creator of all things, in the body of a man, in exchange for all of our sins.
Because Jesus was a man, He could represent us at the place of judgment and satisfy the requirement of God’s law to be perfect. Because He was fully God dwelling in the Body of a man, this life that He offered for us had infinate value that was able to pay for the sins of every person every born in all of human history.
In reality, all of the sins of every person born on the earth has already been paid for. All that is required for any person to have their flawed record of sin removed as though it never existed, is to accept what Jesus has already done on the Cross when He died for you. From the moment you believe this, you become perfect and thereby worthy of heaven and eternal Life in the presence of God.
Jesus is the only perfect representative of all human beings because He is the only person ever born who was perfect and remained perfect all the way up to His death on the Cross where He paid for all of our sins.
Thank you Jesus for your faithfulness and amazing life that you lived for all of us, and for the death you died that made forgiveness possible. There is no One like You.
Rob Robinson
