The Virgin Birth of Jesus 

SUBJECT: THE CERTAINTY OF THE INCARNATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST AS DEMONSTRATED BY THE EXPONENTIAL FACTOR OF OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES

INTRODUCTION:

            Before the invention of the slide, overhead, and video projectors there were chart teachers. Their teaching was not off the church walls; it came in long canvas charts that would spread across the front of the church. They did not have to rely on sound and video men showing up at a service in time to set up, cue up and wake up. They did it all by themselves. 

            One of the finest chart Bible teachers I heard was R.I. Humberd. His base of ministry was in Flora, Indiana, but his sphere of ministry was nation wide. From that little town, he preached, taught, traveled, wrote and printed his own unique materials on the Holy Scriptures. He is still teaching, but his base for years has been heaven. His sphere is now worldwide.  His work lives into a third generation.

            He gave many of his books to young Bible students who could not afford to buy them. I was one of them. His small green book, THE VIRGIN BIRTH, is one of the very best written on subject of the birth of Jesus. Don’t bother trying to find one. I purchased all the remaining copies from his daughter a few years ago and made them available to the people of Calvary Baptist, Rochester, Minnesota. If the Calvary people give you their copy, they don’t realize the value of this book.  The great radio teacher of last generation, M.R.DeHann said, “I consider Brother Humberd’s booklet on The Virgin Birth the clearest and yet simplest statement concerning this subject I have ever read”. Dr. Roy Aldrich, the president of the Bible school I attended, said almost the same words as he personally presented a copy of the book to every student in the Detroit Bible Institute.   

            This introduction may seem long, but it is because I want to borrow one of Pastor Humberd’s illustrations from his book, THE VIRGIN BIRTH. I want to give him credit for the illustration which gave me so much confidence in my early life as a believer. It gave me confidence to believe in the most foundational doctrine of the Christian faith – the enfleshment of God in Jesus Christ.

            The illustration: “ A young man, living in Indiana, corresponded with a young woman in Ohio. Their friendship increased, and wishing to see each other, they agreed upon some such arrangement as the following.

            On a certain Saturday afternoon, the young man was to stand on a certain street corner of her town. She would pass that corner driving a white horse hitched to a buggy having four red wheels. When the young man saw the rig pass that corner he could say, There goes my future wife.

            But some other farmer’s daughter might start to town that afternoon driving a white horse hitched to the same sort of a buggy and the young man would have gotten the wrong girl.  If, however, many details were added it would become more and more difficult for the other girl to meet the requirements.

            If the young woman were to drive a white horse hitched to a buggy having three red wheels and one black wheel, a duplication would have been very unlikely. Yet the other farmer’s daughter might have had a breakdown and have to borrow a black wheel. Again the young man on the street corner might have gotten the wrong girl.

            If it were originally specified that the white horse driven by the right young woman were to have one black ear, a spot on the left shoulder and a black front foot, it would have been almost impossible for the wrong girl to have met the requirements.” End of quote.

            If we add to Pastor Humberd’s illustration one wheel with every spoke painted a different color, and if each of those colors were painted in a defined pattern, we would arrive a number of certainty that few computers could calculate. The printout would likely reach around the moon and back.  The boy would meet the right girl with absolute certainty. I just hope he would also find her attractive and want to marry her. If he didn’t, he should run for the woods and not stop ‘til he got back to Indiana!

            How and with whom we spend a few years on earth is most important but insignificant in comparison to where and how we send eternity. God has provided His Son as the savior for anyone who wants to spend eternity in heaven rather than hell. He has made this provision with absolute certainty and given us enough detail for reasonable men to believe that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. Reconciliation is the work of bringing together two disputing parties. In the theological sense, it is bringing sinful people into harmony with the very God they have sinned against, “ God was in Christ reconciling the unto himself… II Corinthians 5:19”

THE HOW AND THE WHEN OF THE INCARNATION OF GOD IN CHRIST

I. WE KNOW I WILL BE THROUGH A WOMAN AND THE BIRTH PROCESS.

(Eve – Genesis 3:15,16)

            The Bible’s account of the origin of man is totally different than man’s account of his own origin.  The Holy Scriptures explain that man is not the result of a long process of time plus chance during which everything, including man, evolves out of nothing. In forthright opposition to evolution, man was originated as a special creation with the capacity to not only understand a highly complex world, but also, since he was created in the image of God, he had the capacity to interact with His creator. This immediate interacting terminated when he rebelled against God’s right to govern - to set the standard of ‘do’ and ‘do not’. Don’t play down this story of man’s original sin and fall from his spiritual nature; it alone explains our confused world. The fall of man is demonstrated daily by rebellion against authority, parents, school, government, and God. The universal and total depravity of all humanity is not, however, the purpose of this article. It does set the proper stage for the incarnation of God. He, God, promised to come to earth and provide redemption from the penalty, power and ultimately from the presence of sin.

            This promise from God to Eve was very simple. Through the process of human birth, one would be born who would defeat Satan who prompted Eve and her husband Adam, to rebel against God’s right to govern, Genesis 3:15,16.

            When Eve’s first child was born her praise of thanksgiving was, “I have gotten a male child with the Lord!” The words in our King James version of the Bible, “with the help of the Lord” are supplied by the translators. As might be expected, when we try to help God explain Himself we often change the very meaning of what He said. Such is the case in this text. Eve simply said she now had the child which restored her in harmony with God. She understood the redeemer would come through the process of a birth. In this she was very right. She assumed the birth would be the result of the natural process of reproduction. In this she was very wrong. In fact the rest of the story demonstrated her child and all who would follow in human history were born with a nature bent against God, in need of a savior, and without the capacity to lift a finger toward the possibility of self redemption.

A few observations are noticeable from the simple reading of this account of the birth of her son Cain.

1. He was not the promised savior - redeemer.

2. He was born sinful and in need of a savior.

3. He was capable of murder.

4. He was proof that the savior would not come through a supernatural birth.       

5. His birth did not fill the conditions of the one who would come to defeat Satan and sin.

6. God had not kept His promise given to Eve.

7. God alone knew when and under what circumstance the Savior would be born.

8. God would have to provide additional information to assure us of who, how, when and where the Savior would be born.

9. God would have to control all the variables relating to this birth.

10. By knowing and controlling the future, God gives us the faith factors to believe in the supernatural incarnation of God. This is the first of many prophecies which lead us to the Lord. Actually, the ability to tell what will happen ahead of time is evidence of God’s ability to both know and control the future. This alone is sufficient cause for us to trust Him.

Let’s start the exponential faith factor here with a value of 10.

II. WE KNOW THROUGH WHAT FAMILY LINE THE BIRTH

If we are to look for the redeemer to be born, we need to know into what family this most important birth will take place. Einstein is quoted as saying, “God does not play dice with the universe.” Neither does he leave anything to chance in the redemption of the universe, most certainly not in the redemption of humanity.

Historically a great number of people were born from Adam before God identified the next major faith factor. From Adam to Abraham is a time period of about 2,000 years. Many marriages took place, and a lot of children were produced in 2,000 years!  For our purposes we need to know what marriage and what child we are to follow. We could not possibly know without providential guidance.

Leaving nothing to chance, God made another theophany – a visible manifestation two thousand years after His appearance to Adam and Eve. He appeared to Abraham. Through Abraham, God reduced his program of producing a savior from the whole human race in general, to one man and one nation in particular. God appeared to Abraham to identify him as the one through whom the savior would come. He would become the father of a nation, he would be blessed by God, he would be guarded by God, and everyone who opposed this new nation would be judged by God, Genesis 12:3.

 So now we are to look for the line to the savior from the descendants of Abraham. All others may be dismissed as potential redeemer producers. Abraham’s and Noah’s lives may well have overlapped. If so, Abraham would have had access to the records of God’s promise to Adam and Eve. He would have known about the promise of the savior.

Many lessons may be learned by the appearance of God to Abraham. He was to leave his evil environment and their religious practices. He was to follow God and live by faith. He was to produce a new nation with a new monotheistic religion. He was to have a child that would lead us to the savior. Abraham was told this when he was 75 years old and Sarai (later Sarah) his wife was 65. They were to move four hundred miles to a new land inhabited by the Canaanites, descendants of Ham. Recent excavations show the land they left ,Ur, was a very important prosperous center of learning with vast libraries and well educated people.  Their child did not come until Abraham was 100 and Sarai was 90.

It would be poor exegesis to permit people to think Abraham followed God by faith and everything went extremely well for him. He had his problems with Lot and Sodom.  There was a period of time when he was in Egypt with all it’s glory, grandeur and gods. Egypt would have already been at its height by the time Abraham entered the land. The pyramid period is about 2600 BC, so they would have been approximately 600 years old and perhaps were already in a state of ruin. Moses did not come to Egypt until the pyramids where about 1,400 years old. All of this is to demonstrate that Abraham was influenced by a corrupt world, which could cause him to take his eyes off God.

God appeared a second time to Abraham, this time in vision form, Genesis 15:1. By this time, Abraham was 85 years old and Sarai was 75. They had no children. Sarai wanted to help the Lord do what He had promised. They needed a son, and who blames her for not wanting to be a mother at 75! Abraham took her advice and had a son Ishmael (God hears) with Hagar.  Hagar was a servant they may have brought with them from Egypt.  Ishmael became the father of the Arab nations. The Islamic nations claim they are God’s chosen people by right of being the children of Abraham through Ishmael. The Bible records God’s instructions to Sarah about this son. He would be a perpetual conflict, “against the face of  his brethren.”  This struggle started 13 years later with the birth of Isaac. It still continues in the Israeli-Arab conflict of today. It now includes the whole world. Isaac is the son who is revealed to be the lineage to the Lord. This is made clear in Genesis 12:1,3; 12:7; 13:14-17; and 15:5-21.

If you think Bible stories are just folklore with no historic or prophetic significance, think again and keep on thinking. As I am writing this article, the whole world is being terrorized by the descendants of Ishmael. We will never recover from terrorism! The hatred and bitter fighting which started with these two sons of Abraham will not end without divine intervention.

Back to the purpose of this article. The lineage to the Savior will be from Abraham through Isaac, Genesis 12:12. You can “bank on it”!  I would have said you can “bet on it” but Baptist don’t bet!  All the forces of Satan and evil people will not stop the birth of the Savior. They have tried, but He would be born through the line of Isaac.  

Let’s increase our exponential faith face for multiplying it by itself—10 X 10 or 100.  Our confidence in identifying the savior has grown significantly by knowing what line will lead to the Savior. We could make the exponential faith fact gigantic at this point by just adding that the line will go through Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Judah, Genesis 49:10. But let’s keep it simple and stay with 100. It also keeps me from trying to do the math which will very soon be beyond my mind -- and nearly everyone.

III. WE KNOW THROUGH WHAT LEGAL FAMILY THE BIRTH WILL TAKE PLACE (David, Acts 2:30)

Because most of the preaching and teaching from the Bible centers on the need and the provision for personal redemption, we then think it is the theme of the Holy Scriptures. Actually, while we can not make too much of God’s program for personal forgiveness, we can make too little about the real work of Christ which is purchasing back to God all that was lost in sin.  This includes reversing everything lost by the fall, and the establishment of a literal, futuristic kingdom of universal righteousness. God will rule once again over his creation. This kingdom will not be established without Christ as the king. It is not the outgrowth of Christians and churches.

A line to Christ is established demonstrating his right to govern the whole earth. This line is created with God’s selection of David as king of Israel.  The people had picked their own king--Saul. All they wanted was a tall and good-looking candidate. He would have made a good TV image, a very important factor in picking national leaders! Did you ever notice what Saul did when it came time to fight another tall man, Goliath? He hid behind a kid. The kid was David, God’s man for the moment.  David was the tenth generation removed from Pharez, whose sin disqualified anyone in the line to the Lord, until David.

God again removed all doubt of whom we should follow in looking for the Lord. He will be someone who is a descendent of David.  The futuristic kingdom of righteousness will be an outgrowth of God’s covenant with David in which He confirms, “ I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever,” II Samuel 7:13.

The Lord’s royal line to David’s did not qualify him to be the Savior. In fact, if he was to be born as the son of Joseph and his lineage to David through Solomon, he would be disqualified.  The Savior could not be the result of natural reproduction. This would  produce one who would also need a savior.  God makes it clear that anyone born as a descendent from David, through his son Solomon, could not be the Lord. The godless king Coniah is listed in the Bible to show how God guarded the line to the Lord, Jeremiah 22:30. No one from this line could legally lead to the Lord.  Joseph is part of those disqualified. While Joseph was legally disqualified, Mary’s line went through another son of David, Nathan, Luke 3:31. By being Mary’s son, Jesus qualified as one who could keep the position of King – not only of Israel, but ultimately of the whole kingdom of righteousness. Of all Mary’s other sons, only the one not fathered by Joseph could be the Savior and fulfill God’s covenant of kingship. The Islamic faith along with the Catholic Church continues to teach that Mary remained a perpetual virgin. The Catholic Church teaches her to be “queen of heaven,” “Mother of God,” “co-savior of the world,” etc. The Bible says she had daughters and four other boys, James, Joses, Juda and Simon, Mark 6:3. The other children were fathered by Joseph, cf. Matthew 1:25.

We are to look for a child born into a family that is a descendant of Nathan and married to one who is a descendant of Solomon. Also he must be one who does not have an earthly father. Putting these three items together raises our exponential faith factor considerably. We will not use all the many variables in this section. We will include them all as one. We now have, 100 X 100 or a factor certainty of 10,000.

IV. WE KNOW WHERE THE BIRTH WILL TAKE PLACE, (Bethlehem, Micah 5:2)

If we are to look for a miraculous birth, we need to know where we are to look. Blind speculation is never real faith. Faith is trusting the trustworthiness of God. Faith is following the revealed words from God. To guide us to the  Savior we are given the very place to watch for this supernatural birth to occur, and we are given this information in plenty of time. God identified the location and caused it to be preserved in a written record 700 years before it took place. The location is Bethlehem, Micah 5:2. What is said in the prophecy is that Bethlehem is little and insignificant but would be the place where the ruler of Israel would be born. His life is “from old, even from everlasting.”

This is the first mention of the birthplace of the Savior. It is also the birthplace of David, but he was not eternal. Because it was the birthplace of David, God made sure Joseph and Mary would return to this place to be taxed by a Roman ruler. God set the whole Roman empire into movement to document the date and location of Christ’s birth.

I once asked a group traveling with Fran and me to stay one night in Bethlehem. We had a little, but clean, warm hotel. We had good food, comfortable beds, and we were even invited to a wedding, which took place that night in the hotel.  Most of the group let me know the hotel was not good enough. They were disappointed. I listened to the complaints until the next morning. I remember saying to the group, “We are now going about 200 feet from our hotel to visit the cave where our Savior was born – where sheep and oxen were stabled, without heat, bed, food or table servants.” We were in Bethlehem. Our Savior was born there, just as Micah had predicted 700 years before! I don’t know why Bethlehem; I just know it was the place chosen by God the Father for His Son’s birth. A little town with just a few people and a cave. I wonder why believers have to be promised so much when God provided so little for the Lord?

Back to our certainty factor. When we know the incarnation of God will take place through a human birth, when we know what family line to follow, the legal line to that birth, and when we know exactly where the birth will take place, our exponential certainly factor now grows to 10,000 X 10,000 or 10,000,000. Would it help if we knew when this birth would take place?

VI. WE KNOW WHEN THE BIRTH WILL TAKE PLACE (Daniel 9:24-26)     

                                                                                                                                                Daniel lived during a time of captivity by Babylon. You know this as modern day Iraq, but in Daniel’s day it was part of the Persian empire. Then, the Persians only wanted to dominate the Jews. Today, they want to destroy them. Iraq became a part of the British mandated territory until 1945. It then became part of the Arab League in 1945.  It has been hostile to other Arab states including Iran, the displaced Kurdish population, and lately, Kuwait. It remains an enemy of most of the civilized world and may be the major player in current terrorist movements.

            Whatever place this area has in history, it is the place where God gave Daniel the timetable for prophetic calculations.  Using the starting date given to us in Daniel and Nehemiah it is possible to count the years and days until the birth, life and death of our Lord.  Rather than write on this I have included, with permission, a chart prepared by Dr. Jose Colmenero. This chart is based on work done by Robert Anderson in his book, THE COMING KING.  I first read this impressive book while in my late teens. It foretells and documents when the birth of Christ would take place. No one should have been surprised. Every Jewish scholar should have known. The pagan Romans knew. The Eastern men of wisdom knew. God made it very plain. It was an easy mathematical calculation, and all that was needed was to check the calendars.

            Knowing the time and place of the birth of the Savior gives very vital information concerning the incarnation of  God in Christ Jesus. It also improves our certainty by a huge number—10,000,000 X 10,000,000 or 100,000,000. If we know when the birth of the savior took place, would it be helpful if we knew how it would take place? We do.

             VI. WE KNOW  HOW THE BIRTH WILL TAKE PLACE (Virgin Birth, Isaiah 7:14)

            We have already learned the birth of the Savior would involve a supernatural birth. It could not just be a great human religious leader who could provide our forgiveness and establish for us a righteousness equal to God’s demands. Such a leader would be sinful himself and as such in need of his own savior.

            Seven hundred years before the birth of the Savior we are told how he would be supernaturally born.  It would be a “virgin birth.” God gave this message through the prophet Isaiah while in a confrontation with a wicked King of Israel, Ahaz.  To prove the power of his prophecies, Isaiah asked Ahaz to make any request of God, and God would do it. This request could be anything on earth, in the skies, or under water. Ahaz, in a sign of contempt, refused to request anything from the God whom he ignored. Isaiah was given the most important prophecy of his life. He said the Savior would be born through the process of a virgin birth.

            The miracle-denying liberal theologians have had their fun with this passage through the years. They have been answered by the best of the Bible professors, so I don’t need to write a reply. Unbelievers tend to remain so in spite of rebuttal. In fact, reading rebuttals is beneath their “intellectual superiority.”

            I do want to write a paragraph to those who might question the existence of a God who can interact in our material universe. He is there, and He does interact. The universe is more than man, mind and material. I know it is not always popular to believe in God in the sense revealed in the Holy Scripture. This book teaches Him to be an all powerful, creative, and personal God with intellect, sensibility and will to carry out an  act. He can and did create and He can rearrange what he created. When he does, it is a miracle, the negation of natural laws. He also reaches into this universe by answering prayers, etc.

             Again, I know this is often rejected by otherwise very intelligent people. So I don’t feel I am doing anything uncouth by rejecting their “superior intellectual teaching.” I reject that, nothing, struggling from eternity past, became a minute speck of dust which when it exploded became everything in the universe of existing things. I reject that this dust from nothing became our earth on which swamps formed so from one swamp something could crawl out of the slime to get on a beach which happened to conveniently form itself so the slime thing would have a place to get warm in the sun. I reject that the slime thing got a freckle from the rays of the sun, which had also self formed a few hundred billions years before, and that freckle became an eye, others formed and became legs while still others became hands, etc. By pure accident the eyes formed in the front of the face rather than on the bottom of the feet. I reject that another female formed from the same slime pit at the same time and fortunately crawled up on the same beach and copulated with the first formed thing – which I assume was male. I reject that organic (life) can self-generate out of non-organic matter. I really reject that we all came from this swamp kind of ancestry.  I’m sure someone will think I made this up. I didn’t have to. I read this in a science text book taught by serious teachers. If this is right, then I’m afraid I have recently seen some form of life reverting back. I saw it shopping in the mall the other night. I’m sure they were not what God had in mind when He created human life. I don’t think they came from animals either. No self-respecting animal would act as they did! 

It is impossible to talk about the virgin birth without a miracle being involved. The original creation of life was a miracle of God. Life produced by parents, while wonderful, is within the laws of nature. The birth of Christ was not. In this case, life came by the use of the woman’s body, but without male contribution. Just how it took place I’m not sure. Here is what I do know. (1)  It was not a natural conception.  (2) It was not, as Catholic theology would have us to believe, a birth from a woman who was herself miraculously conceived. The “immaculate conception” (proclaimed as dogma by Pope Pius IX, 1854) teaches that through the miraculous conception of Mary, she was without a sin nature and could not pass sin onto her son and thus became the mother of God and co-savior. (3) It was not automatic cell divisions which conceivably could happen—but has never been known to have happened in any higher form of life. If this were an answer to the virgin birth, the child would have been a girl, an exact clone of Mary. (4) It was not God intercoursing with a woman as the Greek/Roman believed their mythological gods were caused. This would make God immoral and violate His most basic attribute of holiness—total separation from any act of sin.

The best I can do with the miracle of the virgin birth is that the Holy Spirit of God placed a totally separate human life in Mary, and it grew within her womb, Hebrews 2:6-9; 10:5). This would be no more difficult than the original creation of human life. In this case, Jesus would have none of the physical genetic structure of either Mary or Joseph, nor would He have a sin nature passed on to him.  In any case, the Bible clearly teaches the hypostatic union in which both divine and human natures were in one person.  Jesus was total God and total man in one physical body. Hypostasis is the Greek word for “substance” or “nature,” the real essential substance of something as distinguished from its attribute.

The fact that the virgin birth took place is not in question. The birth of Jesus is the most well known event in human history. When it occurred it was clearly documented, and God made sure it was without question.  (1) He previously announced it. (2) He made it known to temple officials (3) He caused the Roman empire to be set in motion as people all had to return to their place of birth (4) He told Mary and Joseph (5) He caused the heavens to react  (6) He permitted an angel choir to sing a visible cantata of praise  (7) He made sure Herod knew (8) He made sure wise men from other countries knew (9) He caused a bright light to shine in the heavens (10) unfortunately Herod killed babies and mothers wept because of his evil paranoia – Jewish mothers still weep at Rachel’s tomb, just out side Bethlehem (11) area shepherds, alerted by the angels, left their sheep and visited the cave where the birth took place. One word about the critics who complain about celebrating Christmas in December and who say the shepherds wouldn’t have sheep in fields during winter. That is normally where sheep are in the winter! That is why God gave them warm wool coats. Normal people don’t take 500 sheep home and keep them warm in the front room by a roaring fire!

I know there are still people who don’t believe in the birth of Jesus in this little town of Bethlehem. But then there are people today who don’t believe Hitler killed Jews in WWII and others who believe the American Indians were only killed on Hollywood sets. I personally know a man who died still believing the moon landing took place in Montana. For such people,  I have no additional arguments for the birth of Christ or Hilter or WWII or the America Indians or the moon landing.  People who won’t believe documented history remain people who reject history.

Back to our exponential certainty factors, it is now up to 100,000,000 X 100,000,000 or 10,000,000,000,000,000! Did I get the math right?  Just think what this number would be if we used all the Old Testament prophecies which were fulfilled in Christ. Dr. Walvoord, respected theological scholar and long time president of Dallas Theological Seminary had a list of Old Testament prophecies in his book, PROPHECY KNOWLEDGE HANDBOOK. I counted 97 of these prophecies which he listed as being filled in Jesus Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection ministries. I have only used six prophecies in this paper.   

I think this is enough logic, history and theology to cause people to believe in Christ as Savior. Some will. Some won’t. Some didn’t. Some don’t.  Some believed only when He turned water into wine in front of a whole wedding crowd. Some believed when He healed their children. Some believed when He took a boy’s lunch of bread and fish and broke it into pieces enough to feed several thousand and kept on breaking it leaving 12 barrels more than needed. Some believed when He brought their family members back from the dead. Some believed when He hung on the cross and died as an act of his own will rather than to die by crucifixion. The Roman soldiers, who were placed every six feet to keep Him in the tomb, believed when, “the glory of the Living God came and filled the darkness of the tomb” rolled back the stone and Jesus walked out. Great numbers believed when Christ made numerous post resurrection appearances.

I do have one more defense about the Virgin Birth. It changed history. It changed millions. It changed cultures.  It changed me.          

GAA/3/207 (f) – third printing

PS: I’m certain it is hard for some to believe this gospel and receive Christ as the one who can forgive their sins when almost everything they have been trained to trust is limited to a time, material, mind, and matter concept. I know it is possible to receive all one’s educational background with no room for the existence of God. On November 27, 1947 on the way out of a morning Thanksgiving Day service at the First Baptist Church, Galveston, Indiana, I asked Christ to forgive my sins against Him and trusted Him as my sole and sufficient Savior. That experience is what changed and redirected my life for these past 60 years.