The Apostles’ Creed
I believe in
Jesus Christ…conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the
Virgin Mary
Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38
If you have your
Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Matthew, chapter 1. As we continue to
work our way through The Apostles’ Creed, we are going to be looking at those
two phrases: “conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,” which speak
of what we call in short-hand, The Virgin Birth. We will do it by looking
at the two passages from the gospels that give us the most detail about the
pre-infancy and infancy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 1:18 is where we will
begin and then we’ll look at Luke 1:26.
Let’s begin with Matthew
1:18. This is the Word of God.
“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. And Joseph
her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to
put her away secretly. 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.
‘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.’ Now all this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through
the prophet might be fulfilled saying: ‘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.’ And Joseph arose from his sleep and did as the angel of
the Lord commanded him, and took her as his wife, and kept her as a virgin until
she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.”
Now turn with me to Luke
1:26.
“Now in the sixth month the
angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a
virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and
the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, ‘Greetings, favored
one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was greatly troubled at this
statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this might be. And the
angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name
Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and
the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David: and He will reign
over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.’ And Mary
said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ 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. And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has conceived a son in
her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. For
nothing will be impossible with God.’ And Mary said, ‘Behold, the bond slave of
the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed
from her.” Amen. And thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired, inerrant
word. May He write its eternal truth upon our hearts. Let’s pray.
Our Lord and our God, we
thank You for Your word. Grant us faith to believe it. Enlighten our minds by
your Holy Spirit to understand it and by that same grace, enable us to obey and
walk in it in truth and life. In Jesus’ name, we ask it. Amen.
Our assignment today
is to look at the doctrine of the virgin birth. We confess it when we use The
Apostles’ Creed, saying that we “believe in Jesus Christ, who was conceived by
the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” I want you to see three things
about that truth as we consider it in these passages today. I want you to see,
first of all, the nature or the definition of the virgin birth. What are we
talking about when we say that “we believe in the virgin birth.” Secondly, I
want you to see the grounds for our believing the virgin birth. What is the
basis of our embracing this to be true? And then thirdly, I want us to see the
significance of the virgin birth and the significance of our believing in the
virgin birth. So we’ll look at the definition, the fact, and the significance or
implications, of the virgin birth together today.
I.
The nature of the Virgin Birth.
Let’s begin then by looking at the nature of the virgin birth. When
we use the phrase “the virgin birth,” what do we mean? Actually, that phrase,
just like the two phrases we’re looking at in The Apostles’ Creed today points
to two sides of one reality. The virgin birth is theological shorthand for what
is described in Matthew 1:18-25 and in Luke 1:26-38. That whole complex of
divine intervention, of miraculous conception, of the unique birth of Jesus
Christ in which the God of heaven and earth intersected our space-time reality,
took on our flesh and dwelt among us in our human nature. The virgin birth is
shorthand for that whole complex of beliefs.
The phrase in the
creed, “conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,” points out two
important aspects of the virgin birth which you’ve already seen in the passages
that we’ve just read. On the one hand, the phrase, “conceived by the Holy
Ghost,” points to the divine operation of God, the Holy Spirit, in bringing
Jesus Christ into this world. And it reflects the words that you’ve just heard.
For instance, in Luke 1:35 where we read, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you
and the power of the most high will overshadow you and for that reason, the Holy
child shall be called the Son of God.” Or, the angel’s words to Joseph in
Matthew 1:20, “For the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy
Spirit.” So when we say “conceived by the Holy Spirit” we are emphasizing the
divine operation of the Holy Spirit in bringing Jesus Christ into this world,
and when we say, “born of the Virgin Mary,” we are pointing to the miracle of
Christ’s birth.
The phrase, “Born of
the Virgin Mary” points to Matthew 1:24 which says, “Joseph kept her a virgin
until she gave birth to a son.” It reflects Mary’s own surprise at the angel’s
announcement to her. Mary, you are going to have a son; He’s going to be the
Messiah King. How can this be? Right. That’s precisely the point. God is
bringing Jesus into the world by a miracle. Is that so surprising? The
foundation of Christianity is a mind-blowing miracle, that God has come in our
flesh and dwelt among us to save us. There’s no way that you can describe that
other than a miracle. Is it so surprising that the way He would enter this world
would be by a miracle and that the way He would exit this world would be by a
miracle–the virgin birth and the ascension. It makes perfect sense, that if God
Himself is going to intersect our space-time history, take on our humanity, live
amongst us, die amongst us, and be raised again from the dead amongst us, that
the way He would come into this world would be a miracle. There’s nothing
surprising to a Christian about that at all, however implausible that might be
to the skeptic. There’s nothing surprising about that to the Christian.
You remember the story
of C.S. Lewis at Christmas time. His window was open at the University. A
skeptical faculty member who was a friend and acquaintance was visiting him in
his office and below them there were carolers singing Christmas carols. And some
of the carols that they were singing were about the virgin birth. This friend
shook his head knowingly to C.S. Lewis and he said, “Aren’t you glad that we
know better than they?” And C.S. Lewis said, “Pardon me? I’m not sure what
you’re speaking of.” He said, “Well, aren’t you glad that we know that virgins
don’t have babies?” C.S. Lewis paused for a moment and said, “Don’t you think
they knew that too? Isn’t that the whole point?” Yes, that’s the whole
point. It’s not that people were running around having virgin births all the
time; that’s not why this is drawn attention to in Matthew and in Luke. It’s
because there is a singularity. There’s nothing like it. There’s no other thing
in all of history just like this. Yes, there are miraculous births and
conceptions. In fact, the angel reminds Mary of that when her much older cousin,
Elizabeth, has conceived. But there’s nothing like a virgin birth. That’s
precisely the point. God is saying that something unique is happening here. That
does not stagger the Christian at all because at the very heart of our religion
is a miracle. And if God chooses to bring that miracle into the world by a
miracle, it doesn’t surprise us at all. So when we speak of “conceived by the
Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary” we are pointing to those great
realities. That is what we mean when we say virgin birth.
II.
The grounds of our belief in the Virgin Birth.
Now secondly, I’d like to look with you at the grounds for our
believing in the virgin birth, the basis of our embracing the truth of the
virgin birth. There was a time when this was one of the favorite things for
critics to poke at about Christianity. Interestingly enough, not so much in the
last 25 years. In the advent of new, staggering advances in biotechnology and
invitro fertilization, somehow the virgin birth doesn’t look so strange as it
used to look to radically skeptical scientific intellects. Nevertheless, there
are still plenty of biblical critics who will point this out as a reason why you
should reject the historical accounts of the early days of Jesus Christ as they
are given to us in the gospels. So, what are our grounds for accepting the truth
of the virgin birth? What is the basis of our embracing this belief in the
virgin birth?
Let me suggest to you
that there are three reasons why we ought to accept this truth. There is a
biblical reason, there is an historical reason, and there is a doctrinal reason.
Let me walk through each of those with you very briefly.
First of all, it is
taught in the Bible, and believers believe the Bible. You cannot believe Jesus
as He is intended to be believed by God while rejecting His Word. And He tells
us that this is His word. And so a believer who truly believes in Jesus Christ
will also believe His Bible, and the virgin birth is taught in the Bible.
More specifically, the
virgin birth is taught at length and in detail right here in Luke 1. But when we
say that, we immediately run into three objections which are commonly thrown out
by liberal critics of the New Testament. And let me categorize these objections
as the omission objection, the contradiction objection, and the
misinterpretation objection. Critics will first of all say, “Look, I know that
Matthew 1 and Luke 1 talk about the virgin birth, but you know what? Nowhere
else in the New Testament do we hear about a virgin birth. Therefore Matthew and
Luke must have made it up because nobody else knows about it.” Let me say two
things about that. First of all, there are plenty of other places in the New
Testament, and especially in Paul ,which let us know that Paul does know about
the virgin birth and does believe in the virgin birth. He says things in ways,
in speaking about the birth of Christ, that let you know that he knows and
believes that Jesus’ very mode of birth was unique and miraculous. But let me
just not get into that now. What I really want to zero in on is this fact.
Friends, if you say, “Because the virgin birth is not directly and explicitly
talked about anywhere else in the New Testament but Matthew and Luke, therefore
we’re not going to believe it,” then you’re going to have to not believe a whole
lot more than that, because Jesus’ birth narratives are not talked about
anywhere else in the New Testament but in Matthew 1 and Luke 1. So if you’re not
going to believe the virgin birth because it is only found in Matthew 1 and Luke
1, then you are also not going to believe that Jesus was born; that Jesus was
laid in a manger; that wise men came to visit Him; that shepherds came to visit
Him. All of those things are found in Matthew 1 and Luke 1. And it just makes no
sense whatsoever that it would be thrown out because they are not told in detail
elsewhere. It makes perfect sense. If this is where the infancy narratives of
Jesus are recorded then that is where we would hear most explicitly about the
virgin birth.
Let me also say, in
defense of the historicity of these accounts, that in both of these
accounts–Matthew’s, which is from Joseph’s perspective; Luke, which is from
Mary’s perspective–you have an almost catastrophe happening. The announcement
to Mary that she is pregnant does not leave her saying, “Yipp-e-e-e!” She’s
troubled. She’s perplexed. She’s worried. Did it strike you? An angel shows up
at your doorstep, you’re 13, you’re single, and he says, “You’re a mom. Your
child is God; will be worshipped; is the Messiah; and will reign forever.” And
you know what Mary wants to talk about? “I’m pregnant?” I’d want to go, “Hey,
my kid’s going to be king of the world?” I’d want to talk about that a little
bit. Mary is going, “But, I’m not married. There’s no way that I could be
having a baby.” The way that this is recorded is not the way it would be
recorded if you were trying to make up a story and then import it back onto the
actual events. Mary is upset about this. She is not dancing in the streets
singing Christmas carols. She is upset by it.
The same thing happens
with Joseph. Joseph finds out about this and the first thing that he does is,
“OK, divorce.” Now let me defend Joseph for a minute. We are told explicitly by
Matthew, that because Joseph was a righteous man, he decided to put her away
quietly. So, Matthew tells you in that, that Joseph was not only a just man but
he was a kind man. He didn’t want to embarrass Mary publicly but he couldn’t
trust her anymore. She had betrayed him and isn’t it interesting that the angel
comes to Joseph and says, “Don’t be afraid to marry Mary.” You can trust her,
Joseph. The reaction of Joseph to this news initially is the only way that this
can be handled is by divorce. We’re going to break off this betrothal because
this woman has betrayed me. And I don’t want to take her to law and I don’t want
to prosecute her criminally, but I am going to quietly go to the elders and
we’re going to have this relationship annulled.
My friends, the
gospels record for us an utterly realistic account of the actions of two godly
human beings to this news. There’s no “Of course, right, virgin birth–no
problem.” It almost breaks up this family. We see on the pages of Matthew and
Luke the account of utter realism about two godly, mature human beings
responding to the most staggering news possible. And I want to say to you today,
my friends, that in God’s grace, if He could keep Mary and Joseph together, then
He can keep you and your husband or wife together. So we see the biblical
evidence. We see Mary’s account in Luke; we see Joseph’s account in Matthew. We
see the corroboration of this elsewhere in the New Testament.
But then critics will
say, “But wait a second, Matthew and Luke contradict one another. You look at
Matthew and he says one thing has happened, and then you look at Luke, and he
says another thing has happened. They contradict one another.” No, they don’t
contradict one another. They are independent accounts of one another. There is
not one thing in Matthew that contradicts one thing in Luke, or one thing in
Luke that contradicts one thing in Matthew. But, at the same time, you can’t
claim that Matthew was simply copying a story from Luke, or Luke was copying a
story from Matthew, because the flow of the story is different.
Matthew tells you all
about Joseph first hearing about this, presumably from Mary. And Joseph’s
reaction is to go off and think about divorce. And then an angel comes to him
and speaks to him, and then he takes Mary back. And eventually Matthew has them
down in Egypt. In Luke’s story, the angel comes to Mary, tells her about it; she
and Joseph are kept together, but then she ends up going off to be with
Elizabeth for a number of months. Nothing in one story contradicts anything in
the other story, but the stories complement one another perfectly in a way that
only historians could have done who are diligently trying to find out exactly
what happened. And Matthew somehow hears of the story of Joseph. Wouldn’t you
love to know how. And Luke, perhaps actually sits down with Mary, to find out
about how she responded to this news. So there is no contradiction here; there’s
just a complementariness to these two accounts.
Finally, critics will
say that the whole doctrine of the virgin birth is based on a misinterpretation.
You see, these early Christians went back and they read Isaiah 17 and they
mistranslated it because Isaiah 7:14 doesn’t say: “Behold, a virgin shall
conceive.” In Hebrew it uses the word almah which can mean young
maiden and it means that ‘a young maiden will conceive.’ However, the
problem is that 250 years before Jesus lived, a group of Greek-speaking Jews
translated the Old Testament into Greek. When they translated almah in
Isaiah 7:14 from the Hebrew, they used the Greek word which means virgin.
They could have used a word in Greek that meant young maiden. They
didn’t. They used the word that meant virgin, and when Matthew quotes
Isaiah 7:14, he uses that Greek word which means virgin. They weren’t
making this up. In fact, years before Christ, Rabbis had been expecting the
Messiah to miraculously come into the world, precisely because of Isaiah 7:14.
So the idea that this is an omission or contradiction or misinterpretation just
won’t float. The biblical testimony is for the virgin birth.
But there is an
historical reason we believe the virgin birth too. If you look at the earliest
Christianity–let’s just take the first two centuries of the early Church–and
start at the end of those two centuries, the late 190s, the end of the second
century. You start with Irenaus in Gaul, or Tertullian in North Africa, and you
begin to work back towards the beginning of the century until you get into the
90s and the early 100s with Ignacius of Antioch, and then on back into the New
Testament writings themselves, you will find an unbroken chain of witness from
early Christians all believing in the virgin birth. And you will not find one
single orthodox Christian that questions the virgin birth.
Now, that doesn’t mean
it’s true, of course; but it does mean is that is what they thought the Bible
taught. So that you can be confident that you are not misreading the Bible
because the first two centuries of Christians uniformly the closest to it
believed in the virgin birth. Let me remind you, by the way, that when Irenaus
in 190 AD is talking about the virgin birth, remember that he studied under a
man from Smyrna named Polycarp, who studied under a man who was a pastor in
Smyrna named John. Right. The John whose book we are studying on Sunday nights.
That’s just. Ireanaus is just one step removed from an author of the New
Testament. And Irenaus is talking about the virgin birth. Now, there is no
question that early Christians believed that Scripture taught this and that this
is the way it was. So there is an historical reason to believe it.
But there is also a
doctrinal reason to believe this. As we have already said, if a miracle is at
the heart of Christianity, is it surprising that God would use a miracle to
bring that miracle into the world? You see, the virgin birth explains how Jesus
could be divine and human and sinless all at the same time. And that is what we
have to have in order to be saved. We need a divine Savior, a human Savior, and
a sinless Savior, in order to be saved. One human can’t save us; there are
billions of us. There are billions upon billions of sins to be forgiven. We need
the infinite weight and glory and majesty of the person of God to forgive our
sins. Our Savior needs to be divine.
But our Savior must be
human too. We are human. We need someone like us with our flesh and our
infirmities in order to have a mediator who can sympathize with us.
So we need a sinless
human. We can’t have a human who is in the same predicament as us; someone who
is in the same boat as we are. We need someone outside to rescue us who is not
in the same fix we are. And the virgin birth explains to you how we can have a
divine, human, and sinless Savior all at once. Take out your hymnals and turn
all the way to the back to page 871 and look up to the top of the page, to the
left-hand column, to question 22 of The Larger Catechism. Some of you
will remember this from memory. Question 22 says: “How did Christ, being the Son
of God, become man?” The answer: “Christ, the Son of God, became man by taking
to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul being conceived by the Holy Ghost
in the womb of the virgin Mary and born of her yet without sin.”
The Catechism
says it more beautifully and comprehensively that I could: He’s divine; He’s
human; He’s sinless. So there’s a doctrinal reason why we embrace the truth of
the virgin birth.
III. The significance of the Virgin Birth and our belief in it.
So what? What’s the significance of that to those of us who are
true Christians? There’s more significance than I have time to go into today,
but let me suggest in outline seven things which are significant about the
virgin birth.
First of all, your
embrace of the virgin birth is significant for your embrace of the other
miracles of the gospel. If you get suspicious about the virgin birth, what are
you going to do with the other miracles of the gospel? Every time I run into
someone who disbelieves the virgin birth, they also disbelieve the incarnation
of Christ, which is a bigger problem. So our embrace of this glorious miracle is
very important for our embrace of the rest of Scripture. If we deny this aspect
of gospel history, then the whole account is called into question.
Secondly, the virgin
birth is important because it is fulfillment of Old Covenant prophecy. Matthew
tells us this explicitly in Matthew 1:22. He says that all this took place so
that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled. If the
virgin birth doesn’t happen, that Old Testament prophecy does not get fulfilled.
And so the Rabbis, before the time of Christ, expected the Messiah to be born
miraculously. Why? Because of Old Testament prophecy. And the virgin birth
fulfills that prophecy.
Thirdly, the virgin
birth is important because of its testimony of the Messiahship of Jesus. Turn
with me to Luke 1:32, where the angel tells Mary who this boy that she will bear
is going to be: “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High;
and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign
over the House of Jacob forever, and His Kingdom will have no end.” You see what
Luke is saying. That angel said to Mary, “Your Son, Jesus, is the Messiah. He’s
the One that your people have been waiting for since Adam, since Noah, since
Abraham, since Joseph, since David, since Jeremiah. He is the One that your
people have been waiting for; He’s the Messiah.” So the virgin birth is a public
marker. Look at this child, consider this child, consider who He is and realize
who He is; He is Messiah.
Fourthly, the virgin
birth is a testimony to the deity of Christ. The virgin birth helps us to
understand that in the man, Jesus, we meet the divine Lord. It’s not surprising
that this child, virginally conceived, comes into the world and that Matthew can
say that in Him was fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah which said, “They shall
call Immanuel” which translated means God with us. “He’s the Son of the Most
High,” the angel says to Mary in Luke 1:32. That is not surprising and the
virgin birth is a testimony to the fact that in the man Jesus we meet the divine
Lord.
Fifthly, the virgin
birth is a testimony to the humanity of Jesus Christ. The virgin birth demands
that we take the humanity of Jesus seriously. He is not created out of some
heavenly substance; He doesn’t descend from heaven into this world and assume
the appearance of a bodily form; He is created ex Maria. He is created
out of the substance of Mary; He is fully and truly human. We have to take that
humanity seriously.
The virgin birth is
also a testimony to the sinlessness of Jesus. That is the sixth thing that we
learn from the virgin birth. The virgin birth helps us to appreciate how Jesus
was not fallen. We are fallen. We have a tendency to sin built in. Jesus was
not; He was without sin. The virgin birth helps explain why.
Finally, and perhaps
most importantly, the virgin birth is the platform for the fulfillment of the
central promise of God in all of His covenant dealings with us. What was the one
phrase used to summarize all of the hopes of the people of God for the promises
that God had made to them in the Old Testament? Over and over you’ll hear this
phrase: “I will be Your God; you will be My people.” And over and over you will
hear this hope expressed that one day I will be Your God and you will be My
people will be realized, and God will be with us.
Can you imagine the
first Jews who heard Matthew read to them? He is Immanuel, God with us. Can you
imagine the first Jews who heard the gospel of John read to them: “The Word
became flesh and dwelt among us.” And back in their minds they would go to the
Exodus, and back in their minds they would go to the desire that God would be in
their midst in the Tabernacle, and back they would go to all the preventatives
that had to be done in order for the people of God to dwell with God in their
midst in the Tabernacle. Then they hear announced that in this man, Jesus
Christ, God has moved into their very midst in their fellowship.
Oh, my friends, the
virgin birth tells you that when you see that man Jesus Christ, you are seeing
God with you, and one day He will take all His people to be with Him forever and
ever. May God grant that all of us, by faith, will meet again at that place and
time.
Let’s pray.
Our Lord and our God, the
only way that we can be there in that great reunion is if we believe on the Son
for salvation as He is offered in the gospel. For those of us that do believe,
grant that we would grow and persevere in that belief. For those of us here this
day who do not believe in Jesus, the Savior and Lord, the sinless Son of God,
grant them faith that they might trust in Him whom to no aright is life eternal.
We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.