“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:34-35)
Talk about the virgin birth and the average person in the street will tell you it just couldn’t have happened. After all, we know too much about biology these days to believe in that sort of thing, don’t we? Surely it was just some story created by the church to show that Jesus was somehow “special.”
But let’s stop and think for a moment: if God were to come into this world, why would He have to do so in a way no different to us? Is He so limited, so powerless that He can do no better than we ourselves can do? If that were the case, what a poor God He would be! No, what we have here is a divine miracle, just as promised.
Perhaps the most telling proof of the virgin birth is that neither Mary nor Joseph believed it themselves at first! When Mary was promised that she was about to bear God’s Son, she asked, “How will this be … since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34) She knew enough of the facts of life to know it was impossible! Joseph too didn’t believe it, thinking his wife-to-be had been unfaithful. Only the appearance of another angel convinced him that “what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20).
The promise of the virgin birth brings home that here was no ordinary child; for this Jesus was the One Who had laid aside his divine glory in order to take upon Himself a brand new, unspoiled human nature, created by the Holy Spirit for Him within Mary’s womb, in order that, as a sinless human being, He could pay the price for our sin. What we need to remember is: no virgin birth, no forgiveness!
True, the “incarnation” was nothing less than a miracle. But then, who wants a God Who cannot do miracles?!
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)
Copyright © 2017 Martin Manser and Mike Beaumont
