THE INDISPENSABLE M IRACLE
By Charles N. Svendsen*
greatly to be feared. If they refuse to believe in the Virgin Birth by claiming, for example, that they cannot accept something which is contrary to natural law, thus completely ruling out the supernatural, they only give evidence of unregenerate hearts. But those who minimize the importance of the Virgin Birth, while declaring at the same time that they are loyal to the Christian faith, are most harmful. They evidently have doubts as to the authenticity of the Scriptures, refusing to “ swallow” what they cannot understand, and thereby making their own understanding the criterion of truth. Certainly the Virgin Birth is the Indispensable Miracle of Christianity! This is true for two reasons: it accounts for the incarnation: how God became man; and it accounts for the sinlessness of Jesus Christ. And upon these two great facts rests the doctrine of the Person of Christ. And upon the Person of Christ rests the efficacy of His re demptive work. The Virgin Birth, then, is the foundation of the structure of the Christian gospel. How else can one account for the fact that God the Son entered into the stream of humanity by taking upon Himself the form of man? In answer to Mary’s question: “How shall this [the conception of Jesus Christ] be, seeing I know not a man?” (Luke 1:34), the angel Gabriel replied: “ The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be bom of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). It was pre cisely by this overshadowing that the Eternal “ Word was made flesh” (John 1:14). How otherwise can the sinlessness of the Lord Jesus Christ be explained than by these words of the angel to Joseph “ That which is conceived in her [Mary] is of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 1:20)? Gabriel referred to the Son of God “which shall be born of thee” as “ that holy thing.” The supernatural, immacu late conception of Jesus accounts for His being born holy, that is, separate, or ethically different from all humanity —in other words, without sin. Failure to account for Christ’s incar nation and sinlessness by minimizing the importance of the Virgin Birth is actu ally to question these two basic tenets of the Christian faith, and thereby to undermine the whole gospel of salvation. If Jesus Christ were not God of Very God, and if in His human nature He was (Continued on Page 12) T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
is no other choice. To say that Mary, the mother of our Lord, was merely a girl who allowed herself to be seduced, thereby making Jesus Christ an ille gitimate son, is to destroy utterly the integrity of the Christian faith.
“ Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall con,- ceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel’’ (Isa. 7:1U). H ERE the great prophet utters a prediction which was fulfilled more than seven hundred years later in the birth of Christ. These words, “ Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” may be translated more literally from the Hebrew: “ Behold! a virgin pregnant bringing forth a son, and she calls his name Immanuel,” as if Isaiah actually saw the virgin, not a virgin, but the virgin expecting and then bringing forth a son and naming Him Immanuel. As one reads this remarkable predic tion, he cannot but wonder how, in the light of the context, it can have any reference to the birth of Christ. But in the later light of Matthew 1:23, where the angel of the Lord quotes the verse to Joseph in a dream concerning Mary, his espoused wife, no question remains that Isaiah, under divine inspiration, had in mind no other event than the birth of the coming Messiah. Incidentally, this is a good lesson in prophetic interpretation. Often proph ecy is so obscure that we dare not interpret it dogmatically but must await its fulfillment for a full explanation. This particular Scripture is an excellent example of the necessity for exercising caution in prophetic interpretation for it was not until it was fulfilled and explained by New Testament revelation that the fact that it was Messianic was clearly apparent. Far more vital to us is the meaning of the prophecy itself, which teaches unequivocally that Jesus was Virgin- Born. Some have tried to deny this, claiming that the Hebrew word, almah, translated “ virgin” may simply mean a damsel or maid. This is corroborated by James Strong in his Exhaustive Concord ance of the Bible. What of it? What is a damsel or maid? According to Web ster’s Dictionary: “ an unmarried girl or woman; usually, a young unmarried woman; a maiden.” What is an un married woman if she is not a virgin? She is a sinful woman. Does this not lead us to only one of two conclusions: that Jesus Christ was either Virgin- Born, or that He was born in sin. There
Charles N. Svendsen
However, the New Testament quota tion by the angel to Joseph recorded in Matthew makes it very clear that Isaiah was using the Hebrew word almah in the sense of virgin. “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (1:22,23). The Greek word, parthenos, used here means a maiden, or by impli cation an unmarried daughter, in other words, a virgin. To assert or even to imply, then, that Jesus Christ was other than Virgin-Born does violence to the New Testament Scriptures, the only valid interpretation of the Old. But not only that. To deny the Virgin Birth is to undermine the whole Christian gospel. Some have tried to minimize the Virgin Birth, declaring that it was not of great importance, and not an essential doctrine of the Christian faith. Herein lies the greatest danger of all. Those who deny the fact or reject it are not
*Pastor of Montrose Community Church, Montrose, Calif. Member of faculty of the Bible Institute.
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