Joseph. If it be asked why Matthew gives that of Joseph, the answer is that it was necessary that the Messiah’s right to the throne of David should be established. True, our Lord was a lineal descendant of David through His mother, but as a woman had no right to the throne, her son would not be entitled to the throne. But as adopted son of Joseph, who was also of the Davidic line, Jesus had legal claim to the throne. Thus from the two geneal ogies it is established that Jesus was of the seed of David by natural as well as by legal descent. One writer makes the following suggestion, “ Probably Matthan of Matthew is the Matthat of Luke, and Jacob and Heli were brothers; and Heli’s son Joseph and Jacob’s daughter Mary first cousins. Joseph, as male heir to his uncle Jacob who had only one child, Mary, would marry her according to Numbers 36:8. Thus the geneal ogy of the inheritance (Matthew’s) and that of natural descent (Luke’s) would be primarily Joseph’s, then Ma ry’s also.” It is worthy of passing note that the writers who in cluded these tables in their Gospels were the men who recorded the virgin birth, so they were obviously con scious of no contradiction between their narratives and the tables. Note, too, how careful each was to guard against saying that Joseph was the father of Jesus. “Ja cob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom [femin ine pronoun] was born Jesus” (Matt. 1:16). “Jesus . . . being as was supposed the son of Joseph” (Luke 3:23). The last objection we shall note is the argument from silence. Because certain New Testament writers — Mark, John and Paul — do not appear to refer to the event, it it asserted that their silence argues against its truth. But is this necessarily so? Does not this argument prove too much? Because Mark is silent on the subject of our Lord’s birth, must we therefore conclude that He was not born at all? His Gospel begins with our Lord’s public ministry. In any case, Mark does refer to Jesus as “ son of Mary.” And what of John? If there were no such miracle as the virgin birth, what are we to make of John 1:14 (R.V.), “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us?” Dr. Samuel Zwemer remarks that in the thirteenth verse of John’s first chapter modern scholars of widely differing types find a distinct reference to the subject. “Here those who believe the Word are those ‘who were begotten not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’ But according to the express testimony of Terlullian there was an early sec ond-century reading of this text which had the singular instead of the plural. It would then read, ‘He was be gotten not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’ If this old reading is correct, John denies any physical human paternity to Christ and asserts the virgin birth in the clearest possible way. St. Augustine in his Confessions quotes this same verse from John’s Gospel in the singular and takes it to refer to the virgin birth. ‘Also I found there that God the Word was born not of blood, nor of the will of a husband nor of the will of the flesh, but of God’ (Book 7, chapter 60).” There is a tradition that John once left the public baths at Ephesus when the gnostic heretic Cerinthus came in, because of his profound aversion to that heretic. When it is remembered that Cerinthus taught that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and Mary, John’s aversion argues his knowledge of the virgin birth. While Paul makes no direct reference to the subject, he invariably employed some unusual and significant ex pression when referring to the incarnation. In this con nection study Romans 5:12; 8:3; Philippians 2:7; Gala tians 4:4. Nothing he wrote in any way casts doubt upon this most important item of the Christian faith. 19
natural generation — a man and a woman; (ii) without the agency of either man or woman as Adam; (iii) a man without a woman — as Eve; (iv) through the divine empowering of a man and a woman both past age — as Isaac. If these be admitted — as they must be if the Scripture records means anything — it is but a short step to believe that (v) Jesus was born of a woman without a man, that He was begotten of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:35). THE MEANING OF VIRGIN BIRTH Exactly what do \ye mean by the term? Certainly not to imply that Jesus was born in a manner different from other children, for He was bom in exactly the same way as any other normal baby. Nor that there was merely a miraculous conception, as in the case of John the Baptist. It was a virgin conception, entirely without parallel, and of such a character as to assure sinless ness. “The ordinary processes of the transmission of the racial heritage were interrupted in His case by the miraculous conception.” Such a birth was foreshadowed in the Old Testament in the earliest Bible prophecy, where it is enfolded in the phrase “ the seed of the woman” (Gen. 3:15). Only here is that phrase used, elsewhere it is uniformly the seed of the man. This is a unique concept. In Isaiah 7:14 the sign divinely given to Ahaz is that “ a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Words could hardly be more explicit, and Matthew had no difficulty in seeing in our Lord’s birth the fulfilment of this prophecy (Matt. 1:22, 23). THE ALTERNATIVES TO VIRGIN BIRTH It is often sincerely contended that belief in the virgin birth is not necessary to Christian faith or salvation. At the close of one of his services, Dr. H. E. Fosdick said, “ I want to assure you that I do not believe in the virgin birth of Christ, and I hope none of you do.” But can such an attitude be justified? Let us consider the alternatives which face us. If the virgin birth of Christ is a fiction and not a fact, then: (i) The New Testament narratives are proved untrue, and the book is robbed of its authority, (ii) Mary, instead of being blessed among women, is branded as unchaste, for Joseph asserted that Jesus was not his son. She al lowed her firstborn to go through life mistakenly be lieving that He was the Son of God. (iii) Jesus becomes the natural child of sinful parents, which means that He was not pre-existent, and therefore there was no real incarnation, (iv) We are left with no adequate explana tion of His peerless character and sinless life, (v) If He was begotten of a human father, the only alternative to virgin birth, He was not the Second Person of the Trinity as He claimed, with the result that He has no power to forgive sin. (vi) If this miracle is denied, where are we to stop? Why not deny all miracles? THE OBJECTIONS TO THE VIRGIN BIRTH If it be asserted that Jesus having only one human parent would not of itself guarantee sinlessness, we an swer that it was not having only one parent which re moved Him from the taint of hereditary sin. It was the special activity of the Holy Spirit who “wrapped Mary round” (Luke 1:35). It was by the direct agency of God that Jesus was kept from the contamination of Mary’s sinful nature. Other objectors argue that both genealogies in Mat thew and Luke trace His descent through Joseph, and not through Mary at all. This is not so, for Luke’s genealogy is that of Mary, who was apparently of the same tribe and family as Joseph. Matthew gives the genealogy of DECEMBER, 1964
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker