First Baptist Church Christmas – December 16, 2007 Dillon, Montana
Title: The Wonder of the Virgin Birth Text: Isaiah 7:14
Introduction: Recently after a service at Parkview Acres I had an interesting conversation with a stately and refined lady who asked me the following question in a tone of ridicule and disdain, “Do you really believe that Jesus was born of Mary with out a human father? I said, “Yes, that’s what the Bible teaches when it says, ‘a virgin shall be with child.’” She responded, “It’s physically impossible, without a man being involved!” I then said, “Normally that is true. That’s what makes the birth of Jesus so unique! It is a sign from God that He was stepping into our world in a miraculous way. Jesus did not have a human father; His father is God.”
Proposition: The virgin birth of Christ is a miraculous wonder that is fundamental to our faith.
Interrogative: What do we mean by the phrase “Virgin Birth of Christ”?
Definition: “The Virgin Birth of Christ, as presented in the Bible, was a birth in normal human flesh from a normal human mother who was a virgin in the strictest sense of the word. That is, not only did Jesus have no human father, but no coitus of any kind, natural or supernatural, took place. The virgin birth was a special miracle wrought by the Third Person of the Trinity, whereby the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal Son of God, took to himself a genuine and complete human nature, and was born as a man, without surrendering in any way his complete divine nature” (Baker’s Dictionary of Theology pg. 543-544).
I. The Scriptural evidence for the virgin birth: We will consider 3 major passages and the genealogies-
A. The virgin birth was prophesized to be a sign to the House of David – Isaiah 7:10-16
B. The virgin birth was perplexing to Mary – Luke 1:26-38
C. The virgin birth was comforting to Joseph – Matthew 1:18-25
D. The virgin birth was assumed and accepted in the genealogies – Matthew 1:16 & Luke 3:23
II. The Theological implication of the virgin birth:
“It is only in [the virgin birth's] relation to the New Testament doctrine of redemption that the necessity of the virgin birth of Jesus come to its complete manifestation. For in this Christianity the redemption that is provided is distinctively redemption from sin; and that he might redeem men from sin it certainly was imperative that the Redeemer himself should not be involve in sin . . . [Assuredly] no one, resting for himself under the curse of sin, could atone for the sin of others; no one owing the law its extreme penalty for himself could pay this penalty for others. And certainly in the Christianity of the New Testament every natural member of the race of Adam rest under the curse of Adam’s sin, and is held under the penalty that hangs over it. If the Son of God came into the world therefore-as that Christianity asserts to be a ‘faithful saying’-specifically in order to save sinners, it was imperatively necessary that he should become incarnate after a fashion which would leave him standing, so fare as his own responsibility is concerned, outside that fatal entail of sin in which the whole natural race of Adam is involved. And that is as much as to say that the redemptive work of the Son of God depends upon his supernatural birth” (Biblical and Theological Studies, by Benjamin Warfield, pp. 165-166 – from an article first published in The American Journal of Theology, 1906. pp21-30).
Genesis 3:15, Galatians 4:4-5
III. The Practical application of the knowledge of the virgin birth:
A. Wonder
B. Faith
C. Praise
D. Adoration
E. Thanksgiving
F. Satisfaction
Conclusion: Are you believing in and trusting in the supernatural birth, life, resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the redemption of sin that He offers to all those who receive Him?
