Born Of The Virgin Mary...Continued from page 5

The bottom line is that the Bible says the God of all creation broke into human history in a supernatural way in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God Incarnate. The preexistent God took human form, conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. This is just one of many miracles in the Bible.
To deny it is to declare that Jesus was a bastard child of a promiscuous Jewish teenager from Nazareth who, according to her culture, should have been stoned to death for her behavior. Or, at the best, Jesus was the love child of an engaged couple who lied to cover up their activities, coming up with a fantastic story of angel annunciations and a virgin birth. Or, it happened just the way the Bible says it happened.
I believe in the virgin birth, not because I understand how it happened, but because I trust the witness of Matthew and Luke. I believe in the virgin birth because I find this consistent with believing in "God the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." I find it easy to believe that the early church was so morally pure and so righteous in its teaching that it would not have perpetrated upon the world such a doctrine if it had not been true. I also believe in the virgin birth because I find it extremely difficult to believe the contrary ? that Mary was a morally loose woman and that Jesus was a bastard. I cannot believe that. In light of the life and ministry and teaching of Jesus Christ, and in what we know of the gospel record, I find it much easier to believe that Jesus was indeed "conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."
III.
Question three: So what practical relevance does this have for me today?
Answer: This miracle of the Incarnation, of which the virgin birth is a significant part, has multiple practical implications for you.
Let me mention three.
The first: You have a God who empathizes with you.
Some of the people I most admire are my alcoholic friends who are engaged in AA.
The other day I ran into a fellow who found out I was a Christian ,He shared how he no longer goes to church. He didn't find spiritual reality in church. Religion wasn't for him. He said he was in a twelve-step program, engaged in AA, and was claiming the help of his "Higher Power" to get him through, one day at a time.

My response was, as it always is, "That's fascinating. Are you aware that every one of those twelve steps came straight out of the Bible? And are you aware that the name of your 'Higher Power' is Jesus Christ?" You should have seen his jaw drop.
I went on to tell him of my personal knowledge of Reverend Sam Shoemaker, the pastor who had come to him with the steps to help alcoholics, but somehow the steps didn't seem to work. Together they sat down and opened the Bible and came up with these working biblical principles and the notion of a "Higher Power," which made help in addiction available, even to atheists, based on biblical spiritual principles.

Born Of The Virgin Mary...Continued from page 3

Both Matthew and Luke go on record to declare that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
Why believe in the virgin birth? Because the Bible teaches it. That's what it says about the parentage of Jesus. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was born of the Virgin Mary.
Do I personally understand how this can happen? No! It goes beyond my human understanding.
Do I believe it. Yes, I do! Why? Because the Bible tells me so and because the Church has affirmed this throughout the ages.
II.
Question two: Why is there such controversy about the virgin birth?
Answer: Because there is an ongoing battle between naturalistic skeptics and Bible believers who have faith that God can do what is supernatural.
What we see here are two different approaches to the Bible. Now I would be the first to admit that from what I have observed in life, virgins don't have babies. In all my years of counseling, I have never yet had an unwed, pregnant woman attribute her circumstances to the Holy Spirit's action in her life. Things just don't normally happen that way, do they?
So, I can understand the raised eyebrows of those who might have a problem accepting the notion of the virgin birth. If one is going to view this topic simply through the lens that all things happen naturally, there is no way. There have been many persons who simply dismiss the virgin birth as an impossibility, based on naturalistic presuppositions. Often those same persons also question the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Imagine what they do with the rest of the miracles that are described in the Bible. The whole matter of miracles is a problem to some.
Now before we go too far down this track, let me make a qualifier. There are some sincere Christians who do not believe in the virgin birth but do believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They take the position that belief in the virgin birth is not essential to be a born-again Christian. Their argument is that it is only specifically mentioned by Matthew and Luke. The virgin birth is not even spoken to specifically by the apostles John and Paul. They would say that resurrection is mentioned infrequently throughout the New Testament. Whereas, "Christ is risen" is the most basic affirmation of Christian worship. Therefore, they would not want to spend much time talking about this topic.

I will grant that when you make a public confession of faith in Jesus Christ, we do not ask you to state The Apostles' Creed in full detail. We do not interview you as to whether or not you believe in the virgin birth. We ask you if you have repented of sin and put your trust in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ alone for salvation. We do not give you a doctrinal litmus test.
However, the danger of minimizing biblical doctrinal affirmations such as the virgin birth is what that implies about one's view of Scripture.