(All Scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated)
Let’s focus in on one of the six featured Scriptures of the last Gem, Prophesies of Christmas – I: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14). Seven hundred years later, this prophesy was fulfilled! The angel Gabriel was sent to Mary, a young virgin in Nazareth:
Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for
you have found favor with God. And behold, you will con-
ceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call
His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the
Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the
throne of His father David. And He shall reign over the
house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be
no end.”
Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I
know not a man?”
And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit
will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will
overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to
be born will be called the Son of God....”
Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let
it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:30-33, 38).
There are other stories and traditions of virgin births:
- Herbert Spencer, in his book The Principles of Sociology, (Volume I), published in 1898, quotes an archeological inscription from Babylon:
I am Nabu-kuder-usur …. the first-born son of
Nebu-pal-sur, King of Babylon. The god Bel him-
self created me, the god Marduk engendered me,
and deposited himself the germ of my life in
the womb of my mother.
Nabu-kuder-usur is very close to the Akkadian name for
Nebuchnezzar II, son of Nabopolassar (which is close to
the Akkadian name Nebu-pal-sur), the Babylonian king of
the Bible who carried away the Jews to a 70 year captiv-
ity in Babylon! In the above inscription, the king is
claiming to be virgin born!
- Tammuz, Babylonian god of fertility, was said to be the only begotten son of the god Ea. His mother/lover Ishtar was a virgin!
- Horus, the sky god in ancient Egyptian mythology, was born of the virgin Isis, also called Meri, who had ‘sexual relations’ with the god Osiris.
- The heros in Greco/Roman mythology, were often thought of as having been conceived by the gods.
- Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) was said to be the result of his mother being impregnated by one of the thunderbolts of the god Zeus!
- The first Roman emperor Augustus (62 BC-14 AD) claimed he was the son of the god Apollo!
So Mary wasn’t the first (so say some secular ‘experts’). The theory is that Christianity borrowed the idea of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ from these earlier pagan religions. But other virgin birth claims are unsubstantiated or just mythology!
Mary was the first to give virgin birth, and the only one in human existence to be so blessed! Why do I make this statement?
- As said above, Isaiah 7:14 records that exact prophesy seven hundred years before!
Hebrew scholars who criticize the idea of the virgin birth tell us that the Hebrew word translated virgin in many translations of the Bible is עלמה (pronounced ‛al’-mah, and meaning “virgin, young woman…of marriagable age…maid newly married ” — Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Definitions). “So,” they say, “…it means a young woman, and not necessarily a virgin.”
But Isaiah 7:14 is beautifully fulfilled in Luke 1:26 through 38! Mary, a young virgin, was impregnated by the Holy Spirit (in my opinion) the moment she told the angel Gabriel, “Behold, the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38). So if Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled by the virgin conception and birth, then in Isaiah 7:14 the word ‘al’-mah must mean a virgin!
- Why was the virgin birth necessary?
First, God said in Leviticus 17:11, “…the life of the flesh is in the blood….” But life was corrupted by Adam, recorded in Genesis 3:6:
So when the woman [Eve] saw that the tree was good
for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a
tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its
fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband [Adam]
with her, and he ate.
So sin entered into the human race! And it was passed to every mother’s child through Adam, according to Romans 5:12: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned….”
“Why is just Adam blamed? Didn’t Eve start it all? Why blame just him?” Paul tells us in I Timothy 2:14 (Jubilee Bible), “…Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived in the rebellion….” In other words, Eve was tricked by Satan (the devil incarnate in the form of a serpent), but Adam participated with his eyes wide open, fully knowing that he was breaking God’s command to “…not eat…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…”! (Genesis 2:17).
Now, let’s get into a medical fact! This is from the website, “Cells for Life: Canada’s Cord Blood & Tissue Experts”
Placenta Physiology
The umbilical cord connects to the baby’s abdomen from
the placenta, which in turn is connected to the mother’s
uterus. The placenta is responsible for producing preg-
nancy hormones, as well as hosting important nutritional
exchanges between the mother and baby’s blood supply.
Small blood vessels carry the fetal blood through the
placenta, which is filled with maternal blood. Nutrients
and oxygen are passed from the mother’s blood to the
fetal blood and waste is passed back to the maternal
blood – all without any mixing between the two blood
supplies. (emphasis mine).
If Adam corrupted life, and “…the life of the flesh is in the blood…,” and if it is “…through one man [Adam, that] sin entered into the world…,” then it stands to reason that sin is passed through the father, not the mother!
This is one reason why Jesus was virgin-born! He was born free from the corrupting effects of sin!
The other reason is what we are told in John, chapter 1, and verses 1, 2, and 14:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning
with God....And the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus Christ is fully man as well as fully God! As we are told in Colossians 2:9, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”
- Why did God have to become a human being?
It is written in I Timothy 6:15 that in His glory, God “…alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see….” When Moses asked God, “Please, show me Your glory.” The LORD told him, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me and live.” (Exodus 33:18, 20). So God only revealed His back to Moses (see Exodus 33:19-34:7). But if Christ is fully God manifested fully in human flesh, then we can experience what Jesus told Philip in John 14:9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father….” And according to II Corinthians 4:6:
...it is God who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness who has shone in our hearts, to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.
He appeared in the flesh so He could totally identify with us, and so we could identify with Him! (See Hebrews 4:14-16). We can only know God, we can only approach God through the Lord Jesus Christ!
And we can approach Him, for He said in Matthew 11:28, “Come to Me…,” and in John 6:37, “…the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”
Through the virgin birth, He came to you!
Now YOU…….Come to HIM!