“Conceived By the Holy Spirit” (2)
Luke 1:26-38
In church history
there were ones who could not accept seeing Jesus as the Son of God. Arius
suggested that Jesus was like God and not God. The early church learned a song
that confirmed that Jesus is God. Even today we sing
the same words (Gloria Patri), (not the tune, we don’t know the early tune.)
“Glory be
to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning
is now and ever shall be world without end.”
Do you see how the early church made a point that Jesus was God in the
beginning, and forever?
So we are talking not about an
ordinary birth, we are talking about the birth of God HIMSELF embodied in the human
flesh.
-The second point: This birth is told in the Old Testament. It is the fulfillment of
prophecies.
Usually we read about the virgin
birth in the Gospels of Luke or Matthew in the New Testament. How about Genesis? We read in Genesis 3:15
that because of sin there will be enmity between the “serpent” (the evil) and the
woman. The enmity goes more than among the two
parties; it reaches two their offspring.
Usually I
quote from NIV. And the NIV translation goes like this:
“And I will put enmity between
you and the woman, and between your offspring
(or Seed) and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
The NKJV translation “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall
bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."
This is the only time we talk
about “seed of women.” The seed normally comes from the man while
the woman offers the eggs or womb. This means that from a woman someone
will be born (Seed), not an ordinary person, but an extraordinary one who
will crush the head of the evil. We are talking about the birth of the Messiah.
This means Jesus will not have a biological human father. Theologians
call this the first gospel- the first announcement of the Good News, the
Gospel in the Bible. Do you see God’s hand in bringing salvation? God had a
plan from the beginning, when humanity was lost in sin; God had a wonderful
plan of reconciliation, salvation. God had a plan to reverse what sin did. This
will become real through the virgin birth.
We read more in prophets like
Isaiah. 700 years before the birth of
Jesus, Isaiah indicates that there will be a sign. The
Messiah is coming, the Seed is coming. And the sign is (Isaiah 7:14) “Therefore
the Lord himself will give you a sign:
The virgin will be with child
and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (God is with us).”
Do you realize how important it
is to follow God’s plan. It is not just a miracle, it is more than that;
it is a promise; it is sign.
How can one ignore all these?
-The third point: the virgin birth is a statement for
our salvation.
In Luke, we read, “But the angel said to her, "Do not be
afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31You will be with
child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.” Now Mary
was afraid. "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since
I am a virgin?"
Matthew goes further with Joseph. Look how angel prepared
Joseph. "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary
home as your wife, because what is conceived
in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
Joseph was on the edge of
sending Mary to her family. God stopped him and explained that He had a plan
for them. “Joseph, you have a role. Your role is to be a father by choice, to
raise Jesus, the Messiah.”
God’s design in awesome. Here
I stand in awe at God’s design for our salvation.
Qorhovrt my/ yv skan[yli1
What were the options of God
sending Jesus to this earth?
A regular birth:
that means Jesus is only human.
A divine entrance without any human birth: that means
Jesus is only divine.
Jesus
Christ is fully human and fully Divine. The EXTRAORDINARY coming to the ORDINARY.
It seems that the only way for
God to become fully human was the virgin birth conceived by the Holy Spirit; in
this mysterious birth of Jesus, divine and human collide together. This
is the beauty of God’s design in the virgin birth.
Why all this? For
our salvation, for
your salvation, for
the reconciliation of humanity with God. Listen now. We have only one
mediator who can bring us to God - Jesus Christ.
1Timothy 2:5 says, “For there
is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
All of these were a mystery
to Mary and Joseph. I wonder what happened in the
hearts of Mary, a young simple girl, and her fiancé Joseph, a man of God,
trying to understand all this. For the Israelites, God is one place. He is in
the
Immanuel, God is with us. God
is here in this baby, born of God and of a woman. God is not just in that temple;
God is revealing himself in a new way, in a little baby Jesus.
The virgin birth is not hocus pocus magic thing. It is not something that exists to
confuse us. It is not something that can be explained, or to be explained in
biological terms. I love what the angel said to Mary
when she was afraid: “For
nothing is impossible with God." (Luke 1:37)
Brothers and sisters, the
virgin birth by the Holy Spirit is the basis of an important doctrine, the doctrine
of incarnation. It is absolutely basic that Jesus
Christ is both fully God and fully man. He is the only mediator for fallen man.
He is the SAVIOR of the world.
Now it is up to you to
believe in this and be a part of this wonderful phenomenon. What I mean is that this is not just a theological doctrine or
theory put in theological books for argument. The virgin birth should affect our
lives. Because we are talking about salvation, yours and mine,
which starts from here, at the manger, and goes to the cross and resurrection.
Do you believe in this?
Amen.