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 |  Subject: Born of the Virgin Mary?  Wed Dec 24, 2014 12:21 am | |
| Born of the Virgin Mary?
Witnessing Tools
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Wendy Wippel
It’s no surprise, in the rush to “reimagine” Christianity for modern sentiments, which is the virgin birth had to go. And it has. Polls indicate that the majority of American Christians (by denominational affiliation e.g. Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists) now believe the Christmas story is mythology. Many ask if it really matters. Yes. More than they know.Tragically, it’s our pastors that have led the stampede into sin. Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of Riverside church in New York, at the time when German Higher Criticism (meaning abandonment of any belief in the Bible as actual truth) said, - Quote :
- "Of course I do not believe in the virgin birth... I do not know any intelligent minister who does".
Professor Barnes Tatum, author of the book In Quest of Jesus, has since called the virgin birth, “theological fiction”.Robert Funk, founder of the Jesus Seminar, called the virgin birth an “insult to modern intelligence that should be abandoned”.The eminent Bishop Sprong, an infamous long-time influence in the Episcopal church, opined that, - Quote :
- “In time, the virgin birth account will join Adam and Eve... as clearly recognized mythological elements in our faith tradition whose purpose was not to describe a literal event but to capture the transcendent dimensions of God in the earthbound words and concepts of first-century human existence”.
Translation: It’s a myth. But it still has emotional value.Bell, the infamous emergent pastor of Mars Hill church in Michigan, has asked, - Quote :
- “What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births?"
Translation: “Does it matter?”I think we have plenty of reason to believe it is historical fact, and it does matter.For three reasons. (How very Biblical!)To begin with, Matthew, who describes the lineage of Jesus, as the future king of Israel, traces the male line from Abraham, through Judah, David, Solomon, and Jechoniah to Jacob, Joseph’s father. But Jechoniah was such a wicked king that God decreed that none of Jechoniah’s descendants could ever sit on the throne of Judah: - Quote :
- "As surely as I live," declares the LORD, "even if you, Jechoniah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. This is what the LORD says: "Write this man down as childless… For none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah.’” (Jer. 22:30)
Joseph was ineligible to pass on the right to the throne. But since (according to the theological mythological “Biblical" story) Joseph was not an actual physical descendent of Jechoniah, that problem was resolved.The second problem was that inheritance among the Jews passed (including the line to the throne) through sons. Scripture, however documents at least one sister for Mary, but no brothers are mentioned.Which brings us to the daughters of Zelophehad clause. The five daughters of Zelophehad came to Moses and asked to be able to retain their father’s property because there was no son to inherit. Moses decided that, in the absence of a male heir, daughters could inherit as sons, but only if they married within their own tribe (to keep tribal lands allocated intact, as when women married, what they owned became her husband’s property). Essentially, the daughter’s husband, by law, became the son that that father did not have. Kind of where we get the phrase son-in-law, (i.e. a son, by law). And the respective genealogies document that they were both of the tribe of Judah, descended from David through different sons.So that puts the second problem to bed. Because they were born of different sons, Mary’s line also avoided the blood curse. And because Mary had no brothers, she retained right of inheritance (through Moses’ ruling on Zelophehad’s daughters) which gave her son legal rights to the throne.But those were technicalities, really. The third one is nothing less than a diabolical dilemma.At least on the surface.And our first hint of it is hidden in Exodus: - Quote :
- Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,“This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish. (Exodus 12:2-5 NKJV)
This, as you probably recognize, is the passage in which God institutes the Passover, in which the blood of the sacrificed lamb covered over all those who appropriated the blood for themselves. A foreshadowing of the sacrifice lamb to come who would take away the sin of the world.And the final, most important requirement was that the lamb had no blemish. Only one without the stain of his own sin could pay the penalty for others.Only Christ was without his own sin. - Quote :
- “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (II Corinthians 5:21)
So far, so good, right? We all know that Jesus, despite taking human form, never sinned: - Quote :
- Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. (I Peter 2:21-23)
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the full solution to the problem. All of humanity had come under the curse of sin through Adam and Eve. - Quote :
- “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. (Romans 5:12,17)
Now we really do have a problem. How could Jesus have a human birth and human nature but still be untainted by the human condition?Interestingly, the Bible consistently says that the sin nature is passed to later generations specifically by the father. (Look again at the Romans verse above. Through one man’s trespass, all died). - Quote :
- And they, as Adam, transgressed the covenant, There they dealt treacherously against me. (Hosea 6:7YLT)
- Quote :
- For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. (I Corinthians 15:22)
(I never really picked up on that before, either.) How does that happen? (What about Eve!)Interestingly, scientists have recently shown that memories can be passed from father to son through permanent genetic changes at a molecular level (called epigenetic changes) below the level of the DNA sequence.Which presents a hint of an actual physiological way that the sins of the father could be passed to their offspring. There’s a lot of science to be done in between that and showing a physiological way that mortality is passed specifically from the father. But it is interesting insight into the Christmas story.One Lutheran Seminary professor confessed that for him, angels, traveling magi, and virgin births were “hard to swallow as reality”. He was also of the opinion that you don’t have to swallow it to be a Christian. That particular passage of Scripture has just been misinterpreted all these years.Rob Bell asks, - Quote :
- “What if, as you study the origin of the word “virgin,” you discover that the word “virgin” in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word “virgin” could mean several things?”.
That’s true. The Hebrew word used in the prophecy of the virgin birth is “almah”. And “almah”, most often in Scripture to mean “virgin”, is sometimes used to simply designate a young woman.But the Greek word in the New Testament is "Parthenos", (stemming from the Parthenon, which housed the Greek vestal virgins). And "Parthenos" always means a virgin.And the context of the prophecy that forecast Jesus’ birth? God had told Ahaz that he had nothing to fear from the Syrians, but Ahaz was having a little trouble believing that. So God told him to ask for a sign. Furthermore, God told him that there was no limit on what he could ask. But Ahaz couldn’t bring himself to ask.So God finally gave Ahaz a sign to look for: - Quote :
- “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14)
The sign Ahaz was to look out for was that a “young woman” would have child?Doesn’t seem like much of a sign. And wouldn’t solve the problem. For that, you absolutely needed a virgin birth. - Quote :
- “Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, … to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." (Luke 2:4-11)
Great tidings of great joy. The Christ, the Savior promised, born of a virgin through the Holy Spirit, untainted by human sin. Born in Bethlehem, of the virgin Mary, to save sinners.From one of those sinners He saved… Merry Christmas!!! |
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