"Going"

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JESUS' BIRTH

We depend on our physical senses for information. What we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste profoundly affects our lives. These aspects of living we call real. We are also familiar with thinking and reasoning, which are less tangible, but they allow us to arrive at knowledge. What we do not perceive is that which occurs in the spiritual realm.

Consider Elisha's servant, for example. When he saw an army of Syrians surrounding the city, he was distraught and asked his master what they were going to do. Imagine his surprise when Elisha told him those who were with them were more than what he saw with his own eyes. How could that be? He saw clearly the Syrian army; he did not see anyone who would be able to help them.

After the prophet prayed that his eyes might be opened, he saw a great spiritual host; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire (2 Kings 6:15-17). Anyone observing the two men leading a blind army to Samaria would have stared in awe. "How are all those men prisoners?" he would wonder. "I don't believe what I'm seeing."

The reason is that we do not have that special kind of eyesight. When we see things happen in the flesh, we have one perspective; often lacking is the spiritual explanation. Consider a resident of Bethlehem observing those who were coming into the city. All had been ordered to go to their native cities in order to be registered for a census. All manner of folks traveled and entered Bethlehem, including a woman obviously very much pregnant. Perhaps some saw her a few days later after delivery with her new son.

"Ah, how nice," someone might have said. "A new son, a new Jew, a reminder that life goes on." Maybe he had heard about the shepherds coming into the city to see the child as he lay in a manger. But would the person who happened to notice these things have known that this was no ordinary child and no ordinary birth? What was so significant about it?

Who Was This Child?

In Genesis 3:15, the Lord said to the serpent who had successfully tempted Eve to sin: "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."

Two seeds are being contrasted. The seed of Satan is not physical but rather all of those who adopt his ways and character. The seed of the woman can refer to no other than Jesus. Though Eve had sinned, a righteous seed line would come forth from her, and it will eventually bring forth Jesus into the world. More particularly, this Seed will come from Mary.

More details will be given on that later. The significant thing about this Individual is that He will defeat Satan. He will not go unscathed since He will receive a wound on His heel. The devil did succeed in having Jesus crucified. In fact, that looked, to some, like the end. But death could not hold Him, and Jesus arose from the dead, showing that He could conquer the most fearsome enemy life has. In arising from the dead, Jesus showed power even over that dreaded conclusion to life. All those who are resurrected in the last day will be victorious because of the fatal blow that Jesus delivered against Satan.

Isaiah 7:14

Modernists try to make this prophecy of the virgin birth mean something else. Some translations even erroneously render the Hebrew word, almah, as "young woman." Some aver that the word does not always mean a virgin. About 275-250 B. C. the Jews decided to translate the Hebrew into the Greek language, since it was universally known. They chose to represent almah by the Greek word parthenos, which always means "virgin." Is it not likely that the Jews knew their own language (better than Modernists, even)? Therefore, more than 250 years before Jesus was born, the Jews were expecting to hear that someone had been born of a virgin.

In case anyone ever doubted that Jesus is that One, Matthew forever resolved and clarified the situation for us in the first century. An angel spoke to Joseph when he found out the news of Mary's pregnancy; he told him not to be afraid to take her as his wife, "for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 1:20). Matthew comments that these strange events were the fulfillment of prophecy—particularly Isaiah 7:14: "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name, Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us."

Did anyone in Nazareth know that Jesus was born of a virgin? Did they know He was the Seed of woman who would defeat Satan? No. To them it just looked as though a Jewish couple named Joseph and Mary had a new son.

God made some promises to Abraham—the nation promise, the land promise, and the spiritual promise. He told the patriarch: "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice" (Gen. 22:18). The New Testament explains further: "Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, 'And to seeds,' as of many, but as of one, 'And to your Seed,' who is Christ." (Gal. 3:16). No one can seriously doubt that Jesus is the Seed of Eve Who would defeat Satan and the Seed of Abraham, through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed (because He obtained salvation).

Critics

A third Seed promise involves Jesus being the descendant of David Who would reign over an everlasting kingdom (2 Sam. 7:12-16). Jesus is also that Prophet who would bring a new covenant (Deut. 18:15-19) and the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek (Ps. 110:1-4). Yet despite all of these things, some feel obligated to disparage all of the Bible's teachings on this subject. Someone named Valerie Tarico posted her commentary on December 3, 2018, in which she says that the Bible discredits itself by declaring the virgin birth of Jesus.

The only thing she gets correct is that "Christians" have conflated the two stories into one, thus having the wise men present on the night Jesus was born. In actuality Luke records those events, while Matthew records the wise men coming at a later time. Like most Modernists, Tarico decides to play the "Here's what I think should have happened" game.

Many people might find it surprising that these auspicious infancy stories are never referenced anywhere else in the New Testament for example, in the letters of Paul or in the other two gospels that made their way into the Christian Bible.

So, if she were writing the New Testament, Mark and John would have mentioned the virgin birth, and Paul would have made a note of it as well. Her arrogance cannot conceive of God doing it differently than the way she thinks He should have. She does not even appear to consider why Mark and John did not mention the spectacular nature of Jesus' birth.

For Mark, the reason is that He wanted to jump right into the proofs Jesus gave for His Divinity. As early as verses 2-3, he cites the prophecy concerning John being the one to prepare the way for Jesus. John baptizes Jesus in verse 9 and is imprisoned by verse 14. Jesus calls some men to be His disciples, and He's already working miracles by verse 23. These continue throughout chapters 1-2. Mark did not take the time to go into Jesus' earthly parentage. The miracles proved He is the Son of God. Besides, God knew that two other writers would deal with that subject. Why do Modernists assume that all four gospel writers should say the same thing? What would be the point?

John was the last gospel written; Jesus' genealogy was already well-known. John goes beyond what people knew about His birth by beginning with these now-famous and oft-memorized words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). Had John begun writing by referring to Joseph and Mary, we would have lost the marvelous link to Genesis 1:1. How could John have stated it any clearer that Jesus is God? And he did so at the very outset. Furthermore, verse 14 implies the virgin birth and harmonizes with that teaching: And the Word became flesh…." God became flesh, just as Luke 1:35 explains.

Tarico is also wrong about Paul not referring to the virgin birth, although he did not use those words. He mentions that Jesus did not count His equality with God something to be grasped but "came in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:6-7). This is the same concept as set forth in John 1 and Luke 1:35. Paul also writes in 1 Timothy 3:16 that "God was manifested in the flesh." It is also Paul who wrote Galatians 3:16 that Jesus is that seed of Abraham through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed, which we have previously linked to the seed promise made to Eve and to David concerning his seed who would be king. The Bible harmonizes well; Modernists are the discordant ones.

The critic tries to make a case that the birth stories were late additions because other various epistles were written earlier than Matthew and Luke. These two gospel writers' works are usually dated about 62-64, whereas James, the Thessalonian letters, the Corinthian letters, and Romans were all dated earlier. So what? Peter wrote both of his letters at least two years later than Matthew and Luke; Paul wrote 2 Timothy about A.D. 68. If errors were being circulated, can anyone imagine Paul not saying something? John wrote later still (in the 90s), and while he sets many errors straight, his writing agrees with the virgin birth accounts.

The writer goes on making claims she cannot prove (and she does not offer documentation) such as that Christianity evolved—that John made the most extravagant claims of anyone about the Deity of Jesus. He certainly did not! Has Tarico never read Mark 2 (purportedly the first gospel written)? Jesus claimed to forgive sins, an evidence of Deity.

One just knows that the charge that Christianity copied pagan myths is going to show up somewhere in this hit piece. Does it never occur to such critics that the life of Jesus is not told like the myths of the Greeks and the Romans? Their gods had great physical strength and various powers, but they lived carnally—not spiritually. Christians are called unto holiness (1 Thess. 4:7), and Jesus Himself possessed no corruption whatsoever (1 Peter 2:22).

The one remaining stumbling block to the Modernist is Isaiah's prophecy. Finally Tarico cites a source, and it is—wait for it—Bishop Spong, the Episcopalian who never met a sin he didn't like. With "great swelling words" he defended fornication, adultery, and homosexuality. She quotes him as saying that the Hebrew word bethula was used to refer to a virgin. That word would be used of a five-year old girl or a 70-year-old woman. Almah and the Greek equivalent parthenos just refer to a young woman who has not had sexual relations with a man—not to one who has. No reliable Greek authority would make such a misstatement of fact.

Tarico and her wrecking crew have not said anything new. The writers of the Old and New Testaments were inspired of God (which she rejects at square one), and the birth of Jesus remains significant. She may genuinely regret her pompous assumptions when Jesus returns.

Celebration

However, as significant as the birth of Jesus was, He never entered a closed room with the twelve and charged them to celebrate it once a year. He never told them to proclaim His birth until He returned. He told them to remember His death and proclaim it until He comes (1 Cor. 11:23-26). Men have changed even that from a weekly observance to an annual celebration (Easter).

Men have even not changed since the days of Israel. God told them to go conquer the land, and they refused. Then He told them not to attack, and they did. God authorized men to remember Christ's death on the cross for our sins, and they chose to add an unauthorized observance (Christmas). He told them to remember each week (Acts 20:7), and they made it an annual event (Easter). When will mankind ever learn to do just what God says—no more and no less?