Exhortation

In the early twentieth century, the virgin birth became a litmus test of orthodoxy.  Fundamentalists affirmed the virgin birth; modernists denied it.  The debate was about miracles: Fundamentalists believe that God can alter the normal pattern of creation and make things work differently.

We at Trinity are fundamentalists, but the virgin birth is not just about the reality of miracles.  After all, God had given miracle children many times before, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Manoah and Elkanah.  The virgin birth is different, and that difference is the heart of the gospel.

The virgin birth is about the miracle of grace.  It is a sign of the fact that we cannot become the humanity of God, the human partner in God’s covenant, on our own.  It displays the priority of grace: If we are to go to God, God must first come to us.  We can’t make our flesh God’s flesh.  God has to take our flesh to Himself.

The virgin birth shows too that our salvation is nothing less than a new creation.  The cloud of the Spirit hovers over Mary as He fluttered over the womb of heaven and earth at the beginning of creation.

Together with the resurrection, the virgin birth points to the power of God to call things into being from nothing, so that the story of Jesus is surrounded by two great signs of God’s resolve to bring life from death – the virgin womb, and the empty tomb.

Since the virgin birth is a pointer to grace, it is also a pointer to our death in sin.  Scripture says that apart from this grace, the grace manifest in the virgin birth and incarnation, we are “dead in our transgressions.”  If we are to enjoy new life, we must put off this death by continuous confession and repentance.