When I first resigned myself, under the pressure of my wonderful Trinitarian Greek friend, to working through the issues of the Trinity and the dual nature of Christ, I was biased against the virgin birth. I doubted it. I assumed I would come to the position that the two accounts of it (Mathew and Luke) were interpolations stuck into the text by those meddling, tampering, dogmatic Trinitarian scribes. The opposite happened. The virgin birth fits. It makes total sense in relation to the rest of the New Testament, as well as the Old Testament.

 

Jesus was THE Son of God. Literally. He unequivocally said so over and over and over again. There is one other person who was a LITERAL son of God. Luke tells us in his genealogy, "Adam, the son of God." This is why (among other reasons) Jesus is known as the second Adam. They were both LITERALLY the sons of God. However, Jesus is the "only-begotten Son of God". Adam was not begotten; he was fashioned from the dust of the earth. Jesus is unique - the only literal son of God who was begotten through a woman. Jesus called God, "Abba" - that is, "Daddy." From a very young age Jesus knew who his father was: "Did you not know that I had to be in my Father's house?" - age 12. Luke tells us that Gabriel, when speaking to Mary of her coming impregnation by God says, "...for that reason the Holy Child will be called the Son of God." Dude! How can it be any plainer! The REASON Jesus is called the Son of God is because God is LITERALLY his Father! When Jesus said he was the Son of God he meant it!

 

Now, I have been told that in Mathew 1:23 where Mathew quotes Isaiah - "the virgin shall be with child" that the Hebrew word for "virgin" also means "young woman of marriageable age" and that Mathew, or a scribe, changed the text from "young woman" to "virgin." It's true that the Hebrew word can mean either. How did the Jews understand the passage in Isaiah? There is an easy way to find out. Read the Septuagint. In case you don't know, the Septuagint is a Koine Greek translation of the Old Testament that was the product of Seventy Jewish scholars working in Alexandria, Egypt 300-200 years BC. Most of the Old Testament scriptures cited by New Testament writers are quotes from the Septuagint. The Greek word in the Septuagint is the word for, "virgin". The seventy Jewish scholars who produced the Septuagint understood Isaiah to be saying, "virgin", not "young woman." Mathew was quoting the Septuagint.

 

It is in the context of the virgin birth, where Mary questions, "How can these things be?" that the angel says, "With God nothing is impossible." I said to myself, "Self, why do you have no problem with the idea that God created a human Adam from the dust of the earth, but you do have a problem with the idea that God created a human fetus in Mary's womb? Are not both propositions equally incredible? Why one and not the other?" Well, I couldn't answer that question. I obviously had a presuppositional bias.

 

The virgin birth doesn't make Jesus God any more than Adam was God, which is - not at all! Jesus was completely, totally, and ONLY human. Just like Adam was completely, totally, and ONLY human. Jesus became "Christ" which means "Anointed" at his baptism. Before that time, no miracles, no mighty works, no manifestation that he was anything other than a completely human son. Jesus said that he had no power of his own; it was all coming from his Father. Before his anointing, he could do nothing in the way of miracles. He was completely, totally, and ONLY human. After his anointing, he was STILL completely, totally, and ONLY human - his power and teaching was not his own, he said so himself, many times.

 

Can you see that this makes Jesus more incredible, more lovely, more amazing, than if he was also God? (So he can do miracles - big deal - HE'S GOD!) Can you see that this makes Jesus easier to love, easier to relate to, easier to imitate? Adam had everything going for him and he blew it. Jesus had everything against him and he triumphed! And can you see the GREAT love wherein God loved us, that he was willing to sacrifice His only-begotten Son? His one-and-only? Just as it was foreshadowed in Abraham, who was also willing to sacrifice his only son?

 

The virgin birth dovetails beautifully with all the other data given in scripture. However, the virgin birth does not imply that Jesus was anything other than 100% human. And as any mathematician knows, you can only be 100% of ONE THING. Nothing can be 100% of one thing and also 100% of something else - as in Jesus being 100% God AND also, AT THE SAME TIME, 100% human, as the Creeds state. This is non-sense in the true sense of the term. As I said before, "God is not a man...or a son of man..." That's pretty clear. It's pretty unequivocal. Not much room for interpretation. The categories "God" and "Man" are mutually exclusive. There is only one (singular) God, who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, and so, by definition, no man can be THAT. The creator and the thing created CANNOT be the same thing!

 

Now, as far as I'm concerned, I believe the accounts of the virgin birth. If it is not true, then Jesus' statements about being the Son of God are less literal and more nebulous. If the virgin birth was somehow disproved to my satisfaction, it would "de-literalize" some things that are easier to understand as literal rather than as non-literal. However, my confession that Jesus is my Lord and Savior does not stem from his virgin birth. Adam was also a literal son of God but I do not confess him as my Lord. Jesus is my Lord by virtue of the fact of his resurrection, whether or not he was virgin-born.

 

I consider the resurrection of Jesus to be THE non-negotiable. "If Christ was not raised we [meaning the apostles] are of all men the most to be pitied." The resurrection is not negotiable. Without it you and I have nothing, we are still dead in our sins and tomorrow we die. If Christ was not raised, all of us are to be pitied, but the apostles the most of all. But the apostles do testify to the resurrection as eyewitnesses. The issue for each person is whether or not to believe the eyewitness accounts. Jesus was raised from the dead, he was seen by many, take it or leave it. That's it. Paul said, "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received..." There were three things that were of "first importance": Jesus died, Jesus was raised from the dead, and Jesus appeared to "many" - over 500 people witnessed the resurrected Christ. That is what is of first importance. The virgin birth is not to be found in that list. Nor is belief in the Trinity, nor the Deity of Christ. THE issue is: do you believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead? That was the point of every apostolic sermon in the book of Acts; Jesus died, Jesus was raised, and many saw him, including he who speaks to you. Believe, and repent.

 

So at this point, I accept the accounts of the virgin birth. However, I consider it a secondary issue. It is found only in Mathew and Luke, none of the epistles explicitly teach it, nor is it found in Paul's list of what is of "first importance." Also, I do not believe that the virgin birth involves any implication of pre-existence or deity. Jesus said of himself that he was, "a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God." (John 8:40).