The
Virgin Birth 1
As we begin our study of the prophecies we find in
the Old Testament that were fulfilled by the birth of Christ, let’s ask the
Lord for knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
But, especially, let’s ask the Lord for God-given faith…faith in the
validity and truthfulness of His Word.
You might wonder why faith is so important as we
study these prophecies and their fulfillments.
Well, as we progress, we are going to see that this study is based upon
an assumption that God’s Word is absolutely truthful… How do we know that these prophecies were
actually received years before their fulfillment? It is based upon our belief that the authors
of the Old Testament are the genuine authors and the time of their writings is as
described in the Word. How do we know
that the fulfillments of these prophecies actually took place? It is based upon
the trustworthiness of the Word’s historical accounts of the birth of Christ
and physical lineage of Christ.
I am entering this series with an acknowledgment
that I am certain that God’s Word is absolutely truthful and without
error. I will be treating it as such
throughout our study. If a person
believes in the absolute truthfulness of the Word THERE CAN BE NO DENIAL that
the Jesus is the miraculous fulfillment of the prophecies that we will be
covering. If this is so, we can declare
with unqualified certainty that Jesus is the promised Messiah of the Old
Testament.
The eternal truths we will be looking at in this
study can only be denied through an assumption that God’s Word is not perfect,
contains errors, or at the worse is fraudulent hoax.
May the Lord bless us and show us the true identity
of Jesus as we begin our study….
THE SCRIPTURES:
Gen 3:14-15 (KJV)
14) And
the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above
every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat
all the days of thy life:
15) And I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy
head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Isa 7:13-16 (KJV)
13) And
he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; [Is
it] a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
14) Therefore the Lord himself
shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and
shall call his name Immanuel.
15) Butter and honey shall he
eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
16) For before the child shall
know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest
shall be forsaken of both her kings.
Jer 31:22 (KJV)
22) How
long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created
a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.
Matt 1:22-24 (KJV)
22) Now
all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by
the prophet, saying,
23) Behold, a virgin shall
be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name
Emmanuel, which being interpreted
is, God with us.
24) Then Joseph being raised
from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his
wife:
Luke 1:26-38
(KJV)
26) And
in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee,
named Nazareth,
27) To a virgin espoused to a
man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name [was] Mary.
28) And the angel came in unto
her, and said, Hail, [thou that art]
highly favoured, the Lord [is] with
thee: blessed [art] thou among women.
29) And when she saw [him], she was troubled at his saying,
and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
30) And the angel said unto
her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
31) And, behold, thou shalt
conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
32) He shall be great, and
shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him
the throne of his father David:
33) And he shall reign over the
house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
34) Then said Mary unto the
angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
35) And the angel answered and
said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of
thee shall be called the Son of God.
36) And, behold, thy cousin
Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth
month with her, who was called barren.
37) For with God nothing shall
be impossible.
38) And Mary said, Behold the
handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel
departed from her.
Gal 4:4 (KJV)
4) But
when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,
made under the law,
THE STUDY:
The virgin birth of Christ has become one of the
most controversial truths of the day. We
may wonder why it is such a provocative teaching. The teaching of the virgin birth is directly
linked to Christ’s identity as God Himself…
Matt 1:23 “Behold, a virgin shall be
with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,
which being interpreted is, God with us.”
To deny His virgin birth is to place
Him on the level of any other man born into this earth. It is the virgin birth that sets Him ENTIRELY
apart from any other prophet, priest, or king that has ever been born into this
world.
As a matter of fact, the virgin birth
that separates Christ from all the other human beings who have ever been
born. Although Christ arose from the
dead, Lazarus, and others, did so as well… although Christ ascended to be with
the Father, Elijah and others did so also.
There are very few other events in the life of Christ that were not
experienced by at least one other man sometime throughout history, but it is
the virgin birth that clearly set Him apart from all others.
THE PROPHECY:
There are at least three
Old Testament teachings about the coming Messiah that deal with His virgin
birth…
Gen 3:15
In Gen 3:15 the Lord is
addressing Satan following the fall of man.
In the context He is placing a
curse upon him. As the Lord places the
curse upon Satan, He describes the relationship that would exist between the
Messiah and Satan … “And I will put
enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed”
Here, we can see that the coming
Messiah was described as “Her
Seed”. Throughout the Bible, when
speaking of the process of conception the man is described as the donor of the
“seed” (Gen 38:9). While the woman’s womb is, normally, looked upon as the
fertile ground in which the seed is planted that gives off the fruit (Deut
28:4)
By saying that the Messiah would be
“her seed”, it is describing a unique event in which the woman would become
fruitful without the seed of a man. The
Messiah would not only be the fruit she bore, but also the result of her seed,
not that of a man.
Jer 31:22
The prophecy we find in Jer 31:22,
emphasizes the uniqueness of the conception of the Messiah which was had
without the donation of seed from the man.
Jeremiah is speaking to the unfaithful, backsliding, nation of Judah
encouraging them to turn back to the Lord before the Babylonian takeover of
Judah would take place. What is the
argument that He uses to motivate them?
It is the virgin birth of the
Messiah … “How long wilt thou go
about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the
LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.”
Here, we see that the virgin birth is
described as “a woman shall compass a man”.
In other words, a woman would “go ahead of a man”, “reach her goal ahead
of a man”, or “surround a man”, “overcome a man”. In all of these, the basic idea is that the
woman will achieve her goal without the aid of a man. It is a as if she would be victorious over
man by accomplishing what normally what she could not do without a man. This is exactly what took place through the
virgin birth. What she could only do
through partnership with a man (physical conception and birth), she now would
accomplish alone.
How would the virgin birth motivate
Judah to turn back to the Lord? If Judah
understood the greatness of their God, surely they would turn back to Him. It is through the virgin birth that Jeremiah
revealed God’s greatness to them. After
all, the virgin birth of the Messiah is a clear declaration of the power,
mercy, wisdom and love that God holds towards His people. What better reasons to return to Him in
repentance and faith?
Isa 7:13-16
The third OT prophecy concerning the
virgin birth is found in Isa 7:14… “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a
son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
It is in this prophecy that we find the
virgin birth clearly proclaimed. This prophecy centers on the prophet Isaiah
speaking to the nation of Judah comforting them and encouraging them to not
fear the foreign powers aligned against them.
Isaiah was confirming that the Lord would protect them.
The virgin birth and the Messiah’s
earthly ministry was a sign to God’s people of their need to trust in the
Lord. How can this be a sign to the
people existing then, if the birth of Christ would take place hundreds of years
later?
It was an issue of faith in two ways
(faith in God and faith in the ministry of Isaiah)…
As we said in the previous text, the
virgin birth was a display to all of the Lord’s power, mercy, wisdom and love
for His people. Isaiah was assuring the
people of Judah that this was the wonderful God that they served and it was
this same wonderful God that promised their deliverance from their
enemies. If they believed this prophecy
of the virgin birth would take place, it would prove to them they needed to
trust their God NOW. After all, the same
God that would send their Messiah (via a virgin birth) is the same powerful,
just, loving God that would deliver them now.
Also, it involved faith in Isaiah as a
true prophet from God. If they believed
that Isaiah was delivering God’s message about a virgin birth, surely they
could trust his message of their coming deliverance, as well.
If they believed this prophecy about
the coming Messiah, then wouldn’t that same faith lead them to trust the
prophet’s message of their coming rescue by God?
To say that “virgin” is only describing
a “handmaid” is doing away with the whole intent of this prophecy… a handmaid
giving birth proves nothing about God’s ability to work miracles and wouldn’t
be a motivation for them to believe in the promises of God no matter how
impossible it might seem. It undoes
everything Isaiah was trying to accomplish in his message to Judah.
The whole idea is this … if our God can
send His Messiah via a virgin birth surely He can deliver us from an invasion
from human armies!
Although, the Heb word for “virgin” can
describe a young servant… the context of this passage dictates that this
conception must be describing a miraculous act of God, and therefore, it must
be the conception of one who had never had relations with a man.
THE FULFILLMENT:
In our next lesson we will examine the historical
accounts of the fulfillment of these prophecies.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION:
Our study of the OT
prophecies concerning the virgin birth of the Messiah, we can come to a fresh
understanding of the power, mercy, wisdom and love of our Lord. Based on this, we also come face to face with
our need to trust Him in every area of our lives.
If you have any questions about
salvation you are welcome to email me at settledinheaven@gmail.com. I’ll be more than happy to answer any
question you may have.
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Relationship With God”. On this page,
you will find several blog entries explaining the way of salvation and
important truths about salvation.
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