In this post I examine why Jesus had to born of a virgin.  Scripture does not give a single definitive answer, but the explanation is to be found when both the Old and New Testament are considered together.

Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

The Hebrew word translated is עַלְמָה almah (Strong’s 5659) and it means a maiden, a young woman, girl or virgin.  Given the central tenet of this passage to Christianity, many in opposition have argued this verse refers only to a young woman, a young bride even, and that it is not therefore prophesying the miraculous, merely the natural birth of a boy; further still, this was not Messianic but a prophesy only for Isaiah’s generation.

This passage is cited by Matthew and the apostle removes all ambiguity from almah, declaring the prophesy signifies a virgin and it is given to be fulfilled by Jesus, the incarnate God.

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: his mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.  Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yetdid not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’

 All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’(which means ‘God with us’).  (Matthew 1:18-23)

Matthew makes it an essential component of his gospel to show how the ‘Law and the Prophets’, where fulfilled in Christ. Many argue there is no significance to the virgin birth other than the fulfilment of prophesy just as Jesus’s birthplace foretold to be Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) or his flight with his parents to Egypt (Hosea 11:1).  These were all signs and as Paul says ‘Jews demands signs’ (1 Corinthians 1:22).

However, the Messianic signs themselves were not random. Each had meaning.  Bethlehem established the link to David, the flight to Egypt (and return) references the Jacob’s journey and the freedom of the twelve tribes from slavery under Moses. Yet, as signs go, the virgin birth is not greatly evidential.  It can be an obvious matter of fact where Jesus was born or to where he sought sanctuary for the early part of his life, but his conception was necessarily a private matter; furthermore, conjecture over Mary’s fidelity was hardly of itself auspicious.

When teaching in Nazareth, not only are Jesus’ credentials are called into question but also his parentage:

‘Where did this man get these things?’ they asked. ‘What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing?  Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?’ And they took offence at him…’  (Mark 6:3) *

And again, when the Jewish authorities asserted to Jesus that Abraham was their (fore)father, this dialogue occurred in which they appear to accuse of Jesus of being born of fornication.

‘You are doing the works of your own father.’ (said Jesus)

 ‘We are not illegitimate children,’ they protested. ‘The only Father we have is God himself.’ John 8:41.

If the virgin birth has any manifest significance, it must be more than calling into question Jesus’ legitimacy.  And does it not invalidate his lineage to David, that is another key fulfilment of prophesy (Isaiah 9:7 and 2 Samuel 7:11b-13)?

[I will examine this question in another blog post, VIRGIN BIRTH – LINEAGE.]

This forces a conclusion and a question: that fulfilling Isaiah 7:14 was only part of God’s purpose and therefore, what divine mechanism makes is the virgin birth necessary and critical to God’s redemptive plan?  On this Matthew is silent.

The Gospels attest to Jesus as the Messiah, המשיח Hamashaich,the anointed one, sent to bring salvation; however, Jesus was not the warrior leader who would deliver Israel, because Jesus’ enemy was sin not the Roman occupiers.  In conquering sin, he defeats the consequence of sin, which is death, through his own substitutionary death.  The Gospel message as expanded in the rest of the New Testament, is that propitiation by the perfect sacrifice offers restoration of Creation to God.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.(1 John 2:2)

…we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all…For by one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy.  (Hebrews 10:10&14)

For Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice, he must himself be sinless.  He must not only live a sinless life, which he did, but he must also be born sinless.  To do this he must overcome original sin.

Now many argue that babies are born innocent and that original sin relates only to the Fall itself but Scripture suggests otherwise.  This is one way to read the following:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.  (Romans 5:12)

 This verse establishes the link between Adam and sin and the penal consequence for sin, death.  But Paul is at pains to draw this out in verses 13 and 14, in particular, for the Jew that can only associate transgression of the law with sin.

To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.  Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.  

 Paul points to the obvious, before the law there was death, and sin was punished by death (the flood, for example) – but (now not so obvious) this was not because individual wrongdoing was punished. He goes on, if you take the example of those who did not break God’s commands, did they live?  No, all died, without exception.

The implication is clear and Paul reiterates in subsequent verses; the sin of Adam causes death before any are in the position to add to his offence by further acts of disobedience.

Hence, David says he was sinful from the moment of conception.

Surely I was sinful at birth,
    

  sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; (Psalm 51:5-6)

How could David disobey the Law as an unborn child?  His only reference must be to the sin of Adam, the ‘one trespass (that) resulted in condemnation for all people,’ (Romans 5:18a).  This means the sin of Adam is transmitted in some way, imputed through the generations.

Jesus could not be as David.  He could not be born sinful.  Living a sinless life was not sufficient; he must not be tainted with any stain of Adam.

But Paul in Romans 5 goes further by suggesting the mechanism – that original sin is transferred by the sexual act along with the father’s DNA.

sin entered the world through one man (Romans 5:12).

As noted above, Paul does not hold Eve responsible even though she was the first to eat of the forbidden fruit – he says ‘one man’, Adam.

Adam is the sole architect of his destruction, but it not only his, but also every generation that flows from his loins.  As the man is blamed not the woman, so it is seen that by men that sin is imputed.

Reasonable, possibly – but the proof is surely in the very necessity of the virgin birth itself; Jesus is not the result of sexual union.  In this, Jesus and Adam share; they were not the product of procreation but of divine creation.  It is this commonality that Paul highlights two verses later.

Adam, (who) was a type of the one who was to come. (Romans 5:14)

With this revelation, the full meaning of the cursing of the serpent becomes clear:

And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspringand hers;
he will crushyour head,
and you will strike his heel.’(Genesis 3:15)

The literal translation reads: ‘and enmity I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed’ (YLT).  Salvation then derives from the woman’s ‘seed’, and this is the person of Christ and while the serpent is revealed as Satan.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. (Romans 16:20)

God’s curse contains a blessing.  Jesus crushes Satan, even if it requires the crucifixion of that seed, the striking of his heel is Satan’s hollow and pyrrhic victory of the Cross. Hence Genesis 3:15 is called the protoevangelium,as it is the incipient Gospel, the first indication of God’s plan for the redemption of humankind.

Redemption then is outworked via the woman, by Eve, her daughter, Mary, not via Adam and his son Joseph, it is from the distaff not the spear that God that offers salvation.  For the legacy of Adam’s single, catastrophic act of disobedience to be broken, Jesus could not be Adam’s son for his sire must be none other than his heavenly father.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.  And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.  (Colossians 2:13-15)

Cancelling the charge of legal indebtedness, here speaks of the original sin.  This is God working for his glory.

This is what the Sovereign Lord says: it is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone.  I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes. (Ezekiel 36:22-23)

The reason then that Joseph can only be Jesus’s legal rather than biological father is that sin is imputed through the male seed.  And what is more, the miraculous conception prefigures how all must be born again to inherit the Kingdom of God.

 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.  (John 1:12-13)

Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. 

(John 3:3)

Jesus tells Nicodemus that all must be re-born from above (γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν gennethe anothenmeans both ‘born again’ and ‘born from above’) to be saved.  And that is a work of the Spirit, just as Jesus own miraculous conception.

Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit…’ (John 3:5-6)

Being born of the Spirit transforms all who accept the gift of faith of Jesus as Christ:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

(2 Corinthians 5:16-17)

To be Jewish, a baby must have a Jewish mother; to be human, Jesus had to have a human mother, but the seed had to come from his divine father to be the first of a new creation, or as Paul writes in Colossians (1:18), ‘he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead’.

Much has been, and is still made of Mary’s virginity in terms of her character.  It is important not confuse chastity with purity. Mary was uniquely chosen and supremely blessed, but notwithstanding her humility and faithfulness, she would have as much need of God’s grace through her son’s redemptive gift as any woman or man; nevertheless, that she was chaste is an essential part of God’s redemptive plan; for without divine intervention, we would all be eternally sinful and without hope of becoming righteous. We would all be lost to sin and death being without the means to reconcile ourselves to God, he to us for eternity.

Adam’s sin is imputed to all men and women, which through faith is imputed to Jesus, in return, Jesus imputes to all would receive him his righteousness.  The sinless man becomes sin, and that mankind is redeemed.  The virgin birth is more than a fulfilled prophesy, it is essential the mechanism of imputation, God’s transactional method of distributing mercy by His grace.

 

* In Mark 6:3 Jesus is identified as ‘Mary’s son’ – a deliberate slight as any Jewish man would be called by his patronymic thereby identifying him as the son of his father; for instance, in blessing Peter, Jesus addresses him formally using his full name (in the Aramiac form) ‘Shimon bar Yonah’, Simon, son of Jonah, (Matthew 16:17)