A Miracle with a Message

Jesus was conceived miraculously. To be conceived in the womb of a virgin was not natural by any stretch of the imagination. It was supernatural, and it was super-special!

In fact, the virgin birth is so special that there is no evidence in all of human history of anyone else being born of a virgin. Jesus is the only proven case of a person being born of a virgin.

Through this miracle, God wasn’t only showing how powerful he was, he was fulfilling the promise he gave 740 years earlier through the prophet Isaiah:

… the LORD Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14).

What is a Sign?

The prophet Isaiah spoke of a sign—meaning “a miracle that points to something”—but what did the virgin-birth sign point to? It was designed to point us to the Christ. It was intended to demonstrate who exactly the Son of God was. By means of the miracle, everybody should have been able to tell that Jesus was the Son of God.

God expects people to use this logic: Who else would be begotten of God, but the very Son of God? God's miracle points people to Jesus.

The shepherds must have asked some questions about that special child. If Mary told them, then they would think: The one who is fathered by God must be the Son of God. It seems like they understood since they announced the things they saw and heard.

But others would not understand the sign. If the people of Christ's day had examined a little bit more regarding his birth, they would have believed in him. They would have honored Jesus much more. They never would have shouted out 'Crucify him! Crucify him!'

Why Born of the Spirit?

The Holy Spirit performed a great miracle in Mary. The Scriptures say that the Spirit overshadowed her, but why did the Spirit perform the miracle that way? Well, he did it primarily because God ordered him to do it. The Holy Spirit is obedient to God and always does what God commands.  

But questioning God's purposes a little further, let’s ask why God ever sent the Holy Spirit to do such a unique thing. Why did God choose to send the Messiah through a virgin? The reason is explained to us in the conversation Gabriel had with Mary:

‘You will conceive and give birth to a son...’

‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’

The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God’ (Luke 1:31, 34-35).

So What?

If you focus on the way so is used in the previous passage, you’ll understand that God had a reason for sending the Holy Spirit to do such a fantastic miracle. The so means therefore, and it leads us to the reason why Jesus had to have been born of a virgin. The reason was to make Jesus worthy of being called the Son of God.

In other words, the wisdom of God in having the Holy Spirit overshadow Mary was that it proved that God fathered Jesus. The Holy Spirit’s miracle is the indisputable evidence that God is Jesus’ Father. Jesus passed the paternity test! No DNA was taken, but we're sure that God is responsible for his birth.

Science and the Supernatural

Speaking of DNA, if gynecologists today use assisted reproductive technology (ART) in women, like in vitro fertilization and surrogacy, with no sexual contact, how easy should it be for you to believe that God can assure that a woman conceives without any sexual contact? Is anything too difficult for God? Conception is possible with zero sexual contact even in science. Of course God can do it too!

The conception of Christ in Mary’s womb is simply not too difficult for us to imagine. Science helps us to imagine how possible it was. For those who think that the nativity scenario sounds impossible, they should stretch their imagination by reflecting on some of the recent scientific advances in the area of women’s reproductive health.

But if someone demands of you a detailed descriptive explanation for the virgin birth, don't concede. If they ask you for the precise details of what happened inside Mary's body for her to become pregnant, stick to the script. Use the Biblical talking points. For example, you can share this one Bible verse:

The power of the Most High God overshadowed her (Luke 1:34).

Don't Go There

I’ve noticed that conversations with Muslims often focus on this matter of how Mary got pregnant. They do believe that Mary was a virgin, to their credit. However, they are adamant with their standard "God is not a Father" theology, and they will likely try to get you to deny God's involvement in Mary’s pregnancy. Resist them.

The Muslims insist that "God has no wife." And they’re right. He does not have a wife. But they’re wrong when they say that God is not responsible for Mary's pregnancy. He is the Father of Jesus Christ.

We need to affirm God's paternity with everybody, especially with Muslims. Don't be ashamed or embarrassed by the conception of Christ. Preach it. It's the sign people need to see. Give God the credit for that miracle so that people will see who Jesus is, the Son of God.

Muslims will insist that Jesus is not the Son of God and to prove it, will often try to drag you into the details of conception. It’s not worth it to get too descriptive of what happened physiologically in Mary's body. Those discussions tend to become impure because they revolve around what happens inside a woman’s reproductive organs. Don't go there.

Go There

If the Scriptures focus on what happened outside of Mary’s body, we would be wise to use the same focus: ‘The Holy Spirit came on her’ and ‘the power of the Most High overshadowed her’ is what the Bible says. We should limit our imagination to what the Bible tells us. Quoting the Bible should be enough to satisfy the curiosity of any sincere seeker.

The bottom line is that a very pure miracle took place and God was responsible for it. A virgin was the instrument by which God performed the miracle--the miracle of the coming of the Messiah to humanity. That’s the technical side.

The spiritual side is the message! The message of the miracle, that the Word became flesh, is what we must preach. We have to explain what the sign of his birth was. People need to understand the meaning and to believe that Jesus is the Son of God to be saved.

Made Flesh

Most Christians wrongly suppose that the Holy Spirit got Mary pregnant in order to infuse a divine nature into Jesus. They couldn’t be more mistaken. In fact, the Spirit was doing the opposite! He gave someone with the divine nature, the Word, a human nature.

Why would the Spirit infuse a divine nature into a human baby if prior to that baby’s conception, he had a divine nature? Why then even perform the miracle of the conception? It is completely illogical to take someone who is divine and to give him a human body which is also divine.

The Scriptures emphasize that the virgin-birth miracle was that the Word was made flesh. Consequently, the flip side of the miracle was that the Word stopped being divine. Jesus left the divine nature behind him when he took on the human nature.

The Statement God Made

Again, the reason behind the conception miracle could not possibly have been to give the baby Jesus a divine nature. Think of it: God was proving something through the miracle. God doesn’t do miracles in vain. They’re not random for God. God was making a statement. The virgin birth was a sign to point us to a truth.

The truth God was proving was that Jesus had an authentic human nature. The miracle of Christmas is that the Word humbled himself, renounced his divine nature, and became like us, 100% human. More precisely, in the words of Paul, Jesus had the very nature of God, but then he took on the very nature of a human.

… Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness… (Philippians 2:5-7).

God Has a Son

What happened when the Holy Spirit performed this tremendous miracle? He didn’t make a child God. He made God a child!

No Red Sea was parted, no sun stood still over Gibeon. Instead, something microscopic happened: the human biological phenomenon of conception. But even though the event was physically small, it was spiritually huge. In fact, it was the biggest miracle that had ever occurred up to that time.

Truly, the best things come in little packages.

Something normal happened--something that most women experience—pregnancy. Pregnancy is a natural event common to the human experience. We all come from it. But in the case of Jesus, because no human father was responsible for Mary's pregnancy, and her pregnancy was the manifestation of God's Son--who humbled himself to save us--her pregnancy became the magnificent miracle we celebrate every Christmas! The Savior was born.

Follow the Sign

The virgin conception of a child was a sign—remember? And as a sign it pointed people to God's Son. The sign read: God has a Son! The world had never known that message before. Four thousand years of history had passed prior to Jesus' birth, and no one had ever met the Messiah. Mary was the first person to meet him.

There were some who had a notion of the prophecies of a virgin birth. For example, the magi knew that something was going on as they studied the stars and the Scriptures. But they were just as ignorant as everybody else as to who the King of Israel would be, until they met Jesus.

The Degree of Humility

This miracle (which had no precedent and which to this day has never been duplicated) was greatest act of humility the World had ever witnessed because Jesus, who was God, ‘made himself nothing’ (Philippians 2:7). Let’s not measure the greatness of the miracle by the shock value it has—granted that the virgin birth certainly shocked Mary's family, especially Joseph!—rather, we should measure the greatness of the miracle by the degree humility of the One who subjected himself to it.

What level of humility was required of the Word (who was with the One God in Heaven in a glorious body with a divine nature and equality with God) for him to take on the flesh of sin? What degree of humility did he need to submit to becoming a zygote in a woman’s womb? Jesus left divine glory behind him to become a helpless baby, even subjecting himself to hunger, danger, mistreatment, and death.

Laid His Glory By

Remember: The One who had heavenly holiness exchanged it for the shame of sin. But that's not to say that Jesus sinned. No—rather, Jesus bore sin’s shame. He bore that shame the instant he was incorporated into Mary’s womb—and his incarnation was a powerful foreshadowing of what Jesus would do later.

Yes, at approximately age 33, our Lord bore sin again on the Cross. In that circumstance, he was not just bearing the sin nature, but the punishment for the sins of the World! What love. What mercy.

Jesus took the nature of sin upon himself as a baby, but the curse of sin upon himself as a man.

The Christmas carol Hark the Herald Angels Sing (written by Charles Wesley in the 1700s) puts it well in the third stanza:

Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more should die.

That Man No More Should Die

Jesus laid his glory aside and took our burden of sin on himself—all to save you and me. God had Jesus do this out of his immense fatherly love for us. God’s redeeming love for us is so great that he delivered his Son to us.

Remember this at Christmas and every day.

For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).