VIRGIN BIRTH: THE KEY ELEMENT TO CHRISTOLOGY, PART 1.

I am in agreement with Millard J. Erickson in what he says “that as a key element of Christology, belief in the virgin birth is necessary for Christian theology.1 He says that next to the crucifixion and resurrection, the event in His life which has received the greatest attention was the virgin birth! From the Biblical perspective this was a miraculous occurrence that tests a person’s position on the miraculous, which I feel is easy to belief after they have a born-again experience!

There are two explicit biblical references: one is Matthew 1: 18 which says “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.”; the other reference is Luke 1: 34-35 which says: “And Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’ And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” And of course there is the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 : “Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” Which is cited in Matthew 1: 23 as fulfilling prophecy. Since have seen in other position papers that the Bible is inspired and authoritative of God, then Matthew 1 and Luke 1 should convince that the virgin birth is a fact.
The sources of the knowledge of Jesus’ supernatural birth, as described by Matthew and Luke, can only be accounted to Joseph and Mary, who of course, had first-hand knowledge of it. Joseph was dead by the time of Jesus’ public ministry so he probably couldn’t have been the source of such knowledge, as Jesus picked His disciples at the very beginning of His ministry! Mary then would be the main witness to His virgin birth and the source of this knowledge to the disciples. The book of Matthew was written around 40AD and the book of Luke was written around 58-60 AD , according to Hayford’s Bible Handbook.2 Mary became close to the disciples after the inception of the church, when they all knew beyond a doubt that Jesus was a supernatural Person, by then they probably were aware that He was God! Probably from this time on, she was vocal about the Virgin birth and the times before His public ministry, even though there is not that much information. And this is because during His public ministry she is shown as not being sure about what He is doing, and probably was not too vocal about the virgin birth, as seen in the following Scripture: ”And when His family heard it, they went out to seize Him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of His mind.’ “(Mark 3: 21). This after Jesus had appointed His twelve disciples and the crowds had gathered around His home. “All the eyewitnesses of the ministry of Jesus had access to stories about Jesus, His life and teaching, that comes from eyewitnesses.”3

NOTES

1Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology,(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006),756.
2Jack W. Hayford,ed., Hayford’s Bible Handbook,( Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1995),504-505.
3David Wenham and Steve Walton, Exploring the New Testament, (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 2001), 57.