The Miraculous Conception — Major Ian Thomas

Back in Parkside and to renew memories of those very happy days spent with you some 18 months ago. Seem almost unbelievable that a year and a half should have passed since then. Seems only yesterday in spite of the fact that I've traveled something like 150 ,000 miles since then, which I believe is just a little over halfway to the moon, but fortunately not in that direction.

I can imagine that it would be rather chilly in outer space. I've chosen tonight an unusual subject maybe for an evening service like this. I want to talk to you about the the birth of the Lord Jesus and for these reasons, and I want you to follow me in four main directions of thought.

The Virgin Birth and the Natural Depravity of Man

First of all, the nature of his birth presupposes the natural depravity of man. That's the first thing. The miraculous birth of Jesus Christ presupposes the natural depravity of man. Secondly, the birth of the Lord Jesus by miraculous conception furnishes the first requirement for man's redemption, a sinless substitute.

And then the third thing is this, the miraculous birth of the Lord Jesus establishes a precedent in procedure for spiritual regeneration. And then finally, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrates the principle of imparted life.

Now it's along this general direction that we're going to explore tonight. I don't want to dwell unduly upon the first two phases of the operation, and in choosing this subject tonight, although this is the normal evening service of this company of believers, I want it to be woven, as it were, into the fabric of the days that we shall be spending together in the central meetings.

The miraculous birth of the Lord Jesus Christ presupposes the natural depravity of man in that it implies that a man born by natural birth would not have what it takes to live a perfect life. We must recognize in the nature of his birth God's verdict upon man.

Now this is absolutely basic. If we repudiate the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ and God's divine intervention that brought it about, then we're simply saying this, Jesus Christ being born as you and I were born, by entirely natural birth, was by natural birth and due with all that is necessary for a man to live a life totally satisfying to God.

In other words, the only difference between the Lord Jesus Christ and you and me is that he tried harder than we did and got full marks. And if that is true, then the whole need for spiritual regeneration, of course, ceases to exist.

All that we need is to try harder. And if we don't get full marks as he got full marks, at least we shall be marked for trying. Let me once repudiate the virgin birth of Jesus Christ and I repudiate man's basic need for spiritual regeneration and that inevitably repudiates the fall of man into sin and of course immediately repudiates man's need for redemption.

In point of fact, it repudiates the need for the birth of Jesus Christ at all. Now that's very important that we should grasp because there are those who attach very little importance to the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.

The Fall, Spiritual Death, and the Need for Regeneration

What does the Bible teach about man in the fall that took place in Adam? The Bible makes it abundantly plain that what took place when Adam fell into sin was the forfeiture of the divine presence. So that man's human personality, his mind is in emotions and his will, that part of his being that God gave him that enables him to behave ceased to be orientated around the person of God.

And instead a new influence came into human experience called sin. And that by nature a man is born destitute of his divine content, empty of God. That spiritually by natural birth he does not possess the life of God.

He is by natural birth alienated from the life of God, is dead in trespasses and sins. And when Paul writes to the Ephesian Christians, he writes, he says, to those who have been raised from a state of lifelessness, death, by the restoration to them of the Holy Spirit.

Having described in the first chapter the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and the mighty power that God wrought in him when he raised him, the Lord Jesus, from the dead spiritually, he then goes on to say in the second chapter of the same epistle, and you hath he quickened.

Well it's quite obvious that God, by the mighty power that he exercised in Christ in raising him from the dead, had not exercised that mighty power in raising the Ephesians from physical death, because none of them had died physically.

Therefore the resurrection to which Paul refers in the first chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians, in reference to the Lord Jesus, is not his physical resurrection, but his spiritual resurrection. A spiritual resurrection in which you and I are partakers by the miracle of what the Bible calls spiritual regeneration, or the renewing of the Holy Ghost.

The birth of Christ presupposes that had the Lord Jesus Christ been born as you and I were born, he too by natural birth would have been devoid of any spiritual content. He would have been as bankrupt as you and I are by birth, spiritually bankrupt, uninhabited by God.

He would have been, as you and I are, only inhabited by sin, and he would have been a sinner by practice, as you and I are, because he would have been a sinner by birth. We are by nature the children of wrath.

If this isn't true, and we're born with all that it takes to live the kind of life that Christ lived 1900 years ago, then we don't need to be born again. We don't need to be redeemed. All we need is a program, and some inducement to accomplish that program, the ultimate of which would be perfection.

And it really doesn't much matter whether it's a religious program or a party program, and that's quite interesting. Some folk have wondered why it is that in countries where Christian missionaries for many decades, and sometimes for a century, have been preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, have made negligible impact upon the existing religions, and yet when those countries have been overrun by the communists, within a decade the deep roots of those established religions have been drawn.

But the answer is quite simple. If I have a system of religion that doesn't need spiritual regeneration, if I have a system of religion that doesn't need on God's part any divine intervention, any imparting to me of a quality of life that I don't by nature possess, then there's no difference between my religious program or a party program.

And there comes a time when somebody arrives and says, why have the inconvenience of a God? The ethics of your religious program are identical with the ethics of our political program. Why not just let's swap programs and forget God?

And that's what happens. And don't you see that every form of so-called Christianity, of which there's so much on the market today, that denies the need of man's redemption through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and the spiritual regeneration which depends upon that atoning sacrifice, any such breed of false Christianity is simply paving the way for a takeover on the part of a party program which will be substituted for the religious program.

And that's why in point of fact you find in practice that those branches of the apostate church of Jesus Christ that have repudiated the need of man's spiritual regeneration are those branches of the apostate church of Jesus Christ that drift increasingly in the communist direction.

The Sinless Substitute and Redemption

But the miraculous birth of the Lord Jesus in presenting to the world a man uninhabited by sin, but only inhabited by God, furnished the first requirement of man's redemption. For if there was to be a substitute whereby God in his righteousness could condemn man's sin in the person of another, that person had to be himself giftless.

And of course it was to that end that God conceived his redemptive plan. But the birth of the Lord Jesus is a very fascinating precedent for spiritual regeneration, and establishes step by step the procedure that God planned to adopt in you and in me.

Gabriel's Message and the Word of God

This is illustrated if we turn to the story in the first chapter of Luke's gospel. Luke chapter 1 and verse 26. In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David.

Virgin's name was Mary. And he brought a message, Hail thou art highly favored of the Lord. Blessed art thou among women. Behold thou shall conceive in thy womb, verse 31, and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus.

He shall be great. He shall be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Now this was the message that came upon the lips of God's faithful servant the angel Gabriel to the woman Mary. It was at once startling, unnatural and humanly speaking incredible. It was the word of God.

And that was the first precedent that was established. The birth of the Lord Jesus Christ by the divine intervention of God in the affairs of this woman Mary, commenced with the word of God, which was conveyed to her faithfully upon the lips of the angel Gabriel.

Now what was the natural reaction of this natural woman to this unnatural word? One of reasonable incredulity. Verse 34, then said Mary unto the angel, how shall this be? Seeing I know not a man. This is impossible.

The essential physical prerequisite does not exist. This would be contrary to all human and physical laws. How can this thing be? The answer, and the angel answered and said unto her, verse 35, if you want to know how, 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. Mary, if you want to know how the spoken word is to be implemented, it will be through the Holy Spirit. Was it enough that the Holy Spirit was available to implement the spoken word?

No, but that was the second precedent that was established by the word of God through the Holy Spirit. But a third factor remained, and this is demonstrated for us in the 38th verse. And Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.

And the angel departed from her. The obedience of faith. Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord, and presented her humanity in availability to God. That is the nature of faith. This was a pure demonstration of spiritual obedience to declared truth, which is involved in spiritual regeneration, and without which this miracle of new birth could no more take than the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ.

Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. I don't understand how the word can be implemented through the Holy Spirit. You simply tell me that that will be the agency, but I don't pretend to explain it, but I submit myself to the truth of it.

Behold the handmaid of the Lord, I place my humanity at your disposal. Be it unto me according to thy word. I'm available for the activity of the Holy Spirit to implement the word spoken. Whose responsibility was it then to bring about the miracle?

Now that was the precedent in procedure for spiritual regeneration. Now of course we take it today for granted that Mary should have yielded her humanity for this divine operation. But is there any particular reason why you should take it for granted that Mary should place herself at God's disposal?

I see absolutely no reason why you and I today should take it for granted that Mary should be available to God for this miraculous birth of Jesus Christ. I see absolutely no more reason why Mary should make herself available then than that you and I should make ourselves available now.

Did she have any history of Christian act experience to look back upon as you and I have? We can look back through the decades and the centuries and we can see today as a historical record all that God has accomplished as a result of her yieldedness to God in the person of his incarnate son.

She knew of no such historical record. Indeed I can see every human reason why Mary should have declined this request. Who was going to believe her story? Would you have believed her story as she became great with child?

Do you imagine that anybody would have believed her story? That this was a divine act on God's part, a miraculous intervention. If somebody came knocking on your door tomorrow with the same story would you be unduly impressed?

Building her humanity to God's command that there might be accomplished in her and through her by the Holy Spirit that which God purposed. She immediately negated all self-interest. Did Joseph believe her story?

Joseph's Response and the Sinless Birth of Christ

The man to whom she was espoused? No not even the man who loved her most. We're told in the first chapter of Matthew's gospel and verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

Then Joseph her husband being a just man and not willing to make her a public example was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things behold the angel of the Son of David fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

Now Joseph the man to whom she was espoused did not believe her story. Being a just man whose justice was tempered with mercy unwilling to make her a public example he would have put her quietly on one side.

As a woman who had betrayed his trust in her and so he would repudiate her infidelity. In other words the only person to whom there could have been credited the legitimate birth of Jesus Christ by natural means repudiated responsibility.

If I repudiate therefore the miraculous conception of the Lord Jesus Christ if I at once declare that under no circumstances was the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ the direct act of God and the man to whom alone his legitimate birth could birth could be credited repudiated responsibility we are left with only one possible alternative conclusion and that is that Jesus Christ your saviour and mine who claimed to be the Christ of God was nothing less than the illegitimate child of a faithless woman.

On this basis Joseph was about to put her on one side but God revealed his purpose to Joseph. She shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins.

He is to be the sinless substitute as the first requirement of man's redemption for if the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ presupposes the natural depravity of man the death of Jesus Christ repudiates the capacity of man in his depravity to redeem himself.

Thou shalt call his name Jesus as you know a Hebrew word that simply means redeemer, saviour for he shall save his people from their sins. Thou shalt call his name for forever Christ was born. Did you name your children before they were born?

In this of course that was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah in 49 and verse 1. Listen O Isles unto me and hearken ye people from far the Lord hath called me from the womb from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.

God made mention of his name before ever he was born and so Joseph in obedience to God's revelation called his name Jesus. What an awful embarrassment it would have been to Joseph and even greater embarrassment it would have been to God if it had been a girl.

Did you ever think of that? But you see his was no natural birth but by miraculous conception God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself and the father fashioned for the son that humanity that was to be presented by the son in absolute perfection to the father.

To know that committal to the father about which some of us were speaking last night. For the humanity fashioned by the father for the son and presented to him in all its perfect humanity was yielded by the Lord Jesus to the father to be committed to him the father for all that to which the father in the son was committed.

New Birth Through the Word and the Holy Spirit

The redemption of destitute mankind and the little boy was born and so God set the precedent in procedure for your and my spiritual regeneration. If you turn to the third chapter of John's gospel John 3 there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus a ruler of the Jews the same came to Jesus by night and said unto him rabbi we know that thou art a teacher come from God for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.

Jesus answered and said unto him verily verily I say unto thee except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. This was the word of God not this time conveyed upon the lips of God's faithful servant the angel Gabriel but this was the word of God conveyed upon the faithful lips of God's faithful son.

Except a man be born from above born twice born again cannot see the kingdom of heaven at once startling and unnatural and humanly speaking incredible. We can recognize at once how startling and humanly speaking incredible was the utterance of Christ to Nicodemus by his own reaction for the natural reaction of the natural man to this unnatural world was identical with that of Mary.

In the fourth verse of John 3 Nicodemus said unto him how how how can a man be born twice can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born. This is impossible. This is contrary to all human precedent.

This is contrary to all physical law. This is impossible how by the word of God and the Lord Jesus continues Nicodemus if you want to know how I tell you that which is born of the flesh is flesh of your natural animal parents you have received natural animal life by your natural animal birth you're quite right.

That way you will be never you will never be born again. But that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto you Nicodemus you must be born twice. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof and canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth.

So is everyone that is born of the Holy Spirit by the Word of God through the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit Nicodemus will be available to implement the spoken word. And as there was imparted to you by your natural birth the natural life of your natural parents by the Holy Spirit there will be born in you the very life of God himself.

That's the miracle of spiritual regeneration. It's a greater miracle even in the birth of the Lord Jesus. For in that little baby form that was born on that first Christmas Day God was clothed with the sinless humanity of his Son.

But the miracle of your new birth and mine is that God is pleased on the grounds of Christ's atoning work upon the cross to clothe nothing less than his divine nature with our humanity once condemned but now cleansed and redeemed.

And if ever I wanted to have adequate proof of the total efficacy of the atoning death of Jesus Christ it is that God is prepared to re-inhabit my humanity in spite of my sin for Jesus sake because the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanseth us from all sin.

And the measure of the cleansing of the blood of Christ that was shed upon the cross is the fact that God in his holiness is prepared to take up residence again within us. That there might be imparted by the Holy Spirit the divine presence.

But is it enough that God has spoken even through the lips of his own Son. Is it enough that the Holy Spirit is available to implement the spoken word. Now that's not enough. There's still the third fact the obedience of faith.

No man or woman or boy or girl was ever re-inhabited by God except by a deliberate moral act on their part whereby they make themselves in their need and guilt available for God's redemptive activity and for God's regenerative activity.

The first is called conversion. The second is called new birth. Events of course that take place simultaneously only when a man or a woman or a boy or girl has humbly come to God as a self-confessed sinner and said Lord Jesus your blood was shed for me.

You died upon the cross in your sinlessness. There was imputed to you all my sinfulness. And your word to me is that I may be redeemed and reconciled to God on the basis of your atoning sacrifice. Maybe I don't know how it can happen.

Maybe I can't explain how my guilt could be imputed to you and your righteousness imputed to me. But you have declared that if I will trust you I will be redeemed I'll be reconciled to God and I'll become acceptable in you the beloved.

I don't pretend to be able to explain it but be it unto me according to thy word I yield the obedience of faith to reveal truth. And I trust now the Holy Spirit to make experiential in my life the spoken word whose responsibility is it then God's Lord Jesus.

You say that on the grounds of redemption being cleansed in your precious shed blood by the presence of the Holy Spirit I can be a partaker of the divine nature and my whole humanity being become filled and flooded with God himself so that my body becomes a habitation of God through his spirit.

It's almost too wonderful for me to believe. But I want you to know that all that I am is now available to all you are. Be it unto me according to thy word. That's the obedience of faith. This was the obedience that was yielded by me.

He might have said then as you and I all too often have said now I don't want God to intervene in my life. I've got my plans already laid. I know the man I intend to marry. We know exactly where we're going to live.

We've got first down payment on the house. We've got all our future mapped out and we know the direction in which we want to run our lives. I don't want God to intervene. I don't want God to take over.

Mary had no less right to say that than you. Is this still your attitude tonight. I want to tell you this that on the basis of his miraculous birth and his atoning death none other than the Lord Jesus Christ can by spiritual regeneration take up residence within you be born in you so that your humanity becomes a member in particular of his body in general called the church the habitation of God on earth today by his indwelling Holy Spirit the Spirit of Christ.

But you can repudiate. You can turn your back on God. You can say no born uninhabited by God. I intend to continue to live and die uninhabited by God. I've got my own plans made. I've carved my own future.

I'm going to be master of my own destiny. All right. And God passes you by. It doesn't relieve you of course of the ultimate responsibility for having misused and abused the humanity that God gave you.

But where you yield the obedience of faith the miracle is enacted made possible only by virtue of the fact that through his miraculous birth that presupposed man's natural depravity there was provided in his sinless humanity the first requirement of man's redemption a sinless substitute that by the precedent set by his birth you and I might know new birth.

The Principle of Imparted Life

But finally this demonstrates also the principle of an imparted life. And I want you to turn with me to the second chapter of Luke's gospel to the passage that we read together. His parents according to custom had gone to Jerusalem at the Feast of the Passer.

And when they had fulfilled the days as they returned the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem verse 43. And Joseph and his mother knew not of it but they supposing him to have been in the company when today's journey.

And they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not they turned back again to Jerusalem seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors both hearing them and asking them questions and all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.

And when they saw him they were amazed. And his mother said son why hast thou dealt with us. Thus behold my father and I have sought thee. Sorrowing the Lord Jesus said how is it that she sought me. Question not that I must be about my father's business.

I should you suppose that I go where you go. Why should you suppose that I was in the company. Don't you know that I was born to present my whole humanity to be committed to the father only to that to which the father is committed in me.

Did she not that I must be about my father's business. Only purpose of my being is to do my father's will. Why should you therefore presuppose that I will be where you are. And at this stage the Lord Jesus Christ established a principle principle of imparted life.

That the life that was incarnate in his humanity was presented to the world for one purpose only that he as perfect man might be totally committed to his father God. That the father in the Son God in Christ might reconcile the world to himself.

And do you realize this. That the Lord Jesus Christ who has been begotten in you of the Holy Spirit dwells within you today for the same sole purpose that he lived within his own humanity nineteen hundred years ago.

That the life that God imparts by the Holy Spirit to you and to me is forgiven sinners is a life totally committed to God. It is the life of his own son. I say since you've been converted those of you who are Christians here tonight the very great majority of us.

Have you supposed that the Lord Jesus Christ who came to dwell within your humanity. Have you supposed that he would go wherever you go. You make your plans for the future. You say Jesus Christ is coming with me.

Do you have any right to suppose that just because you happen to make those certain plans Jesus Christ will go with you. Is that the teaching of Scripture the Lord Jesus declared this where I am there will my servant.

Where I am there will my servant be. Or too often we behave as though where I am he Jesus Christ will be. Do you have the right to suppose that Jesus Christ is interested in your recreational program.

Because you happen to be a fan of this or a fan of that. That Jesus Christ must be compelled to be there. Because you want to be there as a regenerate born-again sinner. Do you have the right to suppose that because you want this particular career or you want to marry that particular girl that Jesus Christ is committed to you for what you plan.

On what basis do you suppose it. Which do you know that I must be about my father's business. You the right what gives me the right to presuppose that Jesus Christ will identify himself gladly with all that we do.

He's not identified with our purposes. He's identified with his father's purpose. And this is the principle of imparted life that Christianity is not a hobby. Christianity is a life that demands from you and me total and absolute and unquestioning availability of the whole of our humanity and any other basis fall short of God's minimum requirements.

Christian Responsibility in Daily Decisions

Now the moment the Lord Jesus Christ at the age of 12 had established this principle as it were he brought his mother and Joseph up with a star. He shot them. It simply supposed that he would trot along behind wherever they went.

He'd trot along behind as though he had no other business in this world but to do simply what they wanted him to do as though he was subject to them and not to the father. But having once established the principle I want you to notice what happened first 51.

He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject unto them. I want you to get the significance of that. He brought them up short and said I've got to be about my master's business my father's business.

That's the only purpose which I've been born. I want to establish that as a principle. Now I'm going to be subject to you. Do you realize the tremendous moral responsibility of this immediately imposed upon Mary and immediately imposed upon Joseph.

For from this moment on that the principle had been established they could never once demand anything of Jesus Christ nor demand his company in any circumstance without first asking themselves this question in that he has made himself subject to us.

Does what we now demand of him compromise his responsibility to the father that was the principle involved. And once you have grasped the fact that Jesus Christ lives in you for one purpose only and that is to implement the eternal purpose God in terms of your humanity from that moment that this truth is dawned upon you you are under a solemn moral responsibility so that you can now longer no no go nowhere nor do anything nor make a single decision without first referring it to the fact.

Does this compromise the purpose for which Jesus Christ lives in me. Well just glance back over the neck the last few days or weeks or months of your life as a Christian. And you've daily gone along and presuppose that everywhere you go Jesus will come trotting along behind.

It's almost blasphemous. How far in the last few hours today yesterday afternoon what were you doing yesterday afternoon. Did it ever dawn upon you that Jesus Christ had something to do yesterday afternoon that didn't happen to be what you were doing yesterday afternoon.

Did it ever dawn upon you that what you claimed upon Jesus Christ in that he indwells your humanity and therefore you claimed his company where you went. Did it ever dawn upon you that what you were doing yesterday afternoon was compromising the purpose which he indwells your life.

Of course if the principle of imparted life has never been revealed to you then you remain a spiritual baby and your behavior will still be calm. And you won't reckon with Christ in the decisions that you make.

And you'll behave just like any other unconverted person even though you may be on the way to heaven. But the man the woman the boy the girl who has become spiritually mature recognizes that all that they are and have is now totally available to Jesus Christ.

Surrendering Every Human Plan to Christ

They understood not the saying which he spake unto them. But Mary kept all these sayings in our heart. Here's the final word. There came a time when I think the truth fully dawned. Don't bother to turn to it.

It'll take only a moment to say it. And when they wanted wine the mother of Jesus saith unto him they have no wine. Who told Mary. Well the folk at the feast why did they tell her. Well she was his mother.

He had always been subject to Jesus said unto her woman what have I to do with thee. Mine hour is not yet come. And his mother saith unto the servants he's no longer subject to me. I am subject to him whatsoever he saith unto you.

And that was the beginning of his public ministry. The beginning of Christ's public ministry in you is that moment when you recognize that he is not subject to you but you're subject to him. Then you've grown up.

Then you have released Christ to the world. You're simply the humanity with which he closed his activity. Now we bow heads in prayer our God. We thank thee again tonight for thy son the Lord Jesus. We thank thee for his total obedience his complete availability.

And we pray that we too may learn to be subject to him as he in sheer humility walked in subjection to thee Lord Jesus. There are some of us tonight who'd like to say to thee. Be it unto me according to thy word I don't know quite where it's going to lead me.

I don't know quite what it's going to involve for me as I make my whole humanity without reserve available to thee O God. But Lord Jesus I want thee to begin thy public ministry through me tonight if never before all that thou art might be released through me to needy worth and for thy name's sake.