Proving the Virgin Conception

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Father in heaven, I thank you for the opportunity to be about the business of teaching your word.
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I ask Lord that you would keep me from error, help me to be tied to the post of truth, help me to be used by your Holy Spirit to instruct your people.
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I pray that you would open their hearts to the truth and Father ultimately that all that we learn would glorify you.
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As we mentioned last week, Lord, we pray for equal scales, that we would be fair even with those who are of differing opinion and to always seek the truth wherever it may be found for your word is certainly clear that all truth belongs to you for you are the source and fountainhead of all truth.
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We thank you for this morning, we thank you for the Christmas season, a time to be reminded of the glorious incarnation and the beauty of God visiting his people and dwelling among us.
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Help us, O Lord, to worship you aright today, in Christ's name, amen.
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Well each year on the Sunday before Christmas I tend to have a kind of a crisis of conscience because I don't always know what is the best as far as lesson material to do.
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Should I stop and do a special Christmas message or just press on with what's normal? Well I'm not preaching this morning so I didn't have to answer that question in my sermon.
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Mr.
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Andy Smith is here as our guest speaker this morning so he'll be preaching so I didn't have to worry about that.
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And as far as Sunday school material is concerned, I have in the past done the Alma Bithua Controversy Lesson which I think some of you have actually sat in on.
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How many of you even know what I'm talking about? Well that's an interesting little Christmas conversation that I teach on that is the difference in Hebrew words Alma and Bithula and how they are used in the Old Testament to describe the word virgin as we know the Bible says that Jesus was born of a virgin.
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So I'm going to give you a choice and for those hearing this by audio, by the time they hear it, it will be labeled with a name so they'll know what you choose.
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Would you guys like to continue on in Systematic Theology, I know I handed out your worksheet but that's fine, or would you like me to teach the Alma Bithua Controversy Lesson? Either one would be good but I'm going to leave it up to you guys for it is certainly Yes ma'am? Okay, alright.
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Well the Alma Bithua Controversy is dealing with the language of the Old Testament and describing Jesus of being born of a virgin, the prophecy of him being born of a virgin.
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That's what that one is about and the one that you're looking at is an ongoing series that we're doing which is on Systematic Theology which is basically a subject by subject breakdown of the Bible.
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That's what Systematic Theology is and that's what this class is.
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My class is Systematic Theology versus Mr.
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Jack's class which is next door.
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He teaches verse by verse Bible study so it's just a little different way to teach.
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So does anyone have, does anyone want to be the person who breaks the mold and says hey I want to do this? I had never heard that before so I didn't pique my curiosity.
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Alright.
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Well everyone will need their Bibles and if we want to set this aside that's fine.
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And Ms.
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Jasmine I have a Bible for you if you would like.
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Let me get...
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I just moved them down this morning.
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Thank you.
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There you go Ms.
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Jasmine.
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Anybody else need a Bible? I'm going to use this one.
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I've been using the little soft cover one.
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I'm going to use this one.
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Now the one thing I must admit I do not have is my Hebrew Bible.
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So I'm going to have to...
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Read it.
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Well I'm not...
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Wing it.
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Yes that is...
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Not really winging it but I get what you're saying.
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Alright Isaiah 714.
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Everybody turn to Isaiah 714.
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Most of you will be very familiar with this particular passage.
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It is the great promise of the prophecy, written some 500 years before Jesus Christ was ever born in Bethlehem.
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It says in Isaiah 7, verse 14, Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign.
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Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
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Alright, so that is the text that we're going to be looking at.
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And the Alma Bethula Controversy is the title of this lesson.
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I've actually went over this recently at the seminary that I substitute teach at.
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And as I was going over this, a lot of the Bible students there, these guys are seminary students, so they're studying for the ministry.
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Many of them had not heard of this particular controversy.
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But they had heard of the foundation of the controversy, but they hadn't heard of it by this particular title.
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The controversy is this, in the King James Bible, which many of us are familiar with and use, or have used in the past, in the King James Bible, we know that it says that the virgin will conceive, come on in, welcome, oh, I don't think he's here today, he hasn't been feeling well.
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In the King James Bible, it says, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son.
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In the English Standard Version, it says the same thing, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, we're actually, we're skipping our book today, we're doing a Bible study in honor of Christmas, we're looking at the virgin birth.
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So, the Lord himself will give you sign, behold, the virgin shall conceive, now who has the New American Standard Bible? Yeah, I'm just teasing, I know it was you.
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What does the New American Standard Bible say, Richard? Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son.
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Okay, so.
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And she will call his name Emmanuel.
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In three very trusted, very respected English translations, obviously the 1611 King James Bible, one of the most prominent Bibles in the world, some consider it the only English translation, even though we wouldn't disagree with that, we would agree with its power and prestige and having prominence for some 400 years, so we value the King James Bible.
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But we're not talking, you're not talking about the 1611 version.
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No, we're not.
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We know it's the revision, but anyhow, the point is, in all of the editions of the King James Bible, the word that is translated is virgin.
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And in the ESV, the word that is translated is virgin.
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In the New American Standard Bible, the word that is translated is virgin.
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However, if you were to look in the New Revised Standard Version, I believe it's the NRSV, which was popularized in the early 20th century, it does read slightly differently.
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The New Revised Standard Version says, behold, a young woman will conceive and bear a son.
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It does not say the word virgin.
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This then became a very serious issue for those who chose to use the NRSV in teaching because, by the way, my voice carries sometimes, they'll come over and make me close the door, so I'll go ahead and I'll preempt that.
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So sometimes there are those who have become quite offended and wouldn't even use the NRSV.
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They consider it the heretical Bible because it removes the doctrine of the virgin birth.
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So my question and the question of the lesson is, why is it that the translators of the New Revised Standard Version would translate the term as young woman rather than virgin? The answer is in the Alma-Bethula Controversy, because the first thing most people would say was, oh, they're just a bunch of liberals.
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And I don't disagree.
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I don't disagree that they are liberal in their theology.
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I don't disagree in the fact that we would disagree on a lot of things when it comes to theological paradigms and truths.
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However, on this particular issue, there's always going to be the question of why.
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Obviously, they didn't just pull this out of thin air.
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I mean, sometimes people do pull things just out of thin air, but this didn't just come out of thin air.
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There are two words in Hebrew which are used to describe the idea of virginity.
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There is the very simple word Alma, and then there's the word Bethula.
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One of them means a virgin technically, as if we were to say a woman who has never engaged in any form of intercourse.
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That would be the technical term for virginity.
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Okay.
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The other term means a maiden or a woman of marriageable quality.
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Now I ask you this.
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In the 5th century BC, what was a woman of marriageable quality? A virgin.
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A virgin.
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Right? I mean, would we not agree that when we speak of a maiden, we're not talking about a woman who is known for promiscuity.
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We're not talking about a person who has been in illicit sexual relationships.
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Right? So both of the terms carry the connotation of virginity, but only one carries the technical nuance of virginity.
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Guess which one is used in Isaiah? The one that's not technical.
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That is right.
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The non-technical term for virgin is used in Isaiah.
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So herein lies the issue for the translators.
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They look at that and they say, well, Isaiah had a choice.
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He could have chosen a very technical term, which means virgin.
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Instead, he chose the non-technical term, which means maiden.
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And so if we're going to translate in accordance with the laws of grammar, we're not going to say that a virgin specifically will bear a son, but we're going to say a maiden or woman of marriageable quality will conceive and bear a son.
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Like a young widow.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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So there's all kinds of questions that arise out of that.
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Now, I certainly do not agree that the word should be translated young woman.
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But I do always, again, try to at least in a way accurately, you know, describe why they are doing this.
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Why does a person believe what he believes? You know, we talked about that last week and though we're never perfect at it, we're never perfect at giving equal scales, we want to at least be honest.
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Why is it that a person would translate it that way? Well, that's the reason is because of the two words.
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One is technical.
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One is not so technical.
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And so they because the not so technical was chosen by Isaiah under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God.
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This is the the the word of God.
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This is the true, infallible, without error word of the living God.
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So we have the word and it's the word that was chosen by the Holy Spirit through the medium of the person of Isaiah.
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So that's important.
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Now, having said all that, why would I, as a Christian theologian, say that it's it must be translated as virgin? Well, I'm going to give you a couple of different reasons why I would translate it as virgin.
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You look like you just really want to, you want to opine.
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I'm right there with you.
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I'm right there with you.
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Oh, OK.
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Did we already talk about this? Not specifically, but some of the other things we've talked and dealt with, we've addressed that issue.
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OK, OK.
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Because I thought I might have brought this up in Dads and Dudes, maybe, maybe not.
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Which one is which? That's where my notes are giving me a hard time.
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Remember one's technical.
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I believe this is the technical and this is the basic.
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That's what's, I don't have my Hebrew Bible, so I forget which one is actually used there.
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I just remember that one is the technical term and I believe that it's this one.
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So if you want to look up the Hebrew.
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I've got to know it's driving me crazy.
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And which one did Isaiah use again? He used the non-technical one.
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Alma.
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Yeah, that's what I believe.
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So that's what I have to, I have to look that up.
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Like I said, I've taught this lesson many, many times and I'm doing so without notes this morning.
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So I don't have the Hebrew in front of me, but I just, in the ultimate of this, my point is that I think that there's ample evidence both in this text and in history and because we're Christians in the New Testament that prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Isaiah's intention was to say a virgin, not just a young woman.
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First thing, let's just go from a purely exegetical perspective.
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A purely exegetical, meaning we're going to look just here at this text.
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It says, therefore, the Lord himself, that is Yahweh, the Lord, actually it's Adonai here, will give you a sign right away that should tell us something.
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This is going to be something different.
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Is there a sign in a young woman having a baby? Well, let me ask you this.
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Is a young woman having a baby special? Well, yeah, of course.
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Anybody having a baby is a special event.
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But is there anything miraculous, now we're going to maybe argue because we'd say all birth is miracle, work of God, but we know the process which leads to birth.
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And it begins with two people interacting physically, that physicality of relationship creates a union within the woman's body of the seed and the egg and those two things become a child.
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I've said this before, and I don't say it to be offensive, a birth is not a miracle in the strictest term, because a miracle is any time that the laws of nature are suspended for whatever reason.
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A miracle is any time the laws of nature are suspended.
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So are the laws of nature suspended when a baby is born? No.
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Now is it for the parents, a miracle of God, birth, life has been brought? Yeah, when I saw Hope born, I looked into my wife's eyes, we both burst into tears and we cried and we held one another and we held that little bloody baby, you know, because it's not a beautiful thing right away.
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We were just so excited to see her little face and to know that she was okay.
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And to us it was miraculous.
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But in the strictest terms, a miracle is a suspension of natural.
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For instance, when the Israelites walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, the Bible says the water stood on either side as a heap.
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Water can't stand up.
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That's one of the things water can't do.
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If you take water and hold it up and say, okay, stand, it's just going to fall right back down.
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Water is the greatest conformist in the world, and it conforms to whatever gravity pulls it into.
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It will fall into the deepest crevice, it will go into the tightest cracks, because it's a conformist and it doesn't stand.
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It will not stand on its own unless it's frozen in place.
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But the Bible says the water stood as a heap on either side.
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That is absolutely outside of the law of nature and thus would qualify as a miracle.
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When Moses stood before the burning bush, it says the bush burned but yet was not consumed.
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Is that a miracle? Absolutely.
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You ever try to burn something and it remained? It can't.
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It's either going to burn or it's going to remain.
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It can't do both.
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But the burning bush did both, right? Jesus Christ healed people of organic disease.
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I always make that point because a lot of charlatans today call themselves faith healers and they only heal people with ringed ears or twisted backs or whatever, people that are hurting.
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Jesus didn't just heal people that were hurting.
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He took lepers who were skin white, bleached with leprosy, and they were cleansed.
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Absolute miracle.
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It was an organic miracle.
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Something that is impossible, but Christ did it.
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So when Isaiah says, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, the question is what constitutes a sign from God? Well, it has to be something, at least in the sense, it has to be something outside of the normal, outside of the regular, outside of the everyday, the mundane, the normal, the natural.
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So I would say that a proper understanding of this is to say the Lord himself will give you a miracle.
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Well what is it about a young woman having a baby that would make it miraculous? If there was no male intervention.
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He said, behold, the young woman will have a relationship with a man and they will have a baby.
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That is not a sign.
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The Lord himself will give you a sign, behold, a woman who has never ever had a relationship with a man, a woman who has never been touched will become pregnant.
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Huh? Did you find it? That is the word used? The virgin.
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That is the technical? Why didn't we get that? Okay, I will find, I will get the answer and for certain let everyone know.
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Again, I didn't come in planning to do this so I apologize, but I just remember these two words.
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Alma, alma, I think it is the non-technical.
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And that is the word used? Right.
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That is what I thought, that is what I said.
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Alma is the non-technical? Oh, it's the shorter, simpler word.
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Mithula is the more technical, the longer word specific.
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Alright, so from an exegetical perspective, oh and by the way, we'll continue the verse because it says she'll conceive.
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That's part of the miracle, by the way.
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Oftentimes we refer to the virgin birth.
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There is no virgin birth.
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It's a virgin conception.
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The birth is like other births.
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It's just birth.
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It's just that.
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It's a virgin conception.
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That's what the miracle is.
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She's conceived.
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The seed is implanted without the use of the male.
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That's the miracle.
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It's a virgin conception.
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She conceives and bear a son and they will call his name what? Emanuel.
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And Emanuel is not the name that we call our Savior, is it? No, but it is the title that is given to our Savior because Emanuel means God with us.
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God has visited his people.
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Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, God in human flesh who has existed forever but came into time in the person of Jesus Christ and he is Emanuel, God with us.
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Yes? Wouldn't Luke chapter 1, 34 and 35 just settle the controversy and make it a non-controversy? Yes, and I'm gonna get to that in a moment.
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The way that I reason this out is by first saying, okay, from an exegetical perspective, is there a reason to think that Isaiah is saying the technical version even though he's not using the word for virgin? Is there a reason to believe that Isaiah meant virgin? I think we all agree the answer is yes because it's a miracle, it's a sign, and this baby is going to be special.
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He's gonna be God with us.
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So there's something special about this that's more than just a young woman having a baby.
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As special as that may be, this is miraculous.
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Now, the second thing before we get to the New Testament, I think ends all of the controversy, so you're right about that, but before we get there I want to introduce a second argument that I think often is overlooked and that is the argument from something called the Septuagint.
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The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.
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It predates the writing of the New Testament and the Septuagint was used in several places by the New Testament authors in their writing of Old Testament scriptures.
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There's places where you can prove that they were not using the Hebrew Bible, they were using the Greek Bible.
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There's places where the Hebrew and the Greek don't agree and the writers of the New Testament were quoting from the Greek and not the Hebrew.
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Isn't that cool that you can prove that they had it and prove that they were using it based on the language that they were using? Very neat.
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It precedes the writing of the New Testament.
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It precedes the birth of Jesus Christ.
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Thus it is absolutely uninfluenced by Christian doctrine because it couldn't be.
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It can't be influenced by Christ if it's before Christ in the sense that it's uninfluenced socially by anything that would be imposed upon it by Christian teaching.
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There is one word for virgin in the Greek.
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The word is parthenos.
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Parthenos.
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That is the word for virgin in the Greek.
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When the Septuagint translators are translating Isaiah 714, they have a choice to use the Greek word for young woman or the Greek word for virgin.
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They are not influenced by the Christian scriptures.
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They are not influenced by the coming of Jesus Christ or the belief that he was born of a virgin and yet their translation of Isaiah uses the word parthenos.
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So in the Greek Septuagint, it says behold the virgin, technical term in the Greek, a woman who has not been touched by a man, a woman who has not had intercourse, will conceive.
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So how did the Septuagint translators understand Isaiah? There's a miracle and the miracle is the birth of a virgin conceived child.
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So the way the Revised people did it, it says the birth of the virgin.
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Yeah, it could be.
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Here's the thing, not everybody who would be in the NRSV group, I imagine, would have just denied the virgin birth.
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Because the thing is, in the NRSV, in Luke and in Matthew, it says he was born a virgin.
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They're just trying to over-technicalize this phrase virgin in Isaiah without, I believe, taking into consideration all the rest of the evidence to think of why he would have meant virgin and not just young woman.
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But it became very controversial when it didn't need to be.
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Now let's look at the New Testament and we'll see.
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Again, I'm going to go to Matthew first and then we'll go to Luke.
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Both of them address the issue.
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Matthew is in 122.
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It's just finished talking about the birth of Jesus Christ and it says, verse 22, all this took place, being that all the birth of Christ took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
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Now what verse are they quoting? What verse is Matthew quoting? Obviously Isaiah 714.
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So he's quoting that.
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He quotes it and uses the word Parthenos in his writing.
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So did Matthew believe that Jesus would be born a virgin? Did he believe that it was a fulfillment of prophecy? Do we believe Matthew? Then really, as you know, the controversy is over.
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But let's look again.
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Let's look at Luke.
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Which one was it, brother? You had this one already.
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Luke 1.
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Luke 1, 34 and 35.
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This is Mary speaking to the angel after she had been given the promise.
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And Mary said to the angel, how can this be, how will this be, since I am a Parthenos? Of course she wouldn't have said that because she was a Hebrew maiden.
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She probably would have been speaking in an Aramaic dialect.
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But the translator here translates it.
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Who's the translator? Luke.
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Where does Luke get his information? That's a good question.
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Obviously we argue the Holy Spirit, but the very beginning of Luke he references the fact that he is undertaken to find these historical sources, to actually make a historical record.
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Luke is the historian.
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He's the one who wrote Acts.
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He's the one who provides to us the most of the historical aspects of Christ's life.
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And he talks about Kyrenias being governor of Syria and all these things.
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He very much speaks in a historian mindset.
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So I conjecture, based solely upon my own opinion and not based upon anything that should influence you, but I'm gonna tell you anyway, I think he got it from Mary.
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Mary's still alive.
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Luke's still alive.
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They're living contemporaneously, the same time period history, and he's telling the story that happened to her, very specifically.
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Now you could argue, well, you know, Matthew tells the story of what happened to Joseph.
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He didn't talk to Joseph.
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Joseph's probably long dead by this time.
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Of course, you know, I'm not making an argument.
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I'm giving an opinion.
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He could have gotten this from Mary.
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Yes, sir.
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Was Luke a physician? Luke was a physician, and he speaks like a physician.
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That's right.
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And he would have obviously been able to describe to us, and he does.
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Mary asked the question.
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By the way, this is the one thing I've heard people say, well, people in the first century were ignorant.
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They believed in virgin births because they just didn't know how the world worked, and they didn't know how human bodies worked.
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She knew because she asked the question, how can this be? For I am a virgin.
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How can this be if this can't be, is really the implied argument is, is this ain't the way life works.
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I have not had a relationship.
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And yet the 35, and the angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
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Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
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There it is.
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That's the fulfillment of Isaiah 14, as found in Luke 1, and the promise that Isaiah gave that, yes, indeed, a sign would come, and that sign would be the birth of a child through a virgin's womb.
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And in fact, he would be called God with us, the very Son of the living God.
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We have no reason to question this.
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If we're Bible faithful, if we're Scripture trusting people, there's no reason to deny the virgin birth.
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There's no reason to question what Isaiah was intending to say.
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However, there are those who want to introduce as much, as much question in the heart as they possibly can.
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And here's the thing, here's why all this really kind of hits home for me.
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You all know that this church rose out of a very liberal church.
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There was a time in history where when we were, we even had a different name, but back in the 70s and 80s, this church was very theologically liberal.
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Not always been somewhat socially conservative, but very theologically liberal.
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And there was a pastor who was a pastor here that did not believe in the virgin birth.
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You would know him by name, I think, because you've been around almost as long as I have.
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Maybe I would.
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Yeah, I mean, Kevin, Kevin was here.
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Yeah, Kevin, your son.
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Yeah, that's what I meant.
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And his grandfather would have known him.
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Ralph.
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Yeah, he would have known him for sure, and Miss Lawrence would know him.
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It doesn't matter, my point is this, he would have made the argument from Isaiah.
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How simple is it to refute that argument? That's what we've just done.
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But yet, if you want a reason to not believe, you will find anything to give you that reason.
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It's like the whisper in Genesis 3, did God really say that? Did God really say, that's right, that's what the devil is always doing, asking it, did God really say that? Well, in this regard, he really did.
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And he did say that his son would be born of a virgin.
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And why? Because he was conceived not of man, but of God.
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So, Merry Christmas.
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I hope that was an encouragement to you.
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Yes, sir.
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Miss Yadlin, go ahead.
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Matthew 1, what was it? 22 and 23.
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You're welcome.
34:11
Yeah, and that's, if I had time, I would break down why we believe the necessity of the virgin birth was that Christ was born without sin, without the taint of Adam's sin.
34:20
I wish I had more time to enunciate that.
34:22
Yes, sir? Have you gotten to a discussion on the thing about the deutero-Isaiah? Yes, absolutely, yeah, and again, we're gonna go.
34:32
Alright, God bless you guys.