The Necessity of the Virgin Conception of Christ

Good morning. We are going to be doing something I do annually here at Set Free, and I talked about it the last couple weeks. Every year I do a special Christmas lesson on the Thursday before Christmas.

And so the topic today is going to be the necessity of the virgin conception. Because when we think of Christ, we think about some of those miraculous things that surround the birth of Christ. And often you hear the term virgin birth.

Well, it wasn't a virgin birth. It was a virgin conception. It's one of the first things to point out. I mean, Jesus was born like any other child was born. He was born naturally, but he was conceived supernaturally.

And so today we're going to talk about what the Bible says about that in the Old Testament and what the Bible says about that in the New Testament. We're going to talk about why some folks have some disagreements about it.

There are those in the more liberal communities that deny the virgin birth and virgin conception. One of the things I remember growing up is I grew up in the church that I still pastor today, but back then there was more of a liberal bent in their theology.

And in the 1980s, we had a pastor who we hired. And again, I was eight years old, so I don't really remember much about it, but there was a pastor and come Christmas time, he was preaching and he denied the virgin birth of Christ.

And everybody was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. How do we get somebody with a link missing in the chain here? But they didn't even think to ask. I mean, that's a question you figure everybody would affirm that, but this fella didn't.

And come to find out he had come from a liberal university that taught against it. And so, like I said, what I like to do every year is reaffirm the virgin conception of Christ and reaffirm the necessity of it.

Go ahead. What do you mean? Yes. When I said what I was saying, the point I was making is that the birth of Christ was natural because we say virgin birth. Well, it was virgin conception. The virgin, the virginal part matters in the conception.

So after he was born, everything was normal. Is this making sense? You having a hard time with it? Conception is when he was when the conception is when the seed meets the egg and they produce a child, right?

Conception is what happens nine months before the birth. Yeah. And so we talk about virginal conception. So let's let's let's very quickly look at it. I'm going to write a few passages up here. We'll start out with the first one, which is Isaiah 714.

Isaiah’s Prophecy of the Virgin Conception

Go to Isaiah chapter seven. Now, very specifically, it's important to remember that Isaiah was written about 700 years before Christ. The Bible was not written all at one time. The Bible was written over a period of about 1500 years, beginning with Moses, beginning to write around the year 1450 A .D. somewhere.

I'm sorry, B .C., somewhere around 1450 is when Moses was in the wilderness. And that's when he wrote Genesis through Deuteronomy. And then, of course, the rest of the history books and the other books of the Old Testament are written down throughout the ages, down to down to about 400 B .C. was when the last of the Old Testament books were written.

And then there was a 400 year period where there were no books written. There were other books such as Maccabees and things like that. But what we would consider to be sacred Scripture, there was about a 400 year period where there was none written.

And then Matthew through Revelation is written between the year approximately between the year 48 to the year 70. Some people push it out as far as 95. But the New Testament is written in approximately a 30 to 40 year period.

So the reason why I bring all this up and I'm going to write this on the board, I'm trying to hold my place here and do all this at one time. If we consider the universe or the time of the world on really one long timeline and we put the creation of the world here and then we put us here and obviously the world hasn't ended yet.

So we'll just put a little arrow there because you're going to keep going until it's done. So from creation to the flood, we don't know how long that was. So there's really no, we have some indications but we don't know for certain how long it took from Adam to the flood.

But then from the flood to Abraham, we have a pretty good indication of the time frame there. But that's the next major event is the call of Abraham, which begins the time period known as the patriarchal period.

And then we have the Abrahamic, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that period, which ends with slavery in Egypt after the death of Joseph. Remember Abraham's grandson or great-grandson because Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jacob's son Joseph goes to Egypt.

He's enslaved and becomes the prefect of Egypt. And then after his death, the people of Israel are there. They become slaves and they're slaves for 400 years. They have a 400 year period here and after which you have the exodus.

The exodus happens after that 400 year period. So this is where Moses comes in. The first books of the Bible are written here. So all of the things that happen up until that point come to us in Genesis.

Everything here happens in Genesis. After this we have exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. I'm only pointing this out because I want to show you where Isaiah falls on this timeline because it's very important.

So you have this particular time of the exodus. After the time of the exodus, you have the time of Joshua and Judges. And then the entrance, you have the entrance into the promised land where they take over the promised land, the conquering of the promised land.

And then you begin the history books of 1 and 2 Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, all those things. Well in the midst of all that, you have what are known as the major and minor prophets. Now I'm skipping a section here which we would call the monarchy.

So I don't want to leave that out. You have the monarchy and then after this you have the major and minor prophets. So here you have Isaiah falling. The end of the prophetic age ends with Malachi and then there's a 400 year period where we have the time between the last Old Testament prophet and John the Baptist who is the first voice of God's prophecy in the New Testament.

We hear him, you know, making the call that prepare the way of the Lord, right? John the Baptist speaks and it's the first prophetic voice in 400 years. So there's a 400 year period of silence from Malachi to John the Baptist and that's who would say a silent.

You know what's interesting, there's two silent periods. There's a silent period here too and both of them are 400 years. People of Israel were 400 years in Egypt where we have no record of any revelation from God during that 400 years and the next thing was God speaks to Moses, right?

Big deal, right? So that ends that silent time. Here we have another 400 year time of silence that ends with God speaking to John the Baptist to proclaim Christ, right? So that's ends that 400 year silent time.

So that's two specifically important parts of history but Christ is here. Christ comes into the world and from here to here is 700 years. 700 years from Isaiah to the birth of Christ and the reason why I think that's important and why, well I don't just think it's important, the reason why that is important is because Isaiah provides for us some of the most conclusive prophetic statements about the coming of Jesus that we have in the Old Testament.

There's hundreds of Old Testament prophecies about Jesus, Him coming. There's in the Psalms, there's even back in Genesis, there's promises of His coming but some of the most clear conclusive prophetic utterances are from Isaiah and the reason why I point that out is 700 years.

It wasn't like it was prophesying something that happened next week or next month or next year. It's 700 years. America has only been around for 250 years. I mean it's almost three times the length of our country that is what preceded Christ.

So in our Bibles, look at Isaiah 7 14. It says in verse 14, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive. Have a son and name him Emmanuel. Now right away we have to consider three things from this passage.

One, it says that there's going to be a sign that is given. That sign indicates that this is something that will not be according to the norm or according to that which is regular because something to be a sign, it has to be out of the ordinary.

It has to be something that doesn't happen every day and the next thing that we see is that, yes, I don't understand what you mean. He wants to be baptized. No, no, no, never mind. No, if you're talking about a sign, baptism as a sign, is that the connection you're making?

Sort of, yeah. Yeah, but in this sense, the sign is something that God is giving us a sign that He's doing something. So baptism would be in a little different category. Baptism is a sign but it's just categorically a little bit different.

But it says, behold the Lord will give you a sign and what is the sign according to this text? The virgin will conceive, right? The virgin will conceive. Now the reason why that is a sign is because that is out of the ordinary.

In fact, it's absolutely extraordinary. Anybody in here ever met a virgin that conceived? No, you haven't because it's, I don't have to really, I don't have to go through that and say, have you met one?

Have you met one? No, we haven't because it doesn't happen. If you know a lady who is pregnant, there's one thing that you can feel very confident of. She was in a relationship with somebody at some point and they were involved in intercourse and the thing is, I have heard liberals who will say, and when I say liberals, I don't mean that in like the political sense, I mean that in the theological sense.

Those who try to find problems with the Bible, those who try to find issues with the Scripture tend to be on the more liberal side. I tend to be on the more conservative fundamental side. But I've heard liberals who will say, well people in the ancient world didn't understand that virgins don't conceive.

I say, yes, they did. They did understand that because that's what makes this a sign. That's what makes this miraculous is that the virgin would conceive. They understood that one plus one or rather one plus none equals none or in the sense of babies.

A woman doesn't have a baby by herself, right? She can't multiply on her own. We are not asexual creatures. We do not multiply asexually. We multiply sexually. We are sexual creatures and sex is required for the production of a child and that has been known since the beginning.

Adam knew Eve and they conceived and bore Cain, right? It was part of the very understanding of who we are. In fact, we've gotten so far away from that now because now a man can be a woman, a woman can be a man, a man can be a caterpillar, whatever he wants to be, right?

This is anything because we've lost the sense that there is man and there is woman and the two must come together to produce offspring. But the ancients, they understood this. They understood that there is no baby without intercourse.

But Isaiah prophesied. He says, behold, the Lord will give you a sign and the virgin shall conceive. Now, I do want to make mention of something and this is always part of my lesson. There are two Hebrew words.

The first one is Alma and the next one is Bethula and they are two different words used in Hebrew. Alma means maiden but it also does mean virgin. It's more of a generic term. Bethula means virgin and it's the more technical term, right?

So, if we say this word could mean like a young woman of marriageable quality which is a virgin, right? This is less specific. Bethula is more specific. Well, Isaiah does use the less specific word here, Alma, which is one of the reasons why the more liberal side of the argument will say, well, Isaiah wasn't specific enough.

He didn't use Bethula. He didn't use the scientific word for virgin. He used the social word which indicated virgin and therefore, we don't know for sure if he really meant virgin. Huh? You've heard that before.

Well, let me dispel that argument because going back up to my timeline, right about here, right about 200 BC, there was a translation of the Old Testament that was made. 200 years before Christ, a translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint was produced.

The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. During the time of Alexander the Great, as he conquered the known world, he pressed into the known world the requirement of Greek speech.

That was part of what he did. He spread Greek philosophy. Aristotle and things like that were being spread, but he also spread Greek language. This is why the New Testament is written in Greek because the Greek language had consumed the Western world and was known by everyone who did commerce in the ancient world because Alexander had pushed Greek philosophy and Greek speech on all people.

So 200 years before Christ, the Septuagint was written so the Hebrew people would have a Greek translation of their scriptures because there were what were called the Hellenists. They were the ones, they were Greek-speaking Jews and they need a copy of their Bible.

So they have, just like you, you don't speak Hebrew or Greek. You have an English Bible, right? Well, they didn't, some of them didn't speak Hebrew. They had a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. So at Isaiah 714, at Isaiah 714, the translators of the Greek Septuagint, uninfluenced by Christianity, because again Christ didn't come until 200 years later, uninfluenced by Christianity, translates this word into the Greek and they translate it Parthenos.

Parthenos is the word virgin. Now the reason why I point that out is because they were not influenced by the virgin birth of Christ because this was written 200 years before Christ, but they were translating Isaiah's words and they translate his words, Behold, the virgin will conceive, because they understood that this word does mean virgin.

So the idea that Isaiah didn't mean to be understood as virgin is not a good argument because even the Septuagint translators understood that for it to be a sign, it's not just a young woman having a baby.

Young women have babies all the time. The sign is that the virgin will have.

A child. Go ahead. Does that mean that every time a Bible refers to maidens that they're all virgins?

In general, the word maiden is for a virgin, yes. Okay. Yeah. I thought of maid being like somebody's wife or something. No, maiden would not be a word typically used for a wife. It's typically a maiden.

It's a young woman of marriageable quality. Okay. Yeah, someone like.

That's like a young woman who is like, you know, like an 18 year old girl or something. Well,.

Yeah, that time probably younger because they got married, you know, for us 18 is, but for them, they got married at 12, 13, 14 years old, much younger. What was it translated into Greek from? From the Hebrew.

So they translated Alma as Parthenos. Okay, so it wasn't Aramaic. No, Aramaic is very, people often say the Bible has written in three languages, Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. Well, sort of. The Aramaic portions of scripture are like only a few verses.

There's some in Daniel, and there's a couple of times in the New Testament where Jesus speaks in Aramaic, like when he says to the little girl, little girl arise, and they translate it for us because Aramaic is a dialect of Hebrew.

So it's not, it's not, it's, it's not like a whole, it's not like whole books are written in Aramaic. It's not, it's just, just a few passages. Yes. What? Yeah, that, yeah, that would have been Aramaic.

So, so we, we have those just instances of it, not, not whole books or anything written in it. Okay, so my point in all this is to say, Isaiah prophesied the virgin birth 700 years before Christ. Behold, the Lord himself will give you a sign.

The virgin shall conceive and bear a son and call his name Emmanuel. Now, this is a part again, throws people off. Wait a minute. His name was Yeshua, not Emmanuel. They got it wrong. They didn't get it wrong because Emmanuel is not a name like your name is.

Steve, my name is Keith. Emmanuel, what? It's a title. It's title. And it is the title God with us. The, the end, if you see a Hebrew word that ends with L like Israel, um, or Bethel, the, the ending EL suffix means God.

It's short for Elohim, which is the name or the word for God. So when you see Bethel means house of God, Beth means house Bethlehem means house of bread. That's what the, the, the, the, the name where Jesus was born.

Bethlehem is bread and Bethlehem is the house of bread. Uh, Bethel is the house of God. Israel means wrestles with God. That's the term Israel. So, so Emmanuel L is God, Emmanuel, God with us. That's what Emmanuel means.

He will call, he will be called God with us because he is truly God as come in the form of a man. And so when the prophet prophesies, he's prophesying that there will be a sign. The sign will be the virgin conception of a child and that this child will have a particular notable characteristic.

And that characteristic is that he would be God in flesh. Now, with that being said, let's turn our attention now to Matthew. I'm sorry. Well, we can look at both. Let's look at Matthew and Luke because Matthew and Luke both have references to the, uh, the virgin birth.

Let's go to Matthew chapter one, beginning at verse 18 and Matthew chapter one, verse 18. It says the birth of Jesus Christ came about in this way after his mother, Mary had been engaged to Joseph. It was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant by the Holy spirit.

So her husband, Joseph being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her publicly decided to divorce her secretly. Now stop right there. See, even they didn't believe in virgin birth. People say, Oh, the ancient world, they just believe.

No, he thought she had cheated on him. He thought she had gone outside of their betrothal. Now, betrothal was a period of time where a contract was made up between two people where they would be married.

It usually lasted about a year during which time the man would prepare the home for the woman and the woman would keep herself chased for the man so that on the time of the wedding, they would come together and they would have their, uh, uh, the, the intercourse, which would of course, uh, I forget the word I'm looking for consummate the marriage.

Thank you. What was the word you said? Yeah, the honeymoon, which is consummation, right? That's what, and that's the whole thing about honeymoon, right? Is that you go on a honeymoon and it's intended to be that time where the two become one physically.

And he's like, well, she's pregnant. She must've had intercourse with someone else. And therefore his, his, and rightly so, right? This is the only time in history this has ever happened. So he automatically assumes that she stepped out of their agreement.

But look what it says. It says, but after he had considered these things, an angel, the Lord suddenly appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is by the Holy spirit.

She will give birth to a son and you are to name him Jesus because he will save his people from his, from their sins. The word Jesus Yeshua means Yahweh saves. Uh, it's the same word. It's the same name as Joshua.

In fact, Joshua and Jesus are the same in Hebrew. When you go back to the old Testament book of Joshua, it's Yeshua, Jesus and Yeshua, same thing. Yes. She did. She did. He would divorce her. The divorce.

Okay. This is what I was saying earlier. The betrothal period lasted about a year and it was a contract that was arranged. But if you broke that contract, it was still considered to be a legal divorce.

So it was before they, it was before they consummated the marriage, but they had already been in contract to be married. Not sold, but there was probably a dowry given. Well, you know, we have to consider the ancient world and how things were done.

Yeah. Yeah. Or something we don't know. But yeah, there was a, there was an arrangement made between him. He was probably older. In fact, we know Joseph probably dies before Jesus because we don't hear anything more about him.

He's probably much older than her. Right. And she's probably a younger teenage girl and she is being taken into his home, betrothed to him. You know, we, in our day and age, we see that as kind of weird, but in the ancient world it's the way things were.

And so, yeah, she was, she was committed to him. They were in a betrothed relationship and had she had, had that been broken, it would have been considered a legal divorce. Yeah. All right. So beginning in verse 21, she'll give birth to a son, name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

Now, all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet. See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son. They will call his name, Emanuel. What's the quote there? That's quoting Isaiah 714, what we just read.

So Matthew tells us that this quote from Isaiah is being fulfilled in Christ. So again, not, not to keep bashing the liberal side, but the liberals tell us Isaiah wasn't talking about Jesus. Matthew says he was.

And again, if I'm going to go with anyone, I'm going to go with what the scripture says, right? And the scripture says Matthew, Matthew says Isaiah is talking about Jesus. Yes, sir. Okay. I don't know the answer.

Often the why answers are the hardest to give because we don't know for sure. I will say this, um, the, uh, in Luke's gospel, which we're going to read in a minute. Um, it says that she was, uh, highly favored, but it was a favor of grace.

God had graciously chosen her among women to be the, to be the mother now within Roman Catholicism. And I don't want to get too far into left field with this, but I'll just mention it within Roman Catholicism.

A lot of weight is put on the character and quality of Mary. And you know, a lot in Roman Catholicism, even praise to Mary and things like that. Um, and I think often to the point of almost enshrining her as divine herself, I don't think we should do that.

I think that's going beyond what the scripture says, but certainly she was a woman, a godly woman, a woman of character, a woman that God placed his son with because there was, you know, in his grace, he chose her to be that.

So we don't know much about her outside of the fact that we could say she was godly, responsible and, uh, you know, uh, willing, you know, as she said, let it be to me according to your word, which is an important, uh, way that she was willing to be used of God.

All right. Um, and then of course the, the chapter ends with Joseph waking up from sleep, going to, going to Mary and being with her and notice that what it says in verse 25, but he did not know her intimately until she gave birth to a son.

So it wasn't as if she remained a virgin forever. Roman Catholicism does teach that, that she never had intercourse, but it says here, she was a virgin until she gave birth. And then after that, she and Joseph had a regular relationship.

Later we read in the gospels that there were brothers and sisters of Jesus that would have been probably a result of that relationship. But Jesus had brothers, James and Judas and a few others and sisters as well.

So she went on to be a mom to other people, but her firstborn son was Jesus. All right. So now jump over to the gospel of Luke and this is where we're going to end our lesson today as we're getting, uh, getting, getting closer to the end.

We're going to go over to the gospel of Luke chapter two. I'm sorry, chapter one, only two gospels record the birth of Christ and it's, it's Luke and Matthew. But again, just sort of just stressing this, this, what has happened here in Luke chapter one.

Let's see. Uh, yeah, yep. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph. Now that word engaged is also the word betrothed.

That's the point. Huh? Yeah. Betrothed. This I'm looking at, this isn't my Bible. I borrowed it this morning because I didn't bring mine with me, unfortunately. So sometimes I just grab one when I come in.

This is the CSB, which I'm not super used to, but yeah, it says it's even got an asterisk beside the word engaged because it's betrothed. All right. So it says engaged to a man named Joseph of the house of David, the virgin's name was Mary and the angel came to her and said, rejoice favored woman, the Lord is with you.

But she was deeply troubled by this statement, wondering what kind of greeting this could be. Then the angel told her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you found favor with God. Now listen, you will conceive, give birth to a son.

You will call his name Jesus. He will be great. He will be called the son of the most high. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end.

Mary asked the angel, how can this be since I have not been intimate with a man that phrase? She literally says, how can this be? For I have not known a man. The word known is the word for to know sexually.

Adam knew Eve and conceived and bore a child. Right. So she says, how can this be? I have not known a man. So again, virgin, virgin, virgin, virgin, the point it's all over the text. And she wasn't ignorant of how science works.

She wasn't ignorant of how conception works because she said, how can I have a child? I haven't even had a man. And the angel answers and says, the Holy Spirit will come upon you in the Holy Spirit. I'm sorry, the power of the most high will overshadow you.

Therefore, the holy one to be born will be called the son of God. So there is most of the relevant passages that point us to the fact that the Bible does not allow for us to get around the reality of the virgin conception of Christ.

If we want to stand back and say that Jesus was not born of a virgin, then we have to say the scripture has lied because the scripture is so clear about this and the Old Testament and in the New Testament, both prophetically and in regard to its fulfillment.

We have no reason to doubt that Jesus was born of a virgin. Now, let's talk about the theological implications of that as we draw all of this to a close. Why is the virgin conception necessary? Well, we can consider two thoughts from that.

One, the virgin conception is necessary in regard to the identity of Christ as the son of God. Jesus would have probably been called Yeshua Bar Yosef. That's the way that they said names back then. Your name and the name of your father.

Think of Simon Bar-Jonah, right? It was how people identified Simon Peter because he was the son of Jonah. Bar means the son of. In fact, the word Bartholomew, you've seen one of the disciples was named Bartholomew.

That means son of Ptolemy, Bartholomew. So when we see that, Jesus probably went his whole life being referred to as Yeshua Bar Yosef because that was his earthly father. But his identity was not truly the son of Joseph, though from a legal and earthly standpoint it was, but his true father was God.

There was a some miraculous implantation of the seed of God in the womb of Mary. And therefore, when Christ was born, he was born not man alone and not God alone, but he was born as the only God-man, the only one and only God-man.

Not half and half. He wasn't Hercules. I talked about this last Sunday. He wasn't like Hercules who was born of Zeus and he was half divine and half mortal. No, Jesus is not a half-breed between heaven and earth, but he, according to Colossians, has the fullness of deity bodily, but still bodily.

Human in all ways it means to be human, but divine in all ways necessary to be divine. And therefore, Christ in his identity, the virgin birth, speaks to the identity of Christ as being fully God and fully man.

What the Latin father said, vera homo, vera Deus. Vera homo means truly man. Vera Deus, truly God. And that's the way Christ is described. So his identity is wrapped up in the virgin conception, but also his impeccability is wrapped up in the virgin conception.

What is impeccability? His sinlessness. Because Christ being born of a virgin is also born without the stain of the sin of Adam, which all of us have. The Bible says we are sons and daughters of Adam.

We're not daughters because we're all men, but we're all, we are all born of Adam. In fact, the Bible says, through one man sinned in the world and death through sin and death spread to all men, right?

Because we're all in Adam. We are all born with the nature of Adam. Adam sinned and he passed that nature on to his children and we get passed on and therefore all of us have a sin nature. This is why the Bible says that in our flesh we're evil because we have that sin nature.

But Christ does not have a sin nature. Christ does not come with the taint of Adam, but rather he is called the new Adam. He is referred to in 1 Corinthians 15 as the last Adam. There's only two Adams.

There's Adam who brought sin into the world and there is Christ, the second Adam, the last Adam, the only other Adam who brings life. The first Adam brought death. The last Adam brought life. And if you want to see this in Scripture, turn with me one last place and we'll look at this and we'll close.

Go to Romans chapter 5. What's that? Yep, Romans chapter 5 and we'll go down to verse 15. Speaking of Romans 5 .15. Speaking of the gift that comes through Christ, it says, The gift is not like the trespass.

For if by one man's trespass the many died, how much more had the grace of God and the gift overflowed to the many by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ? And the gift is not like one man's sin, because from one sin came judgment, resulting in condemnation.

But from many trespasses came the gift, resulting in justification. Since by one man's trespass death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the overflowing grace of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ?

So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also one righteous act there is life-giving justification for everyone. For just as though as through one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

Right there we have one man's disobedience, Adam, brought condemnation. And one man's obedience, Christ, brings justification and life. And so we have two Adams. And as I've said many times, those who've heard me preach before, this is a pretty much a go-to for me, but it's important.

You stand under one of two banners. In your life, you stand under one of two banners. You will either stand under the banner of Adam, or you will stand under the banner of Christ. And if you are under the banner of Adam, you will go as all men go, into God's condemnation, because you deserve God's condemnation because of sin.

But if you receive Christ under His banner, you are given forgiveness and justification and life. And that is the only two banners. You can't stand under your own steam. You can't save yourself. You can only hold to the One who came to save.

Jesus Christ, Yeshua, the name means Yahweh saves. And how does He save? He saves through the blood of His cross. So my encouragement to you gentlemen on this Christmas week is to consider that God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law that we might be given the adoption as sons.

And consider that as you think about what it means to celebrate the Incarnation this Christmas. Let's pray. Father, I thank You for Your Word. I thank You for Your truth. And I pray even now, Lord, that You would through this message and through this time together, that You would cause us all to reflect even more greatly on the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank You, Lord, for all that You give us in His name. Amen.