Incarnation and Virgin Conception

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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December 13, 2018

00:00: Well, good evening.
00:04: We are back for our continued study of systematic theology.
00:10: And, as I'm sure you remember, we are in the subject called Christology.
00:23: Christology is the study of Jesus Christ, His person and work.
00:30: Last week we talked about His pre-existence.
00:34: We talked about the fact that Christ is the second person of the Trinity, therefore He is God, and therefore He is eternal.
00:48: So, in your notes, you'll notice at the top I've given you the outline of this section.
00:53: The outline of the section is the pre-existence and eternality of Christ, and then the second, and you'll see the little asterisk beside it, it says truly God and truly man.
01:05: Well, that section by itself is really a subsection, which is going to take a few weeks.
01:10: So, I didn't want to write everything, but that's incarnation, humanity, deity, and hypostatic union all fall under that category.
01:19: Then we're going to, in the weeks ahead, look at peccability versus impeccability, earthly life and ministry, offices, and then His present ministry and future work.
01:28: So, tonight we are on the subject of truly God and truly man, and we are looking specifically at the incarnation and the virgin conception.
01:47: The incarnation and the virgin conception.
01:53: That is our subject for this evening.
01:57: By show of hands, how many of you know what incarnation means? Okay, all right, only a couple.
02:07: Well, you want to say what it is? I don't mean to put you on the spot.
02:11: You raise your hand.
02:11: I'm just curious.
02:17: The root word is carnal, and that means flesh.
02:21: So, to incarnate means to be put into flesh, or to be, or to take on flesh.
02:28: If you open your Bibles with me, we'll go to John chapter 1, verse 14.
02:35: This is the seminal passage for the incarnation, even though we could obviously look at the virgin narrative of Luke or Matthew.
02:45: The passage, which I think has the most to say about this issue, is John 1 and verse 14.
02:54: So, when you, I want to let you look at it, so if I'll give you a second to open your Bibles there.
02:59: But yes, carnal, carnality, carne, flesh.
03:03: So, even today, we, you know, we think of, like, the word carne still in some languages has that root of meaning of flesh, you know.
03:12: And so, incarnation, to become flesh.
03:16: And this, this is, you remember we looked at John 1, 1.
03:20: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh.
03:28: That's verse 14.
03:30: It jumps, there's a little bit in between that, but really verse 14 is following up the prelude.
03:36: It's, it's, it's putting a bookend in the prelude, because John 1, 1 through 1, 18 is the, is the prelude.
03:43: And so, we see 1, 1 in the beginning was the Word.
03:46: And then you say, well, who is that? How do we know who that is? Well, verse 14 is how we know who that is, because verse 14 says, And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son, from the Father, full of grace and truth.
04:09: The phrase there, became flesh, is very important.
04:15: The word became is a very important word, because it is, and we're going to talk about this in a little while, a little bit more, but it's important to realize that before the incarnation, Jesus existed, but Jesus did not exist as a man.
04:33: The eternal nature of the Son is the divine spirit nature, but the flesh nature of the Son came into existence in Bethlehem.
04:46: He was not enfleshed until He came through the Virgin.
04:52: We understand.
04:53: So, we could say that the Word has always been, but the man, Jesus of Nazareth, came into being in Bethlehem.
05:04: Now, you understand I'm making a distinction, because when I say Jesus came into being, people go, oh, people lose their mind, because I'm not, I'm not saying that Jesus is not eternal, but what I am saying is His taking on of flesh, His becoming flesh, happened in time.
05:22: It happened in a moment in time.
05:24: Did you have a, or is that your, okay.
05:27: Another important passage that goes along with this is Philippians 2, which is called the Carmen Christi, or the Song of Christ.
05:37: If you'll, if you just quickly turn over to Philippians chapter 2, and if you want to make a note, it's verses 5 through 8.
05:47: It's one of my favorite sections of Scripture, and if you, if you understand, yes, Carmen Christi, C-A-R-M-E-N, and then C-H-R-I-S-T-I.
06:07: The Carmen Christi, or the Song of Christ, and the reason why it's given that title is because it is believed that this particular section of Philippians, and this is, you could argue, I guess it's not, but many people believe that this section of Philippians is actually a, something Paul is quoting, that Christians believed, and it may have even been a song that was sung in the early church regarding the nature of Christ, though it's called sometimes the Carmen Christi, and this is, Paul is talking about humility.
06:41: He says, Have this mind which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.
06:54: Being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
07:03: And it goes on to say, And at the name of the Lord Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and it goes on from there.
07:10: But the point of the text is that Jesus, though he was God, did not hold on to his divinity in the flesh, but rather emptied himself, and we're going to talk about what that means.
07:21: Kenosis is the word that's meaning when Christ, he didn't give up his divinity, he didn't lose his divinity, but he set aside the benefits of his divinity by coming in the flesh and becoming a man in the sense of he's setting aside his, yes, not in the flesh, right? His flesh, I believe his flesh even today is not omnipresent.
07:46: I believe his flesh is at the right hand of the Father.
07:48: So I believe there's a sense in which the dual nature of Christ, there's the dual nature, the man and the spirit that is one in Christ.
07:56: I believe that he is an omnipresent spirit, but not an omnipresent flesh.
08:01: Yeah.
08:01: And so, yes, this is why he could see Philip under the tree and say, I saw you, even though he wasn't there.
08:07: So he, even in his flesh, he talked in a way of knowing all things, having omniscience and omnipresence, but not in the flesh.
08:14: His flesh is in one place at a time.
08:19: That's why I don't believe in the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.
08:24: They believe that his flesh comes to the table.
08:28: I don't believe that.
08:29: But, you know what I'm saying? So there's a lot to to go into.
08:32: That's a whole other conversation.
08:34: But we talk about Christ's flesh.
08:37: When he rose from the dead, he had a glorified body.
08:40: I believe he still has that body.
08:42: I believe it's still hands, feet.
08:44: I believe he has those scars and I believe those scars will be the only scars that go into eternity.
08:49: Can't prove that.
08:50: I might take this long six inch scar that's on my leg onto into eternity.
08:53: I don't think I will, but I might.
08:56: I would like to think not.
08:58: I'd like to think I won't look like this forever, but maybe.
09:02: But Jesus and his flesh is not omnipresent, not in the flesh in that sense.
09:10: So in this, though, there's there's this sense of Christ emptying himself.
09:16: And like I said, we're going to talk about what that means later.
09:18: But in this sense, just knowing that when he came in the flesh, the divinity is not limited.
09:25: But he is he's he's limiting himself in his humanity.
09:28: That's why later he'll say, I'm hungry.
09:30: I thirst.
09:32: He'll say things about not knowing certain things, such as the second coming.
09:37: He he refers to certain limitations in himself, which are touching his human nature, but not his divine nature.
09:44: And we're going to talk about that more when we look at the hypostatic union, which is part of this study.
09:52: But the things I want to look at tonight in regard to the incarnation and the virgin conception.
09:58: And by the way, it just so happens that this fell around Christmastime.
10:00: I love it.
10:01: The fact that because I didn't plan for this, but this subject being, you know, this will be our last major study before Christmas next week.
10:08: We're going to have dinner together and still have a short study, but we're going to do it as part of a little different setup.
10:15: So tonight, huh? Yeah, exactly.
10:18: So he's sovereign.
10:19: We're here.
10:21: I want you to understand when we talk about incarnation.
10:26: Incarnation is not apparition.
10:30: Incarnation is not apparition.
10:33: You say, well, what are you talking about? Jesus came as truly man, not just in the appearance of a man.
10:45: There was a belief in the early church that Jesus wasn't really a man, but that he was a vision of a man or taking the form of a man.
10:56: Remember last week, we talked about a Christophany, how Jesus did appear in the Old Testament at certain times as a man, but he wasn't in flesh.
11:04: That was a vision or an apparition.
11:08: But when Jesus came in the flesh, he was truly flesh.
11:13: And John tells us this, because John says, if any person says Jesus Christ has not come, how? In the flesh.
11:22: He is not of God.
11:24: No, I know, but absolutely.
11:30: The point, though, with John is there were people, especially the Gnostics, who believed that everything that is physical was evil and everything that was spiritual was good.
11:41: So if Jesus came in the physical, then he took on evil.
11:46: And so because they believed that, they said he couldn't have been physical.
11:50: He had to have been just a spirit man.
11:52: He was a spirit man, not a real man.
11:55: John says, if anyone says Jesus Christ has not come in the flesh, he is not of God.
12:02: He is directly addressing the false teaching of the Gnostics and others who would teach that, that he wasn't flesh.
12:09: He was just spirit appearing as flesh.
12:13: If Jesus was just flesh, or excuse me, if Jesus was just spirit appearing as flesh, then he would not have been able to truly die or truly become the sacrifice for man, because Christ represents man in the sacrifice because he is a man.
12:31: To represent a group, you have to be part of that group.
12:34: And if he wasn't truly a man, he wouldn't be part of the group.
12:38: He wouldn't be one of us.
12:40: But Hebrews makes it a point that he was like us in every way, except one, sin.
12:48: That's right.
12:49: But every other way he was like us.
12:51: She had her hand up first, but go ahead.
12:55: I have to look, it's a little further in my notes.
12:57: Actually, I think it's 1 John 4.2.
13:01: Yeah, go ahead.
13:05: I heard it mentioned for the reason why, I mean, he was tempted in every way.
13:18: That's one of my favorite passages is Hebrews 2.14, I think it's Hebrews 2.14 through whatever it is.
13:25: 14 through 24, something of that nature, 20, 14 through 20, something like that's one of my favorite passages.
13:30: I just read it like a few days ago.
13:34: But I've heard that the reason why it was something about Jesus not having the seed of the father, from not...
13:44: You're jumping ahead of me a little bit because that is, yes, we're going to talk about that a little bit on regarding the virgin conception.
13:54: But let me just address, but we are also, when we get to the peccability versus non-peccability question that comes up, because it comes up to the question, if he's like us in every way, does that mean he could have sinned? And I was imagining that was where you were probably, where your mind's going.
14:13: We are going to address that further a little later.
14:17: Yeah, no, I'm glad and stay with me.
14:20: That's what I'm saying.
14:21: I don't want to get too far off, I get too far ahead of myself, but that is an important question and one that we're going to move on.
14:29: All right.
14:29: So very quickly, I have five quick things that I want to just mention about the incarnation.
14:36: Five things about the incarnation.
14:37: This is not in your notes, but you can just, if you want to write these down or just make a mental note of them.
14:42: Number one, Jesus Christ was conceived miraculously, but birthed naturally.
14:51: He was conceived miraculously, but birthed naturally.
14:56: Now, why do I make a point about that? And I bet you probably didn't even notice, but you notice I didn't call this lesson incarnation and virgin birth.
15:05: I called it incarnation and virgin conception.
15:10: Because I make a distinction, because in Roman Catholic theology, and it's not beat up on Catholics tonight, but I just keep going back to that because there are some false teachings among Roman Catholics in regard to the incarnation.
15:21: One of them being that Mary did not have Christ by natural means, because they believed that her virginity was held intact even through the birth, which would not be physically possible.
15:34: But because of the doctrine of perpetual virginity, they believe that Jesus was essentially transferred from womb to stable, not birthed from womb to stable.
15:49: It was a miraculous birth.
15:51: In fact, I'll read it.
15:52: I don't want to misinterpret or misstate.
15:55: This is from the New Catholic Encyclopedia.
15:58: Quote, The perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a dogma of the Catholic Church.
16:04: Three points are included in the dogma.
16:06: One, the virginal conception of Jesus by Mary without any human father.
16:10: Two, the virginal birth of the child from the womb of his mother without injury to the bodily integrity of Mary.
16:19: And three, Mary's observance of virginity afterwards throughout her earthly life.
16:24: See, Roman Catholics believe that not only was she a virgin before, but she was a virgin during, and she was a virgin after.
16:34: And that's why I don't say virgin birth.
16:38: I say virgin conception, because I believe it was a natural birth of Christ.
16:46: And so, and I'm not saying I wouldn't use the word virgin birth or that I haven't used the word virgin birth.
16:49: But when I'm teaching, I like to be very particular in how I use language.
16:54: And so I don't address the virgin birth in teaching.
16:56: I say it's a virgin conception, natural birth.
17:00: So that's number one.
17:01: Number two, Jesus had a body, a true body of flesh and blood, which we already said first on for two, had a true body of flesh and blood, meaning he had heart, kidneys, lungs, all of those things, which were natural.
17:19: Three, he developed both physically and mentally.
17:26: That one's hard for me to wrap my mind around.
17:29: That's, by the way, that's Luke 2.52.
17:31: And he grew in wisdom and stature and in grace with God and men.
17:35: That's, that's when you talk about one's about, you know, not necessarily bother you, but one got your attention.
17:39: That, that, you know, I think about it.
17:41: Jesus is Luke 2.52.
17:46: It's, yes, he developed, no, he developed physically and mentally.
17:50: It was the, was the, was the note.
17:52: And the text says that he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.
17:57: All right.
17:59: And so a lot of people ask the question, well, why, why did he have to grow in wisdom? He is God in the flesh.
18:04: Yes.
18:04: But again, going back to the idea of limitation in the flesh, taking on the flesh.
18:08: If Jesus had a divine mind that over, overtook his human mind at all times, then he never, ever had any type of growth as a human.
18:23: But the Bible says he did.
18:25: And if he didn't, he was faking those diaper changes.
18:30: I don't mean to make light or a joke, but what I'm saying is he was a baby who behaved as a baby.
18:35: He didn't sin, but he grew.
18:39: He was born as a baby.
18:40: He wasn't born as a grown man.
18:43: Right? I mean, this is, we don't think about this often, but this is important, right? It was actually Mark Lowry who said that.
18:49: Mark Lowry wrote Mary, Did You Know? And he was the one who made the joke about the diaper changes.
18:54: He said, if he, if, if he didn't have to develop mentally, you know, as a baby into a man, then he was faking his diaper change.
19:00: I always thought it was a good joke, but it's a good point though.
19:04: So he developed physically and mentally as a man, but he was, but he always maintained the divine nature.
19:12: And this is why when we talk about the hypostatic union, it is important to distinguish between the divine and human nature of Christ without dividing them.
19:22: You distinguish between them without dividing them.
19:26: Understanding that when we see certain aspects of Christ's life, it touches his divine nature.
19:31: And we see other aspects of his life.
19:32: It touches his human nature.
19:34: And we have to, how do we distinguish between the two? Well, God doesn't die.
19:38: So when Jesus dies on the cross, that's touching his human nature.
19:42: Understand? Some people believe God died and the divinity died.
19:47: If that would have happened, the entire universe would have imploded on itself.
19:52: So you have to understand there's, we have to make distinctions without making divisions, right? We don't divide Christ, but we do distinguish between his humanity and his deity.
20:06: Number four, he was fully human with all constituent parts of body, soul, and spirit.
20:14: We see this in John chapter 12, verse 27, and John chapter 13, verse 21, which refers to Jesus's soul and his spirit.
20:24: I believe Jesus had a human spirit as well as a divine spirit.
20:28: And this again goes back to the hypostatic union.
20:30: In fact, it's the historic teaching of the church that Jesus had a human body and spirit as well as a divine nature.
20:40: And some people, and there's, and again, historically, you can look up and see how there were some who believed Jesus didn't have a human nature.
20:46: He only had a divine nature and a human body.
20:49: And there was no human nature.
20:52: But I think it goes back to the issue of being like us in every way.
20:56: And when the Bible talks about his soul and his spirit, you know, these are, these are references that we have to consider when we think about who he is and who he was.
21:06: Was that a question or would you just? So when it says that, yes, that's the Holy Spirit.
21:23: That's the third, third person to train.
21:24: Right.
21:25: Yeah.
21:25: Um, that would mean that the spirit that Jesus had in life, like the same way, like our spirit, the same way that we have spirit, it was not necessarily the Holy Spirit.
21:40: It was.
21:44: Now we're going to have to be careful how we make distinctions here.
21:49: Jesus Christ, his body and spirit human.
21:54: He has his divine nature, but the Bible also says he was empowered by the Holy Spirit.
22:02: So when he said he did works, he said specifically, I am doing this by the power of the spirit.
22:08: And when you say that I'm doing this of the devil, you're blaspheming the spirit.
22:11: That was the danger of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
22:14: So I mean, the spirit that like dwells within him, like the same way as we, each of us have, it has like, you know, like our, like our soul, like every soul, the soul that's saved by Christ, the one that, you know, the one that, you know, when we become the inner man, that's what, yeah, exactly.
22:31: That obviously that's not for us, that's not going to be the Holy Spirit, you know what I mean? Sure.
22:39: And for Christ, it is the, it is his human spirit, human nature, human spirit.
22:46: The Holy Spirit certainly indwelled him and empowered him, but he has his divine nature and human nature, which are distinct.
22:55: Yeah, his divine nature and human nature are distinct.
22:57: And when you say that the Holy Spirit, that we have to be, again, we have to be able to make a distinction within the Trinity.
23:03: Is the son, the spirit? No, that's one of the distinctions we make.
23:07: So the son is not the spirit, but the spirit indwells the son and empowers him for the work that he does.
23:13: And so we can make that distinction without having to, without having to say that the son didn't have a spirit, he had the Holy Spirit.
23:23: No, we say he had a human spirit in the same way you have a human spirit, but he also was empowered and indwelled with the Holy Spirit in the same way, as a believer, we are empowered and indwelled with the Holy Spirit.
23:33: In John 3 it says he had the spirit without measure.
23:37: Yeah.
23:37: John 3, 34.
23:39: Yeah.
23:39: And so we know he certainly possessed the person of the Holy Spirit.
23:43: And this is where getting into Trinitarian language can sometimes be confusing.
23:48: And I do want to make a point.
23:51: And this is, I don't want to, I don't, I could, I could, I don't want to divide out onto like a third subject.
23:57: When we talk about the soul and the spirit, there is a sense in which sometimes the word soul represents the mind and the spirit represents the genuine, true person or the real person.
24:14: I've said this before, and I didn't make it up.
24:16: I heard someone else say it, but we are not bodies with a soul.
24:20: We're souls with a body.
24:21: The real us is our, is our spirit or our soul.
24:25: But the Bible does sometimes make a distinction between the spirit and the soul.
24:30: And when it does that, the word is psuche and pneuma.
24:33: Pneuma is the spirit and psuche is the mind or the, where we get the word psyche.
24:41: Yeah, exactly.
24:43: There's a, there's a, there's, and there are other passages too, where Paul talks about body, soul, and spirit.
24:48: And I think that anytime we see that tripartite separation, the point is to make a slight distinction between the true man, the mental man, and the physical man.
25:00: Because, and again, I could take it, I don't want to go too far, but Christians can have mental disease.
25:08: A Christian can get Alzheimer's.
25:11: A Christian can get Parkinson's.
25:13: A Christian can have a mental disease, and yet their still soul is still intact.
25:19: You know, their soul has not been corrupted by disease.
25:23: And so I think that even physically, we can make a distinction between the soul and the spirit in that direction.
25:28: But oftentimes though, soul and spirit are used interchangeably.
25:33: So, so when I talk about Jesus's spirit, I'm talking about his human spirit that I do believe he possessed as a man.
25:40: When I talk about his soul, it could be interchanged with the spirit, but also could be the mind of Christ, you know, and you know, that, that could be a way that we use that language, and of course the physical body of Christ.
25:51: And the mind is part of the physical body, right? That's why it can get sick, because it's physical.
25:59: So, was that helpful, or did that draw out, did that draw out a thousand other questions? Yeah, yeah.
26:12: I've often defined the, the, the mind is the, is, is, is the, is, is the mediator between our, our spirit, our true man, and how we understand things.
26:23: This is why somebody, when the mind quits working, they're, they don't seem to make any sense, but they're still there.
26:29: You know, somebody can, again, they can have a mental disease, the mind go out, but they're still there.
26:34: And you see this in people with Alzheimer's.
26:36: Sometimes they'll come to themselves, and they know who they are.
26:39: It's the mind that's not working right, but their spirit is perfectly fine.
26:44: Yes, yeah.
27:01: I wouldn't disagree that the emotion is part of the mind, and, and, and that's why things like drugs can make people happy, or sad, or angry.
27:20: You know, I, I, I've, I, it's so amazing.
27:23: You ever watch these commercials, and they'll be like, take flora flora for itchy, watery eyes, you know, and side effects include, you're going to get angry and beat people up, but, but you won't have itchy, watery eyes anymore, you know.
27:35: Side effects include depression and thoughts of suicide.
27:37: Well, I will take the itchy, watery eyes, you know.
27:41: I mean, but, but because those things affect parts of our mind, we have to consider that emotions often are a result.
27:52: This is why I say things like, I say emotions are important in worship, but emotions are not worship, because emotions are the result of worship.
28:04: And people say, well, I can't worship unless I have an experience.
28:09: No, no, no, back up.
28:12: It's not about you.
28:13: Yeah, exactly.
28:14: Your experience does not define worship, and, I mean, can you worship Christ unemotionally? Don't get mad at me.
28:24: I'm going to say yes, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's really natural to do so.
28:32: I think the more natural thing is when, when we are truly in the presence of our Lord, that that will overflow into our emotions, but I think that the most important thing is that God is, is, is worshiped, and how that affects us.
28:45: Huh? Yeah, yeah, that's right, and again, coming down to what's the heart.
28:50: The heart is the spirit, and again, this is sort of taking us off the lesson, because the whole idea here is the incarnation of Christ, and I think what threw you guys for a loop is when I said Christ had a human spirit.
29:01: I gave you two.
29:04: I gave you John 12, 27, and John 13, 21.
29:08: One refers to Jesus's soul.
29:10: One refers to his spirit.
29:11: Both languages are used in the text.
29:13: Yes.
29:18: Yeah, he's not fully human.
29:20: That's what we say, fully man, right, and so that, and that's why I say going back to the early church, one of the earliest arguments was that Jesus didn't have a body, and then later arguments were, well, he didn't have a human spirit.
29:35: He only had, it was, it was Holy Spirit or Christ, second person spirit, and the body are, are joined, but fully man means fully man, and that's what we have in the incarnation.
29:51: Number five on this, he experienced human limitation.
29:56: We've already mentioned that a few times, but that's the fifth thing I had in regard to the incarnation.
30:00: He experienced human limitation.
30:03: I mean, you can write down these if you want to.
30:05: He hungered, Matthew 4, 2.
30:07: He experienced being tired, John 4, 6.
30:11: He experienced being thirsty, John 4, 7, and of course, he died, which is a limitation on humanity, which is found in all of the gospels and the epistles.
30:22: So the five things regarding the incarnation.
30:24: One, he was conceived miraculously, but born naturally.
30:28: Two, he had a true flesh and blood body.
30:30: Three, he developed physically and mentally.
30:34: Four, he was fully human with all body parts or all constituent parts, including body, soul, and spirit.
30:40: And five, he experienced human limitation.
30:42: That's the, that's the, that's the breakdown of the incarnation.
30:46: Now, from that, we want to look at the second part, which we'll see how, yeah, time allows it because I'll, my clock is broken, so I'm going to go as long as I want.
30:57: Yes.
31:00: Last two scriptures I had for the limitation, the, oh, John 4, 6, and 7.
31:09: It talks about him being tired and thirsty.
31:12: Yeah.
31:12: John 4, 6, and 7.
31:14: And Matthew 4, 2 is the hungry one.
31:17: I didn't say, I didn't mention limitations.
31:22: That was it.
31:23: That was the, it was Matthew 4, 2, John 4, 6, and John 4, 7.
31:30: All right.
31:32: As I said, the next, to go along with the incarnation, which could have been a whole lesson, but I wanted to combine it with the virgin birth, virgin conception.
31:45: Because understanding the incarnation, well, let me back up.
31:55: I want to say understand, understanding the reason for the virgin conception is part of understanding how the incarnation fits into everything.
32:05: We have to understand why is it important that Jesus came through a virgin? And we know she was a virgin.
32:13: The Bible is not unclear at all.
32:16: She even asked the angel.
32:18: He said, you're going to have a son.
32:20: And she said, how can this be? For I know not a man.
32:25: Now, I want to make a point that I have, I have heard from more than one skeptic who said the only reason they believed in the virgin birth in the first century was because there was a pre-scientific age.
32:40: And prior to the current scientific enlightenment, people didn't understand that virgins couldn't have babies.
32:47: She understood it because when he said, you're going to have a child, she said, I know not a man.
32:55: It's, this doesn't take Newtonian physics to figure out.
33:00: We don't have to sit on this side of, of having seen through Galileo's eyes to understand that it takes an act to have a baby.
33:13: And she knew she'd never had that act.
33:16: So she didn't know how she could have a baby.
33:22: And by the way, that means it's a miracle.
33:26: And I don't know of any others.
33:29: Jesus is the only virgin born man in the history of men.
33:34: Right? And people say, well, I don't believe in the virgin birth because I've never seen a virgin birth.
33:38: There was only one.
33:42: It's like saying, I don't believe in George Washington because I never saw him.
33:45: It doesn't make any sense.
33:47: Right? There was only one and it was a true miracle.
33:51: And in this miracle of the virgin conception, you have the divine nature and the human nature united.
34:07: And that is what we call the hypostatic union.
34:15: The hypostatic union is the uniting of the divine nature, which is the eternal nature of the son, God, the son with the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth in his one person.
34:33: God is one being in three persons.
34:37: Jesus is one person with two natures.
34:42: See, understanding the Trinity helps us understand Jesus because we understand we're talking about categories, right? In the Trinity, one essence, three persons.
34:51: With Jesus, one person, two natures.
34:56: The divine and the human.
34:57: Now, later we're going to talk more about the hypostatic union, so I don't want to get off on that right now.
35:01: I want to focus on the virgin conception.
35:06: Three points about the virgin conception.
35:07: I've given these to you in your notes.
35:10: Number one, there are those who identify as Christians, but they deny the virgin conception.
35:16: I'll tell you a story.
35:19: Pat will remember.
35:20: I think Pat's the only one in the room who will remember.
35:25: Wow, look at you.
35:27: You and me.
35:29: Is there anybody else who was here in the 80s? I mean, you existed in the 80s.
35:36: Well, in the 80s, we had a pastor of the old church, Forrest, who denied the virgin birth, virgin conception.
35:50: Do you remember this, Pat? We didn't know it until after he came.
35:55: He didn't make that.
35:56: It wasn't on his resume.
35:58: He didn't put that on the sign-in sheet.
36:02: Oh yeah, by the way, I'm a heretic.
36:04: He didn't write that down.
36:05: He don't write that in, you know.
36:11: But it just, it so amazes me to consider the fact that someone could.
36:18: I want to read to you, you guys know who Al Mohler is, president of Southern Seminary? He wrote, referring to Harry Emerson Fosdick, he wrote about it.
36:30: I want to just read this paragraph.
36:32: In his famous sermon, Shall the Fundamentalists Win?, Henry Emerson Fosdick, an unabashed liberal, aimed his attention at vexed and mooted question of the virgin birth.
36:42: Fosdick, preaching from the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church in New York City, allowed that Christians may hold quite different points of view about the matter like the virgin birth.
36:52: He accepted the fact that many Christians believe the virgin birth to be historically true and theologically significant.
36:58: Fosdick likened this belief to a special biological miracle.
37:02: Nevertheless, Fosdick insisted that others, equally Christian, could disagree with those who believe the virgin birth to be historically true.
37:10: But side by side with them in the evangelical churches is a group of equally loyal and reverent people who would say the virgin birth is not to be accepted as historical fact.
37:18: To believe the virgin birth as an explanation of great personality is one of the familiar ways in which the ancient world was accustomed to account for unusual superiority.
37:31: So this guy Fosdick, who was a preacher, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, he said it's okay if you don't believe in the virgin birth.
37:42: He said it's up to you.
37:45: He said you might believe in it, you might think it's a special biological miracle, and if you believe it's a special biological miracle, well, you know, bully for you.
37:55: But if you think that it's not a biological miracle, but some way that the ancient people represented somebody of superiority saying that they were born of a virgin, but that's not really the biological answer, but just the answer to how they thought he was so special, well, bully for you I'm here to say just bully.
38:14: That's junk.
38:15: That is bad, bad theology.
38:18: And I'm going to tell you something.
38:20: It is not equal to believe in the virgin birth and to not believe in the virgin birth.
38:28: It's not equal.
38:29: Fosdick says it is, but he is wrong.
38:34: It's a shame, number one, that we have come to the point where we believe we're smarter than the Bible, that we are more intelligent than God, and that we have more wisdom than the Spirit of God.
38:51: Because we look at what the Word of God says, and we say, no, that can't be.
38:54: I don't like that, so I'll make it think, make it what I want it to say.
38:59: The virgin conception is not at all optional, and yet there are those who teach that it is.
39:09: There was a man by the name of Lüdenmann.
39:11: Lüdenmann said this.
39:14: He said the tomb was full and the manger was empty.
39:19: Jesus wasn't born of a virgin.
39:20: He didn't rise from the dead, and yet I'm still a Christian.
39:24: Paul says you're not.
39:27: Paul says if you believe Jesus has not risen from the dead, you above all men are most to be pitied, for if Jesus has not risen from the dead, you are still in your sins.
39:40: What's it all about if he's still in the tomb? The tomb was full and the manger was empty.
39:43: What a shame.
39:45: What shameful theology.
39:46: If I ever preach anything like that, feel free to kick me out.
39:49: Don't you leave.
39:50: You make me leave, because that is garbage theology.
39:58: But why do people deny the virgin birth? This is what really what I'm trying to get around to.
40:01: Why would anyone deny the virgin birth? Because it seems so obvious, right? I mean, we've already looked at a few texts, but I mean, you go to Luke chapter 2, you go to Matthew, and they both say that she was a virgin.
40:14: Mary was a virgin.
40:16: It means, you know, virgin.
40:18: So I'm not going to say anything incredibly insightful.
40:22: It just means what it means.
40:23: Let me tell you why they believe this, and I've heard this argument.
40:26: I've heard this argument from sincere people.
40:28: You can be sincere and wrong at the same time, in case you didn't know that.
40:32: Some people think sincerity is the hallmark of truth.
40:34: No, truth is the hallmark of truth.
40:37: Sincerely wrong people strap bombs to themselves and blow other people up.
40:40: They're sincere, but they're wrong, right? Sincerity is not the hallmark of truth.
40:46: Truth is the hallmark of truth.
40:47: But here's the reason why they deny the virgin birth, and it's a silly reason, but I'm going to give it to you, just in case you ever run into this, and you have to defend it.
40:57: Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 7.14.
41:02: Brother, what time is it? Seven, what? 7.40, okay.
41:11: I'm going to beg your attention for just a few more minutes.
41:15: Isaiah 7.14.
41:16: I'm sure you know it.
41:18: If I started it, you'll probably finish it.
41:20: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, shall call his name Emmanuel, right? Isaiah 7.14.
41:33: Very important verse.
41:35: We would consider it to be a messianic prophecy, written almost 500 years before Jesus came to the earth, right? And by the way it is quoted, if you want to write this down, it's quoted by Matthew, in Matthew chapter 1, verses 22 and 23.
41:52: We have Matthew, who says, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
41:57: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.
42:00: So we have Jesus prophesied, Isaiah 7.14.
42:05: We have the prophecy given an explicit Holy Spirit interpretation, Matthew 1, verses 22 and 23.
42:13: There is no doubt that this passage is about Jesus.
42:17: However, here's the rub.
42:20: In Hebrew, there are two words, and I do not write Hebrew, so I'll write it in English, but I'll give you the words.
42:28: There are two words which are used to denote a virgin.
42:40: The first word is Alma.
42:43: Alma actually means a woman of marriageable age.
42:51: Another way of interpreting marriageable quality.
42:56: And by the way, in Israel, marriageable quality was virgin, right? A woman who was not a virgin was not of, it was a woman who was, had been defiled or what have you, you know, would not be of quality, marriageable quality.
43:11: Sometimes the word is translated maiden, right? Maiden.
43:16: You've heard that word maiden, right? The word Bethula.
43:21: Bethula is the more technical, literal word for virgin.
43:33: So we have two words here.
43:36: Alma and Bethula, Isaiah 7.14.
43:41: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you the sign, the maiden shall conceive and bear a son.
43:48: By the way, if you have a revised standard version of the Bible, that's what it says.
43:54: It does not say virgin.
43:56: It says maiden.
43:58: And to be fair to the RSV translators, even though I do believe that liberalism influenced their reason, because I'm going to show you why it's ridiculous, but I'm going to, to be fair, I will say this.
44:13: The word maiden could be a translation of the word Alma.
44:19: And that is the word that is used in Isaiah 7.14.
44:23: The specific, might we even say scientific phrase of Bethula is not the word that is used.
44:30: Now some people get, oh, really upset about that.
44:33: Why wouldn't Isaiah be more specific? Why wouldn't he use that scientific term? I don't think he was unspecific, inspecific.
44:47: What's the prefix for that? Less than specific.
44:51: I don't think he was.
44:58: Because about 200 years before Jesus came, there was a translation of the Old Testament scriptures called the Septuagint.
45:11: You ever heard of that? The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.
45:18: It was translated somewhere around two centuries before Christ.
45:24: The Greek translation of Isaiah 7.14.
45:29: Uninfluenced by Christians, because they didn't exist yet.
45:35: Absolutely uninfluenced by Christians.
45:39: They saw this word in context and they translated it, the Greek word Parthenos.
45:54: Parthenos is virgin.
45:58: And by the way, unambiguously so.
46:03: So 200 years approximately prior to Christ, translators of the Old Testament text seeking to understand the text and put it in a language of the modern tongue, which was Greek, translates the word Alma as virgin, because that's the sign.
46:21: The Lord giving you a sign is not giving a maiden a child if all maiden means is young women, because young women have children all the time.
46:30: The point is not that a young woman would have a child.
46:33: The point is that a woman who was not married, who had not been with a man who was a virgin would have the child.
46:41: There is no reason for any Christian to look at Isaiah 7.14 and to translate it any other way except this.
46:49: Therefore, behold, the virgin will conceive.
46:52: Because that's the way the Holy Spirit interpreted it in Matthew 1, 22, and 23.
46:57: And we have to, not that we need to reinforce Scripture at all, but we also have the dual witness of the Septuagint, which says the same thing.
47:06: There is no doubt that Isaiah 7.14 should say, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son.
47:15: All right.
47:18: There's a lot.
47:19: And we don't have really the time to get through it.
47:22: I'll tell you what I'll do.
47:22: Let's do this.
47:24: I said next week we'll have a short lesson, right? Because we're going to eat some chili, pastor's chili, right? Yeah, yeah.
47:31: It's not nothing to write home about, but it's edible.
47:36: Next week we're going to have a chili dinner along with our lesson, and I'll go over the other two.
47:42: Because there's two other things, the unbiblical teachings about the virgin conception and the reason why it's essential to the faith.
47:49: And I don't want to rush those tonight, because both of those are very important.
47:53: So if we can put a pin in what we're doing now, we'll come back to it next week, and we'll finish up.
47:59: So let's pray.
47:59: Father, thank you for this time.
48:01: Thank you for Brother Andy leading us in a wonderful prayer time.
48:04: Thank you for everybody who's here tonight who wanted to learn the Word, and I pray that this has been useful and helpful to them.
48:09: I pray that as we think about the incarnation, God became man and dwelt among us.
48:16: Lord, that we would just be moved in our inner man by that wonderful truth, and it's in Christ's name.
48:25: Amen.