Round Yon Virgin

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00:05
Good morning Looks like Few new faces out there, but most of you guys are familiar It's good to see y'all again we have We have been studying Galatians and I know that I had said that we would be talking today about Abraham But we are going to deviate from our schedule and I'll do that next week I will be here next week.
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Even though it's Christmas week.
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I'll be here Thursday because it's the day after Christmas.
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So I'll be here that morning.
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So we'll do that.
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We'll do the Abraham history next week Today we're going to talk about the virgin birth because it's my Christmas message It's a lot.
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It's last time.
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I'll see you guys before Christmas.
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So I like to talk about this I usually teach on this at my church every year Because I think it's an important topic and It's something that often is sung about It's often stated But it's rarely understood in regard to its significance So that's what we're going to do today.
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We're going to look at the subject of the virgin birth Why people would deny it because there are people who deny it We're going to talk about some unbiblical Teachings that surround it and then we're going to look at why it is a necessary Belief in Christian theology.
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So that's the three parts of today's lesson We'll do as much as we can in the time that we're given and hopefully we'll be able to get through the whole lesson You guys ready for that? Yes, sir Alright, we'll open up your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 1 And as you guys know, I enjoy Teaching theology our Church motto is theology matters so Today may seem less like a sermon and more like a theological lecture But it's important information.
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So I pray that you would Stay with me and stay focused So Matthew 1 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together She was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit and her husband Joseph being an just man and Unwilling to put her to shame Resolved to divorce her quietly But as he considered these things behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream Saying Joseph son of David Do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus For he will save his people From their sins all this 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 When Joseph woke from sleep he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him He took his wife but knew her not Until she had given birth to a son and he called his name Jesus let's pray Father I am ever grateful to be here today to preach and speak to these men on the subject of the Blessed Virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ Father I am humbled that you would give me this opportunity and I pray that The men under the sound of my voice today would understand how much They are cared for first by you and Lord also by the men who are here leading them and Lord finally by me.
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I Pray that they would understand the value that they have in Christ and Lord that they would understand how important it is that they do come to know Christ if they haven't already I Pray Lord for the believers that they would be encouraged by today's message and Lord for those who are not yet followers of Christ That they would find themselves broken under the weight of their sin that they would see that there is only one solution one Savior There is only one name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved And that is the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and as in his name we pray Amen the hymn silent night was written in 1818 So just a little bit over 200 years ago, and it contains the very familiar phrase round yon virgin mother and child Round yon virgin you've sung that you've have y'all sung silent night at church this year Have you or have you not do y'all sing do y'all sing any? Yeah, you sing songs of the word virgin in it You you talk about sermons, and you use the word virgin you you talk about the season.
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It's very awkward in a sense because this word becomes very Very common one month out of the year Especially if you're like me, and you have small children you know I have five all the way down to two years old and you start throwing out this word and You have to sort of give an explanation What does it mean and why are we stressing this word? Why are we so focused especially this time of year on the idea of a virgin birth Why is it so important? And why must the Christian believe it now? I want to and I do want to state that as a categorical imperative the Christian Who is faithful to the Bible? Does not have the option of denying the virgin birth I'm just throwing that out right now.
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You want to argue later.
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You can not arguing during my sermon I don't have time to do that, but I will say it categorically I do not believe that the Christian who is faithful to the Bible has the option of denying the virgin birth So that being said we're going to begin our three-part lesson by looking at the many people who do deny The virgin birth and why so we're going to start with that many people deny the virgin birth and I want to start First of all I just want to make a category correction because we keep saying virgin birth But actually the only reason I do that is because that's how most people think of the term But actually the term that we should use is virgin conception All right because as far as we know the birth of Christ was a normal birth That there was nothing particularly miraculous about how he exited the womb But we believe there was a miracle in how he entered the womb how he became a man if you will So really it's not the miracle is not in the birth.
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The miracle is in the Conception so there are people who deny the virgin conception of Jesus The first category of course are and this is sort of a long list, but I'll get just quickly unbelievers skeptics agnostics atheists and False religions those would all deny the virgin birth Unbelievers of course would say I don't believe it.
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I mean that's just that's in the title right and Agnostics would say I don't know don't care That's typically the twofold thought of the agnostic.
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I don't know I don't care Okay, the atheist.
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I know it's not true.
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They are saying I I don't believe it's true And I know it's not true, and then of course there are the other religions.
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There's Islam and others that would That would deny actually Islam believes in the virgin birth interestingly enough, so I guess I shouldn't have used Islam as a category Islam believes Jesus was Messiah.
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They believe he was virgin born They do not believe that he was divine and that he was the Son of God, so that's that there's a distinction there They believe he was virgin born Yeah, yeah exactly But but it's interesting that they don't deny the virgin birth so so so I can't really put them in that category But of course the Jews would deny the virgin birth of course other religions would deny But so all of those categories we could say okay.
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We understand why they would deny the virgin birth.
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They're not believers They're not they're not Christians right, but then there's the category of people who would identify themselves as Christians Who would deny the virgin birth now? I'll tell you how this how close to home this hits for me when I was a kid I grew up in the same church.
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I preach in today most of you know that I've told my story here before But our church wasn't always the church it is today in fact we changed our name Years ago we used to be called Forrest Christian Church now We're Sovereign Grace Family Church, and the reason why we changed our name was was because we had changed in our theology We had become more biblical me more understanding of the Word of God We had changed as a church therefore we changed our name and when I grew up in this church as a little boy the church was socially conservative but theologically liberal Now you know the difference between conservatism and liberalism, right? I don't have to explain that but when it comes to theology a lot of people don't understand theological liberalism We think of social liberalism as people who believe in a lot of things that are that are social social issues like Economics and things like communism socialism things like that people who are socially liberal, but what is theological liberalism theological liberalism is? People who would say I believe in Jesus, but I don't believe much of what the Bible says about Jesus So for instance when I was about eight years old our church Had a new pastor and this new pastor came in everybody thought he was a great guy.
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You know he was preaching He was doing what we thought he was supposed to do it again.
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I was a little boy I didn't know I didn't know anything from anything Well come to find out after about a year of him being there come Christmastime He was preaching and it came to find out he didn't believe in the virgin birth Or the virgin conception he didn't believe it We didn't know that we had hired a theological liberal Now I go back and I say I would have known I would have I would have I would have wrecked this guy over the coals While we were interviewing him for the job, but again I'm in a different place now that I was 30 years ago, and of course the church is in a different place And it was 30 years ago, so I'm not condemning them I'm just saying today.
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We would real we would it would have been one of the first questions.
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Tell us what you think of Christ from start to finish Is he divine is he the Son of God is he born of the Virgin it? You know are these things true or not, and if you can't affirm them then Be on your way So again this hits close to home for me to know that our church for at least a year had a pastor who didn't even Believe in the virgin birth And you said well Why would someone do this again the the answer is they believe at least? Verbally confessionally they say they believe in Christ, but they don't believe everything the Bible says about it That's theological liberal.
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It's one type of theological liberalism.
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Yes, I believe in Jesus, but I don't believe in miracles How are you gonna do that? Yes, I believe in Jesus, but I don't believe that he did raise the dead.
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Are you gonna do that? It's just this this this liberal idea that I can have what I call cafeteria Christianity I would take a little bit from here a little bit from here, but I'm not going to have the whole spread I don't want to I don't want the the the the vegetables.
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I don't want the meat I just want to maybe the chocolate sauce or whatever you know that's how you treat a cafeteria, right? You get what you want you leave what you don't and that's the way liberals treat Christianity in the Bible is they say I'm going to take what I want to believe what I don't and The thing that theological liberals often do is they deny Those parts of the Bible that they consider to be miraculous, I remember one guy who was teaching on the feeding of the 5,000 and he said well, you know what it is is Jesus didn't really take five loaves and two fish and feed 5,000 people because that would require Creating something out of nothing that would that would require a miracle of creation Right because you don't get 12 baskets of fragments left over from five loaves and two fish after feeding 5,000 people you have to create More things right Jesus is actively creating fish and bread in that miracle, and he said I don't believe that He said what I believe is that Jesus came to a crowd of 5,000 people some of them had their own food some of them had no food and Jesus convinced those who had To share with those who didn't have and what we have here is a great socialist miracle where the great king Jesus convinces the haves to share with the have-nots And all the all the liberals in the crowd It's garbage Be careful what I say, but it's garbage It's not what the text says It's not how you understand that that situation at all, but that's theological liberalism We're going to take something that the Bible says is true if the Bible says is this is what happened We're going to step back and say well that can't happen because it's a miracle, and I don't believe in miracles and so I'm going to give it a Different spin I'm going to change it.
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I'll give you an example Harry Emerson Fosdick you may have heard that name kind of a famous liberal pastor back in the day And he was the pastor of the first Presbyterian Church of New York He said this in a sermon on the virgin birth quote he said Christians may hold quite different Opinions on the virgin birth in quote so what's he saying well? You can be a Christian you can believe Jesus was born of a virgin you can be a Christian You can believe he wasn't and you're both fine Again garbage right it's just absolute garbage But that's the idea is that you can have two up in Christians can all be happy and sing kumbaya And sit around a campfire and nobody has to believe anything Yeah It's just not accurate, but this is this is theological liberalism Gerd Ludeman Who is a who is a liberal scholar? This was his quote.
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I want you to hear this how strong this quote is he said the tomb was full the manger was empty Listen to it again the tomb was full the manger was empty So he's denying the resurrection because he's saying Jesus was still in the grave That's the tomb was full and he's denying the the virgin birth because he's in the manger was it that story didn't happen and this Story didn't happen, but I'm still a Christian Really, I'm sorry I keep doing that, but it's just it really Boggles my mind that somebody said I can still be a Christian, but I'm gonna deny all of these things So What this is this is an example of what is known as the anti supernatural worldview And you may not have ever heard that term that was actually something I wrote about when I was in seminary I said that the problem With with liberalism is the is the presupposition of anti-supernaturalism.
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I wasn't just trying to use big words with what I was saying is that the the liberal presumes or Presupposes that all miracles are impossible therefore Every time they read about a miracle in the Bible it is not true and they have to interpret it another way for instance Moses with the parting of the Red Sea You hear all kinds of liberal explanations Well, there was a there was a meteor that hit the water and that caused the water to split a lot of people like that Idea except when you read the text first of all if a meteor hits a river hard enough to knock it Apart it would kill everybody within several hundred yards if not miles Because it that the impact crater by itself would be tremendous It's it doesn't work at all scientifically But also the Bible says the water stood as a heap on both sides And if there's one thing I know about water, it's water don't stand up Water doesn't pile up You can't you can't put water on top of water and it stand up if you put water down it just flows Water doesn't stand as a heap And yet the Bible says the water stood as a heap on both side and the people of Israel walked across on Dry land, that's right That's miraculous It is not Something that can be explained to the scientific process I'm telling you as a Christian.
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I am encouraged.
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I'm asking I'm telling you you have to believe in the supernatural if you believe in Christ He is a supernatural person the story about his life is a supernatural event nothing people say well, I don't believe in the resurrection because Resurrections don't happen.
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That's the whole point.
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The whole idea of a miracle is this don't happen The whole idea of the virgin birth is this don't happen Nobody Nobody in here was born of a virgin.
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None of your daddies were born of a virgin and none of their daddies were born of virgins There's only one person in the history of ever That was born of a virgin and that's Jesus.
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That's what makes it the miracle that it is and it is a super Natural event it it supersedes it rises above Natural because we all know how natural works Natural works the introduction of the man and the woman in a relationship whereby procreation occurs through the joining of the seed in the egg And through a process nine months later a child is birthed That's the natural process and that's the way it's done every other time except this time This is the one exception okay, all right, so now I do want to share with you a Biblical argument Against the virgin birth now, I've been saying I believe virgin birth I believe virgin birth truth, but here is one of the one of the in fact It's the only argument I've ever heard that I think deserves an answer Because if you simply say I don't believe in miracles, well, then you don't play the Bible.
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We're done Right that that you know, okay, you don't believe the Bible you don't believe in miracles.
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Okay but there is an Argument from language that I think needs to be responded to and I want to respond to it So in your Bibles hold your place in Matthew turn to Isaiah 7 14 Now Isaiah is written 700 years approximately Before Jesus Christ was born Isaiah 7 and 14 Now we just read this in Matthew because Matthew quotes this passage, but let's read it here Isaiah 7 verse 14.
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This is 700 years before Matthew was written, okay? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign Behold the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel What does that say? the Virgin will conceive And bear a son.
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Does anybody's Bible because I know when I come in here we got a myriad of translations I've been the ESV.
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Does anybody's Bible say anything other than Virgin? Virgin anybody say anything other than Virgin.
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All right.
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Here's why I ask because in Hebrew The word that is used there is the word Alma it's a Hebrew word and The word Alma is not the technical word for virgin It's the cultural word for virgin and I'll give you the difference If she can be in here out there All right, so Alma and Bethlehem you say well, what's the difference Alma is the cultural word She's fine right here Bethlehem is the is the literal word for virgin So Alma is the cultural word Bethlehem is the literal word for virgin and you say well, why does this matter? Well, some people argue that instead of translating Alma as virgin it should be translated as maiden Rather than virgin therefore the translation would go like this Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign the maiden Will conceive and bear a son now that changes things doesn't it? I mean at least mentally Lisa.
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Yeah, it's not saying virgin They say see It doesn't mean virgin it just means maiden so the reason why I asked if all you're about because there is one translation It's the revised standard version the RSV very older translation liberally influenced Translation and if you go to Isaiah 714 in that translation, it says behold the it either says maiden or young woman I have to go back and look it says young woman.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, it says the young woman will conceive and bear a son That's not the same as as virgin, but here's the thing you have to understand about language there's more than one way to say something often there's multiple ways to say something and in the culture in the language of the Hebrew people both Alma and Bethlehem have the idea of virginity.
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Yes, sir To be Referred to a woman about to be married.
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Yeah Yeah but again unmarried and the idea of Alma is a woman who is of marriageable quality if You found out the woman wasn't a virgin That would often cause the person to not want to be married to her because she's not kept herself for the marriage In fact go back to Matthew 1 in your mind.
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What did Joseph do when he found out Mary was pregnant? He decided he didn't want to be married anymore, right? So there's a certain sense in which Alma refers to not only a woman of marriageable age, but a woman of marriageable quality Virgin, right? So the idea is virgin now We have looked at the two words Alma and Bethlehem We say Alma is the word that means maiden Bethlehem is the technical word for virgin Now if if Isaiah would have used Bethlehem Wouldn't be any question there would be no reason to even have this conversation, but he didn't he used Alma So why would he use Alma rather than Bethlehem? I don't know.
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I wasn't there and I'm not the Holy Spirit I can't tell you but I will say this It's not as ambiguous as the liberals would have us believe because the liberals are saying all he used Alma He's not talking about a virgin.
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Why do we believe he is talking about a virgin? I'm gonna give you two reasons why I believe he is talking about a virgin and it should be absolutely unquestionable number one When the Bible is translated by the New Testament writer Matthew he quotes this passage directly and when he quotes this passage directly remember we read it earlier Matthew 1 I think verse 23 He well, he's it's in Greek now so different language But he's translating it from Hebrew into Greek and when he translates it into Greek And I'm sorry about the marker.
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He uses the word Parthenos Parthenos p-a-r-t-h-e-n-o-s Parthenos is the Greek word virgin.
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In fact, if you've ever heard the term Parthenogenesis, it's a it's a medical term and it simply means to be Asexual reproduction like like there are some animals that don't have to have sex to to produce some in their plants and things that that are Able to produce asexually and they call that Parthenogenesis Means essentially virgin birth, right? There are there are there are places in in the animal kingdom where that can happen And so Parthenos means virgin no doubt and some people say well, wait a minute pastor that's the new that's the New Testament and those New Testament writers were influenced by Jesus and the things that had happened you can't use that to make your argument because those guys might have changed Isaiah's meaning a little bit He had a meaning back here 700 years before and it was made and they come along and they say we're gonna change it To Parthenos and you got this kind of conspiracy theory, right? That's another thing liberals.
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Love love conspiracy theories Can't just be the truth.
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It's got to be some garbage.
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Let's go with somebody sneaking in somebody's coming in the back door Okay, so let me give you the other reason not only does Matthew and Luke Refer to the virgin birth from Isaiah 14 Not only do both of them quote and say that it is the virgin Parthenos Will bear a son but there is something called the Septuagint Now if you don't know the Septuagint is the Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament The Septuagint was written about 200 years before Christ You've heard of Alexander the Great Alexander the Great was conquering the known world and one of the things that he did in seeking to conquer the world was the Spread of his teaching the Greek culture and the Greek language This is why by the time Christ comes along the language of commerce The language of the people was coin a coin a is Greek for common It was the common Greek language That's why the New Testament is not written in Hebrew the New Testament is written in Greek because that's the language everybody used It was the language of business.
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It was the language of commerce.
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It was the language of the common man everybody spoke Greek and So the New Testament is written in Greek.
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So 200 years before Christ.
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There was a group of translators These translators translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek and they translated the book of Isaiah and They translated Isaiah chapter 7 and they translated Isaiah 7 14 Without any influence from the Christians right because there are no Christians because there's no Jesus yet This is 200 years before Jesus.
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You're with me on the timeline, right 200 years before Christ They cannot be influenced by the Christians at all.
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They translate the words of Isaiah into Greek 200 years before Christ.
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They translate it as Parthenon's they use this word which in Greek absolutely means virgin which means this the understanding of the Hebrew people was that Isaiah meant virgin so Clearly that when they translated it into a new language they used the language virgin so when Isaiah 7 14 says therefore Behold the Lord will give you a sign The virgin will conceive even though he uses the word that's somewhat ambiguous It was not ambiguous in the culture because they understood by the way, there's no miraculous sign for a young woman to have a baby Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign behold the young woman will have a baby Happens every day happens thousands of times a day.
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There's no miracle in that but when you say the virgin shall conceive That's the Lord giving you a sign so language wise and linguistically there is no argument Isaiah said the virgin will bear a son Matthew quotes it.
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We shouldn't have any doubt.
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Yes She's a virgin that's right Absolutely Yeah, yeah, it does because if a woman was not a virgin she wasn't a maiden she was she was called a You know a woman of ill repute Yeah, yeah, I mean we read about that in Proverbs right the the the woman who would lead you to destruction, you know So absolutely yes Yeah Yeah, we're getting there you jump it you jump in five steps ahead, but you're all right I appreciate the love because that's right.
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We're gonna get there in a second What I'm showing now is why people would disagree.
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Why would the only argument I've ever heard is This as far as from a from a biblical perspective It's either this or I don't believe it and that's typically the the majority report people say I just don't believe it but those who try to make the linguistic argument are standing on thin ice and not even any ice They've already fallen in it's crushed the arguments destroyed Yeah, absolutely.
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They're drowning in All right, so that's that's we talked about the people that deny the virgin birth now I want to very quickly and because of time I don't have a lot of time.
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I Want to quickly look at the unbiblical teachings that surround the virgin birth that some of you may have heard Especially if you grew up in a Roman Catholic Church Now if you grew up a Roman Catholic, I'm not here to kicking the shins or step on your feet or anything I love you, but there are some things that the Roman Catholic Church added to the virgin birth some theology That was later added.
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That's not biblical and it's important that we understand What's true and what's not right because we don't want to stand on untruth.
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We don't want to stand on tradition We want to stand on scripture and if the scripture says it we believe it if the tradition disagrees with the scripture We throw the tradition out Right.
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All right.
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So there's two things.
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I want to want to mention One is the that Mary was sinless, okay? Now again, these are false So let me go ahead and write that in case somebody sees this Oh Jesus is pastor teaching that Mary was sinless.
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No, I'm saying this is false Huh? That's right, but but the Roman Catholic Church Official teaching on the Virgin Mary is that she was without sin And They base this on a false teaching called the immaculate Conception see a lot of people think the immaculate conception is Jesus's conception, but it's not The immaculate conception is the belief that Mary Was conceived without sin so that she could be the sinless vessel for Jesus Yeah, exactly there has to be a perfect line but they basically just say her parents had an Immaculate conception where she was born without sin.
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Therefore.
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She could be the sinless bearer of the Son of God The Bible does not teach that the Bible does not tea in fact that that teaching wasn't even part of Roman Catholic theology officially until 1854 It was proclaimed by Pope Pius the ninth on December 8th 1854 That's 1800 years from the time of these events.
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So that's one big, you know, matzo ball is hanging out there but but I mean But the other issue is is If you want to write this down Luke Luke 1 46 and 47 Luke 1 46 and 4 in fact, if you have your Bible turn there real quick or somebody I want somebody read it to me If you would Luke 1 46 and 47 There's not only is Mary being sinless not taught in the Bible I would argue the opposite is taught that she is a sinner who wants to read it.
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Go ahead and God her what? Okay, what again? I'm gonna keep saying.
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All right.
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I'm making sure we hear What does she say my heart rejoices in God? my Savior That's right if she was sinless she would not need a Savior Mary Needed a Savior the same way All of us need a Savior Because Mary was a sinner Mary was not perfect and the scripture clearly says that she saw God as her Savior and And so I would argue that would deny the idea that she was sinless well the other the other unbiblical teaching that often surrounds the virgin birth is called the perpetual virginity of Mary She stayed a virgin even after yep Well, this is very common in Roman Catholic theology We're gonna get there You guys outrun me every time but but it's true the the idea Roman Catholic theology and again I'm not making this up.
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I can take you to documents I can take you to Roman Catholic teachers who would tell you Mary not only was sinless from birth not only did she live her life free of sin, but She never had any intercourse therefore she remained the Blessed Virgin I'm getting there.
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I've got that first Matthew says until but that's yeah, but But their their argument is you've heard Roman Catholics even today they'll call it still call her the Virgin Right.
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They refer to her as the Blessed Virgin, right? Now that yes, they do believe Mary is a mediator with Christ That Mary to get to the Sun you have to go through the mother.
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That's a that's a one of the little quaint expressions Yes, there's a lot of idolatry But again This is what is sometimes taught Mary Did not give birth to Jesus normally Because her virginal integrity would have been compromised and you know what that means Well what they believe what they believe and I and I and I'm not going to say this is not official Roman Catholic teaching But there's difference on this but what some believe is that Jesus was translated from the womb to the Just like Essentially came through not out.
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Yeah.
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Yeah came through the womb This is It would be a miracle and if the Bible said it I would have problem believe it I'm gonna tell you if the Bible said Jesus came out of the womb without going through the vaginal canal I have no problem with that at all if that's what it says, but then ain't what it says and Again, they're introducing Traditions on top of the text that ain't there.
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That's the danger right we can say we believe in the virgin birth We can say we believe Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but what we can't say is what ain't there The Bible never says Mary was sinless either before during or after Giving birth to Jesus the Bible never says that she remained a virgin in fact the opposite is true.
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We'll look at very quickly Matthew 1246 If you want to just turn there very quickly Matthew 1246 Let me let me just real quick Let me read this real fast, and then I'll answer you question it says while he was still speaking to the people behold his mother and his Brothers stood outside asking to speak to him so right there and in several other places refer to Jesus's Brothers and sisters okay brother ask your question That's true, that's true, that's what I say that but Yeah, but again, that's and that's true going with that.
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He just said a good word at that point.
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We're speculating at that point We're saying something the Bible doesn't say and there's just as much danger in Speculating something it doesn't say as there is in in Arguing with what it does say right so if we add and say well He didn't come out he didn't come out through a natural birth.
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Where are we getting that from we're not getting it from the text So that's my thing I'm not saying it's impossible.
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I'm saying there's no reason to believe it.
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You know there's no reason to believe Jesus didn't fly But the Bible doesn't say he did so I'm not going to say did you know I'm saying That's and I'm not trying to be sarcastic I'm just saying if it doesn't say it we can't proclaim it and they're proclaiming this as What what happened and the Bible doesn't say it and the reason for their argument is that she had to remain a virgin? That's the other problem because that's not true Because she went on to have other children That's the you know the the text here says Jesus had brothers other places said he had brothers and sisters Now some people argue that Joseph had another wife Again, what are they doing? Adding to the text they're speculating because they don't know that there's nothing in the text that says Joseph had another wife There's nothing in the text to say Joseph brought children to the marriage or some people who believe that again There's nothing in the Bible or even in tradition that says that it's a big Ah Culturally, yes, there was in the Old Testament.
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There was multiple marriages and things of what they call a poly poly polygamy Was was pretty common like, you know, King David had multiple wives Solomon had thousands of concubines and wives But by the time of Jesus that culture had shifted This is why we see in the New Testament husband of one wife was the was a mark of someone who was going to be a leader in the church what weren't we're not a Polygamist or somebody who would have multiple wives.
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Yes No, no, I would say absolutely not because Jesus would be committing adultery No, if he has already has a wife the wife is the church is the bride of Christ Jesus is not married if the bride of Christ is the church No, well, I mean it's a it's metaphoric but at the same time Jesus Christ did not come into the world to spawn children.
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Jesus came into the world to save sinners and He came into the world to take the church as his bride and present her to God Jesus did not come into the world to take Mary Magdalene or some other woman as his bride and present her Jesus had a purpose and the the idea of Jesus marrying and having children number one is not in the text Number two would be a flagrant against the flagrant assault against what the text does say Jesus's purpose was There is a false narrative that is taught in the Gnostic tradition that Jesus took Mary Magdalene as his wife and that they had a Relationship and they bore children.
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It is absolutely unbiblical.
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There's nothing in the Bible to support it.
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Nothing historically to support it Yeah, the Da Vinci Code I'll ask some patient.
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Well, that was yeah, that was weird too that that was different though That was that was based on the last thoughts of Jesus on the cross, which was absolutely blasphemy But again, I would say I would say opposes what the scripture says Jesus's purpose was So again, Mary was sinless there's nothing the Bible teaches that Mary was a perpetual version There's nothing the Bible that teaches that in fact, I want to refer to the scripture You mentioned Matthew 1 24 to 25, which we read earlier It says he did not know her meaning have relation with her until Jesus was born I think after Jesus was born Mary and Joseph had a pretty normal Family relationship and by the way, we talked about James the writer of the book of James.
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Who is he? We call him his half-brother, right? because Jesus was Had the same mother but not the same father He would have had the same mother which was Mary but not the same father All right third thing and then we're going to close.
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I'm out of time pretty much.
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So I'll make this quick Why is believing the virgin birth necessary and essential I'm gonna give you four reasons and I'll and I'll make these quick Why it's believing the virgin birth necessary and essential number one scriptural integrity If we can't believe what the Bible says about Jesus's birth Why would we believe what it says about anything else? If we can't find the scripture to have integrity on this and we say well We can't believe this because virgin births don't happen Well, neither do resurrections neither do feeding five thousands neither do splitting of seas.
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These are miracles and So the Bible stands or falls as a whole We do not have the option of cafeteria style Bible study.
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So I'm going to believe this and not believe that So that's the first thing number two the deity of Christ the Bible describes Jesus as the God man the theanthropic man He had fully divine nature and a fully human nature if Jesus is not virgin conceived That means he's human conceived.
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And if Jesus is human conceived that he's not the God man.
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He's just man man.
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I Mean it's a big joke But it is true if the spirit provided the seed and the woman provided the egg and the two joined to create the God man Then that's the miracle.
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But if a man provided the seed and the woman provided the egg, it's just a man So there is the issue of who Jesus is and it's found in the virgin birth the third thing So we have the scriptural integrity the deity of Christ The third thing is the sinlessness of Christ in the virgin conception.
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Jesus was kept from original sin Original sin is the corruption that we inherit from Adam.
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You are born dead in sin We we arrived DOA Dead in sin dead on arrival But Jesus had no sin.
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He had no sin actually and he had no original sin He had no taint of sin and it was this unique conception that kept him from that sin and I'll add to this.
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There are some people who believe that the Sin nature is passed through the father and they based that on the fact that Jesus didn't have an earthly father But his father was was the Holy Spirit.
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I Think that that that can be conjectured I don't think it can be proven because the Bible never says that sin natures pass through the father But if we were going to conjecture this would be a good point to say Well, the text says Jesus didn't have an earthly father and it says he didn't have a sin nature Therefore sin natures pass through the father.
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That's where that that idea comes from.
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But I wouldn't stand, you know and argue Yeah, yeah Sometimes it's splitting hairs, you know fourth and finally the issue of salvation if Jesus had any sin Even original sin, he would not have been able to be the Savior Jesus's salvation work requires that he be a lamb without spot or blemish If Jesus was not born in the flesh, he couldn't die But if he was born with sin he couldn't save Hear that again if Jesus was not born in the flesh he couldn't die, but if he was born with sin he couldn't say Therefore he was born in the flesh but born without sin and he lived a life without sin and he went to the cross Without his own sin so that he could bear the sin of those who believe in him The whole reason why Jesus could die on the cross for your sin is because he didn't have any of his own If he had his own sin, he wouldn't have been able to die for yours the virgin birth Allowed him to be born without sin Therefore we know our sinless Savior is able to take our sin on himself I'll conclude with these words do not ever consider the virgin birth to be a secondary teaching or an optional Christian doctrine it is absolutely essential to what we believe about Jesus And do not think of the virgin birth as merely a Christmas tradition or a holiday focus our faith is based on our sinless Savior and our sinless Savior began as the virgin conceived Son of God Let's pray Father I thank you for this time of study Pray that it will be fruitful in the lives of these men Lord that it might even encourage them to go on and study further About the birth and life and ultimate saving work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and it's in his name.