Skip to main content

Catechism #17




Q. How did Christ, the Son of God, become man?
A. Christ became man by assuming a real body. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary.

In order for Jesus to be our Redeemer, He needed to live on earth as a man; He needed to live a sinless life in order to be a proper substitute for our sin debt. So Jesus came to earth in the form of a person—an event known as the incarnation—and was born with the mission to die.

When Jesus came, He did so in the most miraculous way: He was born of a virgin. Biologically we understand this to be impossible, but with God nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37). The virgin birth is recorded by both Matthew and Luke. Matthew 1:18 says, “When His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with to be with child from the Holy Ghost.” In verse 20 an angel appears to Joseph and confirms what Mary told him, “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost…you shall call His name Jesus.”

Luke 1:27 twice calls Mary a virgin, and that chapter reveals the conversation between Mary and the angel about the baby Jesus. Matthew reminds his audience that this was the fulfillment of the prophecy from Isaiah 7:14, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bare a son, and you shall call His name Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us.’”

Some like to argue against the virgin birth, saying the word translated as virgin could also mean “marriageable maiden.” This is true; that is a secondary meaning of the word. But we need to remember two things: under the Mosaic Law maidens were not marriageable if they were not virgins, and consider Mary’s response to the angel: “How can this be since I have never known a man (Luke 1:34)?”

The Bible clearly teaches the virgin birth, but you might be wondering why the virgin birth is a necessary truth. Remember, the Redeemer needed to be a man, but He also needed to be God. By being conceived of the Holy Ghost Jesus was both God and man.

The Redeemer also needed to be sinless. Had Jesus been born of two human parents, He would have been born with a sin nature. The Bible teaches that the sin nature is passed through the seed of man (5:12), which is something Jesus was protected from being born of the Holy Ghost.  


People who reject the virgin birth usually do so because believing in miracles seems foolish. However, I prefer to believe in a God who can do the impossible; if God were not powerful enough to pull off the virgin birth, He could never live a sinless life or come back from the dead. I’m glad to serve a God who can and did all three.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Save a Life

(Like my blog about the peace symbol, this blog was written as a default response to all the parents, students, and other people who are asking my opinion of To Save a Life.) By now you have probably heard of the movie To Save a Life, which opened nation-wide in theaters on January 22nd. The movie deals with so many issues that teens face today, like suicide, cutting, drinking, drugs, premarital sex, teen pregnancy, and abortion. At first glance this movie looks like an awesome resource that we should recommend for our teens, parents, youth pastors, and youth workers. But a closer look at the movie reveals a few disturbing things. For starters, according to pluggedin.com, there are 2 uses of the “A” word, 5 uses of hell (used as a curse word), and once the “D” word is used. There are other crude terms used to describe a girl, and crude terms for referring to sexual activity. There is also a bedroom scene that shows a girl removing a boy’s shirt, then afterwards the girl putting he...
38 comments
Read more

Evangelism

“Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.” St. Francis of Assisi is given credit for this famous quote (although that exact phrasing does not appear in any of his writings), and a lot of people would think that this is a great philosophy. His actual quote was that everyone should “preach by their deeds.” Preaching with our deeds is not just a strategy, it is a necessity. We are commanded all through the Scriptures to let our light shine and be a peculiar people. People should be able to look at our lives and see that we are Christians. They should see the love of Christ readily on display, and thus feel compelled to live their lives in the same way. The sermon that we should preach with our lives is a sermon of love, joy, peace, patience, self-control, forgiveness, conviction, etc. But this idea that has emerged that says we should ONLY preach with our deeds is a heresy straight from the devil himself. Think about it: who is the one that does not want you t...
18 comments
Read more

All Things To All Men

One of our favorite verses to use in our evangelism methods is where Paul said that he “becomes all things to all men” so that he might “by all means save some (I Corinthians 9:22).” This is certainly a good idea if we keep it in its proper context and application. For example, I remember a time in high school where I knew a kid that loved skateboarding. Being the chicken that I am, I was never a skateboarder. All he would talk about was skating, and I knew none of his lingo. But to help develop a relationship with him (he was new to our church and didn’t know many people), I brushed up on my skating lingo so I could ask if he had done any sick ollies lately (impressed?). This would be like Paul saying “to the skateboarder, I became a skateboarder.” This is effective and necessary. But then there are the people that use this verse to justify doing sinful things in the name of evangelism. The first one that comes to mind is about drinking. Some people will go into the bars to evan...
23 comments
Read more