THE VIRGIN MARY
First – the Main Scriptures. Matthew 1.18-25. Luke 1.34.
Other indications.
Mark 6.3 “Is not this the
carpenter, the son of Mary?”
The Jews scorned Him saying “WE were not born
of fornication evidently. John 8. 41. (The emphasis is there in the Greek).
John 1:13 may refer to Christ, but could
refer to all Spirit baptised believers.
Romans 1:3. Phil. 2.7. Galatians 4.4. Paul’s stresses that the Scripture speaks of one seed of a woman –
it cannot be said of any woman other than Mary. Paul chooses ginomai to describe the birth
of Jesus, not gennao. He uses gennao for Ishmael, indicating a husband.
1 Cor.15. 45-48
links Christ‘s birth with Adam as by the miracle of God. (Most of the above
is also in The New Bible Dictionary.)
The angel’s announcement (Luke
1.35) has two references to the work of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit would ‘come upon her’ and also that
‘the power of the Most high would over-shadow her. (Greek
‘episkiazo’).
This has been seen as a reference to the Shekinah
glory of the Temple, that is
to protect her while the Spirit of God comes
upon her making her pregnant.
Psalm 40:7 is different in the LXX
- “A body hast thou prepared for
me”. The two genealogical tables
– Matthew and Luke present some problems, it is felt that the two tables were written
because of rumours about Christ’s birth as from fornication. Today is awash
with new theories
about His birth– that His father was a Roman soldier e.g. (See later).
If there was no Divine birth then there would not be any rumours. People
‘discovering’ the Gospel of Thomas (like the BBC) are happy to demote Jesus –
that Gospel is Gnostic.
Background theology
The life of Jesus made an instant impression, and had to be accounted for
somehow or another. In fact Jesus
Himself produced His own Christology – implicit, acting
as having supreme authority, like God,
forgiving sins, setting Himself above Moses, and explicit, using
titles such as Son of God, Messiah
and ‘I am’, (Greek ‘ego eime’ –I am, used 8 times in John’s Gospel, once
without predicate).
In the Gospels we read of people’s attempts to understand Him – the
disciples, Herod, his own family who did not believe in Him until He showed
Himself alive to them after His resurrection. Afterwards the major apostolic kerygma (preaching) was about who He was.
Common belief has been that God came to mankind, and
the basic question has been in what form and how did He get here? Was some man infused with Deity, or
what? The answer is that He came through
the door when Mary was
impregnated by the Holy Spirit and that holy child was born in Bethlehem.
The whole question of the coming of God into the world
obviously created every kind of idea. We
know what people said in early times, depending on how far was can trust sources such as
Eusebius. When the ”abomination of desolation’ (Roman
armies under Titus) surrounded Jerusalem, taking
Christ’s warning many Christians left the city and some went to Pella. They were given the name of Ebionites, some believing in His virgin birth but not in
His pre-existence and others had a legalistic salvation.
Among early ideas for God among us were theories of ‘Adoptionism’, that Jesus was
specially chosen and helped as a man, and God adopted Him as His son at
baptism. This idea of Christ as a man
brought into this or that relationship with God still hangs around those who
cannot conceive His true Godhead – JWs for example.
In modern speculative theology anything goes.
Varied ideas at first hung around, like the dynamic monarchians, such as Theodotus who said Jesus was born of a virgin but by the
Holy Spirit, then tested for his piety and adopted by God as His Son when the
Holy Spirit came upon him at his baptism.
These kind of views worried the churches for
two or three centuries, but the truth of Christ’s full Deity and manhood flowed
like a deep river through the church and was expressed in the great ecumenical
conferences and creeds. Adoptionism is implicit in
Arian and JW teaching and reared its head here and there in later centuries,
such as in Spain about
AD800, but never with any great impact on orthodoxy.
Christianity is Christ, basically the fact of Christ
– not just what He did. Faith in Him. The great truth is He came. He was and is ‘the coming one’. His presence
is everything. What He did, follows, but it has always been the case that we
were made for His presence, and not just for what He did for us. He is not our doctor or anything else but our
Lord first and foremost without whom we do not and cannot live.
He left no religious system whatever and
Christianity cannot legitimately be called a religion. It is a phenomenon
comparable to no other body of beliefs. The Bible is not a collection of
messages from supernatural spirit sources or from angels like Mormonism– it is
simply history, what God did and Jesus did.
The Qoran consists entirely of teachings
conveyed to Mahomet by ‘spirits’, or angels. The Koran is by one man, the Bible
by many. Only Christianity says anything about the
presence of God as comprehensive of all our needs.
Our faith is in Christ, not doctrines, but doctrine
determines which Christ. Some anaemic figure of ancient or modern
heresy or the Bible Christ? Some
today have a Christ who does not baptise in the Spirit of perform in power any
more to heal. That is not the Bible
Christ. We have no right whatever to
preach a Christ who is not the Christ who was born of the virgin and worked
wonders.
Christianity is a way of life, not just a way to
heaven. It is not a
even a way to God. Christianity is the account of God’s supreme effort to come to us.
He seeks us when we do not seek Him.
HE is Himself the way in Christ.
The virgin birth bristles with theological
controversies depending how deeply you look into the matter. I once wrote on the virgin conception and
that the blood of Christ is not the blood of a male Jewish progenitor.
I was anathematised with bell book and candle from all over the world. One man still advertises my ‘heresy’ at every
opportunity. I never bothered to reply,
but just leave it with the Lord. I will write a bit about that later.
The birth of Jesus is the Word of God which the Holy Spirit
saw fit to put before us, but neither Matthew nor Luke say anything more about
it.
I checked what I knew and turned up many top commentaries. Mostly they
deal with the polemic question of the authenticity of the account. I will look at that area because some liberal
criticisms have quite wonderful answers. First one or two
points.
THE VIRGIN BIRTH.
The belief that Mary was always a virgin,
came from the late 2nd century.
This is not what
Matthew indicates (1.25.) Joseph did not know her “until she had born a son”, meaning afterwards he did ‘know her’. It became standard church doctrine, Roman
Catholic belief, that she gave birth miraculously and had no other children.
Those named in the Gospels they say are cousins .This
is not acceptable. The eastern churches adopted the phrase
“Mother of God” (Theotokos) rejected by the west
because of overstress on the Divine over the physical.<
One way they tried
to explain the Deity in flesh was the Immaculate Conception – that Mary herself
was miraculously conceived. We do not believe she gave birth to Christ miraculously though she was
pregnant miraculously. The whole setting in the Gospels is of a natural and
normal birth. From the moment of his
coming into the world he became one of us, passing through the same human
experiences. He was circumcised and lived religiously
as a typical Son of Jacob and taken to the Temple as was the
common practice. Nobody suggested he was
otherwise than a normal child, but by the Holy Spirit who he was became known
to several people.<
This continued throughout life until he stepped out of the home into the
work God called Him to do.
The reality of the
miraculous, Mary would be betrothed to Joseph when she was about
12. They had not ‘come together’
sexually when the angel spoke to her. She was a child. Any story we have of this event came from her
confirmed by Joseph.
No peasant girl could have dared to put out such a story of her
pregnancy. It would have infuriated Joseph had not God spoken to him. They could see her ‘shameful’ condition but
to say it was by Holy Spirit aggravated the situation. She should have been executed -stoned and her
claim of Holy Spirit favour treated as rank blasphemy. For that matter the Gospel writers were in
the same position -
no speculation in all history had said anything like this, for example, the births of Samson, Gideon and John the
Baptist.
The critical scholars wish to think that the idea of the virgin came from
other sources – that Matthew and Luke wrote forming their narrative suggested
by common accounts of the birth of men and gods. But there are no other accounts of virgin
birth in all literature nor to this day. That is a
striking fact. How could a 17 year old girl think of it
unless it happened? Such a young and simple girl. In
fact NOBODY EVER HAD. There are many
myths and legends of the gods having children by earth women - Genesis 6 reflects that kind of
thing, bringing the Flood, and eastern religious myths talk of their gods, but
there has never been a parallel to Mary’s story. Unless it had happened she
could never has thought it up – and dare not. It either was true or was one of
the most audacious bits of lying ever uttered.
This birth is the first miracle wiped off the slate by liberals. Impossible, just a myth. For their unbelief it is utterly outside
their mental box. Which of course confirms that it is not
invention as they can’t think of it even when told! It was a single act
of God, new and unrepeated.
ADOPTIONISM, The fact of
Christ linked Him with God from the first.
But what was the link? How did
God arrive on earth? Coming in human form created great problems. the Gospels describe the reactions of many people. King Herod thought he was John risen from
the dead or one
of the prophets risen from the dead, and Jesus Himself tested the disciples
about it. The idea of God coming so
close was nearly impossible for Jews and for Gentiles completely out of
account. The theory was the Jesus looked
just a man, but somehow linked with God.
Adoptionism an early
theory, that He was a special man that God adopted at his baptism, an exalted
man. It had notable teachers but it
never had a world following. People knew He was more than that. The question
was how much he was man and how much he was God. This is the mystery which was worked out by
God at the moment of incarnation in the womb of Mary.
For us the virgin birth
is a major mark that in this world the impossible happens. She testifies to it almost as an admittance and carried the weight of it. The angel said
she was ‘highly favoured’ because she believed what was told her, and that God
could do it. The account of Zechariah
the priest’s is that
he doubted and was made dumb for his
unbelief when told his wife would bear a son. That is the backcloth to Mary’s
simple faith. Maybe no one else in Israel had such
implicit faith in God as Mary’s.
The union of flesh and
Spirit is the perfection of God’s creation. They are not alien but
complementary. The physical creation was not a temporary idea until we all go
heavenly – as souls. It is God’s
essential order. Christ is the ‘firstfruits’
for all who are in Him by faith. We are
in the resurrection now,
which will become our eternal state designed to be lord’s of all
physical realms to the furthermost star as originally Adam was to have been,
and also enjoying the perfect freedom of the children of God in all spiritual
realms. The Pentecostal revival is a
restoration of Biblical truth fudged over through centuries of separation
between the earthly and heavenly. We
shall not live in heaven as heavenly beings – that is for the angels, who are pure spirit, but as God’s new creation born again
people are a new order of existence first realised in the womb of Mary. To deny the virgin birth runs counter to the
whole schema of Divine planning. It is a crucial
challenge of faith to intellectualism.
The virgin conception was accepted from the start and the first early
church fathers did not question it – Ignatius, Irenaeus,
Justin and others. The Gospel writers, writing never later than AD 80 obviously
accepted it
That is quite amazing because it was a very difficult belief. They
incorporated the Virgin Birth (Conception) into their teaching which could
never have helped them
when in persecution. They had the
resurrection story to preach, which few would at first believe, and then virgin
pregnancy! But it was true, they knew it, and
could not pretend otherwise.
How did God do it?
This question has
always agitated theologians – and others. It concerns the whole theology of the
Person of Christ. I mentioned Appolinarianism, in
which the Divine took the place of the human spirit – leaving Jesus less than
man. But many figure in the long
history, such as Sabellius, Arius,
Nestorius, who in some way or other either reduced
man or reduced God so Christ was not truly man and truly God, two natures, one
Person. That is why we have the seven ecumenical creeds to challenge these
variations. Even Augustine seems to me
to have been something of a modalist, stressing
elements of truth as if the Son and Spirit were modes of God.
The
mechanics. Either the Holy Spirit created a child and
planted the perfect embryo into the womb of the hostess mother only till its
birth, God using her womb as a mere incubator. But I believe that He used one
of her own ovums (eggs) and
fertilised it. That is what I believe for only in that case was Jesus ‘born of a woman’ – not of a
man-woman relationship or by God alone.
It was a human-Divine encounter.
But it still leaves the question of how Deity infused that fertilised
ovum. That we do not really know, but we
know it happened – God was incarnated in that embryo. God accommodated Himself to the capacity of
humanness. But it seems impossible to us but not to God for the simple reason
that He made man that way from the start. Man was made and Israel formed to bring forth Christ. The human embryo has 46
chromosomes. 23 from the man and 23 from the woman. God
supplied the 23 male chromosomes for the birth of Jesus.
Now how Jewish was He? I have talked to people like Dr. Chris and a
haematologist and looked up the medical facts in the Birmingham library.
Did He have any of Mary’s blood? The placenta is there to prevent it. The child
has his own blood with the father’s characteristics. But Jesus had no male
sire. He was exactly as promised ‘The
seed of the woman’. If we believe the
fall of Adam, the representative of the human race (as Jesus later), made us all
sinners, this is changed for Christ. He was not the product of male sexuality
and not born in sin.
His blood would seem to be like Adam’s. Adam had no earthly father and
His blood was created. So was Christ’s
blood, but through Mary which I suppose made it Jewish
blood, but ‘God has made of one blood
all nations.’ (Paul’s statement
in Athens is not in major MSS
but it is still authentic being in some – I can tell you which MS if you want.)
Peter speaks of Christ’s blood as ‘precious’ – rare. Acts 20.28 says it is the blood of God – and that is a sound
Scripture. We are bought, redeemed,
cleansed by His blood. It was spilt, shed.
In His own body it could do nothing for us but
when poured out it is available to us in redeeming power. It was shed when His body
was broken, and the communion is in two elements, bread and wine. Only the blood of Christ was efficacious
because it was the blood of God. Blood alone could cover blood, but Christ’s
blood covered all the blood ever
shed. No blood ever washed sin away. So the virgin conception was absolutely
needful theology, the
grounds of our hope.
(Do you know the chorus “Its his blood
that cleanses me. Its His blood that sets me free ….”)
It is true communion worship. I love that song. )
Jesus was normal because
he was perfectly one with God. He was not a freak, different,
but represented man as man should be, filled with God. We do not become Divine,
even as His sons. Each of us have our own identity and personality – made by God. But the identity and personality of Jesus was
not ‘made’ but had always been His, the Son of God who BECAME the Son of Man.
God is a Person, one Person in three Persons. Their thoughts are
one. Their experiences
as one, even at the Cross for salvation, Father, Son and Spirit as Trinity. 1. Christ offered Himself to God. 2. God was
in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. 3. The
Spirit offered Christ to God. The body on the Cross was the body infused by
Deity. Salvation is of God and Christ is
the Saviour, and the Spirit transfers all the benefits of Christ’s work and the
Father’s, to us.
Our salvation is a profound action. IT AFFECTED GOD. The Greek idea of
God was as ineffable, unknowable, unreachable and utterly non-physical. The
physical was evil.
The Incarnation brought all such hopeless ideas cashing down. God became flesh, and the flesh was God – so
Jesus talked of eating His flesh and drinking his blood.
The union of Spirit and flesh, God and man. Christ incarnated the Spirit as well as the
Father. The Incarnation established that flesh and spirit are distinct but not
alien. Like I said before, praying that God’s
will shall be done on earth aims to make earth the anti-room or porch of
heaven. This was achieved in Christ on
earth. What He was in heaven He was on
earth – the same Jesus. Because He achieved it He made it possible for us
also. It was signalised by Christ’s
conquest of death. Our own future will
be as His, immortalised humans, with powers of Spirit as well as of flesh.
This is basic for
Pentecostals. God did something by His Spirit in Mary and it has something
like its equivalent in believers who are Spirit-baptised and indeed in
salvation. This took place in Mary but did not change her spiritual status. The
same verb is used for born-again believers as for her “highly favoured” (Gr. kecharitomene.)
Later she was one of the 120 filled with the Spirit on the day of
Pentecost. The Spirit ‘overshadowed’ her but did not baptise her in the Spirit
when the angel came.
The anxiety of liberal expositors to eliminate the virgin
pregnancy as absurdly impossible has produced some shocking ideas. One prominent Scottish divine wrote in one
theological magazine, theorised that Mary went to the house of Zechariah the
father of John the Baptist to fulfil a religious custom to bear a child by a
holy man. In those days, says this Scot
divine. That is pure speculation.
The liberals have said that people could accept the virgin birth in those
days because of their ignorance of medical facts and didn’t know any
better. But they were not that ignorant. Everybody
always knew that babies came the way they did, not to virgins!
By the way, the Scripture quoted by Matthew “a virgin shall conceive” from Isaiah
can mean virgin but is the word for
young woman. The word in Isaiah can be translated virgin and some argue that it
does mean virgin in Isaiah, or else why mention that a young woman would
conceive as a sign? Nothing extraordinary as a sign in that
if the mother was a virgin. The eleven or so OT references by Matthew
are mostly Scriptures with an entirely different original relevance, but there
is a wonderful underlying rightness in using them. Jesus taught about Himself
in ALL the Scriptures.
We do not prove Jesus is
the Christ by OT texts which He fulfilled. For He Himself showed He
was greater than all that was anticipated in the OT. He was more than prophesied. He ‘fulfils’ the
law and the prophets – completes the picture, begun in the OT. Put Jesus into the OT and the OT becomes as
large as life. Behind all that happens in the OT from the time
of Moses, is the action of God, and seen when Jesus came. He is the meaning of the world and all that
goes on here. Today the great
institutions must relate to Christ and so must the world itself, or they relate
to nothing and are irrelevancies. Any
man or woman whose life does not relate to Christ becomes a mere figment, an
aberration, without significance. Lost. The virgin
produced mankind’s greatest need – Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, Son of God. He is all I need.
__________________
George Canty March 2009.
