"Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary" (Apostles' Creed #4) -Sermon at FFMC 24/2/18.
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was
sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a
virgin betrothed[b] to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of
David. And the virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her
and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”[c] 29 But she was greatly troubled at
the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And
the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with
God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a
son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and
will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the
throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house
of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy
Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born[e] will be called holy—the Son of God. 36 And
behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and
this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For
nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 And Mary said,
“Behold, I am the servant[f] of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
And the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:26-38)
Introduction
We are just a few months after Christmas. Memories of carols and
manger scenes, if not fresh in our minds, are familiar because every
Christmastide, we remember the truth of this part of the Apostles’ Creed.
- The choice of Mary is gracious (“O favoured one” twice), but difficult. Let's try to put it in a real-world setting. Your teenage daughter comes says, "I'm pregnant." And you say, "What?" And she says, "An angel came to me and told me that I have been impregnated by God and I'm going to be the mother of the Savior of the world." "Really?" Mary submitted to all the life-long public shame, the disapproval of her family, the possible loss of a man she loved. The grace of God is not come without difficulty and grief (“A sword will pierce your own soul also” (Lk 2:35)·
- The conception is miraculous (First century Jews were not ignorant of how babies were made: “How will this be?”), and mysterious. “Overshadow”: The bright cloud at the transfiguration (Mt. 17:5,), and when Peter’s shadow falls on people (Acts 5:14-15). It is a word that denotes divine presence and power.
- The compassion of the Lord is great: He gives a sign. Mary rushes to see Elizabeth, the recipient of another angelic message and the focus of another miracle, 75-80miles away
- The power of the Spirit is limitless (“Nothing will be impossible with God”) Gen 18:14, Jer 32:27 “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
The Scriptural roots of the virgin birth
are planted very deep. From the earliest days of man, God already planned
something special through a woman.
Gen 3:15 God curses the serpent: “I will
put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her
offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” “the
offspring/seed of the woman” is a word not usually used for the female. This
Offspring of the woman will suffer a non-fatal injury, while giving his enemy a
fatal blow. This verse is sometimes called the ‘proto-evangelion” – the first
gospel. The first sign of hope that the fall of Man would not be the last word.
More than 700 years ago, Isaiah had
said, Is 7:14 “the virgin shall
conceive and shall call his name Immanuel” (quoted in Mt 1:23). The Hebrew ‘almah’ speaks of an
unmarried maiden. This one to be born is the ultimate sign of God’s presence
with man, because God becomes man. And that leads us to my 2 points for today
1.
Why is it important to
have a birth?
Simply put – we are human because we were born human. This portion
of the creed about Jesus tells us that Christ is truly human, just as the
preceding part of the Creed “(God’s only son our Lord) speaks of His true
deity. Jesus Christ is one person with two natures - man and God united
together. This is as mysterious and difficult to understand as the truth of the
Trinity. Our God is three Persons in one essence. Jesus Christ is two natures
in one Person. Attempts to resolve these mysteries always lead to heresies.
Arians believed that Jesus Christ was
greatest of all created beings but less than fully God. Docetists could
not imagine God actually stooping so low as to be fully human, so they claimed
that God "seemed" to be, or appeared to be human in Jesus. Adoptionists
believed that Jesus was just an ordinary man until his baptism, when God
adopted him, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well
pleased." Appollonists
thought Jesus was half God, half man. But Jesus did not have a mingled human
and Divine nature. Writing to refute early heresies that Christ was not truly
human, the apostle John wrote: “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh is from God. and every spirit that does not
confess Jesus is not from God” (1 Jn 4:2-3)
The Bible insists that Jesus was truly human and truly divine.
·
In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became
flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only
begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (Jn 1:1, 14)
If Jesus is not truly human,
- He cannot represent us before God. Just as Adam sinned as the perfect representative of the human race, now Jesus’ perfect obedience secures forgiveness for those who trust in Him. (Rom 5:19-19)
- He cannot be punished for the sins of mankind. He had to be able to represent us as one being judged by God (Heb 2:16-17 – He “had to” be made like us. He must be able to die.
- He cannot be the one mediator between God and man (1 Ti 2:5)
- He cannot be our example in life (1 Jn 2:6). Jesus faced and overcame temptation as man, not as God. He experienced its full power.
- He cannot sympathize as our High Priest (Heb 2:18)
To be a genuine Christian, we must believe
that Jesus Christ is more than a holy man, a prophet, or a great teacher. He is
the complete, eternal God come in the
flesh. This is a basic item of the Christian faith. The hidden God in heaven
Himself became an approachable, knowable man. He entered our sinful , suffering
world and died for our sakes. We may not understand why bad things happen, but
the Cross tells us that the Christian God has the answer.
2.
Why is it important to
have virgin birth? (“Conceived by the Holy Spirit”)
How else could God have shown the dual nature of Jesus Christ? If he
had come fully-formed from heaven it would be difficult to accept His full
humanity. If he had an ordinary father and mother it would have been difficult
to accept His full deity.
Salvation comes from the Lord. No other can accomplish this miracle.
No human effort will bring forth the Savior. 4 But when the
fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under
the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law (Gal 4:4).
- No transmission of sin from Adam. ‘Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned”... one trespass led to condemnation for all men (Rom 5:12-21, 1 Cor 15:21-22). We call this “inherited/original sin”. Adam was the perfect representative of the entire human race. In his fall, all of us fell All of us are born with a taint of sin that makes it impossible for us to please God. We are born “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1) In the absence of the father, this transmission of sin from Adam to Christ was interrupted. This is implied in the words of the angel Gabriel: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born[e] will be called holy.”
- But what about Mary herself? Didn’t sin also get transmitted through one’s mother? Catholics try to explain this in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary - that she herself was born without sin. But that would mean that Mary’s parents were themselves sinless... We do not assume that inherited sin is only passed on through the male, but we understand that in the interruption of the line of Adam, God also saw to it that Jesus did not receive the sin of Mary.
Conclusion
The virgin birth is a test case for orthodoxy. Some liberal
Christian teachers have singled out this truth to say that miracles are
impossible. But our God is omnipotent.
He can and does do whatever He pleases. Also, believing the virgin birth means
believing in the deity of Christ and in the inerrancy of Scripture. To
disbelieve in miracles is to not be a Christian.
How do we respond to this truth?
- We marvel at His lowliness. God went that far for us. See the lowliness of our Saviour! (Phil 2) Incarnation is a mark of love. Truth leads to and is the foundation for our worship (“theology leads to doxology”).
- We take strength from His sinless humanity and walk as He walked. We take the example of His humility and we deal with one another accordingly.
- We look to Him as our sympathetic High Priest and come to the throne of grace in confidence to find strength and help in time of need.
- We think of the story of Mary - the difficult grace of God, the power and compassion of God in her life, and most of all, the way she trusted God. With her, we also say, “Let it be to me according to your word”
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