God in the Manger The Miraculous Birth of Christ

CHAPTER ONE: The Amazing Fact of the Virgin BirthExtraordinary births are certainly not unprecedented in biblical history. As part of the Abrahamic Covenant, God promised to send a son to Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 17:19-22). They were both beyond normal childbearing ages and laughed at the prospect of being parents, yet they ultimately witnessed the miraculous arrival of their son, Isaac (Gen. 21:1-3). In Judges 13, an angel of the Lord told Manoah and his barren wife that they would have a special son. True to the heavenly messenger's words, Samson entered the world and for a time delivered the Israelites from the oppression of the Philistines.Samuel, the first prophet, final judge, and anointer of kings, also demonstrated in his birth the providential power of God. He was the answer to the faithful, persevering prayers of his godly mother, Hannah, who had remained childless until then. John the Baptist's mother, Elizabeth, was also unable to have children until God graciously intervened when she was in her sixties or seventies and made her the mother of the forerunner of Christ (Luke 1:15-17, 76-79). But none of those special births was as amazing as the virgin birth of the Son of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. UNBELIEF REGARDING THE VIRGIN BIRTH Even though the fact of Jesus' virgin birth is clearly and concisely stated in Scripture, the unconverted mind of sinful humanity, as with all essential doctrines of the Christian faith, resists embracing the truth of His unique birth. First of all, ancient mythologies and world religions counterfeited Christ's virgin birth with a proliferation of bizarre stories and inaccurate parallels. These stories undercut and minimized the uniqueness and profound impact of our Lord's birth. Several accounts illustrate the point. The Romans claimed that Zeus impregnated Semele without contact and produced Dionysus, lord of the earth. Babylonian religion asserted that a sunbeam in the priestess Semiramis conceived Tammuz, the Sumerian fertility god (Ezek. 8:14). Buddha's mother allegedly saw a large white elephant enter her belly when she conceived the deified Indian philosopher. Hinduism teaches that the divine Vishnu, after living as a fish, tortoise, boar, and lion, entered Devaki's womb and became her son, Krishna. Satan has propagated other similar legends, all with the purpose of undermining the nature of Christ's birth and deceiving people into seeing it as just another myth or nothing exceptional. In addition, the scientific age and the emergence of modern and postmodern theologies during the past two centuries have eroded many professed believers' confidence in the reality of the virgin birth. (Along with that trend has been a noticeable decline in the percentage of "Christians" who believe in the deity of Christ.) But such skeptical thinking is foolish and directly contrary to the explicit teaching of all four Gospels, the Epistles, and the historical testimony of the entire early church that Jesus was none other than the virgin-born Son of God. Unfortunately, a heart attitude of unbelief concerning Jesus' identity has characterized the majority of men and women since the Fall. The Jews who opposed Christ vividly illustrated that attitude on more than one occasion (John 5:18; 7:28-30; 10:30-39). But such hostility and lack of faith should not discourage us or deter us from embracing and defending the truth of Christ's virgin birth. The apostle Paul reminds us, "For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar" (Rom. 3:3-4, 10:16; Isa. 53:1). The world's opinion, popular as it might be, is rarely a reliable source of truth. Undoubtedly, therefore, the Holy Spirit acted with significant purpose in devoting an early passage from the Gospel of Matthew, at the front of the New Testament, to eMacArthur, John is the author of 'God in the Manger The Miraculous Birth of Christ' with ISBN 9780849955570 and ISBN 0849955572.