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Was The Virgin Birth Necessary?

When does the impossible become possible? When does the unbelievable become believable? When does faith become fact? Or does faith simply vanish into the mirky wood of fantasy when we consider the virgin birth of Jesus Christ?

Many miraculous events are described in the Bible, but one event stands above them all. Evolutionists try to explain away the creation of the world. Critics propose natural explanations for the parting of the Red Sea. Prophecies are dismissed as lucky guesses or written after the fact. But one event stands above them all and defies explanation.

This event stretches credibility to the breaking point, and yet on it hinges all of Christianity. If Jesus did not walk on water, the big picture of Christianity remains unchanged. If Jesus didn’t heal the blind man, the truth of His death and resurrection still applied. But the virgin birth of Jesus Christ is different.

People may ask questions like: Doesn’t the virgin birth detract from Christ by adding what appears to be a mythical element to the nativity? Why couldn't Mary and Joseph have had Jesus in the "natural" way? The fact is that without the virgin birth, there would be no Christianity, no salvation and no hope for humanity. If Jesus had not been born of a virgin, Christianity would have collapsed like a house of cards.

Before we consider if this miracle was possible, let’s see why it is necessary for the Christian faith.

God never does anything without a purpose. Even as we read the Gospels, we notice that Jesus did not try to draw attention to Himself. Shock and sensationalism were not the goals behind His actions. Especially at the beginning of His ministry, when most public figures would seek attention to build their following, Jesus often instructed people not to talk about what He had done for them. Jesus did not want miracles to distract from the vital things He was teaching. So why does God make such a big issue out of the virgin birth? Why does it matter?

God began preparing the way for the idea of the virgin birth on the very day that Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying Him.

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Gen. 3:15, NIV

As this scene unfolds, God is talking to Satan, with Adam and Eve listening in. God tells Satan that the "seed" or "offspring" of the woman is going to defeat him. In other words, Satan won the first round by getting the representative of the human race to join his rebellion against God. But God is letting them all know that He will win the final round and do it through the seed of the woman. Usually, when making children, we think of the seed of the man. At the very beginning, God indicates that something will be different about the birth of the final Victor. How clearly Adam and Eve understood what God was implying is uncertain; however, looking back, we can see it.

Later, God put His intentions more clearly through the prophet Isaiah.

Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, the young woman who is unmarried and a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel [God with us]. Is. 7:14, Amp.

But why did God need to have the virgin birth of Jesus in order to accomplish His plan of salvation? Why is it an essential teaching of the Christian church?

First Reason
For The Virgin Birth

God is perfect and can do nothing unjust. That is why He cannot simply forgive sin. We have committed treason and other crimes which must be paid for. Perfect justice requires perfect consequences which match the crime. The legal basis of salvation is founded on the principles of representation and substitution. We understand these principles very well in daily life.

Representation means that one person can represent and make binding decisions on behalf of others. The leader, or elected representatives, of a country represents the people in the country, the business owner represents his business to others and makes decisions affecting his employees, etc.

In our case, Adam represented the human race. When he chose to join Satan in rebellion against God, he made that decision on behalf of the entire human race. So now we are all born already in rebellion to God. Officially, this is known as original sin. Since we are born in rebellion to God, we are also born under the just judgment of God, which is eternal death, more commonly called Hell. The ray of light God began revealing in Gen. 3:15 is that because someone represented us into sin, someone else could represent us out of sin and into peace with God.

So far, so good. What does this have to do with the nativity and the virgin birth?

Next comes the principle of substitution. Regarding our subject, it means that one person could replace another. For example, if John owes Jim $100, Terry could voluntarily pay the $100 to Jim on John's behalf. John would then no longer owe Jim anything because the debt had been paid. It would be unjust if Jim demanded another $100 from John just because Terry had paid the bill.

Now, we come to the point where this relates to the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. To use our example, if all Terry had was $100 and he also owed Jim $100, he would have to pay his own debt and would not have the resources to pay John's debt. Since we are all born already in rebellion because of Adam, we are all already under the judgment of God and sentenced to Hell. So, although the principle of substitution is valid, no human being can qualify as a substitute because each owes his own unpayable debt to God.

Remember that Adam - not Eve - was the representative of the human race. Therefore, the original sin contamination is passed down through the man [sorry men] to the next generation - male and female. So, to have a substitute without sin, who could pay the price of sin for others, we would need to have a substitute who was not born as the result of the "seed" of a man. This is the first reason why the virgin birth is necessary.

The Person Who can act as a substitute must be:

1. human as only a human can represent a human,
2. perfect - without any sin - original or personal; in other words, He must be virgin born and live a perfect life without a single sin in word, thought or deed, and
3. willing to be the substitute. For God's justice to be satisfied, the substitute must be willing, not forced.

To summarize, Jesus Christ had to be born of a virgin to escape original sin, which would have disqualified Him as our substitute.

Because of the virgin birth, Jesus qualifies as potentially our substitute, the Person Who could pay the penalty of sin for us and restore us to a loving relationship with God. If He was willing to pay the price, we could move from fighting a losing war against God to being at peace with Him.

Jesus Christ meets all three conditions above. Having a human mother, Mary, He is human and can represent us since He is one of us. Since He was born of a virgin without the normal process of a man's "seed," He had no original sin. The Gospels record that He did not sin after being born; therefore, He had no personal sin either. Finally, He was willing to suffer and die on our behalf. He was willing to stand the full justice of God against a rebellious humanity.

Second Reason
For The Virgin Birth

However, that leads us to the next reason for the virgin birth. Jesus was qualified and willing to pay the price, but did He have the ability to pay the price? In the above example, Terry may not have owed Jim anything and may have been willing to pay John's debt, but if he only had $50, he would have been unable to pay the debt. Did Jesus have the ability to pay our debt, and what does that have to do with the virgin birth?

As a perfect human being, Jesus could pay the debt for another human being; however, to be able to pay the debt of EVERY human being, He would have to be as valuable or more valuable than every human being combined. That's a tall order…an order only God could meet.

No human being could withstand the full justice of God poured out on sin. That is one reason we know Hell must be eternal. If Hell were not eternal, then at some point, a human being would earn their salvation by becoming as great as God because only God can withstand the full judgment of God.

For Jesus Christ to pay the price of sin for humanity, He must have God's life flowing through Him.

"because the life of every creature is its blood…" Lev. 17:14, NIV

"…because the blood is the life…" Deut. 12:23, NIV

For Jesus Christ to give His life, which is identified with blood, on our behalf, He would have to have God’s life in His veins. The only way He could have God’ life was if God Himself implanted the "seed" in Mary, which would mature into the baby Jesus. If Jesus had anything less than God’s life, He would not be able to pay the price of our sins even if otherwise qualified.

This is the divine mystery of what is known as Christ’s dual nature. Jesus was simultaneously fully human and fully God without the two natures being confused or combined. Only in this way, accomplished through the virgin birth, could Jesus be both qualified and capable of being our Saviour.

This is one reason why some mock the idea of the virgin birth. They know that if they can destroy the belief in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, the rest of the Christian belief system collapses. Jesus was virgin-born, or there is no salvation.

When Christ Jesus fully paid the price of our sin as our Substitute, He could then become our Representative. Just as Adam represented us into sin, which is rebellion against God, so Jesus Christ can represent us out of sin and into a right and loving relationship with God. The difference is that Adam automatically represented us into sin, but we have to choose to change representatives and accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Our "default" setting is on Adam; it takes a conscious choice to move it to Jesus Christ.

Is The Virgin Birth Reasonable?

This brings us back to the question of whether the miracle of the virgin birth could have happened. Everyone, beginning with Adam and Eve, down through time, knew where babies came from. Mary was painfully aware that when she told Joseph that she was pregnant, she was asking him to believe in something that had never happened before. It took an angelic messenger to convince Joseph that a miracle had happened. This was not something that Mary and Joseph took for granted or expected others to believe simply on their word.

What is a miracle? A miracle is when something happens that goes against how things usually work. If there is a natural explanation for an event, then it is not a miracle. Atheists disbelieve and often mock the virgin birth because they do not believe that anything beyond the materialistic world exists. This is what is called a presupposition.

A presupposition is a belief that is accepted as true without proof. We then look at the world around us for evidence that can support our assumption, although it can never be conclusively proven. The question honest people ask is: Do the facts we have in the world around us support or contradict our presuppositions?

While that may sound unscientific, the truth is we all base our lives on presuppositions. The Athiest begins with the presupposition that God does not exist. This assumption can never be conclusively proven or disproven from a scientific perspective. From that foundation, they look at the world around them. Of course, if all that exists is what we see, then the virgin birth is nonsense and a fairy tale.

But what if that presupposition is wrong? What if the Christian presupposition that the God revealed in the Bible does exist is correct? Again, this assumption can never be conclusively proven or disproven scientifically. If God created the universe by the Word of His mouth, then making a baby without a human father is no problem. If the God of the Bible exists, then a miracle is simply God doing something differently than He usually does it. It means nothing is impossible if God wills it.

Which presupposition is correct? We can choose what to believe, but we cannot choose what is Truth. The Truth remains whether we believe it or not. If our foundational assumptions are false, our lives will be destroyed or, at least, wasted. It is vital that we look for evidence as to which presupposition is true. Christianity has nothing to fear from honest examination. It has stood the test for 2,000 years.

The Virgin Birth And Pagan Myths

In closing, some people with atheistic assumptions claim that Christians borrowed the story of the virgin birth from ancient pagan religions. There are several problems with this idea.

First, Jews [like Isaiah] and Christians [like the Gospel writers] both wanted separation from the pagan world. It is highly unlikely they would have borrowed something so unbelievable.

Second, pagan mythological virgin birth stories only superficially resemble the Gospel story. Any deep dive reveals far more differences than similarities.

Third, God hinted at the virgin birth in the Garden of Eden when Adam And Eve were the only people. It is not surprising that some of their ancestors, in rejecting God, would have picked up on the idea and woven it into their religions and mythologies.

Fourth, as we have seen, the virgin birth is essential to Christianity. It cannot be an add-on.

Is believing in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ reasonable? That depends on your presuppositions. The greater question is: Is it True?

For more information about Glenn Davis, see our About Glenn page or visit Glenn Davis Books.

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