David LinckThe birth of Jesus contradicts the laws of science, but our faith rests on the miracle of the incarnation. When we consider the birth of Jesus, we are in total awe, and not just because of Mary and Joseph’s bumpy ride from Nazareth, or Mary’s lack of a doctor, and no anesthesia, and the crudeness of the manger, but also because of how Jesus was conceived.
Secularists and liberal theologians have mocked the virgin birth for centuries.
The concept of a woman giving birth to a baby without a man’s involvement is ludicrous to unbelievers. It contradicts all the laws of biology.
Yet Mary was not a scoffer. She asked the angel how she would bear this child, and the angel explained that the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. We read the detail in Luke Chapter 1 in the new Testament. Study it carefully and prayerfully.
We would have asked for more scientific information. How does this process of miraculous impregnation work?
But Mary didn’t quibble over details. She believed Gabriel’s announcement and submitted to God in childlike faith.
The Greek word for “overshadow,” episkiazo, is a reference to the cloud of God’s presence that materialized in Moses’ tabernacle. He will overshadow you like a shining cloud. This same cloud hovered over the ark of the covenant, and this same cloud led God’s people through the wilderness and filled Solomon’s temple with that shimmering shekinah glory.
Think about it. The same cloud of glory that caused Moses’ face to shine hovered over a virgin and deposited a Divine seed in her womb.
The God who hid behind a veil in the Old Testament clothed Himself in human flesh in the New Testament.
The Incarnation cannot be explained in purely biological terms. Divinity merged with humanity. Jesus, fully God and fully man, began a nine-month gestation.
Our New Testament Professor and Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Edinburgh used to teach us the wonder of all this in the most simple but profound terms, which would lead us to worship.
Joseph came from a line of kings, but his pedigree was not enough to save the human race. He could not contribute to this miracle.
Doubters think Joseph got Mary pregnant out of wedlock.
If that were true, Christianity itself would be a lie because, if Jesus were not born of a woman, He could not have identified with our sins fully, and if God were not His ‘biological Father’, He could not have redeemed us.
This is the most glorious revelation of the nativity.
Do remember that above all else Jesus Christ came to forgive us from our sin and sins.
There is another glorious truth which shines from the teaching surround the birth of Jesus Christ and it is there scattered throughout the whole of the Word of God.
The birth of Jesus Christ shows that salvation can never come through human effort.
God performed this science-defying miracle without our help.
All we can do is receive His amazing love and mercy and forgiveness, and worship.
Sandy Shaw
