Carl F. H. Henry, the dean of evangelical theologians, argues that the Virgin Birth is the “essential, historical indication of the Incarnation, bearing not only an analogy to the divine and human natures of the Incarnate, but also bringing out the nature, purpose, and bearing of this work of God to salvation.” Well said, and well believed.
Nicholas Kristof and his secularist friends may find belief in the Virgin Birth to be evidence of intellectual backwardness among American Christians. But this is the faith of the Church, established in God’s perfect Word, and cherished by the true Church throughout the ages. Kristof’s grandfather, we are told, believed that the Virgin Birth is a “pious legend.” The fact that he could hold such beliefs and serve as an elder in his church is evidence of that church’s doctrinal and spiritual laxity ”” or worse. Those who deny the Virgin Birth affirm other doctrines only by force of whim, for they have already surrendered the authority of Scripture. They have undermined Christ’s nature and nullified the incarnation.
This much we know: All those who find salvation will be saved by the atoning work of Jesus the Christ ”” the virgin-born Savior. Anything less than this is just not Christianity, whatever it may call itself. A true Christian will not deny the Virgin Birth.
It is no coincidence that the opening words of the gospel according to John In the beginning … echo the very opening words of the Bible in Genesis. This is a new beginning, a redemption of creation, hence Jesus is not the result of a human initiative but of divine will. The Johannine prologue goes on to say (1.13) that he was born ‘Not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself’. This is the Jerusalem Bible translation. Other translations make it us, those who accept Christ, who are born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh eg TEV: ‘[not] born as the children of a human father; God himself was their father’. But either way the Virgin birth underlines that we are not saved by our own efforts, but by God reaching out to us in mercy.
Al Mohler is a gift to Christendom. He is not just a Southern Baptist for Southern Baptists but for all believers. Now we need to raise up and encourage Anglicans to speak to the people in much the same way. We have Matt Kennedy who is coming along. And Tom Wright who may be beyond many of us. But Mohler speaks to more than his denomination and we need to consider the same practice.
Well said, Terry Tee. I remember during my lib-prot phase, when I considered the virginal conception and birth of our Lord to be a theological myth. And then there was the midnight Christ Mass when the priest read those words in the New Jerusalem translation, and I understood what the creedal affirmation, “born of the Virgin Mary”, really meant. That went a long way toward ending my liberal protestant affirmation of doctrines “by force of whim”.
Mohler and the whole of orthodox Christian tradition following from the Scriptures are right: a Jesus not virginally-conceived must be a Jesus in whom the human and divine natures are knit together only by force of will, a teaching condemned by the Council of Ephesus.
I believe in the Incarnation, but I’m agnostic about the Virgin Birth.
Mohler states what seems to be a common view among defenders of the doctrine:
The Incarnation, defenders argue, requires that Jesus have been born of a virgin. Personally, I don’t see how that follows.
For one thing, it might help to clarify what we mean by a virgin birth. If we mean a miraculous conception that takes place by divine intervention and without the assistance of a male human, then strictly speaking the woman need not be a virgin when this happens. In theory Mary could have married Joseph and had several children before being visited by the Holy Spirit and conceiving Jesus, and Jesus would still have been born without a biological human father — and Mary, of course, would still be virtuous.
So by “virgin birth” I believe that what we’re really discussing is “miraculous conception.” And in that regard, the argument seems to be that God could only have brought about the Incarnation — the fully-human and fully-God nature of Jesus — in this way. This seems to me to be a somewhat arrogant assertion of God’s limitations: obviously God could have done it that way, but I see no reason why God could not have accomplished the same feat in other ways.
For Mohler, of course, this is really all a secondary argument; for him, the matter is settled because the Bible says so. For me, regarding the Bible as I do, I can’t stop there; and to my reading, the birth narratives are stirring but questionable. So, I remain agnostic about the Virgin Birth.