Jesus Had To Be Born Of The Virgin Mary

When you and I read the following chapter of Hebrews about this strange person, Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the Most High God, we are left with a long list of questions about who he was and why the writer to the Hebrews speaks about him in the way that he does. Here's how he starts, after declaring that Jesus is a high priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 6:20).

For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever. See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils! - Hbr 7:1-4 ESV

We've read about Melchizedek earlier in Hebrews 5 when the author pointed out that the heavenly Father begat Jesus as His Son in the eternal today when He said,

"You are my Son, today I have begotten you" (Psalm 2:7). 

And again we read about David's Lord who sits at the right hand of the LORD,

The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." - Psa 110:4 ESV

Now, very seriously believing that the Psalms are the revealed Word of the LORD God, the writer begins to explain who this mysterious king of Salem is and why it is so important to realize that Jesus is a priest "after the order of Melchizedek". This priestly king is, after all, only mentioned in Holy Scripture one time. As the writer emphasizes, we know nothing about who he was beyond that. We know nothing about his lineage, his background, who  his parents were, how he came to be the king of Salem (later Jeru-salem)—nothing. We only know that Abraham presented him with a tithe after he returned from the slaughter of the kings (Gen. 14:18-20).

His first point: resembling the Son of God Melchizedek continues a priest forever. Here we encounter the mystery of Jesus as understood and taught by the Christian church. Jesus received His divine nature from His Father in eternity. He was begotten, not made, as our creeds clearly teach. He is not a creature who has had a beginning in time. Indeed, Scripture says of Him,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. - John 1:1-3 ESV

All things came into being through Him and apart from Him nothing—nothing—came into being! He is God. He is the Word! He is the Creator of all things!

But He is also Man, born of the Virgin Mary. Of this wonder the Scriptures also speak.

Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, "Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven." But Ahaz said, "I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test." And he said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. - Isa 7:10-14 ESV

The Gospel of Matthew has this about Joseph's dream the night after he learned that Mary was pregnant:

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). - Mat 1:20-23 ESV

Two questions:

1. How could a virgin conceive? 
2. How could a virgin bear a son and remain a virgin? 

Humanly speaking, it is impossible for a virgin to conceive. A human is the product of the union of male seed and female egg. And yet Jesus' conception was from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit spoke about this in a later chapter of the prophet Isaiah.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. - Isa 9:6 ESV

A child is born—this refers to Jesus' birth and His humanity. He was the divine Son of God from all eternity. Now the Father sent His Son from heaven. (Jn. 3:16, 6:39, 12:49). Here we come upon the wonder and mystery of Jesus, true God from eternity and also true Man, born of the virgin Mary.

Did Jesus need the virgin birth to be sinless? No, he was already sinless as the eternal Son of God before His birth. The angel pointed this out to Mary when he told her she was to become Jesus' mother.

And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 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, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." 

And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" 

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 will be called holy—the Son of God. - Luk 1:30-35 ESV

Jesus was and is holy and without sin. He was holy before His conception in Mary's womb. He did not need her to be holy and sinless. She was the vehicle by which He entered this world, but His holiness was and is not dependent upon her holiness. That raises, of course, another question. Did the Holy Spirit use Mary's egg to create Jesus' humanity? I'll come back to that question next time.

Part of the answer to this question rests in another strange Biblical prophecy dating all the way back to the Garden of Eden. After Eve and Adam had fallen for the temptation of the serpent the LORD said to the serpent,

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel." - Gen 3:15 NKJV

The Hebrew word for seed is zera, a word that refers both to offspring and to the physical seed that the man passes on. The prophecy is made only of the zera of the woman, as if a woman by herself could have offspring. But this is impossible. No woman can bear a child by herself. She has no zera. She brings rather an egg, not the seed, the zera that fertilizes the egg. No woman ever bore a son alone—until Mary bore Jesus, the Son who destroyed the power of the devil to accuse mankind of sin (2 Cor. 5:18-21; 1 Pet. 2:22).

We need to look at this from the perspective that Adam was

• representative or head of all mankind and 
• bore the physical seed in which mankind's sinful nature is passed on 

Let us start with the representative concept. The Apostle Paul teaches clearly that it was by Adam that sin entered into the world of mankind. As noted, this is the understanding that Adam is the head or representative of the entire human race. He did not reject the temptation of the devil. He ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore when Adam sinned the entire race fell. The Apostle writes about this.

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-- - Rom 5:12 ESV

Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. - Rom 5:14 ESV 

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. - 1Cr 15:21-22 ESV

There are many examples in the Scriptures of one person who is the head of a family or a people making a decision that touches all. So we read of Noah cursing his grandson Canaan.

When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers." - Gen 9:24-25 ESV

Strangely, Canaan wasn't directly involved in what his father Ham had done. Instead of covering Noah's nakedness when he was drunk, Ham went out and told his two brothers, apparently mocking his father. As a result, Noah pronounced a curse on Ham's sons, a curse that fell on Canaan and his descendants.

The same thing happened to Esau when he sold his birthright to Jacob (Gen. 25:31-34). All of his descendants were thus excluded from the blessing of the promise given to Abraham and passed on to Isaac, then Jacob and their descendants (Gen. 28:1-4).

So from this viewpoint no descendant of Adam could possibly rescue mankind from the curse of sin. In Adam all die ! And yet, if mankind is to be rescued it must be that one who is truly a man must bear the  judgment of death for all. But who could do this? And how?

Here we come back to the virgin birth and the necessity of the virgin birth of Jesus. More on this next time.

Was Mary Immaculately Conceived?

We're  looking at certain events connected with the birth of our LORD Jesus Christ. As noted above, he was circumcised on the first day after the first week, the eighth day. With this sign he began his life as a chosen member of the chosen race. And he carries the sign of his Father's choosing in his body forever.

His virgin mother Mary, as a member of that chosen people, was required to fulfill another command. Luke records that event in this way:

And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord") and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons." - Luk 2:22-24 ESV

Mary's purification was in fulfillment of the Law recorded in Leviticus 12:

"Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days. As at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then she shall continue for thirty-three days in the blood of her purifying. She shall not touch anything holy, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed. ... And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean." - Lev 12:2-4, 8 ESV 

The people of God were to be holy, that is, set aside completely for the LORD God. In the case of Mary, she was the instrument of the LORD by which Jesus entered this world of men. Thus the church has always honored her as the one woman blessed above all others. As Elizabeth said,

"Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" (Luke 1:42)

To this greeting, Mary replied with her beautiful song known as the Magnificat:

"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. . . - Luk 1:46-55 ESV

The controversy surrounding this event has to do with Mary herself. Was she more than physically unclean because of giving birth? Was she also spiritually unclean and in need of a Savior, as she says in her song? The Roman Catholic church says emphatically no! Mary was without sin, having herself been immaculately conceived by her own mother Anne. Anne received little attention in the Western church prior to the late 12th century, however she was honored in the Eastern church as early as the 6th century. In the Eastern Orthodox Churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, she is revered as Hanna. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition Hanna is ascribed the title Forbear of God, and both the Birth of Mary and the Dedication of Mary to the Temple are celebrated as two of the Twelve Great Feasts. The Dormition of Hanna is also a minor feast in the Eastern Church.

The Roman Catholic teaching is as follows: 

In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin."

 . . . The immunity from original sin was given to Mary by a singular exemption from a universal law through the same merits of Christ, by which other men are cleansed from sin by baptism. Mary needed the redeeming Saviour to obtain this exemption, and to be delivered from the universal necessity and debt (debitum) of being subject to original sin. The person of Mary, in consequence of her origin from Adam, should have been subject to sin, but, being the new Eve who was to be the mother of the new Adam, she was, by the eternal counsel of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of original sin. Her redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He is a greater redeemer who pays the debt that it may not be incurred than he who pays after it has fallen on the debtor.

At times it seems that Lutherans  give mixed signals about Mary. Was she always a virgin? Was she without sin from birth? To gain some understanding of such confusion see the Wikipedia article: Lutheran Marian theology. Near the end, that article quotes Luther:

"Furthermore, how will you endure [the Romanists'] terrible idolatries? It was not enough that they venerated the saints and praised God in them, but they actually made them into gods. They put that noble child, the mother Mary, right into the place of Christ. They fashioned Christ into a judge and thus devised a tyrant for anguished consciences, so that all comfort and confidence was transferred from Christ to Mary, and then everyone turned from Christ to his particular saint. Can anyone deny this? Is it not true?"(Luther's Works, 47:45}

Dr. Richard P. Bucher further clarifies the Lutheran view about Mary's sinlessness and role as Mediatrix. 

These are the teachings that Biblical Christians cannot accept, for they ascribe to Mary , at least in part, the role of Mediator and Advocate, roles which belong to Jesus Christ alone. Scripture is clear in declaring, "For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all" (1 Timothy 2:5-6). St. John Himself, to whom Mary was committed after our Lord's death, writes, "But if anyone sins we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world." Of His name the apostle Peter solemnly confessed: "There is no other name under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Nothing in all of Scripture even hints at Mary sharing Christ's saving work. 

So can we honor Mary as role model? Yes! Can we thank God that by His grace (not because of her worthiness!) she became the "mother of God?" Yes! But we can never ascribe to her what the Scriptures do not. And especially can we never ascribe to her anything that contradicts the Gospel of Jesus Christ and robs him of his glory. And this is our complaint with Roman Catholic doctrine and current popular piety.

This writer concurs. Roman Catholic teaching is derived indirectly from what they call the living tradition of the church. Lutherans continue to reject this as a valid source of doctrine and teaching and rely upon Holy Scripture as the only source of teaching about God's revelation in Jesus Christ.

St. Joseph's Dilemma

In my earlier post I pointed to the fact that throughout his life Martin Luther held to the perpetual virginity of Mary. However, he did not spend much time discussing Mary herself. Of her he wrote, 

[Mary] is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin. God's grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil. God is with her, meaning that all she did or left undone is divine and the action of God in her. Moreover, God guarded and protected her from all that might be hurtful to her. Luther's Works (LW), American edition, Vol. 43:40, ed. H. Lehmann, Fortress, 1968

Concerning the possibility of her having children other than Jesus, he commented,

I am inclined to agree with those who declare that “brothers” really means “cousins” here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers. (LW-22:215)

Whether or not the Lord had half brothers “neither adds to nor detracts from faith. It is immaterial whether these men were Christ’s cousins or His brothers begotten by Joseph. (LW-45:205-6)

Nevertheless, Luther led the way to restoring the honor and propriety of Christian marriage by marrying the former nun, Katharina von Bora. Both had taken vows of chastity prior to this. In that sense they were spiritual brothers and sisters of Christ in medieval church eyes. That would mean they had both broken their vows and were committing a kind of spiritual incest. But in Luther's eyes marriage was an honorable estate. In a published sermon on the estate of marriage, he writes, 

Because the union of man and woman signifies such a great mystery, the estate of marriage has to have this special significance. This means that the wicked lust of the flesh, which nobody is without, is a conjugal obligation and is not reprehensible when expressed within marriage, but in all other cases outside the bond of marriage, it is mortal sin. In a parallel way the holy manhood of God covers the same of the wicked lust of the flesh (Ps. 32:1; Rom. 5:7). Therefore a married man should have regard for such a sacrament (a sacred sign of something spiritual, holy, heavenly and eternal), honor it as sacred, and behave properly in marital obligations, so that those things which originate in the lust of the flesh do not occur [among us] as they do in the world of brute beasts. (LW-44:10)

The "lust of the flesh" flows from original sin. The second article in Lutheranism's Augsburg Confession on the doctrine of original sin:

It is also taught among us that since the fall of Adam all men who are born according to the course of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover, this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit. Rejected in this connection are the Pelagians and others who deny that original sin is sin, for they hold that natural man is made righteous by his own powers, thus disparaging the sufferings and merit of Christ.[41]

Yet no one seems concerned about Mary's husband, Joseph, in the numerous discussions about Mary's perpetual virginity and holiness. He does not utter a single word in the Gospels. None of the church fathers suggest that he was freed from original sin at birth. All I read is that Joseph may have been married earlier and had other children and that those may be the brothers and sisters referred to in the Gospels (Matt. 12:46; Mark 3:31; Luke 8:19). That suggests that Joseph did indeed have a healthy and active sex drive. So what about Mary's duty to protect her husband from the sinful lust of his flesh? Recall the Apostle instructions to married couples:

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. - 1Cr 7:2-5 ESV

I end this discussion with an invitation for you to ponder Joseph's dilemma of possibly being married to a perpetual virgin.