This will be the first in a short series on the virgin birth of Christ. In the last lesson we looked at a brief history of Isaiah 7 to establish the context of what is probably the most often quoted Old Testament prophecy concerning the virgin birth. “Therefore, (since you will not ask Me for a miracle that would prove My trustworthiness) I will give you a miraculous sign: know this, a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and will call his name Immanuel (God with us).” (Isaiah 7:14) What I want you to notice here is the words “a virgin will conceive and bear a son”.
Then, as we go forward in time to the New Testament you can read for yourself two passages, Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-38, that give an account of this event. There are three things to emphasize: a real conception took place, Mary was a virgin, and the conception was by the Holy Spirit. It was understood from the Old Testament that the Messiah would be born into this world (Isaiah 9:6). It was also understood that He would come from the “seed of the woman” (Genesis 3:15). Now, in my mind, this raises several questions. So, in the lessons that follow, I’ll try to give a fairly detailed account to describe both what happened and how it happened.
The first issue is to contrast the Lord’s birth with our own to establish the differences. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…(John 3:16a) “Only begotten” is from monogenes, which literally means, “uniquely born”. His birth was unique, meaning it was different. To understand why it was different we have to compare the Lord’s birth with our own. The basis of this comparison starts with Romans 5:14b “…who (Adam) is the figure of Him (Christ) Who was to be born.” Here, “figure” is from tupos, type or model of some reality that was yet to appear.
In other words, Christ was born a facsimile of Adam before the fall. Adam was created perfect; Christ was born perfect – without sin, with no sin nature, and spiritually alive. In contrast, we are born a facsimile of Adam after the fall. We share his original sin (Romans 5:12). As a result we have Adam’s sin nature (the natural tendency to sin or rebel against God and His purposes). The sin nature is not resident in our soul or spirit, but is a part of the cell structure of our physical, material body (this will become more clear later in this series). It is called “the flesh” (Romans 7:17-18; 8:3-5); “the body of sin” (Romans 6:6); and the sin that “reigns in your mortal body” (Romans 6:12). The term, “old man”, is used in Romans 6:6, Ephesians 4:22 and Colossians 3:9 to illustrate the perpetuation of the sin nature from Adam to this present generation. We all share in this sin nature and, as a result of Adam’s sin have all been “made sinners” (Romans 5:19, 3:10, 23).
And, because of everything you see in the preceding paragraph, we all share in Adam’s spiritual death. In Genesis 2:17 God warned Adam not to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the day he did eat of it he would certainly die. An examination of this verse shows us the verb is doubled and should read, “dying, you will die”. Adam did not die physically the day he ate the fruit, disobeying God’s command. We don’t know how long he lived after this original sin, but Genesis 5:5 says he lived 930 years, and then he died. This tells us his original sin brought his spiritual death, which then caused his eventual physical death. Both Romans 5:12 and 6:23 are references to spiritual death. And since all are sinners, all share in Adam’s spiritual death. This, then, destines us to the same physical death (Genesis 3:19; Hebrews 9:27).
What should we conclude from this? Christ was born perfect, without sin, with no sin nature in His physical body and no condemnation resulting from spiritual death. In contrast to that, we are born sinners, identified with Adam’s sin, possessing his sin nature in our physical body, sharing his condemnation of spiritual death and looking to an eventual physical death like his.
Now, let’s turn our attention to Mary, Jesus’ mother. Could she somehow be different than the rest of us? There is absolutely no reason to think so. Mary was a sinner, born with a sin nature, and as a result condemned by her spiritual death to an eventual physical death. She was not immaculate – but corrupt in her flesh. She was not holy – but human in every way. From her response to Gabriel in Luke 1:26-38 she was obviously a believer, looking forward to the One Who would take her sin upon Himself.
So, we need to make this distinction: Jesus’ birth was unique, His mother was not. And I’m not trying to minimize Mary’s place in history, or the importance of her willingness to be a part of God’s plan (Luke 1:38). But we will see in further lessons concerning Jesus’ public ministry that Mary’s human failings are similar to our own. Let’s make a few observations.