The Virgin Birth of Christ.

Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Isaiah 7: 14. 
There are many shades of Christian belief, and it is often difficult to know just what a preacher or writer does believe. Indeed, some of them give the impression that they do not know themselves. The difficulty is all the greater since terms used may mean one thing to one person and quite another to someone else. 
A teacher may describe himself as an evangelical, he may say that the Bible is an inspired book, and that Jesus Christ was a divine person; we learn later that his evangel is quite unlike Paul’s, that he thinks Shakespeare and Mozart were inspired at times, and that there is a spark of the divine in all of us. Churches profess to adhere to evangelical doctrine and use terms to describe it which at first sight look unimpeachably orthodox, but the interpretation they put upon those terms is far removed from that understood by the ordinary Christian. 
But when a verdict has to be given about the virgin birth of Christ, doctrinal error has to come out into the open. If it is unhesitatingly believed that He was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, testimony is borne both to His deity, and to the veracity of Holy Scripture. If there is hesitation, or if it is argued that there must have been a human father, the springs of belief are poisoned at the source, and any kind of error may be entertained. Here is the acid test of orthodox faith. 
Those who desire to believe, and who try to convince others, greatly weaken the substructure of their confidence if they build on the wrong foundations, and they lay themselves open to a shattering reply. If it is argued that Jesus Christ must be a divine Person because God was His Father, and we must believe that His mother was a virgin because the first and third Gospels tell us so, it will probably be replied, “Why do not the second and fourth Gospels say anything about it? Why do the sermons in the Acts, and the epistles, never mention it? Is the story not contrary to all human experience? Does it not rest solely on the word of a woman, and had she not her honor to defend?” In other words, the whole Christian tradition is rested on the credibility of the Virgin Mary. 
Of course, this is utterly wrong, but we need to see why it is wrong. Let us go back to the first proclamation of the Christian faith. Peter, and Paul, in their preaching as recorded in the Acts, rested their conviction of the deity of Christ partly on His character and miracles, partly on Old Testament prophecy, but mainly on His resurrection. In the second Gospel, we are given the standard teaching, made familiar almost in the very words, which had been repeated over and over again to individual inquirers and to crowded congregations, concerning His sermons, His miracles, the outstanding details of His public ministry, His death, and the resurrection. These are the evidences that He was the Son of God. In the fourth Gospel, which we are plainly told was written to make us know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, a different method is followed. It seems to be assumed that the readers will be acquainted with the story as told by the earlier Gospels. The writer sets forth a series of “signs,” witnessed by himself, beginning with the testimony of John the Baptist to the Lamb of God, passing on to the miracle at Cana, including the conversations with Nicodemus and with the Samaritan woman concerning which he doubtless had private information, and finishing with fresh evidences of the resurrection. He also includes long discourses, often controversial, in which our Lord plainly stated His Divine origin. 
These, then, were the evidences from which the first hearers of the message were asked to believe on Jesus as Christ the Lord, the Divine Son of God. There was no need to use the virgin birth as an argument. We do not know when Mary began to make that story known. It was a private matter, not to be discussed with unbelievers who would merely scoff. 
It is scarcely fair to say that the epistles ignore the virgin birth. Certainly, it is not categorically stated. That would be contrary to the policy of the first century preachers. Indeed, we should know very little of the details of our Lord’s life if we had only the epistles. But both John’s Gospel and the epistles contain sentences that may well refer to the virgin birth, though they cannot be adduced as proofs of it. John speaks of the Lord as the “only begotten of the Father,” but also says, “When Jesus therefore saw His mother.” Paul writes to the Galatians, “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman (R.V.).” These words may not convince us that John, and Paul, had the story as told by Luke and Matthew vividly in mind when they wrote, but they are just what they might have written if they knew the story, as of course they did, but were not pressing it at the moment. 
There are two slight allusions in John’s writings which read strangely, if we toy with the notion that he did not know of the virgin birth. He mentions that the Jews brought it up as an argument that Jesus could not be the Christ, because He was not born at Bethlehem (John 7: 42); he does not trouble to refute this contention, evidently because he knew that his readers would know the answer. In the Apocalypse, the dragon seeks to devour the Man Child as soon as He is born, which seems a plain reference to the massacre of the Innocents. Although it is believers who are spoken of as being born, not of the will of man but of God (John 1:13), there may perhaps be an occult reference to the birth of Christ as well. 
The great multitude of Jews who became obedient to the faith, and the Gentile converts in towns all round the Roman empire, would as time went on become more and more interested to learn all that was possible about their Lord, and they would be particularly anxious to know how He came into the world, and how He went away from it. Strangely little is told in the New Testament about the Ascension, except by Luke. So, in the fullness of time, to those already sure both of His deity and His humanity, the secret of His birth was revealed. How could such a Person have come into the world at all? If he had no human mother, how could He be the Son of Man? If He had a human father, how could He be the only begotten Son of God? 
When we approach the matter in this, the historical, the apostolic way, it is much easier to give respectful heed to what the first and third evangelists have to tell us. To their accounts we may now turn. We notice immediately that though Matthew and Luke are at one in bearing witness to the main essentials, that the Lord had no human father, that His mother was a virgin, that He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, yet the narratives are utterly different in detail. This is not to say that they are contradictory. 
In the nature of things, there were only two persons in the world who could know all the facts, Joseph and Mary. In Matthew’s Gospel, we are given Joseph’s version. We fully recognize that it is an inspired book, but Luke tells us that he “traced the course of all things accurately from the first? (so the English R.V.), and there is reason to believe that this would be true of the other writers of the historical books of the Bible. There is nothing in Matthew about the annunciation or the visit to Elizabeth. There is much about Joseph's dreams and thoughts, and intentions. He was minded to put her away privily but was diverted from his purpose by an angel in a dream. To him the name to be given the child was revealed. To him, brokenhearted at the thought of losing his betrothed on account of her supposed unfaithfulness, was given the marvelous verse in Isaiah about the virgin who should bring forth a son, Emmanuel, which explained all. He married her to protect her. He was warned in another dream to flee into Egypt, and, yet again, to return to Nazareth. As to why Joseph should recall the visit of the Magi, and Mary that of the Shepherds, we do not feel able to hazard a guess, but we are glad we have both. 
We would very much like to know the links in the chain between Joseph (who seems to have died between the journey to Jerusalem when the Holy Child was twelve years old and the time of His baptism by John) and the evangelist Matthew, but that also is hidden from our eyes. It is a fairly probable guess that the Matthew genealogy was derived from some written record in the possession of Joseph, which went to show that he, though a village artisan and in humble circumstances, was the lawful heir to David's throne, and the inheritor of the promises made to David concerning his seed. 
It is even more patent that Luke preserves the story as told by Mary. How did he get it? According to one view of inspiration, he might have obtained it directly by Divine revelation without any human links at all. But if the English revisers have translated correctly, that he traced the course of all things from the first, it implies that there were links, and with Mary. 
Luke was in Palestine with Paul somewhere about the year 58 A.D., when Mary, if alive, would have been near eighty. Did he find her out, and hear it all from her own lips? What a thrilling interview that would have been! Or did she tell one of her daughters? Or leave a written document? We wish we knew, but the transmission does not affect the credibility. The first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel are quite obviously told from the woman’s point of view. The language is distinctive. Whatever we may think of C. C. Torrey’s contention that there were Aramaic originals of the Gospels, there is certainly an Aramaic original here, either written or oral. 
The canticles, of Zachariah, and Mary, and Simeon, are more in the fashion of the Old Testament than the New. It is curious that whereas Luke speaks of “His parents,” Mary on one occasion, overwrought by anxiety, said, “Thy father.” He corrected her. “Wist ye not that I must be in My Father’s house?” We may readily believe that there was a social problem in the home at Nazareth. It was almost inevitable that Joseph should be spoken of, in the village, as the father, and maybe in the family too. What else could they say? Evidently there was no scandal. Years later, the people of Nazareth say, “Is not this Joseph’s son” and “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” 
The woman’s point of view is everywhere to be seen: the annunciation, the babe leaping in the womb, the swaddling clothes to wrap the Child in, the presentation in the Temple, the words spoken by Simeon treasured in the mother’s heart, the notice of old Anna, the canticle so like that of Hannah in the Old Testament. And, when once we have got over our astonished revulsion against such an idea as that of a child born without an earthly father, when we realize that though it could not happen to anyone else, it is entirely in keeping with Him, we begin to see that the whole story is in keeping too, and that it rings true. The impression made upon our minds is that of the godliness, humility, and virtue of this woman. We must not rate her too low because Romanist tradition has rated her too high. The suspicion that inevitably fell on her must have been heartbreaking to a woman of her type. It was Joseph, and not she, who found comfort in the text about a virgin mother in Isaiah. The proof of Mary’s account of those great happenings is the character of her Son, but it was thirty years before that was manifested. It is quite probable that she never spoke of it, after Joseph, the. one person in whom she could confide, was dead. After the resurrection, it was time to tell, and there was hope that it would be believed. If Luke did not get the story, directly or indirectly, from Mary, where did he get it? Not from the first Gospel. The differences are too great. For instance, there is the puzzling feature of the two genealogies, with no hint anywhere as to how they were to be reconciled. Each seems to be unconscious of the other. We can only theorize. Perhaps the best explanation available is that Matthew gives us the royal line, running not always from father to son but from each man to his legal successor traced down to Joseph. Luke on the other hand gives the list of Mary’s ancestors, in the natural line from son to father, but with the husband’s name inserted instead of the wife’s, because of a convention that female names do not appear. It has been suggested that Joseph and Mary were kin, and that Luke gives their common genealogy, but this is doubtful. There is Jewish evidence that Heli or Eli was the name of Mary’s father. Jesus was widely recognized as son of David. The blind men called Him so. Paul tells us so three times over. He Himself asked the Jews how the Messiah could be David’s Lord and also David’s son. This seems to indicate that there was not only a legal but also a blood relationship, which could only come through Mary. 
Where could Luke have got the idea of a virgin birth, we ask again, if not from Mary and not from the first Gospel? Greek mythology tells fables, often coarse fables, of heroes with a divine father and a human mother, but nothing resembling the Christian doctrine of a virgin mother. It has been suggested that the idea comes from the prophecy in Isaiah (7: 14). Here a good deal turns on the actual words used. The Hebrew word is almah. Probably the nearest English equivalent is “maiden.” It means a young woman and implies virginity without stressing it. It is applied to Rebekah, and to Miriam (Gen. 24: 43; Exod. 2: 8. The other occurrences are Psa. 68: 25; Prov. 30: 19; Song 1: 3; 6: 8). When virginity is stressed, the word used is bethulah. That a remarkable Person was to be born is confirmed by Isaiah’s further prophecy, “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given . . . the mighty God.” His name was to be Emmanuel, God with us. 
The contemporary prophet Micah also refers to a notable birth which has evidently been spoken of before in the language of prophecy: “Until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth,” and this is in connection with the going forth of a ruler from Bethlehem Ephratah and is obviously messianic. But there is no evidence that the Jews of the first century were expecting that the Messiah, or anyone else, would be born of a virgin. The Greek translation of Isaiah made a hundred years before Christ did indeed translate almah by parthenos, “virgin,” though this is rather surprising, and later Greek versions render it differently, probably to avoid giving too much away to Christian propagandists. It seems clear then that both Isaiah and Micah foretold the birth that was to take place at Bethlehem, but that it was little if at all recognized by the Jews as miraculous. Therefore, Luke is not at all likely to have obtained the idea of a virgin birth from Matthew, or pagan sources, or from the Jews. He got it from Mary. 
Does modern medical or biological knowledge throw any light on the subject? It may be that in the providence of God, the telling was entrusted to a physician, to meet and answer this question. But there is nothing in Luke’s narrative that would not be just as likely to be written by a layman. As is well-known, his medical mind is often plain enough later in the Gospel, but not here. Nor can modern medical science add anything. The phenomenon called parthenogenesis by the biologists, not uncommon among insects, has nothing to do with the virgin birth of the Bible. It means that fresh individuals may be produced by adult females without the cooperation of any male. It is true that the unfertilized ovum of a sea urchin can be made to develop, by treating it with certain chemicals; a frog ovum, not fertilized, may be made to develop as far as the tadpole stage by pricking it with a very fine needle. In higher animals, no such results can be obtained as far as we know at present. Modern science, then, has nothing to teach us about the subject before us. 
Let us finish by stating our conclusions in as few words as possible. Belief or disbelief in the virgin birth of Christ is the acid test of Christian orthodoxy. We ought not to rest our belief in the deity of Christ on the story of the virgin birth, but follow the method of the Gospels and establish faith in Jesus Christ as a Divine Person first, and then find in the narrative of the first and third Gospels the only satisfying explanation as to how such a Person came to be born. The birth stories are derived from the only two individuals who could know all the truth, Joseph and Mary. The verse in Isaiah about the almah is a prophecy of the virgin birth but did not give rise to expectation of it by the Jews of the first century. 
The student who wishes to read a thoroughly scholarly and well documented book on the subject is advised to consult J. Gresham Machen’s “The Virgin Birth of Christ” The preacher who wishes to preach about it should by all means read Alexander Whyte’s “Bible Characters: Joseph and Mary."
Prof. Short; M.D. B.S., B.Sc., F.R.G.S. is Emeritus Professor of Surgery at the University of Bristol, Surgeon at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, and a Vice-President of The Inter-Varsity Fellowship. He is a frequent writer and speaker for the Inter-Varsity Fellowship in England.
"Eternity" Dec. 1950