Isaiah
7:14; "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:
Behold, a virgin will be with child and
bear a Son, and she will call His name Immanuel".
During the course of
these Christmas devotions we have looked at many aspects of the importance of
Christ’s incarnation. From the fulfilment of prophesies to the response and
obedience of many characters we see in our nativity scenes. Today I would like
to look at one of the most important parts of the Christmas narrative. The Virgin
Birth. In Christianity there are certain things that are at the core of our
faith, that must never be compromised. The Virgin Birth, Christ's Death and
Resurrection and the His Ascension are some of these essentials. They are what
I call the 4 pillars of Christ life. We must able to defend and understand why
these are factual truths. Unfortunately the doctrine of the virgin birth has
been both twisted or outright denied by many.
The book of Romans
speaks quite clearly of the sin nature that we are born into due to the sin of
Adam. Every person that is born is born into this sin, whether this is palatable
or not, that is the reality of all our beginnings. Since we are born into sin
it means that it is impossible for any of us to be 100% sinless. The wrath of
God would only be satisfied by a perfect, sinless offering. No man born from a
man and a woman could perform such an act, due to their inherited original sin.
No angel could be our substitutional sacrifice. And neither could God defy His
words to Adam that ‘the day you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, you will die’ and simply create ‘another Adam’. There was ONLY ONE WAY.
It had to be Jesus Himself coming to earth via supernatural means, thus avoiding
the seed of original sin. If the Virgin Birth was not true, then ALL of Christianity
crumbles. This is how important this event is. No one else has been born in
such a way. Unfortunately, when you read the Catechism of the Catholic Church
(490-493) it attributes the same avoidance of the inherited sin of Adam to the highly blessed Mary. This is called the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. To
put anyone, even a women as great as Mary on the same level as or Lord is an erroneous.
Neither is it correct to suggest that the ‘Perpetual Virginity’ of Mary is
accurate either (499). The Gospel writer, Matthew quells this issue in Matthew
13:55.
This Christmas let us
be in awe of the miraculous event that made our salvation possible.
No other person, no
other way. Jesus Only.
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