The Birth of the King
The Virgin Birth
by
John MacArthur
All Rights Reserved
(A copy of this message on cassette tape may be obtained by calling
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Matthew 1:18-25 Tape GC 2181
Open your Bible with me, if you will to Matthew chapter 1, Matthew chapter 1.
And we’re looking this evening at verses 18 to 25 of this first chapter. We
began last week a study in the record of Matthew, the record really of the life
of Jesus Christ is recorded by the evangelist Matthew, commonly known as the
Gospel of Matthew. You’re going to find that every element of life will be
touched by this Book, tremendously, forceful, powerful statement on the person
of Jesus Christ, and the principles that God has ordained for human existence.
But in our lesson for tonight we come to verses 18 to 25, and these verses deal
with the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Matthew begins his Gospel by considering
Christ. And it’s a very important passage, let me read it to you, you follow
along as I read. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way: When, as his
mother, Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found
with child of the Holy Spirit.
Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public
example, was minded to put her away privately. And while he thought on these
things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying,
Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife; for that
which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she shall bring forth a
son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS; for he shall save his people from their
sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and
shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which, being
interpreted, is God with us. Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the
angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, And knew her not
till she had brought forth her first born son; and he called his name JESUS.”
Now in Matthew chapter 22 verse 42, Jesus asks the Pharisees a question that has
been, been voiced in every generation since then. Jesus said, “What think ye of
Christ? Whose son is he? What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? That’s the
question Jesus asked in Matthew 22:42, and it’s a question that needs to be
asked in every age, to every person. Whose son is He? Now the Jewish leaders
believed that the promised Messiah would be the son of David. They believed that
from a human viewpoint He would be a member of the royal lineage of David, the
royal family, the royal line. And frankly they weren’t sure of much more than
that. Ah, they for the most part seemed to reject the idea that the Messiah
would be God in human flesh, though there may be some indication that a few of
them may have felt that way.
The preponderance of the Jewish people at that time seemed to have been
convinced that the King they were going to gain would be of the seed of David, a
human being in every sense of royal lineage. In fact when Jesus claimed to be
both the son of David and the Son of God, they accused Him of blasphemy. They
expected Him to be of the royal line of David but apparently not to be deity, in
human flesh. And I think people today are still denying that. I, I think people
today are willing to let Jesus be a royal seed, they’re willing to let Him be a
son of David, they’re willing let...to let Him be even one of a kingly line but
they’re not anxious for Him to be deity, God in human flesh. It’s all right to
be the son of David, but not the Son of God. And even at Christmas time I am
reminded of a carol which they sing that says this, Christ by highest heaven
adored, Christ the everlasting Lord, late in time behold Him come, offspring of
the virgin’s womb, veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the Incarnate Deity,
pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Immanuel, hark the herald angels
sing, glory to the new born King. Now that verse of that particular Christmas
carol is a verse that is built around the theme that He is God. And even though
the world may sing the song, they’re not really ready to receive the reality of
it.
To show you that Redbook Magazine over ten years ago took a poll of students in
Protestant seminaries, 56% of the students in Protestant seminaries studying for
the ministry rejected the idea of the virgin birth, 56%. The legacy of that poll
and those students ten years ago is modern liberalism. The Survey Research
Center of the University of California at Berkeley polled the denominations to
get their view on the virgin birth, 69% of the American Baptists believed in the
virgin birth, 66% of the Lutherans believed in the virgin birth, 57% of the
United Presbyterians, 39% of the Episcopalians, 34% of the Methodists, and 21%
of the Congregationalists believed in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.
Now the church in, in many, many ways, the church not evangelical but the church
liberal is not even ready to accept the deity of Jesus Christ, and His virgin
birth so it seems rather obvious that the world isn’t beating a path to the door
of this great concept in reality. But you shouldn’t be surprised, the Apostle
Paul said in Romans chapter 3 these words, “For what if some did not believe?
Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let
God be true, and every man (what?) a liar.” So says Paul in Romans 3:3 and 4.
Don’t ever base your theology on majority rule. There may be people who deny the
virgin birth, there may be people who flagrantly and blatantly fight against the
deity of Jesus Christ, but maybe even more subtle than that are the people who
ignore the virgin birth. Reading a quote by someone that you all know, Robert
Schuller at Garden Grove Community Church, this is a quote from the Wittenberg
door January 1976 he said quote, “I could not in print or in public deny the
virgin birth of Christ, but when I have something I can’t comprehend I just
don’t deal with it.” End quote. Well, maybe that is the most serious error of
all. Because that’s very subtle.
To just ignore the virgin birth. We cannot doubt it, and we cannot deny it and
we cannot ignore it if we simply open our eyes and look at Matthew 1 verses 18
to 25, it’s there. Doctor Walvoord the president of Dallas Theological Seminary
says, and I quote, “The incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ is the central fact
of Christianity, upon it the whole superstructure of Christian theology
depends.” End quote. The whole essence of Christianity people, is predicated on
the fact that Jesus is God in human flesh, and that is something made clear at
the very birth of Christ, an essential doctrine.
You see if Jesus had a human father then the Bible is untrustworthy, because the
Bible claims He did not. And if Jesus was born simply of human parents, there is
no way to describe the reason for His supernatural life. His virgin birth, His
substitutionary death, His bodily resurrection and His second coming are a
package of deity, you cannot isolate any one of those and accept only that one
and leave the rest, or vice versa, accept them all but one. You believe all of
those realities that are the manifestation of His deity or you do not. And so we
must face the question that Jesus posed to the Pharisees again, whose son is He?
Now Matthew gives us the human answer to whose son he is in the genealogy which
we studied last week. Humanly speaking whose son is He? Son of David. Now this
week we look at the next section and we have the divine answer in verses 18 to
25, whose Son is He? Son of God. Son of David, humanity, Son of God, deity. Both
of those are essential to an understanding of the incarnation. Jesus is God in a
human body. Humanly through the lineage of David He gains the right to rule the
world, and from the standpoint of deity He gains the very essence of the nature
of God by having been born without a human father through the agency of the
Spirit of God Himself. And so Matthew in writing his Gospel squarely faces his
Jewish readers and all the readers of aIl the ages, and he gives them the
answer. The genealogy of Jesus tells you whose son He is, David. And the birth
of Jesus tells you whose Son He is, God.
Now if Matthew 1:1 to 17 the genealogy were all that could be said, then Christ
may have had the legal right to be the King, but He could have never redeemed
men, He could have never conquered death, He could have never conquered sin, He
could have never conquered Satan and hell. For that He had to be God, and so
Jesus was the God man, 100% deity, 100% humanity, that is the message of chapter
one of Matthew, and so he splits his chapter into two parts dealing with the
human and then the divine.
Now let me add a footnote that you might think about. Matthew may be writing in
an apologetic manner. And by that I don’t mean he was apologizing for what he
was saying. Apologetics comes from a Greek word apologia which means a speech in
defense of, and it may be that Matthew is actually writing here not simply just
to lay out the facts: but that he is really writing to counter a certain thing
that was going on. He is really writing to counter a certain slander.
For example, we know that at the time of Jesus Christ there were some who
accused Him of being an illegitimate son, a child born out of wedlock, a bastard
son, the son of a Roman soldier who cohabitated with Mary, and Mary was an
adulteress, and thus Jesus was an illegitimate child. Those kind of slanders
were in existence at that time. And it may have been that Matthew was not just
pedantically recording the facts of the birth of Christ, but that he was
countering a slander that existed about his dear Lord. And this text sets such a
slander right.
The virgin birth is essential enough for the Apostles’ Creed to speak of Jesus
as conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary. That’s always been a
cardinal fact of Christianity, and it’s always been one that is attacked by
false doctrine.
Now the world has had its unusual births. I mean I remember back in...reading
about the first quintuplets, I think they were the Dionne quintuplets born about
1934, long before I was ever a twinkle in my father’s eye. And we in our own
lifetime in the United States have seen the, the...I think it was the Fisher
quintuplets and then more recently about 1973 the Stanic sextuplets, we’ve seen
some unusual births is the point.
I remember when our first little guy Matthew was born and we thought we really
had a, a monstrosity, what was he honey? Ten pounds and two ounces or something
and he was a good healthy kid. And at the same day we thought boy, I bet...you
know how gathers...we got the biggest kid in the place, right? Run right out and
bought him a football. And ah, I read in the paper the same day there was a baby
born sixteen pounds and some odd ounces. Now that is a baby: that is a baby
folks. I mean there have been some unusual births, we are aware of that, but
there is no birth ever in the history of humanity that is as singularly
spectacular as the birth of Jesus Christ.
And any rejection of Christ’s supernatural origin leaves His supernatural life
and His supernatural death and His supernatural resurrection inexplicable. You
got to have it all, or any of it to make sense. And if Jesus wasn’t virgin born,
then the claim that He can save is highly questionable. So Matthew to begin with
affirms the virgin birth.
Now let’s look at five features, five distinct elements appearing in the
narrative. And I like to take a narrative like this and even though it isn’t
divided up in terms of logical thought, it’s just a narrative, but if we divide
it up we can kind of get a look at the single ah, highlights of it, and that’s
the purpose in doing that and there’s probably an outline in a bulletin if you
have one there you could follow. But we see five things, the virgin birth
conceived, confronted: clarified, connected and consummated. Those are not
profound words they’re just hooks to hang your thoughts on. First of all, the
virgin birth conceived, then confronted, then clarified, then connected and then
consummated.
Now by the way, it’s most interesting, how certain liberal theologians deal with
this problem here. They say, well, yes, we do agree that of course this is an
account of a virgin birth, but after all Matthew was written by a well meaning
fellow who was not inspired by God. And they tell us that at the time in which
Matthew wrote, they don’t know what time that was as I told you last time,
there’s about a 30 year possibility, but around that time from 40 to 70 A.D.,
around that time they say there were a lot of virgin birth myths floating
around. And it just so happened that is was a kind of a popular thought and so
when Matthew wanted to lay out his deal on Jesus, he just snatched one out of
the air and incorporated it here. Because there were so many virgin birth myths
floating around.
You want to know something? There have always been a lot of virgin birth myths
floating around, guess who made ‘em up? Satan: why? He is the master what?
Counterfeiter, deceiver. I told you last time about how he, how he took
Semiramis the high priestess of Babylonian cultism and her son supposedly born
by a sunbeam, and as far back as Babylonian mystery religions began to
counterfeit the virgin birth, the son died when he was killed by a wild boar,
stayed dead for forty days and his mother wept and prayed for forty days and he
came alive: and that’s where lent came from: lent has nothing to do with the
Bible. But the mixture of the Babylonian false systems of religions with, with
Christianity has created the muddled mother child cult that is known today in
Catholicism as Mariolatry.
So it’s always been those things, let me give you an illustration of one. By the
way, writers from as far back as Origen who wrote early on in the Christian era,
writers from then to the present, have shown us very clearly the foul character
of such tales, they’re very, very questionable: I mean there’s just no
comparison.
I’ll give you an illustration. There was a legend that Alexander the Great, you
remember Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great
conquered the world, ah, taking the world from the Medo Persians, he swept east
with a great army and conquered the world for Greece. Well, Alexander the Great,
it was claimed was virgin born, okay? Here’s the story, a serpent snake was once
seen sharing the bed of Olympas, now Olympas. was the wife of Philip of Macedon.
So she cohabitated with a snake. And of course we all know if we know anything
about Greek legend who that snake was. There was one of the Greek gods who more
than any other was a sexual deviate. Whenever there’s some weird sexual thing,
you can always figure that it was Zeus, he had a problem. And so frequently in
Greek culture you find the god Zeus ah, taking the form of an animal for some
strange cohabitation, and that’s what they say occurred in the case of Alexander
the Great, this was Zeus in the form of a snake, crawled in bed with Olympias
and made Olympias pregnant, and Zeus also appeared often as a bird and sometimes
he even appeared as foam on the sea, knocking ships over and things, strange
stuff. But anyway, what the legend says is that when Philip of Macedon discerned
what his wife had done his own sexual desire was dulled and hence the product of
the union had to have been born of the snake, and it was none other than
Alexander and thus Alexander the Great was the child of Zeus. That is the virgin
birth story of Alexander the Great. A filthy, vile, inconceivable, asinine, not
to be compared story with that of the Word of God.
Now to say that Matthew just happened to find a few of those deals up in the air
and yanked one down and slapped it on Jesus’ life is to do two things, number
one, it’s to accuse Matthew of being a blatant liar, and number two, it’s to say
that the Word of God is in fact not the Word of God, but the word of man. This
story is history beloved, not fantasy, it is history.
Now, there wasn’t really a lot of talk about the Messiah being virgin born. I
mean they didn’t really see that, even though it was sort of veiled in the Old
Testament and even though there was Isaiah 7:14 and there were other passages
that maybe kind of la...leaned that way. But they didn’t really see that, but
there was evidence and I want you to note this in your mind, there was Old
Testament evidence that the Messiah would be God.
Now it was veiled, and it wasn’t just flat out, but there were at least
indications in the Old Testament that the Messiah would be deity. And we’re not
going to take time to go into those, but just take that and put it in your, in
your file somewhere up in your mind. But it was very vague. And it wasn’t until
the New Testament that the full mystery of Godliness, that God was manifest in
the flesh was really unfolded, it became crystal clear in the New Testament.
Naturally then, if it is clear in the New Testament that Jesus is God in human
flesh, then what will be the number one point of attack of every false system?
The deity of Jesus Christ, invariably they all do it. Now the facts are clear in
the narrative, they are here to support the fact that very...from the very
beginning, Jesus was the Son of God, God in human flesh. No matter what the Jews
may or may not have believed, no matter what the legends were, no matter what
the critics said, no matter what the slander said, Matthew records the facts.
Now let’s see how this incredible event occurred. First of all, point number
one, the virgin birth conceived, verse 18, the virgin birth conceived. This
miracle is so incredible, that I hope you haven’t heard it so often that your
senses are dulled to the spectacular unbelievable supernaturalness of this
thing. Verse 18, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way: When, as his
mother, Mary, was espoused (or betrothed) to Joseph, before they came together,
she was found with child by the Holy Spirit.” Now we’ll stop there. Now here you
have the virgin birth conceived. Here the Spirit of God through the writer
Matthew tells us that Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit.
Now let me just show you something about the verse that I think is fascinating,
see the word “birth,” the word birth at the beginning? That is the very same
Greek word as the word in verse 1 of chapter 1, where it says, “The book of the
genealogy,” it is the same word for genealogy. In other words: he is simply
giving you the genealogy of Jesus from the divine side, 1:1, “The book of the
genealogy, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Over here, “Now the genealogy
of Jesus Christ was in this way.” And this is the divine side, He was conceived
by the Holy Spirit of God, see? Just two sides of the same genealogy.
The genealogy of Jesus Christ was in this manner, “When his mother, Mary,” and
we don’t know much about Mary, I wish we knew more about her we don’t know much
about Mary.
Let me see if I can kind of put some things together for you. It may be, this is
a real possibility, let me just see if I can find that verse for you, John 19:25
I think it is, you don’t need to look it up. “There stood by the cross of Jesus
his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary, of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” Now
we don’t know much about Mary, but apparently Mary had a sister, the wife of
Clopas who also was named Mary, which is not necessarily uncommon. So we know at
least one person in the immediate family, and it is also true, according to Luke
chapter 1 and verse 36, listen to this, “And, behold, (it says) thy cousin,
Elisabeth, has also conceived a son.” And who was her son? John the Baptist. So
we know at least a sister: it is very likely that that reference there is
referring to a regular blood sister in John 19, and we know of her cousin
Elisabeth, so we know a little bit about her family, and if we can take the
genealogy of Luke and assign it to Mary’s family her father’s name was ah, Heli,
H e 1 i. She and Elisabeth being related thus Jesus and John the Baptist were
also related. Now we don’t know much about Mary other than that, her early life
was spent in Nazareth, she was probably poor, probably hard working, and no
doubt a very righteous lady. I think if you want a good character study of Mary:
you can just simply listen to her.
In Luke 1 you have a parallel account of the enunciation and all of that. And of
course when Mary found out what the Spirit of God had done and what was going to
happen you know, it said, “The Spirit of God will come upon you, and the power
of the Highest shall overshadow you; and that which is born of you shall be
called the Son of God.” Luke 1:35, you’re going to have a child, and it’s going
to be the Son of God, deity. And verse 38 tells us about Mary’s character,
because of her response, “And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it
unto me according to thy word.” Now what do you learn about Mary right there?
She submitted to what? God’s what? God’s word.
Verse 45, and Mary, it says, “And blessed is she that believed.” Blessed is she
that believed. Elisabeth and Mary having a conversation. We learn a second thing
about Mary, not only did she submit to the word of God but she was a woman of
what? Faith, she believed God.
Now listen ladies, if an angel came and told you that, would you just say, be it
unto you even as the word of God has said. would somebody say, “Ohhh, what a
great person of faith, she must have been a great,”... you know most women would
have said, “Say Joseph, I had this weird dream. I’ve got to go see a counselor.”
She believed, great lady of faith.
And by the way, I would just remind you that that kind of faith is
characteristic of a righteous person, a person who submits to the authority of
the Word of God and who lives by faith in that Word even when it makes
absolutely no sense, and there was no human historical precedent on which she
could say, this is true, that’s a woman who’s righteous. She accepted it, and
most lovely was her Magnificat as the Bible, or as history has called it. “And
Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord.” Luke 1:?6. “My spirit hath rejoiced.
For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden; for, behold, from
henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath
done to me great things; and holy is his name.” Oh, what a godly lady, there was
no quizzical thing in her mind, there was no doubt; there was no misgiving;
there was no pondering; there was no wondering, there was no questioning, there
was an instant submission and an instant belief that this in fact was God’s
truth. What a righteous lady. She was so plugged into God, she was a true Old
Testament saint, that she could sense when God was speaking. And she went on to
praise God for what He was going to do.
It might be interesting for you to know it, do you know what the word Mary is in
Greek? The word Mary in Greek is Miriam, and do you know what the root meaning
is? Rebelliousness. Poor lady, badly named, she wasn’t rebellious.
Now she was married...or betrothed look back at verse 18, it says she was
betrothed to Joseph. Now Joseph, we don’t know anything about, background. We
just don’t know anything. He is described by a Greek term that can be translated
carpenter or mason. And it may have been that a man did both, if he built houses
he would need to be able to lay the bricks and frame the windows too, and the
doors, so perhaps he did both. But he was an undoubtedly a poor hard working
man, and I’m quite confident he was a righteous man, it says in verse 19,
“Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man.” He too was a godly man* he was a
true Old Testament saint, so here are two Old Testament saints.
Now they were very young, most Bible scholars feel they were in their teen years
since marriages in that day and age occurred to ladies as young as, would you
believe 12? The betrothals occurred when girls were 1? and I3. And so they were
most likely older teenagers because we sense that because of the tremendous
maturity of Mary.
And it says there, look at the word exp...espoused, we get the word spouse from
that, but it is in the Greek betrothed. Now what does this mean? We’ve had a lot
of discussion about it. What, what do you mean they were betrothed? Does that
mean they were engaged, does that mean they were going steady, and Mary wore
Joseph’s ring around her neck on a chain, what does it mean? Wore his
letterman’s jacket. What does it mean?
Mary and Joseph were betrothed. Well I’ll give you a little background. The Old
Testament and the rabbis as well in the rabbinical writings distinguish two
stages in marriage, in Hebrew marriage. Two, one is called the Kiddushin. the
other is the Huppa, or the Huppa, didn’t say that H properly. The Kiddushin and
the Huppa. Now the Kiddushin was the betrothal and it...what it was, Deuteronomy
chapter 20 verse 7 tells you about it, if you want to jot that down, Deuteronomy
20:7. What it was, was two families would draw up a contract, or two individuals
could do it, draw up a contract that promised marriage, okay? It was, now watch
this, a binding contract, and if at any time during that contract of betrothal
period you violated that marriage vow you had to be divorced in an official
sense. You were constituted legally married though there were no physical
relationships whatever. It was a normally twelve month period, and it was a
period of protection for the would be husband and wife, so that there would be a
period in which to prove a fidelity. So that if the girl was pregnant that would
become very manifest in that period. If anybody was going to be unfaithful or
there were going to be problems, there was a period of time in which that could
be worked out. And by the way, during that period, there was not a lot of social
contact at all. They still maintained a certain distance, it was simply a
promise that was made, a contract that was made.
Now, at the end of the period, it could go as long as 12 months sometimes 6
months, the Huppa took place, that was the wedding, and weddings lasted
approximately 7 days. You think you got it tough now father, when you marry off
your daughter how would you like to have the neighborhood over for 7 days? You
got to feed ‘em, provide drink for ‘em, that’s the marriage at Cana, remember
what happened? They ran out of wine, right? One of the reasons that when you ah,
when you gave your daughter away to be married, you wanted something in payment
for her was of course to take care of some of your own needs, so there was what
was called the mohar, that was the price. And the price of the girl would
vary, depending on the girl, you know, it could be anything from a couple dozen
sheep to a lame chicken I suppose. But anyway, there may have been some girls
that just...you could say, you can have ‘em for nothin’, I’ll throw in a couple
sheep, you know?
But basically, basically there was what was called the mohar, and this
was the price that was paid, and ah, it was paid at the point of betrothal, it
was usually...according to Genesis 3?, it was goods or services. And it had
several purposes, number one was to compensate the father, because the father
would have to expend a great amount of money in order to marry his daughter off.
It was also to act as life insurance for the wife, and normally the Jewish
father would hold it in trust and if the husband died he would give it back to
the daughter. And it also was kind of a divorce insurance. Because the husband
of course would have to give it up: and you know, it usually was a rather
formidable price and he had no hope of ever realizing it back again unless he
stayed married to the girl and received it back by inheritance after the death
of the father. So, it, it tended to keep the marriage together plus you couldn’t
run around and marry too many people or you’d be destitute, givin’ all your
stuff away.
So the betrothal period then was the period prior to the Huppa or the wedding
itself when the marriage was consummated physically and all. The betrothal
period was a period of testing, a period of probation to insure the brides
virginity and the fidelity of the husband and wife and so forth. But they used
the term husband and wife, because it was as good as valid, just not
consummated, and you’ll note that because it says in verse 25, “He knew her not
till she had brought forth her first born son.” And verse 18 says, “before they
came together.” In other words it was in this betrothal period that Mary was
made to be with child by the Holy Spirit.
So that there would be absolutely no question about whether Joseph was the
father, and Joseph was a godly man, a righteous man who would not have violated
God’s standard. You know God looks with great concern on purity, and virginity
is of high value to God, it’s a sacred thing, not something to be trifled with.
And I’m reminded of how beautiful and lovely and sacred virginity is when I see
in the ease of Mary, how honored she was because of it. And so she was found
with child, by the Holy Spirit. Now Mary knew it, Mary knew this. Now we don’t
have the Luke account in this text so let’s look at Luke 1 and let’s find out
how Mary found out.
Luke chapter 1 verse 26, “And in the sixth month the angel, Gabriel,” oh of
course this is six months after Elisabeth conceived so Mary was made pregnant in
Elisabeth’s six months, month so that John the Baptist was six months older than
Jesus, which gave him just enough time to get the ball rolling. “And in the
sixth month the angel, Gabriel, was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named
Nazareth.” This is where Mary lived, in fact if you go to Nazareth, Nazareth
today you’ll go to a place and they’ll tell you this is the well where Mary used
to draw water when she little, don’t you believe it. Verse 27, “Go see a virgin
espoused to a man (again betrothed, the Bible’s very clear about this, the
marriage was not consummated) whose name was Joseph, of the house of David: and
the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou
who art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And
when she saw him, she was troubled ... well I can guess, little old simple girl
up there in hayseed part of the country, where everybody was a farmer, and it
wasn’t even Jerusalem, it was kind of insignificant and all of a sudden an
angel, great glorious angel, not just any old angel but Gabriel, Gabriel the
hero of Yahweh, Gabriel comes in and says, Hail, Mary, highly favored, blessed
art thou among women.
And when she saw him she was troubled at the saying, considered in her mind what
manner of greeting this should be.” What in the world is he saying? I’m nobody.
“And the angel said, ‘Now, don’t be afraid, Mary: for you have found favor with
God. And, behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and
thou shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son
of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father,
David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever: and of his kingdom
there shall be no end.’ Then said Mary unto the angel, ‘How shall this be,
seeing I know not a man?’” You see here is Mary affirming her virgin...her
virginity. “And the angel answered, and said unto her, ‘The Holy Spirit shall
come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore
also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall (not only be called the
son of David, but what?) Son of God.’” I mean what an incredible announcement.
To just a nobody lady living in a little dinky place called Nazareth. And so,
Mary knew it, and when she became pregnant she knew why.
Poor Joseph, he didn’t know. When he found out it was a shock, it was a shock.
It jolted him, he knew Mary, see? I mean he knew this girl, that he was
betrothed to, he knew the quality of her character, he knew the righteous
standard by which she lived, he knew her, her stature before God, he knew Mary,
this was totally out of character. It made chapter no sense at all. And he knew
Deuteronomy chapter 22 well enough to know that back then when a woman became
pregnant with a child outside of wedlock the punishment was what? Death, death.
In Deuteronomy chapter 22 there are many verses, let me just remind you of some
that speak to this issue. Deuteronomy 22:13, “If a man take a wife, and go in
unto her, and hate her, And give occasion of speech against her, and bring up an
evil name on her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came into her, I found
her not a virgin;” Well if he finds that to be true, “Then they shall, (verse
21) bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of the
city shall stone her with stones that she die, because she’s wrought folly in
Israel, to play the harlot.” And of course there are other things involved in
between, there’s...this whole chapter deals with various kinds of harlotry.
Verse 22, “If a (mound) man be found lying with a woman married to an husband,
then both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman. Put
away the evil. If a damsel is a virgin be betrothed to a husband, and a man find
her in the city, and lie with her, Then bring them to the gate and stone them.”
So it covered every element of this, death would have been what happened then,
and Joseph was literally rocked to the very core of his heart.
He loved Mary. And Mary had, you see absolutely no way under the sun to protect
her reputation. She’s going to go out and say, listen folks, this baby is
conceived by God. And they’re going to say, uh huh, that’s a new one Mary, we’ve
heard 'em all, that’s a new one. She has no way to protect her reputation. So
the blessed Spirit of God protected it for her, right here in the pages of the
Word of God. Let there be no reproach on Mary ever. If Jesus is an ordinary man,
if Jesus is simply just like all the other men then we can say, He was probably
born like all the other men, but He isn’t like anybody else, and He wasn’t born
like anybody else. If He is simply the illegitimate child of Mary’s infidelity
or if He is the child of Joseph’s natural sexual activity with Mary then He is
not God, and if He’s not God His claims are lies, and if His claims are lies His
salvation is a hoax, and if His salvation is a hoax we are damned.
So Matthew records for us clearly that God entered the flesh by a virgin, in
which seed was planted by the Holy Spirit. You say, well how does that work?
Don’t ask me that. People always want to ask those kind of questions, people
always ask the questions you can’t answer. I’ll never forget the times when I’d
be teaching on the Book of Revelation, and I’ll say, you know and the Word of
God says that the Lord is going to give you a name which no man knows, and
invariably someone would come up and say, what is that name? I don’t even
understand how normal human birth works, and I don’t know any Doctor who really
understands the mystery of it. Don’t ask me how this works. God did it.
So a cloud of suspicion and a cloud of shame and a cloud of scandal soon hung
ominously over Mary. In all of human history there’d never been a virgin birth.
When people saw an unwed mother there was only one conclusion, that’s all,
except in this case. There was another conclusion, the Holy Spirit, nothing new
for the Holy Spirit in this sense, His was always a work of creation, wasn’t it?
In Genesis 1 He brooded over the emptiness and the nothingness and He created
everything. In Acts chapter 1 He moved upon the situation of people gathered in
the upper room and He created the church, and why shouldn’t He be able to create
the marvelous miracle of the virgin birth?
And don’t be shocked, don’t be shocked, we should have expected it, really go
all the way back to the first Book of the Bible, the third chapter, Genesis,
Genesis chapter 3 verse 15, now we’re way back folks. And when the, the Lord God
is speaking here to Satan, Satan has done what he did in causing Adam and Eve to
fall, and God says to him, “I will put—Genesis 3:15—I will put enmity, or
animosity or antagonism or hatred—it’s the word for enemy really, I will
put...make an enemy—between thee and the woman, (now watch) between thy seed
(and what?) her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
He said, look Satan, someday there’s going to come a woman, and that woman is
going to have a seed and you may bruise His heel, and he did at Calvary, but
He’ll do what? He’ll bruise your head, and you notice that it says Jesus would
be the seed of the woman, her seed. Only one time in the history of the world
did a woman ever have a seed. The seed is in the man, but once in the woman and
that’s what Genesis 3:15 said. And Paul says in Galatians 4:4, he said, “In the
fullness of time, Christ came, (watch this) made of a woman, made under the
law.” Made of a woman. Bypassing the curse of Jeconiah, as we saw in our last
study.
Now listen to me, now get this, if Jesus had had no human parents then He
wouldn’t have been man...he wouldn’t have been man at all, He, He wouldn’t have
been partaker of our flesh. On the other hand, if Jesus had two human parents He
could not have avoided the contamination of humanity. So He had to be the child
of man and yet the child of God, and that’s exactly what He was. He was born of
a sinner and yet He was sinless because He was equally born of God, deity
canceled humanity’s curse, the water of the nature of God drown the fire of the
nature of man. And so the virgin birth conceived.
Second point, the virgin birth confronted. What about poor Joseph? He doesn’t
know what’s happening, his little world has just come to an end. Joseph, a just
and righteous man, no doubt deeply committed to Mary waiting with anticipation
the day when they both are proven during the period of betrothal and can come
together to consummate the marriage. What about Joseph, verse 19, “Then Joseph,
her husband’” notice he’s in the called a husband even though they were
still/betrothal period, “being a just (or righteous) man, and not willing to
make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately.”
Now all of a sudden we see the virgin birth confronted. Joseph has to confront
this thing, he has to face it and the miracle is just very, very unclear to him,
he doesn’t understand it. He was jolted. And he was a, he was a just man, and he
didn’t want to put her away, he didn’t want to make her a public example.
Those are two participles by the way, two participles describing the character
of Joseph, he was a just man and he was not willing to make her a public
example. What do you mean he was a just man? It means he was a righteous Jew, he
was again a true Old Testament saint, godly man. And you know what a godly man
would say to himself? I can’t marry this lady in this condition. She’s violated
the principles of God, even though I care about her, even though I don’t
understand this thing, even though everything is a mystery to me I, I...as a
just man I must do what the law requires.
To call him a just man puts him in the same class with Zacharias and Elisabeth,
because the Bible says that, “They were righteous before God, walking in all His
commandments and ordinances, blameless.” It puts him in the category of Simeon
of whom the scripture says, “He was righteous and devout.” He was a real God
fearing Jew, and he knew that he had to be obedient to God’s laws, and God’s
laws say, when somebody does that there are consequences. Joseph was a true
saint.
So his first prompting came from his righteousness, but his second prompting
came from his concern, and it says he was not willing to make her a public
example. Now he had that option, two courses were open to Joseph in this day and
age. Had he been living in the day that Deuteronomy was written they would have
required one thing, but the laxness of Jewish...of the Jewish view of theocracy,
the laxness with which they kept the law of God had brought it about to this
point where they had substituted less stringent laws for the ones that God had
ordained, and that’s why their country got into so much trouble because they
violated God’s laws which were preventatives. And here in this lax day there
were two things open to Joseph, one was to make her a public example. And that
is how they...this is how they did it, he would charge her openly in a public
court with having committed adultery, she would be shamed, she would be brought
to trial, she would be convicted in front of everybody, ruined in terms of
reputation.
The other possibility was that they provided for a more quiet way, the two
parties could get together before two or three witnesses and write out a private
bill of divorcement, such as is indicated in Deuteronomy 24. And they would
write out this private little bill of divorcement, there would be no judicial
procedure, there would be no public knowledge, there would be no fanfare, nobody
would need to know, it was stated at that time that you did not even need to
write the cause for the divorce in the statement, so that she could go away
without anybody ever really knowing what had happened. It was done secretly. Now
this wasn’t necessarily God’s pattern, but this is what was allowable in the
laxness of the day in which Joseph lived, so he had those options.
By the way, the word put her away, see, it says, “He was minded to put her away
privately.” Put her away is apoluo, it’s the New Testament word for divorce, he
had to divorce her, that...because the betrothal was constituted as marriage.
And he said, well, I’ll put her away privately. He just couldn’t bring himself
to making Mary a public example, he just couldn’t bring himself to public scorn
and public shame, so he wanted to put her away privately.
But he had a hard time doing that. He just couldn’t get it to the very act, so
it says in verse 20, “And while he thought on these things,” stop right there.
No doubt he went to his bed in his own home in Nazareth, they’re still in
Nazareth here, and he was meditating and he was mulling over what he had to do,
and while he was mulling it over he fell asleep, he fell asleep.
And then we find the virgin birth clarified, clarified. The virgin birth
clarified in verse 20. O look what happened, he falls asleep, he’s confronted
it, it’s confusing him, he falls asleep and, “Behold, an angel of the Lord
appeared to him in a dream,” now I just want you to understand something, this
is not a dream like you have a dream, this is not a dream where what you see
isn’t real, it’s imaginary, somehow in some way in a dream kind of revelation
the dream turns into something real, it was a real angel and he really saw that
angel.
And by the way this is not uncommon to Matthew, there are at least 6, in fact
there are only 6 other times where we find this kind of communication: Matthew
chapter 2 has several, Matthew, yes, Matthew 1 here, Matthew 2, Matthew 27, and
the other ones in Acts 2:17 where it’s a prophetic.
So this is not in a totally isolated situation, God sometimes uses an angel in a
dream. And Joseph wasn’t dreaming it in the sense you think of it, he fell
asleep, began to dream and his dream turned to a reality. “And the angel said to
him, Joseph, thou son of David,” and I know why he said that second part, just
to reinforce, just to reinforce the lineage and the line of David. Boy, that
must have been something to hear. Thou son of David. He says this, “don’t be
afraid to take unto you Mary, your wife; for that which is conceived in her is
of the Holy Spirit.” You don’t have to be afraid Joseph, that which is conceived
in her is of the Holy Spirit.
This is the great reality people of the virgin birth, there was no human father.
This is the birth of God in human flesh. He is both man and God, and that’s why
for example in the Old Testament He’s called Tsemaeh which means the branch, and
did you note that He is called the branch of David in one passage and in another
one, the branch of Jehovah, see? He’s the offspring of David, and He is the
offspring of God. And did you know in Isaiah 9:6 He is called, “Wonderful,
Counselor, The Mighty (what?) God, the Father of eternity.”
And so, Joseph was to know that he had no fear in taking Mary, for what was
conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit. And verse 21 gives him further
instruction, “She shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:”
In Hebrew Jeshua, Joshua, Jehoshua, which means Jehovah shall save. And His name
will be Jesus, “for he shall save his people from their sins.” Now I want you to
notice something about verse 21, “She shall bring forth a son.” You notice he
doesn’t say, and Joseph, you will have a son. And His name shall be Jesus, for
He shall save His people, from your sins.
You know the Bible is very careful about never naming Joseph as the father of
Jesus, I don’t know if you know that. For example in Matthew 2:13 it says,
“Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee to Egypt.” Always the
mother. Why didn’t he say, take your child and your wife? Why the child and the
mother, always Joseph is removed from the actual fatherhood. 2:20 of Matthew,
“Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel.”
It’s always the child and His mother, never Joseph as the father. Virgin born,
and His name Jeshua, Jehoshua, Jesus, for He shall save His people from their
sins.
Beloved, that’s the reason He came, isn’t it? And that’s why the Book of Acts in
chapter 4 verse 12 says, “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is
none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Only
the name of Jesus, the one God man. It is God alone who saves. Like Psalm 20
says, there are some people who trust in horses, and some people who trust in
chariots, and some who trust in physical strength, and some who trust in their
knowledge, and their intuition, and their reputation, and their prestige, their
position, machinery, friends, whatever it is, education, but only Jesus can
save. He shall save His people from their sins. Only He is mighty enough to
save.
So, the virgin birth conceived, confronted, clarified. Fourth, and we’ll hurry
to a close. The virgin birth connected, the virgin birth connected, just so that
it doesn’t appear as if some, some last minute afterthought, some deal grabbed
out of the air like the critics said, some floating myth that was attached to
Jesus, Matthew comes in with a commentary in verses 22 and 23, the narrative
breaks here, the angel isn’t speaking anymore, Matthew talks and this is what he
says, and he does this all through Matthew, in fact fifty times in the Gospel of
Matthew he quotes the Old Testament, seventy six additional times he alludes to
it. And this is a formula that he uses. “Now all this was done, that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet,” and whenever the
prophet spoke it was the Lord, ”saying,” and he quotes Isaiah 7:14, “Behold, the
virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his
name Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us.” There is the virgin
birth connected to the Old Testament. This is not an afterthought, this is not
the pulling of a legend out of the air, this is the promise of God fulfilled. A
tremendous thing. They should have known.
Now all this was done that it might be filled up, that it might be made full,
that it might be accomplished, just exactly as Isaiah said. Now we could have a
great big long drawn out thing about what did Isaiah say, and why did he use the
word Almah instead of the word Bethulah, and did he mean virgin and blah, blah,
blah and on and on and on, there’s no reason...no reason to argue about that at
all. Suffice it to say, that the word Almah in Isaiah 7:14 is best translated
virgin, best translated virgin, and the people, the critics, the slanderers can
come and go and try to erase it, but they can’t erase the commentary of Matthew
on it, who used the word Parthenos which meant virgin, Matthew knew what it
meant even if they don’t. And it’s a little tough to get around the virgin birth
when it says over and over that the, the lady Mary had no relationships with a
man.
Why do they want to argue about Almah in Isaiah 7:14? Why don’t they listen to
God’s commentary on it? The setting of Isaiah’s prophecy is very simple. King
Ahaz was terrified that the kingdom of Judah might be destroyed by Syria and
Israel, Ahaz is sitting down in the bottom southern kingdom and he’s worried
about up north, here’s Israel and over here is Syria, and he’s afraid they’re
going to come down and they’re going to wipe out the Kingly line, so he’s really
afraid they’ll loose the Kingly line. So God comes along and says, let me give
you a promise, nothing’s going to happen to the Kingly line, nothing is going to
take away the Kingly line, here’s a sign, a virgin shall be with child and that
child will be Immanuel, God with us. He says, you look down the corridors of
history and there will be a virgin born child and He will guarantee you that
David’s line will never be broken. And Jesus came into the world, as the
fulfillment of that prophecy given by Isaiah to Ahaz, to show that God would
keep His promise and the throne of David would never be broken forever and ever
and ever and ever. So, the virgin birth is clarified.
By the way, “they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted, is
(what?) God with us.” El the last two letters of that word are His name for God,
El, El Shaddai, El Elyon, El Maqodeshkim all those names for God, El Immanu
means with us, God with us. Now you say, but they never called Him Immanuel. No,
that is not His title as far as a name is concerned, that is a description of
who He is, and many times the title is not necessarily the name, He was called
lots of things.
And so, the virgin birth is clarified and then it’s connected, to history past.
Fifthly, the virgin birth consummated. Verse 24, “Then Joseph, being raised from
sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife.”
Don’t you think that was a wonderful thing? Don’t you think that was the best
nap Joseph ever had? When he got up and it was all clear, oh, it isn’t just
Mary, I’m not just marrying Mary, I’m getting the Son of God thrown in on the
deal.
But he must have been a good man. Can you imagine the Almighty God of the
universe depositing His only Son in the home of a man who wouldn’t be a good
father, can you imagine that? I can’t imagine that. I, I just feel bad that not
more is said about Joseph. He must have been dead by the time Jesus died,
because he doesn’t appear anywhere. And at the cross, do you remember what Jesus
did? He looked down at John the beloved and He looked down at Mary, and He said,
Mary behold your son, and He said, John behold your mother, and you see He gave
somebody to Mary to take care of her. He’s going be gone, and no doubt Joseph
was long dead, we don’t know much about Joseph, but oh, I imagine he was a
wonderful man. Because I know God wouldn’t deposit His one and only Son in the
home of a man who wouldn’t be a good loving father.
And he must have been a wonderful man to deal with a perfect Son. Can you
imagine fathers, the frustration of that? No dad, it’s this way. When I get to
heaven, two people I want to meet, Joseph and Mary. Don’t you feel that way?
Bless Joseph’s heart, what joy there must have been when he woke up. And he took
Mary and they had the Huppa, the wedding ceremony. But not until after Jesus was
born, “he didn’t know her till she had brought forth her first born son:” and
then he did what the angel said, the angel said, do what? “call his name JESUS.”
The virgin birth consummated. They had the wedding, but he never touched Mary,
physically until after that baby was born.
There’s an interesting footnote. People always say, well do you think they had
other children? I know they had other children, the Bible gives the names of the
other children. And John 7 talks about Jesus’ brothers. But there’s an
interesting little footnote, in, in verse 25. The literal Greek is, “and he was
not in the habit of knowing her until she had brought forth her first born son.”
And the implication is, that once she had brought forth her first born son, he
was in the habit of knowing her. That’s the rendering of the Greek, they had a
normal human relationship, physically which produced many other children.
The supernatural birth of Jesus is the only way to account for the life that He
lived. Somebody once asked a Christian, well, if I told you that a child had
been born today in the city over there in that hospital without a human father,
would you believe me? To which the Christian replied, yes, if he lived as Jesus
lived. And that’s the fact. At the start of His life the Jews said Jesus was the
Son of a man who seduced Mary, at the end of His life they said, the disciples
stole His body and faked the resurrection. And Matthew begins with the answer to
the first slander, and ends his Gospel with the answer to the last slander and
spends the rest of the middle of it fighting all the other slanders, against the
dear Lord Jesus Christ.
He was none other than God in human flesh, and Matthew tells us He came to dwell
with the sick to heal them, He came to dwell with the demon possessed to
liberate them, with the poor in spirit to bless them, with the care ridden to
free them from care, with the lepers to cleanse them, with the diseased to cure
them, with the hungry to feed them, with the handicapped to restore them, but
most of all he says, that He “came to dwell with the lost, in order that he
might seek and (what?) save them.” Immanuel, God with us, infinitely rich,
became poor. Assumed our human nature, entered our sin polluted atmosphere
without ever being tainted by it, took our guilt, bore our griefs, carried our
sorrows, was wounded with our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, went
to heaven to prepare a place for us, sent His Spirit to dwell in our hearts,
right now makes intercession for us, and will someday came to take us to be with
Him. No wonder the Apostle Paul said, “Through his poverty we are made (what?)
rich.” Well, let’s pray.
Father, what a wonder, what a wonder it is, that Jesus was thus born, the God
man. Miracle of miracles that He should be man, and yet God. Thank You for the
lesson too Father, that when You want to do Your special works, Your mighty
works, Your supernatural works, Your miraculous works, You always find some
humble, faithful, trusting, righteous people, like Mary and Joseph. Thank You,
not only for the theology of the virgin birth but for the example of what
happens when God uses two simple people. May we be so righteous, so useful for
that which You would do today in our world in revealing Yourself. Thank You that
You have chosen the weak things to confound the mighty. Thank You that we who
have nothing to offer can be used by You. What a mystery.
May it so be that everyone gathered here comes to know that precious Lord Jesus
who came to save people from their sins, and that in knowing Him we become
humble, submissive, trusting, available people who can be used again to do Your
work in this world, and we’ll give You the praise in Jesus name, Amen.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "John MacArthur Collection" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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