Wirksworth | 19/07/26 | The Virgin Birth | Julia Garratt

Wirksworth 

Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/354059/episodes/19514556-wirksworth-19-07-26-the-virgin-birth-julia-garratt.mp3

Julia continued our series of church fundementals, looking the virgin birth. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Okay, so when Neil said earlier on or Julia stepped in, well done, Julia, it was only a week earlier, so just want to put that into perspective. But I'm the kind of person that certainly for doing something like this, I'd like to have it sorted well in advance. Neil can wing it in the last few days, but I can't. And so last week I was getting a bit stressed because I hadn't started to put it down on paper, it's been in my head. Um, so I did invest in a few hours, not hours, maybe a couple of mornings, and I thought I must get it down on paper. Um, and I came down Friday morning and said to Neil, do you know what? I think I've done it, and it just happened really easily. I thought it was going to be hard or reasonably easily. Um, and then literally half an hour later, you got the call from Ian, and he said to me, We speak, and I said, Yes! And if I hadn't done that, it wouldn't have been like no way, no way, it would have sent me into a spiral. So I'm speaking on the virgin birth. Is there heat coming from somewhere, or is it just me? It's just the frame. Virgin birth. So we've been working through what would you call them? What's the word or the foundational truths that we believe in as a church since we're a new plant? And the virgin birth was on the list. Um, and we were passing around the list saying who wants to do this one, who wants to do that one, and I only picked this one because I really like Mary. That's the only reason. I thought, oh, I really like Mary so, but I just think she's amazing, isn't she? I mean, what a woman bringing up a son of God. Um so this talk is really a blend of the theology, I guess, of the virgin birth, but also Mary herself. Because I couldn't have done just one. So I also realize that to my knowledge, I'd actually never heard anyone speak on the virgin birth. Maybe you have. No, it's not something you hear about, is it? So it was really good to dig into it, actually. It's a fact that's, I guess, well, it's accepted as a fact, or it's often overlooked or not seen as important, I would think. It's not one of those things that you have to believe in when you get saved necessarily, you would probably wouldn't even know about it. So we don't talk about it too much. And maybe the whole idea of the virgin birth can seem a bit far-fetched as well. Therefore, it can be discounted. I don't know. But since the resurrection of Christ, there's been lots of schools of thought about the virgin birth and who Mary in fact was, and many of these have the roots in the Catholic faith. For example, the immaculate conception that she was sinless, Mary herself was sinless from the time she was conceived in her mother's womb. Um there's also the one that they think she's the queen of heaven. Um, so there's a lot of different oh, and the other perpetual virgin, I think, that she never actually had any more children after Jesus, that she remained a virgin, and the other children mentioned were Joseph's other wife or something. I don't know. Yeah, but the Bible doesn't really back that up. But we're gonna look at what Mary is to us and what the virgin birth is to us and what we believe in. So many would ask, does it really matter that Jesus was born of a virgin? And I would have to say the resounding answer is yes, it is. The virgin birth is not merely a Christmas story detail, it is central to who Jesus is and his plan of salvation. And I also want to talk about how it's a theological treasure, that's a good word, isn't it? And without it, everything else unravels, and it should be a foundational truth for us. And Mary, although being the mother of Jesus is mentioned so so little in the Bible. We're first introduced to her long before Jesus' birth, in fact, 700 years before his birth in the Old Testament, Isaiah 7, verse 14, and this is where God announced his plan for salvation. Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Emmanuel. We're all quite familiar with that verse, aren't we? And then in Matthew 1, in the New Testament, is recorded the fulfilment of this in verse 22 and verse 23. All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, God with us. So we can say with assurance that Mary was God's promised sign, and this is the first truth of the virgin birth. In the Gospels, we are introduced to her in Luke 1, verse 27 to 38, which I'm going to read. I got a bit carried away, and I think part of it I'm reading in the message, and part of it in the New Living Translation, so just bear with me if it doesn't sound exactly the same. In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to the Galilean village of Nazareth to a virgin engaged to be married to a man descended from David. His name was Joseph, and the virgin's name was Mary. Upon entering, Gabriel greeted her. Greetings, favoured woman, the Lord is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. Don't be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favour with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign over Israel for ever, and his kingdom will never end. Mary asked the angel, But how can this happen? I'm a virgin, and the angel replied, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. So Mary was a young girl by today's standards, probably, I think they estimate about 13 to 16, kind of in line with the kind of betrothal customs of that time in Palestine for a Jewish woman. So can you imagine what it must have been like having an angel appear to you like Gabriel? He was, we believe, God's chief messenger, and he was in this moment delivering what is most is the most important message for humanity. And artists over the centuries have been inspired by this moment, and I wanted to share some of their paintings because it was quite interesting looking at people's depictions of Angel Gabriel. So this one is Leonardo da Vinci, which is in Florence at the moment, apparently. He's quite a cool-looking angel, not as big as I would have thought for Gabriel. And the next one is Dante, which I think is a bit underwhelming. This one. He looks like a 12-year-old boy or something. This one's in the tate, apparently. The last one, my favourite, is Tanner. Just shows this kind of beautiful light just on the edge. And it leaves it to your imagination, actually, what you think Gabriel might have looked like. And Mary's face is beautiful. This is a lovely painting. This is apparently in Philadelphia. So this is the annunciation, the announcement to Mary that she would conceive and give birth to the Son of God. So I wonder, was it at that moment that the conception happened? That the word became flesh and that Jesus' life on earth began. So when James, you prayed at the beginning, thank you, Lord, that you're in this world, was it at that moment that he came? It's an interesting thought. Mary's willing submission is beautiful. Once she'd understood how it would happen, her words were, I am the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true. The human risk for her was high, the rejection and probable death for being pregnant and unmarried. But did those thoughts cross her mind, I wonder? I'm sure they did, but certainly the presence of God that Gabriel carried was enough to quickly convince her, wasn't it? She didn't try to argue like Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, who wanted proof as they were beyond childbearing age. And she didn't laugh like Sarah, the wife of Abraham, who was well into her eighties. And many theologians over the years have compared her willing submission to God's will as a reversal of Eve's disobedience in the Garden of Eden. And I loved this, and I personally hadn't really thought about this. So there's a quote in a book by I don't know how to say his name, J. Gresham Macken. The Virgin Birth of Christ, it's a really old book. He says, Eve came into the world through a man without a woman, God's special creation. Eve was deceived by Satan, and evil undermined all of God's creation. God promised that through a woman's seed the enemy would be destroyed. So by Mary, who obeyed God, the Savior was born into God's creation. The Savior came into the world through a woman without a man. So the complete reversal of Eve, you came into the world through a man without a woman. So God promised that through a woman's seed the enemy would be destroyed. Right after Adam and Eve sinned, God said this in Genesis 3 verse 15. God here is speaking to the serpent. And he says, And I will put an enmity or a deep hatred between you and the woman, and between your seed, Satan's seed, and her seed, Mary's seed. Eve's seed. Gee, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. So that was a picture again of Jesus. He shall bruise you on the head. Jesus will bruise Satan on the head. It will be a fatal blow. He won't recover from it. But Satan will bruise Jesus on the heel. When you're bruised on the heel, aren't you? You recover, don't you? So again, it's that parallel to Jesus on the cross and his death. So between Eve's seed and her Mary's seed, the descendant, her seed will strike back an early picture or foreshadow of Jesus and his defeat of sin and death in Genesis at the very beginning. Very cool. Also in this book, he says the conception of sin was between a woman, Eve, and the father of lies, Satan. The antidote to that was Eve's submission to God's will. The woman is redeemed in that they are uniquely co-labouring with God to deliver the one who will redeem us all. It's very good. So we've looked at one point, Mary being God's promise sign. But the virgin verse also proves that Jesus is fully God and fully man. So God came into the world through a virgin, not as half man and half God, but fully man and fully God. He came in flesh by the Holy Spirit. There's quite a lot to take in and for us to understand that God made something out of nothing, but God made Adam out of the dust. And church tradition has never disputed that like they have the virgin birth. He was fully human because he was born of Mary, but he was fully divine because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He entered the world in a supernatural way because he was a supernatural person. Paul writes in Colossians 2 verse 9, I think. For in Christ all of the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. Jesus was the fullness of God. Not a bit of God or half of God, but the fullness. Such a joy. When she cradled him as a baby, did she feel God's almighty presence? I mean, it's incredible when you start to consider these things. He must have been wonderful to be around. He must have been a blessing to everyone in his family. In Luke 1, verse 46 to 55, Mary sings a song of praise called the Magnificat. And she says in verse 46 to 48, How my soul praises the Lord, how my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour. For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will cause call me blessed. She must have felt so blessed. What a journey she went on. What an honour and what a privilege. Naturally, those two words sound weak and lacking, but she was chosen to be the mother of Jesus. Could her human mind fully understand such a huge mystery? And we cannot appreciate the emotion she must have gone through watching him grow and knowing who he was. So she must have had a real shock when she had her other children. She must have really realized that parenting actually is not easy. The New Testament says Mary had at least four sons and two daughters, James and Jude being two of the sons that went on to write three books between them of the Bible. I wonder if Jesus' siblings knew their mother's story of the angel appearing and her miraculous conception, or did Joseph and her just keep those things to themselves in their hearts? Fearful of the ridicule they no doubt suffered when the news she was pregnant first came out, not wanting their children to feel the same, or that their children might be less special in their heart. So back to the virgin birth, this fact protects the truth that Jesus is both man and God, not half of each, but fully God, fully man, as we've already said. Only our Saviour could bridge that gap or would desire to bridge that gap. After all, he created us for himself, and he's a jealous God. And when we pray to him, we pray to the one who understands our struggles because he became human. Yet we also pray to the one who has all power because he is God. 1 Timothy 2, verse 5. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man, Christ Jesus. And this leads beautifully into the third point of the virgin birth, because he makes possible, or the virgin birth makes possible our salvation. This is possibly the greatest reason that the virgin birth matters is because all of humanity inherited a sinful nature from Adam. Jesus bridged that gap. David in the Psalms confessed, Psalm 51, verse 5, Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. So going back to what it must have been like raising Jesus or being a sibling of Jesus, Mary and Joseph had lots of children under one roof, didn't they? Can you imagine what the teenage years were like? How did Mary feel when she sinned in front of Jesus? When she lost her temper, I'm sure she must have done. With the other children, when she said something she shouldn't have. As parents, we do things wrong all of the time, and I know for myself it's God's grace that got me through. Did she see the love and acceptance in Jesus' eyes even then? Mary had the grace of God living with her. Would she have understood that as we do now? Jesus never sinned, not once. And it's hard to imagine a child that doesn't sin. And you can only imagine he must have been really annoying to his other siblings. Our eldest was very good and very easy to bring up, and our second two weren't so, but they would always be so annoyed by Estelle, our eldest, because she was good. But Jesus was he never sinned. So how was Jesus with his siblings? What was he like when they sinned? Did he try and soothe their feelings? Did he try and lighten the atmosphere with some humour? Did he quietly leave the room? I'm sure he would have been praying to the father for that situation going on in the house. So is it any surprise that the others, or the whole family, struggled to believe he was the promised Messiah when Jesus' ministry started and claimed he was mad? Every human born being born through the fall inherits the fallen condition. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 22, for as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. Because Jesus was sinless, he could become the perfect sacrifice for sinners. Jesus was born differently. He entered the human race without inheriting a sinful nature. The angel said to Mary, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Luke 1, verse 35. Jesus was holy and without sin. In 1 Peter 2 22 it says he committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5 21. If Jesus had been a sinner like us, he could not have saved us. So the virgin birth points us to the perfect. Lamb of God, so that our salvation does not rest upon our goodness, it rests upon his righteousness. The one born in Bethlehem was born to die for our sins and rise again for our justification. He was also our high priest. Hebrews 4 15, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, yet he did not sin. Could Mary as a mother have comprehended these mysteries, she would have not been able to fully take on that her son was going to be, on one hand, the sacrifice offered at the temple, yet also the high priest who acted as the bridge between God and his people. So lastly, the virgin birth demonstrates that salvation is entirely God's work. Mary's response to the angel Gabriel, how can this be since I'm a virgin? Luke 1, verse 34. Humanly speaking, it was impossible, yet God managed what humanity never could. And this is the pattern of salvation, isn't it? We cannot save ourselves. Neil said in a talk a couple of weeks ago that we are dead. And in that dead state, you can't do anything for yourself because you're dead, aren't you? Salvation begins and ends with God. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2, verse 8. Just as the birth of Jesus was a miracle of God's power, so the new birth of every believer is a miracle of God's grace. Wayne Grudham says the virgin birth of Christ is an unmistakable reminder that salvation can never come through human effort, but must be the work of God Himself. So when the Spirit hovered over Mary and she said, Let it be to me according to your word, then God became man through virginal conception. Similarly, when the Spirit hovers over us, we are given life. John 1, verse 12 to 13. But to all who did receive him, all who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. So this is the parallel for us with the virgin birth, an undoing of all the work that the enemy had done since the fall in the Garden of Eden. It's beautiful. So in conclusion, the four points were that God fulfills his promises. And the virgin birth fulfills this. The virgin birth reveals Jesus as fully God and fully man. The virgin birth makes possible our salvation through a sinless Savior. And it demonstrates God's work from beginning to end. The angel proclaimed, Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. Luke 2, verse 11. And because of that miraculous birth, we can have forgiveness, reconciliation with God, and eternal life. May we never lose our wonder of that. That the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Just before Jesus died on the cross, he asked John to take care of his mum, didn't he? And John went on to write five books in the Bible. The Gospel of John, one John, two John, three John, and the book of Revelation. As well as Jesus, Jesus' family, John therefore would have known Mary really well, didn't he? He took Mary in after Jesus' death. He took her in and he looked after her. Well, what would we do? I mean, Mary, come and live with us. Jesus has died. You would be constantly asking her questions. I know I would. I mean, it's fascinating. What was he like growing up? What was his favourite toy? What games did he like to play? But Mary, did you know? A song that's been written, hasn't it? Mary, did you know? That he would ultimately die on a cross. Yet, despite this, Mary is barely mentioned at all in any of his books. And we can only presume that that's exactly how it was meant to be. Mary was never meant to be venerated like she has been. Let's look at Mary's last words in the Bible. I think these are just say it all. And her last words in the Bible were at the wedding feast in Cana in the Gospel of John. So John 2, verse 5, and it says, do whatever he tells you. Wow. It was never about Mary, it was only ever about Jesus. And to look at her actually takes away from Jesus and everything he did. And just to finish, um, another quote from the book The Virgin Birth of Christ that was written a long time ago. Let it never be forgotten that the virgin birth is an integral part of the New Testament witness about Christ. And that witness is strongest when it is taken as it stands. The New Testament presentation of Jesus and the virgin birth are integral to our understanding. Remove that part, and the whole becomes harder and not easier to accept. It is most convincing when it is taken as a whole. Only one Jesus is presented in the Word of God, and that Jesus did not come into the world through ordinary generation, but was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Ghost.