Matthew 1:18-25
The birth of the King
Open your Bible to…
Matt.
Pray
Intro
√ Messiah
Last week we looked at the Pedigree of the King, specifically that Matthew proves that Jesus is the…
Son of Abraham
Son of David
Son of God
…therefore has the legal right to the throne of David because He is the Messiah!
√ Myth or reality?
This week Matthew tells us of the unique birth of the King, one more piece of evidence that Jesus is the promised Messiah.
What makes Jesus’ birth unique is that Matthew tells us that He was born of a virgin!
Which brings us to some important questions…
“Is the virgin birth true?
…or simply a myth as many critics today suggest?
And…
“Does it matter whether or not I believe in the virgin birth?”
We’ll address both those questions in our study this morning and I think you’ll find the answers an encouragement to your faith.
Professed by the disciples (vs. 18-20)
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√ Professed by the disciples
Note that Matthew cuts right to the chase…
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.”
Matthew’s point is clear…
Before Mary and Joseph had any sexual relationship, Mary became pregnant.
Therefore, Joseph is not Jesus’ father.
The conception was the result of a supernatural act of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, God is Jesus’ Father.
So, Matthew claims that Jesus was born of a virgin, in fact, he tells us that in plain Greek in vs. 23 where he quotes from Isaiah…
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
Some critics have suggested that the word “virgin” can also be translated…
“young maiden”
True enough! But note that Matthew defines what the word “virgin” means in verses 18 & 25 by telling us that Mary and Joseph did not have any sexual relations until after Jesus was born.
√ Luke’s testimony
Matthew isn’t the only Gospel writer that tells us Jesus was born of a virgin, Luke (a doctor) writes…
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Luke
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” – NIV, NASB, NLT
Luke 1:35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.
Luke’s record of the events show clearly that Mary wasn’t just, “not married”, rather, that she was virgin…
…thus, her question to Gabriel regarding how it would be possible for her to conceive since she’d never had sex!
√ Paul’s profession
Paul, who didn’t know Jesus before His death and resurrection, also professes the virgin birth! In his letter to the Church in Galatia he writes…
“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,”
That is, Paul makes the point that Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nor any man, rather he tells us that Jesus is God’s Son and that he was…
“born of a woman”
…that is, Jesus had no human father, rather He was born of a virgin!
√ Myth, metaphor, or reality
Ah, but some modern critics of the historic Christian faith have suggested that the Virgin birth is nothing more than a myth developed by the distraught disciples to elevate Jesus in the minds of those they preached to.
Ex. Skeptics and critics – the unbeliever
Non-believer Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote…
“…belief in the Virgin Birth is evidence that conservative Christians are less intellectual."
Mr. Kristof’s attack on the intellect of Christian’s reveals his own prejudice in that he is blind to the fact that Man now has the technology to produce a child of a virgin…
…why then would be incredible that God can do the same?
Ex. In-vitro fertilization
Man has the ability today to fertilize an egg outside of a womb and implant that egg into the body of a virgin! That virgin can then bring to term a healthy child all without every having sex!
The point is that belief that an omnipotent God could produce a child in the womb of a virgin does not render a person “less intellectual” than a person who doesn’t believe it to be possible.
Worse, men who claim to be Christians, and leaders in the Christian Church in the USA, also deny the reality of the Virgin birth.
Ex. Skeptics and critics – the so called believer
Author Patrick Campbell (The Mythical Jesus), Episcopal Bishop J.S. Spong, and Methodist Bishop Joseph Sprague all suggest that the Virgin birth never happened, Campbell writes…
"...the virgin
birth account [is a]...clearly recognized mythological element in our faith
tradition whose purpose was not to describe a literal event but to capture the
transcendent dimensions of God in the earthbound words and concepts of
first-century human beings."
That is, it never happened.
Ap. Does it matter?
That is, can a person be Christian and not believe in the Virgin birth?
I suppose one could trust in Jesus unto salvation and not hold to the reality of the virgin birth…
…but to so would have some serious implications to their “faith”.
Some thoughts to consider the implication of rejecting the truth of Jesus’ virgin birth.
1) Wouldn’t fly with the Jews!
No respectable Jew (like Matthew and his audience) would have ever condescended to buy into a Greek/Babylonian mythological base for an account dealing with the birth of their Messiah!
That is, if it wasn’t true then a conservative Jew like Matthew would have never included it in his Gospel.
2) Compromises the authority of the Bible
Millard Erickson writes…
"If we do not hold to the virgin birth despite the fact that the Bible asserts it, then we have compromised the authority of the Bible and there is in principle no reason why we should hold to its other teachings. Thus, rejecting the virgin birth has implications reaching far beyond the doctrine itself."
That is, if we deny what the Bible tells us about Jesus’ birth, then we can also reject anything else the Bible says.
The result, the Jesus of the cults or the Jesus of the false religions of Man.
3) Who then is Jesus’ father?
If Jesus was not born of a virgin, who was His father?
There is no answer that will leave the Gospel intact. The Virgin Birth explains how…
…Christ could be both God and man, and how He was without sin.
If Jesus was not born of a virgin, He had a human father. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, the Bible teaches a lie.
So, what we chose to believe about Jesus’ birth has huge implications upon our faith and our standing with the Father…
…because if we reject Jesus’ virgin birth we also reject God as His Father which means one believes in a Jesus who doesn’t have the power to save us!
Purposed by the Father (vs. 21)
Matt. 1:21 “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name
JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”
√ Purposed by the Father
Not only was Jesus’ unique birth professed by His disciples, in addition we find that it was purposed by the Father. Note that Matthew tells us that Gabriel instructed Mary what to name the baby…
“…you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”
The significance here is that in the Hebrew culture the father picked the name of his children.
The name picked was always significant because it tells us something about the family in general…
…or the child specifically.
Here we find that Jesus’ Father, God, chose the name…
“Jesus”
…for His Son, or in the Hebrew, Yeshua, literally…
“YHWH saves”
Which is what the angel told Mary in vs. 21! That is the sole purpose of the Father bringing about Jesus’ unique birth was so that He could save His people from their sins!
Predicted by the prophets (vs. 22-25)
Matt. 1:22 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by the Lord through the prophet, saying:
Matt. 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they
shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
Matt. 1:24 Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the
Lord commanded him and took to him his wife,
Matt. 1:25 and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn
Son. And he called His name JESUS.
√ Predicted by the prophets
As we’ll see throughout his Gospel, Matthew quotes from the Old Testament prophets to prove his point…
…in this instance, that the virgin birth of the Messiah was something predicted long before Matthew recorded the facts surrounding Jesus’ birth.
Ex. Isaiah 7:14 & Matthew 1:23
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
The significant point for us to understand is that the virgin birth wasn’t a new idea with the 1st Century disciples of Jesus as some critics suggest…
…rather, the virgin birth was predicted by the Old Testament prophets, and anticipated by the Jewish people in the time of Jesus.
Ex. Nebuchadnezzar’s dream
Dan. 2:45 “Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold--the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.”
That is, the coming Messiah who would destroy the Kingdoms of Man and establish and everlasting Kingdom would come without human interaction…
…a picture of the virgin birth.
So, the reality of the Messiah’s virgin birth was not invented by the disciples in the 1st Century, rather it was predicted by the Old Testament prophets as another tool for identifying the Messiah when He came.
Close
√ The birth of the King
Matthew tells us that King Jesus was born of a virgin. That He was the unique Son of God conceived in Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, we know that the virgin birth is true because it is…
Professed by the disciples
Purposed by the Father
Predicted by the prophets
Therefore, we can be confident that that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the King, for He is unique of all Men.
Remember, to doubt the reality of Matthew and Luke’s record of Jesus’ virgin birth is to deny the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible!