Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Why is the Virgin Birth so Important?

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Each year we sing, “round yon virgin, mother and child,” but have you ever stopped to ask: What makes the virgin birth so important?In this episode, Jonny Ardavanis breaks down four critical realities regarding the virgin birth that ought to solidify your faith and bolster yoru worship this Christmas season.Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey folks, my name is Johnny Artavanis and this is Dial In. In our two previous episodes, we examined Mary's psalm of praise in Luke chapter 1. In observing her song, we highlighted five hallmarks of the Christmas spirit. If you haven't already listened to those two episodes, I would encourage you to go back and listen to those now. Because Mary, even though she is only a teenager, she serves as an example to us in her worship, her joy, her humility, gratitude, all because she is filled with the Holy Spirit. So make sure you go back and listen to those two episodes. Now, in this episode, I want to continue in our Advent study by examining the virgin birth.

Why is it so important? Maybe you've asked the question, is the virgin birth of Why is it so important? Maybe you've asked the question, is the virgin birth of Christ an important part of the Christian faith? And does it matter whether or not we talk about it at Christmas? The angel Gabriel came to Mary and Luke and told her that she was favored

and that she would give birth to a child, but not through the ordinary means of sexual union, but through the extraordinary and miraculous power of the Holy Spirit. In this episode, I will provide four realities regarding the virgin birth that are paramount for every single Christian to understand. Let's dial in. Larry King interviewed more than 60,000 people during his 60-year broadcasting career. He interviewed the legendary singer of the Beatles, Paul McCartney.

He interviewed Frank Sinatra. He even interviewed Vladimir Putin. But when asked if he could interview anyone in human history, Larry King responded without a moment's hesitation and said, Jesus Christ. And then proceeded to say, I would ask him if he was indeed born of a virgin, because the answer to that question would change the world. Indeed, the answer to the question, was Jesus born of a virgin, does indeed change the course of history because it provides credibility to the identity of the one who came and said that he was God in human flesh. During Christmas, we sing these familiar lyrics, silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright. Round yon virgin, mother and child, holy infant so gentle and mild.

Potentially, in the familiarity of these lyrics, there is, in our own heart, a sense of indifference towards the story of the baby who was born of a virgin. Such is often the case. We sing, listen to, and recite this Christmas story each year. And in doing so, the story that we have come to know is no longer shocking to us. There are few surprises in the movies that you've seen over and over and over again. And because we come to the Christmas narrative and think there is nothing new for us, we tune out to the wonder and miracle of it all. But as we consider Larry King's statement regarding the virgin birth, we are compelled to take a step back and contemplate

afresh the reality and the importance of the virginity of Mary and the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. For apart from this reality, the baby that Mary bore bears no importance whatsoever. In this episode, I want to examine critical truths regarding the virgin birth that ought to not only strengthen your faith, but bolster your worship this Christmas season. The first point is that the virgin birth proves the reliability of the scripture. In Luke chapter 1 verses 30 and 31, the angel Gabriel greets Mary, surprises her and says, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus. Now Mary is as confused as any other individual who was a virgin would be. Mary responds and says, how can this be since I am a virgin? This is of course a

logical question. Mary is young. She is a teenager, but she understands that it takes two to procreate. And although she was betrothed to Joseph, the scripture was clear. She had not yet had sexual relations with him. So she asked the question, how can this be? The angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you.

And for that reason, the holy child shall be called the Son of God. In Matthew's gospel, Matthew records the same story and adds a statement that draws our attention to the significance of the virgin birth. Matthew 1 verses 21 through 23 says, She will bear a son, and you shall call his his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. Then it says, now all of this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which translated means God with us. Now, all of this took place to what?

Well, Matthew just said that all of this took place in order to validate the testimony of the scripture. Matthew cites the prophecy from Isaiah 7, 14. Now, what's at stake in the virgin birth? Well, let me tell you. The credibility, the reliability, and the trustworthiness of the Bible. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, you cannot trust the scripture. In the opening pages of the Bible, we read that

God dwelt in community with our earliest ancestors, Adam and Eve. They lived in Eden, and they enjoyed this paradise with their creator. They walked, talked, and lived with God. And yet the serpent comes and deceives Adam and Eve, and they buy into the lie that rebellion is more satisfying than obedience. And they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And immediately Adam and Eve recognize their sin and shame and nakedness. And in that moment, God's promise of the curse that accompanies disobedience was realized and the entire cosmos was subjected to the reign of sin and death. Yet in the darkness of this scene, there is a glimmer of hope. God says that there will be one who will come from the seed of the woman who will restore and redeem all that has been broken and cursed. Now watch this. Don't you love the Bible? In Genesis 3.15, it indicates that a male member of the human race will come and

deliver a fatal and final blow to the serpent. But in this process of crushing Satan, he will himself be bruised. So what basic truths can be derived about the advent of the Messiah from Genesis 3.15? Well, he will, number one, have a supernatural birth. He will be of the seed of the woman, not of the man. Page three of your Bible rightly foretells of a virgin birth. Secondly, he will be a supernatural being. He will defeat Satan, who is a supernatural being. So deity is implied. Third, he is going to be fully human. He is going to be the seed of the woman.

He is supernatural, yet man, the one who is to come and restore and redeem all that has been broken and cursed is a God man. Now, if the scripture airs in regards to Genesis foreshadowing and Isaiah's explicit prophecy regarding the virgin birth, then watch this. You cannot trust the Bible. But the testimony of the New Testament is clear. This child was Christ the King, and yet we sing in these lyrics, the hymn, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord, late in time behold him come, offspring of a virgin's womb. Matthew says that one of the reasons Jesus was born in such a manner was to fulfill the word

of the Lord spoken through the prophet Isaiah. Our entire faith rests upon the reliability and authority of Scripture. And in this Scripture, the supernatural birth of Christ is both foretold and fulfilled. God always keeps his promises. And even when he seems slow in fulfilling his promises, he is always right on time. For this reason, Galatians 4 verse 4 says, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. This is the truth of scripture. And God's son that came was born in the little town of Bethlehem, just as the

prophet Micah hundreds of years prior had foretold in Micah 5.2 saying, but you Bethlehem Epaphras, even though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel. In many ways, the scripture is saying with capital letters to you through the living word of God, don't you see? This was God's promise all along. You can trust him. Whenever he promises, he delivers. And the one whom has been born is the deliverer himself. So number one, the virgin birth proves the reliability of the scripture. Secondly, the virgin birth validates the humanity of Jesus Christ. Understand this. If Jesus had no human parent, he would not have been human at all. He would not have been a partaker of our human flesh.

The prophecy made to Isaiah is that the virgin would conceive and bear a son and his name would be Emmanuel, which means God with us. Now, in order for God to be with us in this manner, he had to become like us in every way except for one. That being he had to be sinless. The Messiah who was promised was going to be fully human. The Messiah had to be one of the line of Judah and a descendant of David. The prophet Nathan had told David in 2 Samuel 7 that God was going to raise up one of his sons and establish the throne of his kingdom forever. David's son Solomon did indeed possess a great kingdom, but his reign would cease and so would his life. Then the question is,

then how do we reconcile this with God's promise that David's throne shall be established forever? Didn't David die and didn't Solomon die? Well, through a human descendant from the line of David, God would set up his eternal throne. And upon Gabriel's greeting of the Virgin Mary in Luke 1, Gabriel says this in verse 32 and 31. He says of Jesus that he will be great and will be called the son of the most high and the Lord God will give him, watch this, the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. Jesus is the eternal king. Now in heaven right now, you need to understand this. Jesus is a fully embodied God-man. Remember after his resurrection, he didn't become a wispy cloud

and then ascend. He resurrected in bodily form, and then he ascended in bodily form to the right hand of the Father, and he has gone to prepare a home for us in glory. In this resurrected bodily form, Jesus will reign for all eternity. Now, in order for him to be this eternal king in this manner,

and in order for him to be our savior at in this manner, and in order for him to be our savior at all, he had to be fully human. This is absolutely paramount for a number of reasons, but let me briefly give you just a couple. Jesus had to become human because God cannot die. If Jesus was only God and not the God man, he would not have been able to die on the cross for our sins. 1 Timothy 1.17 says that God is immortal and eternal, meaning that he cannot die and he cannot end. Therefore, Jesus had to become human in order that he could be our substitute. Secondly, and this is closely related to the first, Jesus had to become human in order that he could be our substitute. Secondly, and this is closely related to the first, Jesus had to become human in order that he could live the life we could never live. Hebrews 4,

15 says that Jesus became like us in every way, tempted in every way we are, yet without sin. I have often asked students and churches dozens of times before this question. If all you had in the gospel was the removal of your sin, would you ever be able to stand before a holy God and be welcomed into his heaven? If all you had in the gospel was the removal and forgiveness of your sins, what's the answer? No, that would never be enough. If all you had in the gospel was the removal and forgiveness of your sin, you would spend eternity in hell.

Why? Because Hebrews 12, 14 says, without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. Therefore, in order for us to reign forever with God in heaven, we need not only to be made innocent, we need to be made righteous. Do you grasp this massive distinction? When God looks at those who believe in Jesus Christ, he does not see them merely as forgiven, but as righteous as his one and only son.

Jesus had to become human so that he could live this life for us. And now when God looks at those who believe in Jesus, he sees them as if they had lived the righteous life of Jesus Christ. Third, and I'll just add this one on, Jesus had to become human so that he could be our great high priest. The high priest in the Old Testament

was someone who represented the people to God, who pleaded on their behalf. In Hebrews, it says this in stunning fashion. It says this in Hebrews 4.15, that we do not have a high priest who does not sympathize with our weaknesses, meaning that Jesus, he is our high priest and he gets us. He knows what it's like to be human. Jesus knew heartache. He knew pain. He knew betrayal.

He knew temptation. He was, it says in Hebrews 2.17, made like his brothers in every respect yet without sin. Listen here if you're a Christian. You do not have a savior that doesn't understand you. You have a Savior who became like you in his humanity and who sympathizes with your weaknesses because he himself was fully human. And apart from the virgin birth, he could not and was not human at all. But we're so thankful that he understands us because he became like us in every way, yet without sin. Third here, the virgin birth is important because it confirms not only the humanity of Christ, but the deity of Jesus Christ. Previously, I said that if Jesus had no human parent,

he would not be human at all. But conversely, if Jesus had two human parents, he would have been contaminated by sin. The Bible teaches that sin passes down from the father. Therefore, if Jesus had a human father, he would have inherited Adam's sin. Romans 5 verse 12 says, therefore, just as through one man's sin entered the world

and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. What Paul is saying in Romans 5 is that Adam's sin passes down to each and every subsequent generation. But because Jesus was born through the power of the Holy Spirit, his deity canceled out humanity's curse. He did not inherit sin from his father because he was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus's birth was not natural. It was supernatural.

Luke 1.35 details that it was through the Holy Spirit that Mary conceived and was with child. In the same way, the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters in creation and spoke life into what was not. The Holy Spirit came upon Mary and spoke life into her lifeless womb. In both cases, God created something out of nothing. This was a divine miracle for the divine person of Jesus Christ. Now, maybe you're asking, why is this so important? For one, it proves that Jesus was God. There are and were a number of miraculous births in the Bible, including that of John the Baptist, which we observed a couple episodes ago, but none of them, none of them were like that of the virgin-born son of God. The promise that God had made to his people 700 years

before Jesus arrived was that a child was to come and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. It was God himself who was to come and be once again with his creatures. And in order for the Messiah to be God, he had to be gotten by the power of God. Jesus didn't become God on Christmas day. No, he is, as Colossians 1.15 says, the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. John 1.1 says that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Meaning that when you think of Jesus, think about this, that before time began, Jesus was. In the Genesis creation narrative, Jesus was the one who was the firstborn over all creation.

John 1, 3 says, all things came into being through him. Who's him? That's Jesus. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. This is a profound reality. John has said in verse one,

in the beginning was the word. That word for word in Greek is logos, meaning in the beginning was the logos. The Greeks believed that the logos was the power and force behind the universe, but they believed that this power and force was an impersonal and detached force, not in any way interested in mankind. And yet the gospel details that the logos is not an impersonal nor abstract force, but the person of Jesus Christ. And John 1 14 says that the word, the logos became flesh and dwelt amongst us. This is the wonder of the incarnation. Be amazed.

The God who created all things became a baby. Only someone who has life in himself can promise life to those who are dead in sin. Therefore, Jesus not only had to be made like us in regards to his humanity, but he needed to be fully God. In the past, certain heresies have arisen claiming that Jesus was merely part man and part God, but this could not be further from the truth. Jesus was not half God and half man. He was fully God and fully man. In the incarnation, Jesus did not become less God than he was in eternity past, but in profound humility, Philippians 2 says, he emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant. However, he did not empty himself of his deity, but rather of his heavenly glory

and the full display of his divine attributes. Remember in Matthew 26, Jesus says, do you not think that I could call on my father and immediately have a legion of angels come to my defense? He could have, Jesus, at any time because he was the king and is the king over all Colossians 2.9 says that in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in human form. Now, maybe you're asking, why is it so important that Jesus was not only human but divine? Well, he had to be human in order that he could be our blameless substitute and die in our place. And he had to be divine in order that he would be able to bear the sins of all those who would believe in him. Maybe you've asked the question, how can Jesus' death pay for the infinite amount of sin? Well, because he himself, as a divine being, was an infinite person.

Secondly, he had to be divine in order that his substitutionary death would be efficacious. That meaning, in order for Jesus' death on the cross to have any significance and any power in salvation, he also had to what? He had to rise from the dead. God cannot die. And so Jesus rose from the dead and conquered death and crushed the power of the curse that had been cast on the opening pages of scripture, all because he himself was God. Now, if you don't have a virgin born savior, you don't have a divine savior. And if you don't have a divine savior, then your savior cannot save you at all. But because Jesus is the seed of the woman, fully human and yet fully God, he is able

to live the life we could never live, die the death we could never die, and then he rises victoriously from the dead. The virgin birth, consequently, is not just part of the Christian faith. It is an essential pillar of Christian doctrine. And if you remove this, you remove the grounds upon which the identity of Jesus rests. Lastly here, and this is important, the virgin birth solidifies that God is a miracle working God. So if you're taking notes, the virgin birth, first of all, is important because it proves the reliability of the scripture. Secondly, it proves the humanity of Jesus Christ. Third, it proves the divine deity of Jesus Christ. And fourth, the virgin birth solidifies that God is a miracle working God.

I said before that Jesus' birth was indeed supernatural, but Jesus himself will say in John 3 that every single person must undergo a supernatural birth, a rebirth. They must all be born again, and they must all be born like Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, not in a physical sense, but in a spiritual one, where God takes their hardened, stony, and dead hearts and makes them alive through his power. The Bible teaches that Jesus came. The incarnation, the Christmas story, is really about one main thing. 1 Timothy 1.15 says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. If you're wondering what Christmas is all about, I have the answer. Jesus Christ was born in order that he might die for sinners.

He died in order that through his resurrection, he might conquer death. Maybe you are wondering, how can I be born again? Well, the answer is simple. You must believe in Jesus Christ. You are not born again through what you do, whether or not you go to church, a vote Republican or give money away. You are not saved for any other reason other than this. You have come to place your complete faith in the person

and work of Jesus Christ. Can I ask you a question? Have you ever been born again? The angel Gabriel told Mary that she should name the boy she was about to bear Jesus, for he will save his people from their sin. And this Jesus is the only one who could ever save you. Acts 4.12 says, Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved. All of history culminates in his arrival,

and your destiny depends on what you do with the person of Jesus Christ. Maybe you doubt that you could come to Jesus because you have done too much wrong. But listen here, God's grace is lavish. He does not treat sin lightly, but he came into the world in order that he could restore the broken and redeem those who are enslaved to sin. And where sin abounds, God's grace super abounds to all those who come to him in faith and repentance. Maybe you have heard the Christmas message your whole life, but have you ever been shocked by it? And have you ever come to believe

and know personally the Christ of Christmas? I pray you have. Merry Christmas to all of you. Stay dialed in.