"I Believe in ... the Virgin
Birth." What a statement of faith! What an incredible miracle! What a
strange thing to believe! This little phrase has been the shibboleth of
fundamentalists, the scourge of liberals, and the annual fare of doctrinal
sermons every Christmas season. Of course, you hear the most about the Virgin
Birth on the far left (where it is set aside as a barrier to cosmopolitan believers)
and on the far right (where it is defended with gnashing of teeth). But I
suspect the cozy middle takes this doctrine for granted. "Of course we
believe in the Virgin Birth; we're Christians!"
Well, as one small aspect of our spiritual act of worship this Christmas, let's
dare to ask why we believe in the Virgin Birth. Notice, I am not asking whether
we should believe it. That's an apologetic question, whereby one takes the
objective standpoint outside of faith to prove the basis of the belief (a
procedure shared by both the fundamentalist defenders and liberal detractors).
That is not the question that interests me here. No, I want us to think about
why we believe what we believe.
So, why do we believe in the Virgin Birth?
In the first instance, we might say that we believe in the Virgin Birth because
it is in the Bible. That's true. Matthew and Luke both
indicate in passing that Mary conceived Jesus without any help from a man. But
then again, only Matthew and Luke mention this. It does not become a major
theme in the New Testament at any level. It is completely lacking in Paul, and
suspiciously absent in John (where it would fit oh so nicely). So one wonders
why this one event which appears in only two places has become the standard of
orthodoxy. There's a lot of other things mentioned a lot more than two times in
the Bible that don't carry the same weight as the Virgin Birth does in the
Christian community.
So, in light of this sufficient but minimal Biblical basis, what else might
account for our belief? We might quickly appeal to tradition.
Yes, the church has traditionally affirmed the Virgin Birth, and has even made
it a central tenant of faith. It is part of the faith that has been handed down
to us through the ages. But this does not really address the question, because
we have not yet answered why the tradition has affirmed this miracle. We are
not really learning from the tradition if we merely repeat what it has said. We
need to learn to think through the tradition so that it really becomes ours and
therefore a living tradition.
So why do we join the tradition in affirming the Virgin Birth? Well, a common
answer to this question is because of original sin. The sin of
Adam is transmitted sexually to the each member of the human race, and in order
to avoid this Spiritual STD, Jesus was born without the taint of sexual
procreation. Once you accept this other doctrine, the logical necessity of the
Virgin Birth falls right into place. Sinlessness, the
prerequisite for Jesus' sacrificial work, is guaranteed by the Virgin Birth. So
we believe in the Virgin Birth because we believe original sin and the sinlessness of Jesus.
The problem with this answer, however, is that a robust belief in the Virgin
Birth far predates the development of the doctrine of sexually-transmitted
original sin. This does not automatically rule out the doctrine of original
sin, even in these sexual terms. It merely rules out an appeal to original sin
as the basis of belief in the Virgin Birth. There must be something more basic
at work propping up this scandalous belief.
So why do we believe in the Virgin Birth? The short answer: because we believe
in the incarnation. Christians believe that the God of Israel,
who is the Creator of the Universe, became flesh and dwelled among us. This is
the deepest miracle of Christmas; in fact, it is the deepest miracle of all! It
is easy for Christians to believe in a crazy story about a young girl
conceiving without a man because we believe in a God who became human. Once you
believe in this miracle of all miracles, the Virgin Birth is easy to affirm.
It's just the icing on the cake. More precisely, it is the miraculous sign that
points to the miraculous event of the incarnation of God. As a sign, it is
intended to point beyond itself to the reality of the incarnation. But
precisely as a sign, it has its own significance, for it befits the miraculous
nature of the incarnation to be accompanied by an equally miraculous sign
attesting it. By showing forth the glory of the incarnation, the Virgin Birth
shares its glory. And so the worshipping community affirms the Virgin Birth
along with its affirmation of the Incarnation.
So this Christmas, let the sign of the Virgin Birth point to its basis,
purpose, and meaning: that God became flesh.
At 11:16 AM, December 15, 2005, Amanda said...
Yes!! The most shocking and miraculous aspect of
this story is not that the virgin conceived, but that God became flesh!
Believing that the virgin conceived is a piece of cake compared to believing
God became flesh.
I become frustrated when I hear people blow off Christmas in light of the
glorious theological ramifications of Easter. Christmas is more significant
than simply being a necessity for the Easter story. God became flesh!
Thanks for this post.
Amanda
At 2:45 PM, December 15, 2005, Tim said...
Came here from ThinkChristian.net and was surprised
to see my hometown,
At 3:34 PM, December 16, 2005, David Drury
said...
Ahhhhhh.
Reading your theological posts like this is like a great massage... it relaxes
tense mustles (and this issue has produced some
tension in the Emergent Elite) and helps the arthritic joints to move more
properly (because we often don't preach on the incarnation and virgin birth
well... and this helps us do so).
We're in John 1 for our Christmas series this year... contemplating that
"God become flesh" is perhaps the best gift we can give God in
worship this time of year.
And I echo the others in previous posts that your questions were always good...
but I often just want to get on your theological massage table and get treated
by you -- instead of having to give anyone else a theological back rub in turn.
And you don't even charge 30 bucks per visit.
At 8:53 PM, December 16, 2005, ap said...
This is more in regard to the Ascension post, but
bears some connection.
First, great post. The sign of the virgin birth is
always a sign to the greater miracle. Second, I recommend "Ascension and
Ecclesia" (Eerdmans) by Doug Farrow. A book I mostly
don't understand, but points in some good directions. Interestingly, it shows
how poor doctrine of the ascension, mainly from Origen
and later fueled by the Arian controversy, led to a focus on the divinity of
Jesus and the need for the mediation of Mary and thereby the Church. Third,
what about the presence of Jesus in the eucharist?
This all ties together because I'm wondering if there is a parallel between
Gabriel's announcement to Mary in Lk
1:35 and Jesus' announcement to the disciples in Acts 1:8. Well, I think there
is a parallel, but I'm still working through some of the implications. Thoughts?
At 10:24 AM, December 19, 2005, Keith.Drury
said...
If God truly became human in
Jesus at the incarnation.
And, if Jesus lived a sinless life without drawing on his
supercharged God-ness to give him a divine edge in defeating temptation.
Does this mean that God-in-Christ shows us the potential of all humanity?
In other words...
Did Jesus show us how good God can be in flesh,
or how good humans can become in the flesh?
At 3:52 PM, December 21, 2005, D.M. Rose
said...
John,
Great post- you have hit what most Christians continually miss in this
celebration of Christmas: that God is with us.
Let me take this a step further though. Since we affirm that Christ was God
incarnate upon "conception" (however we define that in Christ's case)
then we, specifically as Protestants, must take a step back toward Catholicism
and state that Mary was Theotokos (God-bearer). Mary
is blessed among women, and blessed is the fruit of her womb (with no help by
man) Jesus. Let us have the minerals to stop over-correcting from Catholicism
and give Mary her due- God certainly did.