“The argument that there is some connection between the virgin birth and the sinlessness of Christ is reinforced by the fact that a sinless humanity is impossible without a miracle. The first man was holy because God made him so; the new man (the Christian) is holy because God makes him so; the Last Man is holy because God makes him so. Holiness can exist in the human life only by virtue of divine action and so far as Jesus Christ is concerned that action occurs in the very commencement of his existence.”
—DONALD MACLEOD.
I was reading through the first few chapters of Luke’s Gospel today, and I found myself reflecting on the virgin birth of Jesus. It’s a pretty out there story, one satirists and comedians have a field day with. I mean, let’s be honest: the whole thing seems suspect. We all know how babies are made so it’s not that hard to read between the lines. If someone tells you their baby was made in some special or unique way you’d roll your eyes and wonder their motive or what they’re trying to hide.
Could it really be that people in the first century knew how babies were made too?
But here’s what’s interesting. The accounts in Scripture themselves interact with this kind of suspicion. Could it really be that people in the first century knew how babies were made too? And this hints to another point: there was no obvious Jewish expectation for the Messiah to be born of a virgin. None. Conceived? Yes. Born? Yes. By a virgin? Nada – and the charge that the Gospel writers simply repackaged pre-Christian pagan accounts of virgin births are never as obvious as Google makes out!
At this point I found myself asking: what possible motives would the authors have for recording such an odd claim?
Well, perhaps the answer is the simplest one: because they believed it to be true. The virgin birth is only mentioned by Matthew and Luke, to be sure, but then they are the only New Testament accounts of the birth and infancy of Jesus we have. So in effect we have 100% attestation from the available records.
But to go back to this point of it being ‘true’ or not. What is the actual argument that the virgin birth did not or could not have happened? Improbability? Being incredulous about a claim because it is unlikely does not prove the claim to be false. What matters is the evidence for and against the proposition in question – which, admittedly, in the particulars of an immaculate conception are not altogether clear, though I would argue are nonetheless defensible on more general grounds concerning the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. If God exists and Jesus is God, then any difficulties we may have with believing in His immaculate conception fall away.
So, supposing for the sake of argument that the virgin birth really did happen, it seems what we are talking about is, in every sense of the term, a “miracle;” an event which stands out from the norm as a singularity which could not have come about by the laws and regularities of nature.
But the singularity of an ‘immaculate conception’? Really?
Well, yes. Is it really that difficult to believe? I mean, if the regularity of conception is procreation through two sexes, then whatever the ethical merits, artificial insemination and in vitro fertilisation have overtaken the argument for the necessity of ordinary procreation. So I guess the comedic line that ‘we all know how babies are made’ isn’t quite so funny these days. And another singularity point: what of Adam and Eve? They were not procreated by a union of the sexes. Even if we reject their historicity, the question would still stand for whoever was the first “human being.”
Ra ra ra… here I was, derailed with musings about the plausibility of supernatural events and I hadn’t yet asked the more obvious question about the possible purpose of a virgin birth. What is so significant about a virgin birth? Well, in all the great stories the hero comes from the outside to save us, right? Could it be that the Gospel is the story of humankind itself and our need for a Saviour beyond our own making? A story where the hero comes from the outside to be one of us in order to save us? If so, then perhaps the virgin birth is the beginnings of the greatest story ever told.
