The Birth of Jesus the Messiah - Part 1

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Years ago, I read an article that shocked me. It was in the early 2000’s; the British newspaper, The Telegraph, polled more than 500 clergy about the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. The newspaper found that more than 27%, and close to 30% of those polled, completely rejected the biblical explanation of Jesus' birth. But what was even more surprising was the actual responses of some of them. The article quotes several of them. Here's one.

The view of a Hampshire vicar was typical, “There was nothing special about his birth or childhood. It was his adult life that was extraordinary,” he said. He declined to be named, saying, “I have a very traditional bishop, and this is one of those topics I don't go public on; I need to keep the job I have.”  (The article goes on to say.)  “Many of the skeptics who took part in the survey, one of the biggest ever conducted by a newspaper, said that the story of the virgin birth was a product of poor biblical translations and literary tradition rather than divine intervention.” 

The Reverend Dr. Keith Archer, by the way, from now on I would like to be known as the Reverend Doctor, so keep that in mind, the Reverend Dr. Keith Archer said, “It is not particularly important because it is a debatable translation of a Hebrew prophecy which first appeared in Isaiah.” Another vicar added, “Writers at the time used to stress a person's importance by making up stories about their early life.  I think that's exactly what has happened here.” And then the article concludes this way, “Most of those who cast doubt on the virgin birth admitted that they would be presiding over traditional Christmas services which stressed the miraculous nature of Jesus' birth.”

Now that article tells you a couple of important things.  One is the virgin birth has always been the topic of the attacks of the enemies of Christ and His Gospel.  Secondly, there are a lot of men and women standing in pulpits across the country who just lie all the time.  Be aware of that.  So that comes to us evidently in this article. What I want you to see though, the big conclusion from that article is this, the birth of Jesus Christ has always been a consistent target of those who attack Christianity.  For 2,000 years, many theories have circulated about how exactly the humanity of Jesus came to be in Mary's womb. 

But in the end, there are really only three possibilities.  If you cut away the clutter, there are only three possible ways Jesus came to be in Mary's womb.  Number one, He was the normal offspring of the marriage of Mary and Joseph.  But that doesn't fly because both Jesus' friends and enemies deny that.  It's unanimous that Jesus was born outside of wedlock.  So that leaves us only two other options.  Second one is that Jesus was illegitimate; that Mary became pregnant outside of marriage either by Joseph or by some other unmentioned man.  The third option is that Jesus was born miraculously of a virgin as the Bible asserts.  Those are the only three options you have at your disposal.  

Now, two Gospels address Jesus' birth, Matthew and Luke.  Both of them deny that He was the offspring of Mary and Joseph.  Both of them deny that Jesus was illegitimate.  Both assert instead that His virgin conception and birth is the true explanation for His humanity.  Although Luke's is the most familiar birth narrative, today, we begin to examine together Matthew's account which focuses not so much on Mary but on Jesus' birth from Joseph's perspective.

Now, as we've begun to study this magnificent Gospel, let me remind you that Matthew's purpose in writing his Gospel was to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah of the Hebrew Scripture.  He is the divine Savior and King.  If you doubt this, you can see it immediately in Matthew's gospel.  Look at chapter 1, verse 1, “The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah.”  Look down in verse 16, Joseph was “the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called ‘the Messiah.”  Verse 17 talks about, from “the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, (there were) fourteen generations.”  Verse 18, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows:” The birth of Jesus the Messiah.  Go to chapter 2, verse 1.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews...we…have come to worship Him.’”  (Verse 3) Herod, when he heard all of this, verse 4, he gathered “together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, and he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. (Summary paraphrase)

And so it goes throughout this Gospel.  This is what Matthew has set out to prove. 

Now, the first two chapters of Matthew's Gospel record the Messiah's arrival.  And as he sort of unfolds that arrival, he begins in chapter 1, verses 1 to 17, with His royal ancestry, His royal ancestry.  Matthew establishes here that Jesus descended from Abraham and directly from David.   That means He's qualified to sit on David's throne and ultimately from the standpoint of His ancestry, He is qualified to be the Messiah. 

Now, that brings us to the next paragraph today; it begins in chapter 1, verse 18, and goes down through verse 25, the end of the chapter.  And this paragraph records His conception and birth. Matthew records the events surrounding Jesus' birth, and here's why, because those events also prove His qualifications to be the Messiah.  Let's read it together, Matthew, chapter 1, beginning in verse 18. 

Now, the birth of Jesus Christ (The Messiah) was as follows:  when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.  And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.  But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.  She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”  Now all 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 IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.”  And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.

Now, in his goal of proving to us who Jesus is, Matthew highlights in this passage five unique characteristics of Jesus' birth that prove He's the Messiah.  We want to look at all five of them in our study of this passage, but today we're just going to get to the first one, “The First Unique Characteristic of Jesus' Birth That Proves He Is the Messiah,” and that is “His Virgin Conception,” verses 18 to 20, His virgin conception.  Look at verse 18, “Now, the birth of Jesus Christ (The Messiah) was as follows:  when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph.” That sets the backdrop, the context, for the birth-story of Jesus.  Scripture doesn't tell us how old Mary and Joseph were when these events unfolded.  However, most men of that time married before they were 20, and most Jewish girls were betrothed just after puberty, somewhere between 13 and 16 years of age. It's possible that Mary was in her late teens but, based on the way things unfolded in that time, it's not likely. 

Usually, families arranged for their children's marriages.  Now, the “First Century Jewish Marriage” consisted of two parts.  First of all, there was “The Betrothal Period” that was called “The Kiddushin.”  It often lasted about a year; it was much more serious than our engagement.  During the betrothal period, “The man was referred to as a ‘husband.’”  You can see that in verse 19, and she is called his “‘wife,’ even though the marriage had not yet been consummated.”  In Deuteronomy 22:24, a woman is called a ‘wife,’ even though the previous verse refers to her as ‘engaged.’  During the Kiddushin, if the man died, the woman was considered to be a widow.  And during this time, the couple didn't live together as husband and wife; they were expected to remain sexually pure.  In fact, according to Deuteronomy 24, any “Sexual sin during this betrothal period was considered adultery and the guilty party could be stoned.”  In addition, this was “A binding contract that could only be ended by divorce.”  That's “the Kiddushin,” that's the first part of a first century Jewish wedding. 

The second part was “The ‘huppah.’”  Today, that word is used in the Jewish culture of the canopy that a couple stands under to be married.  But in the first century, it described the second part of the Jewish marriage.  About “A year after the engagement” had been initiated, the man went to the house of his bride.  He went there with all of his friends, with great fanfare; everybody's dressed up; there's a party; there are instruments; there's celebration.  And he marches through the streets to the home of his bride, and “He takes her back to his home; that's where the wedding takes place.”  That's where the ‘huppah’ occurs.  It's all part of this package.  The wedding included “As many as seven days of feasting,” and you fathers thought your daughters' weddings were expensive, “and the consummation of the marriage.”  This is the second part of a first century Jewish wedding.

Now, go back to verse 18 in our text because the Greek word for ‘betrothed’ here tells us that these events unfolded during “the Kiddushin.”  The very same Greek word occurs in Luke 1:27, Luke 2:5, also saying that all of these events transpired during that time, “the Kiddushin,” the betrothal period.  Now, Matthew adds in verse 18, “it was before they came together.”  That Jewish euphemism obviously means that they'd not been sexually involved.  The marriage hadn't been consummated; they were to remain sexually pure, and in this case they had.  It was before Joseph and Mary had any physical relations. 

But at some point, during “the Kiddushin,” during that year of betrothal, something remarkable happens.  Verse 18, Mary “was found to be with child” by, literally in Greek, “out of the Holy Spirit.”  “She was found to be with child out of the Holy Spirit.”  You see, what we call “The miracle of the virgin birth” is really “The miracle of the virgin conception.”  Mary, of course, was still a virgin when she gave birth to Christ, verse 25 is clear about that.  But Jesus' actual birth process was the same as any other birth.  Mary carried Jesus in her womb for nine months, and while they were in Bethlehem for the census, Jesus was born like every other naturally born child ever has been or ever will be.  What's unique about Mary's child was His supernatural conception–He had no human father.  But Scripture is clear that Mary was a virgin both when she conceived Jesus and when she gave birth to Jesus. 

But the Bible does not teach anywhere the Roman Catholic idea of the immaculate conception, that Mary herself was born without original sin so she could give birth to a sinless child.  The Bible doesn't teach that.  In fact, the Bible everywhere says that every human being is a sinner, Romans, chapter 3, verse 12, “THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,” that includes Mary, “THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”  In her Magnificat, Mary speaks of God, “My Savior,” only sinners need a Savior.  So nowhere is there any hint of Mary's immaculate conception. 

Instead, the Bible teaches “Jesus' Virgin Conception.”  As Alan Cairns writes, “The humanity of Christ was produced in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the supernatural activity of the Holy Spirit.”  Now, let me be very clear, in fact, I'll speak frankly because of the influence of Greek mythology and even in our day, Mormonism,  “No sexual union, natural or supernatural, took place to produce the child Jesus.”  In fact, turn over to Luke; Luke, chapter 1, verse 35, here you see the mystery of how this unfolded; this is the closest we get to understanding it.  Verse 35 of Luke 1, “The angel answered and said to her (Mary), ‘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.’”  Jesus was really and truly the offspring, physically, of Mary.  I can't prove this to you, but I suspect if you were to be able to analyze the physical DNA of Jesus, it would show that Mary was His physical mother.  But how exactly the Holy Spirit began that life, began that conception, we're not told, this is as close as we get, Luke 1:35.  “The virgin birth, in the end, was a creative miracle,” or let me say it differently, “The virgin conception was a creative miracle produced by the work of the Holy Spirit.”

Verse 19, “And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.”  Now Mary, according to Luke 1, was betrothed to Joseph when Gabriel appeared to her.  And as I said, the betrothal usually lasted about 12 months, so it must have been only a few months before Mary discovered she was pregnant.  And I think we can actually know when because Luke 1 tells us that after Gabriel tells Mary that she's going to have the Christ, she immediately leaves her home and travels to the hill country where her cousin, Elizabeth, is six months pregnant with John, John the Baptist.  And when she arrives there, the baby in Elizabeth's womb leaps for joy, John the Baptist leaps for joy because of the presence of Mary and her child, the Messiah.  So likely, Mary is pregnant between the time that the angel appears to her, and she arrives at Elizabeth's home.  She stays there three months until John the Baptist is born and then she returns home to Nazareth.  At this point, she's likely three months pregnant.  We're not told how Joseph found out about Mary's condition.  Likely, shortly after she returned to Nazareth, Mary asked to speak to Joseph alone; she told him the shocking news of the angel's visit and that a child was growing within her.  

Now, like most righteous Jewish people in the first century, Joseph had been faithful to Mary, and he expected the same thing from her.  So, it's hard to imagine the shock when he heard the news.  I mean, obviously, he knew the child wasn't his.  And he didn't know Mary extremely well, we're told in the Jewish records of the time, that during the 12 months of betrothal, the couple were rarely alone together, but it's a small town, Nazareth, in the first century.  Certainly, he and his family had heard of and even observed the virtue of Mary.  I'm sure he's very confused; it seems so out of character for this woman that he was betrothed to.  Everything about her spoke of virtue and yet here we are.  And her explanation must have seemed incredible to him.  I mean, after all, it had been 400 years since God had spoken to anyone.  It had been 700 years since there had been a miracle like this.  So, imagine yourself in Joseph's shoes; what would you think if the person that you were engaged to was pregnant and you knew the child wasn't yours?  The situation is even more difficult because Matthew tells us Joseph was a righteous man.  That means he was a true Old Testament believer, careful to obey God, and he expected the same of Mary.  Once the initial shock had passed, I'm sure a kind of numbness set into Joseph's soul. I'm sure he thought something like this, “This just can't be happening.  I've looked forward to my wedding day.  I've admired Mary from a distance, been excited about our families having set this up, and now my fiancé is pregnant, and I know this is not my child.”  

Now, as anyone would, Joseph begins to think about his options, but there were only “Three Options for Joseph.”  Option number one is “He could marry her,” but this simply wasn't done.  Even Roman law treated a husband who failed to divorce an unfaithful wife as a panderer, exploiting his wife as a prostitute.  And the Jewish Mishnah explicitly forbids a man in his situation to marry the woman.  Besides, think about it, if he marries her, it's a tacit admission that the child is his and his reputation is stained for life in that culture. 

The second option he had is “He could disgrace her publicly.”  The same Greek word used in our verse occurs in Colossians 2:15, where it's translated ‘to make a spectacle of, to make a display or spectacle of.’  In other words, Joseph could make a public accusation against her in court.  This was commonly done, but of course, such a public proceeding would make all of this public and in that very shame-sensitive culture, it would publicly shame him and his family.  However, Matthew tells us that Joseph wasn't thinking about himself when he decided not to take Mary to court and make a big public display of this.  Notice verse 19, “…not wanting to disgrace or to make a public spectacle of her.”   You see, in that culture, in the first century, her premarital pregnancy had already ruined her chances of a future marriage.  And Joseph was concerned about her.

Now, we assume Joseph was a good man from the simple fact that God chose him to be the earthly father of His only Son.  And his attitude here certainly shows a compassionate heart.  Even though Mary, think about Joseph for a moment, even though Mary has just broken his heart, even though in that culture she has humiliated him, he's still concerned about her.  In Moses' day, if it was proven in court that a betrothed wife had been unfaithful, she could have been put to death, Deuteronomy 24.  In the first century, that wasn't done, but there was a very public divorce.  The court would have allowed Joseph to impound Mary's dowry, the assets that she brought to the marriage; Joseph might also have been permitted to recoup the bride price if one was paid at the beginning of the betrothal.  And all of this was done to exonerate the innocent party.  That was a path that was open to him. 

You know, this is so foreign to our culture, isn't it?  I mean, in our culture, we simply don't expect young people to keep themselves virgins until marriage.  Let me just say, young people, that that is God's expectation of you if you claim to be His.  In fact, He takes this so seriously that in Israel, the law called for someone sexually involved before or outside of marriage to be stoned to death.  That's the seriousness of this in the mind of God.  If the person you're dating tries to convince you that if you really love him or her, then you'll get sexually involved, you can be sure of two things.  In that moment, they're not loving you; they're only pursuing their selfish interests.  And secondly, he or she is not acting at that moment like a righteous person.  You need to take this very seriously.  1 Thessalonians 4 says you ought to learn the will of God for you, which is that you would possess “your body in honor, in sanctification.”  And he goes on to say that if you defraud your Christian brother or sister sexually outside of marriage, God will take that very seriously, and He will respond with chastening.  

What if you've already sinned in this way?  Well, let me just say there is always the grace of forgiveness where there is true repentance; it doesn't matter what the sin is.  There's grace from God extending forgiveness, and there's the grace of God's people accepting those who've committed this sin where there's repentance.  There are men and women in this church who have sinned in this way, and the Lord has forgiven them, and we love them and have received them, and He has enabled them to overcome that sin and to live in purity.  But we need to take this very seriously.  

So, Joseph could marry her, or he could publicly disgrace her.  His only other choice was to “Divorce her privately.” Verse 19, Joseph “planned to send her away secretly.”  The Greek word translated ‘send away’ is the same word for divorce in both Matthew 5 and Matthew 19, where Jesus deals with the issue of divorce.  So, Joseph was considering privately divorcing Mary.  Thanks to the influence of Roman culture and the loose Jewish interpretation of Deuteronomy 24, men in that day, in first century Palestine, could easily divorce their wives without even stipulating a reason.  According to Rabbi Judah of the time, the man simply needed in the presence of two witnesses to give his wife a document that said, “Let this be from me your writ of divorce and letter of dismissal and deed of liberation that you may marry whatever man you want.”  The Jewish Mishnah allowed for a private divorce before just two witnesses in the case of suspected adultery.  And that, Matthew tells us, is exactly the course that Joseph decided to take.  

Now think about Mary in this situation.  Mary has already explained to Joseph everything that's happened to her. There's nothing else she can say, there's no way for her to defend herself. There's no way for her to be exonerated.  Joseph simply does not believe her.  And so, I love the fact that the Lord defends her.  He sends an angel, probably Gabriel, to speak to Joseph in a dream, verse 20.  “But when he had considered this (That is, privately divorcing her.), behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.’”  Now that expression, “to take Mary as your wife,” describes the second part of the Jewish wedding, the ‘huppah,’ when the man took the woman to his home. So, the angel, Gabriel here, is telling Joseph to finalize the marriage.  And then the angel confirmed what Mary had told Joseph already, verse 20. “The child who has been conceived in her is (literally) out of the Holy Spirit.” 

What I want you to see is that from the very beginning, the circumstances surrounding the conception and birth of Jesus the Messiah were humanly scandalous, even to Joseph.  Jesus' enemies would later throw this question mark about His origin into His face.  You remember in John, chapter 8, He tells them, look, “You are of your father the devil.”  You know, “You don't have Abraham as your father (paraphrase), to which they respond in John 8:41, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father:  God.”  But the origin of Jesus is crystal clear. 

In fact, let me say this, “The Old Testament is clear that a virgin would conceive the coming Messiah.”  We'll look at this in the coming weeks.  Isaiah 7:14 says the “virgin will be with child.”  But the New Testament is equally crystal clear on this issue.  Look at Matthew 1 again, Matthew 1, verse 16, it says, “Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom (and in Greek, ‘whom’ is feminine; by Mary) Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah,” out of Mary was born Jesus. Verse 18, “before they came together she was found to be with child by (through) the Holy Spirit.”  Verse 20, that who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.”  Verse 22, “Now all 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 IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.” 

Turn over to Luke, chapter 1; Luke, chapter 1, verse 27, “the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph…and the virgin's name was Mary.”  Look at verse 34, “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’”  The angel answered and explained how this would transpire.  Verse 23 of chapter 3, go over there, it's in the genealogy, Luke 3:23, “When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph.”  He wasn't Joseph's Son, it was supposed, He was Mary's Son.  Turn to Galatians, chapter 4; Galatians, chapter 4, and verse 4, “When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son.”  That's an interesting expression; that means He existed before as the eternal Son of God. He sent Him forth, but notice, He was “born of a woman.”  Literally the Greek text says, “Who became out of a woman.”  He was sent forth, the eternal Son of God, and “He became out of a woman.”  That is the virgin birth.  By the way, let me just say that every one of those words we've looked at in the New Testament, every time it says ‘virgin’ in the text of the New Testament, it is a Greek word that only and always means one thing, there is no other definition, it is ‘a virgin.’  So, J. Gresham Machen was right when he said in his defense of the virgin birth, “It is perfectly clear that the New Testament teaches the virgin birth of Christ. About that, there can be no manner of doubt. There is no serious question as to the interpretation of the Bible at this point.” 

You see, theologians and Bible scholars who are serious about the Scripture have always agreed that the virgin birth or more specifically the virgin conception and birth are true, they really happened, and that they are essential to the Christian faith.  You understand this?  If you don't believe in the virgin birth, you may not understand it all, you may not have understood it when you came to faith, but if you understand this is what the Bible says and you reject it, you're not a Christian.  It's part of the foundation of the Christian faith.  This was the unanimous testimony of the Church Fathers.  It's the unanimous testimony of the great creeds of the church.  The virgin birth, conception and birth, is affirmed in “The Apostles Creed,” “The Nicene Creed,” “The Council of Chalcedon,” “The Athanasian Creed,” “The Augsburg Confession,” “The Belgic Confession,” “The Westminster Confession,” “The 1689 London Baptist Confession,” and “The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England.”  In other words, throughout its history, Christians have affirmed “The Virgin Conception and Birth of Jesus Christ.” 

Why?  Why is the virgin birth so important?  Why is it so crucial to our faith?  Have you ever asked and answered that question in your mind?  Why does it matter so much?  Well, we need to answer that question.  First of all, let me make sure that we understand what the virgin birth did not accomplish.  First of all, it's “Not the cause of Jesus' deity.”  In other words, it doesn't relate to His deity.  Don't believe the false teachers who say that when Jesus became a man, He gave up His deity–that's just not true, that's not Christianity.  Jesus is God, eternally God, and He added to Himself humanity.  But this has nothing to do with His deity, His virgin birth.

It was “Not the cause of His sinlessness.”  This is what a lot of people think.  Some argue that sin, this is what I was taught early in my life, that sin is passed down only through the male, and therefore, that's why there needed to be the virgin birth, because that way He didn't get a sin nature.  Let me just say there is no evidence, period, no evidence biologically or biblically that sin is passed down only through the man.  You know, I love my wife, Sheila, and she's more sanctified than I am, but she's a sinner. And so is every other woman, and so is every man. This is not it.  I mean, David said in Psalm 51:5, “In sin my mother conceived me.”  Christ's humanity was real, and since He had no human father, His humanity was made of the substance of Mary.  Because She was sinful, the Holy Spirit had to so act upon Her, as one author put it, “That what was born of Her was sinless and absolutely pure.”  In other words, the Spirit had to miraculously protect the humanity of Jesus from the sinfulness of Mary.  

So, why the virgin birth?  Well, there are “Two primary reasons for the virgin birth.”  I'm going to give you one today, and we'll come to the second over the next couple of weeks.  The first primary reason for the virgin conception and birth was this; “The virgin birth was the only possible means by which the preexistent second person of the Trinity could add a human nature without becoming two persons.”  It was the only way the Son of God, who already existed, could add to Himself full humanity.  Now, put on your thinking cap with me for a moment.  What happens when a man and a woman conceive a child?  That child, at the moment of conception, becomes what?  A human person.  I just finished writing a book on abortion.  Lord willing, it'll come out in the next month or two.  But again and again, I was reminded that the Scripture affirms that, at the moment of conception, that child is a human person.  But the Son of God was already a person.  If He had added humanity through the conception of Joseph and Mary, He would have been two persons, a divine person and a human person.  Instead, the virgin birth allowed Him to continue to be just one person, but now with two natures, a human nature and a divine nature.  Through the virgin conception, the person of the Son of God added a human nature to His divine nature.  That's why the virgin birth. 

But don't miss the main point of Matthew 1, the passage we're studying together.  Jesus' conception was certainly unique, but it was, in fact, a human conception.  And that's the real miracle.  The point that Matthew doesn't want us to miss is that God's eternal Son became man, truly and thoroughly human.  This is at the foundation of the Christian faith.  In the virgin conception, the second person of the Trinity allowed our human nature to be united to His divine nature and so became a real human being.  

Here's how the Council of Chalcedon put it in 451 A.D.  “He is of the same reality as God as far as His deity is concerned and of the same reality as we ourselves as far as His humanness is concerned; thus, like us in all respects, sin only excepted.”  You hear me often say, “He was just like you except for sin.” That's my paraphrase of the key point from Chalcedon.  Why is this important?  Turn to Hebrews, chapter 2; Hebrews, chapter 2, verse 14, “Therefore, since the children (In context that's us.) share in flesh and blood (That is, we are human fully, body and soul.), He Himself (In context, Jesus.) likewise also partook of the same,” that is, full humanity.  Why?  Go down to verse 17, “Therefore, He had (in Greek, ‘it was necessary for Him.’) to be made like His brethren like His brethren (us) in all things.”  By the way, that's where the phrase from Chalcedon comes from, “He was made like us in all things, so that (Here's the reason.) He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God,” and here's the heart of it, “to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”  In Hebrews, we learn that high priests had to come from among the people.  To be our high priest, Jesus had to be one of us.  More importantly, to be the sacrifice for our sins, He had to become like us. There it is at the end of verse 17, “to make propitiation,” to make the satisfaction of God's wrath, “for the sins of the (His) people.”  Jesus became just like us except for sin, so that He could represent us as our high priest.  And at the heart of that representation was to offer a sacrifice for our sins that God would accept. 

What is that sacrifice?  Go over to chapter 9; Hebrews, chapter 9, verse 24, “For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands.”  As our high priest, He didn't go into some earthly temple, “a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.”  That's His high priestly intercession in verse 24.  Verse 25, “Nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with the blood that is not his own.”  That's the day of atonement; the high priest making atonement for the sins of the people with the blood of an animal.  Jesus didn't do that!  Verse 26, “Otherwise He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world.”  The high priest did the day of atonement every year, “But now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin (Here it is.) by the sacrifice of Himself.”  Verse 28, “Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation…for those who eagerly await for Him.”

Listen, Christian, you understand this.  The virgin conception is the only way the eternal Son of God could add to Himself a full and complete human nature so that He could be just like you, except for sin.  And it was only because He was just like you, but without sin, that He could stand in your place, and He could absorb the wrath of God on the cross that you deserved. That's the only way it could happen.  I hope you will treasure the virgin conception and birth of Jesus Christ. 

If you're here this morning and you've not trusted in Christ, it's through that person, eternal Son of God who added a full and complete human nature, the God-Man; it's through His life and His death that you can ever be right with God. It's the only way you get forgiveness is if He stands in your place as your substitute, and on the cross, He absorbs the penalty your sin deserves.  And you receive that by repenting of your sins and believing in Him.  And that's my prayer for you today. 

Christian, let me remind you that not only did Jesus become like us except for sin when He was on the earth for 33 years,  He's going to remain like us forever.  As He is in heaven right now, He is fully God and He is fully man.  He became like you then and forever so that He could be your High Priest now and forever.  He ever lives to make intercession for us. 

Let's pray together.  Father, thank You for the great reality of what our Lord has accomplished.  Lord, seal it to our hearts as believers.  May we love the virgin conception and birth of Jesus by which He became just like us except for sin and was able then to stand in our place.  

Father, I pray for those here this morning who don't know You.  Lord, bring the simple Gospel they've heard to bear on their hearts.  It is Your power for salvation.  Lord, draw them to Yourself even now.  May they turn from their sin and rebellion and trust in the Mediator, the one You've given, so that their sins can be forgiven, so that their sins can be propitiated in Your sight.  We pray it in Jesus' name, Amen.