1:18-23
Matthew's account gives things largely from Joseph's perspective, whereas Luke gives things more from Mary’s perspective. This may well reflect the information sources that they used. Mary was betrothed to Joseph, and this was a much more binding commitment than engagement is in our culture, it had legal significance. On learning that Mary was pregnant Joseph drew the obvious conclusion. He wanted to obey the Law, and to spare Mary undue embarrassment, so he was going to divorce her quietly. Note that the people of the day were not unduly gullible. However, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph to assure him that Mary’s pregnancy was the work of the Holy Spirit. The angel also told him to name the child Jesus, and that he would “save His people from their sins”. Any understanding of the gospel that does not give full weight to our sinfulness is fatally flawed. Matthew quotes from Is 7:14. Matthew then gives his first quotation from the Old Testament, saying that these things happened to fulfill this saying. This first one is rather controversial, so we will look at it in some depth. First, we need to have a general look at what “fulfillment” of prophecy means. We tend to take it in the sense that a specific prediction was made, and that Jesus was the fulfillment of this. However, prophecy and prediction are not the same. Many, probably most, prophecies in the Old Testament had both a fairly immediate fulfillment, and then a later complete fulfillment. The initial fulfillment would be partial, but demonstrated the veracity and reality of the prophecy, in particular the reality of the thing it was pointing forward to (which was usually God’s plan of salvation in Christ). The prophecy would show the sort of things that would happen, or what the Messiah would be like.
Here Matthew cites Is 7:14. The controversy arises over the fact that the original Hebrew version can mean “young woman”, not necessarily “virgin”. While the word can mean young woman, most of its uses apply to virgins. However, the partial/complete fulfillment concept is very relevant here. The immediate fulfillment referred to children that Isaiah would father, and this would not be a virgin birth! Moreover, the aspect of the verse that Matthew is focusing on is the “Immanuel” part and the salvation aspects. He is not using this as “proof” of the virgin birth.
Let me now say some general things about the virgin birth.
I want to say first of all that I absolutely believe in the virgin birth, and I have no problems whatsoever in doing so. In this short post I want to briefly explain why.
The virgin birth makes perfect sense to me, in fact I think it is a theological necessity. You and I are fully human, and that is it. Jesus is both fully human and fully God. So He is unique, and therefore it is not surprising at all that His conception (actually it is His conception, not the birth, that was unique!) was different from ours. Indeed, I think it is essential that Mary was a virgin, and it makes perfect sense to me.
Then people say that “virgin births don’t happen, so how could it happen”. This is the weakest argument against the virgin birth, and the silliest. It was a miracle, and miracles are by definition highly unusual events.Then we need to remind ourselves who God is. He is the creator of all things. He created everything on earth, He created the solar system, He created the galaxy, He created all the billions of galaxies (100 billion is apparently the latest estimate). Now if God can create all that I am sure that a virgin birth is well within His capabilities.
There is one argument that does seem, at least superficially, to have some substance to it. That argument is that apart from Matthew and Luke, there is no direct reference to the virgin birth in the New Testament preaching. They preached about the resurrection all the time, but not the virgin birth. So the argument goes that the virgin birth was just a piece of mythology added on later. However, a little thought shows that there is a perfectly rational explanation for this. Suppose you are Peter preaching on the first Pentecost and you start proclaiming that Jesus was born of a virgin, then someone in the crowd shouts out “don’t be ridiculous, you don’t get virgin births. Prove it!”. What is Peter going to do? There is no proof or evidence that he can offer. But now suppose someone in the crowd shout out “don’t be ridiculous, people aren’t raised from the dead. Prove it!” The situation is now quite different. First, Peter could say “if Jesus is dead, then show us the body! Oh, you can’t can you, the only tomb you have is an empty one!”. Then he can point to the five hundred plus people who saw the risen Christ. He, and all the apostles, could present clear evidence for the resurrection. And, contrary to the arguments of some sceptics, the gospel is evidence supported. So there is a perfectly good explanation of why they preached the resurrection all the time, but not the virgin birth. Moreover, it is the death and resurrection of Jesus that have an immediate impact on our lives, the virgin birth makes perfect sense, but is not in the same category.
1:24,25
The angel of the Lord had appeared to Joseph in a dream. Joseph woke up and did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him to do. So he took Mary to be his wife. We can imagine the difficulties this might have caused, as no doubt neighbours would have talked and gossiped. Joseph, however, had no sexual relations with Mary until after the birth of Jesus. Matthew is stressing the reality of the virgin birth. As noted earlier, the quote from Isaiah is not used as “proof” of the virgin birth. However, Matthew and Luke both state quite clearly that it was a virgin birth.
