Archive: The Virgin Birth is Vital

By Charles W. Keyson, Editor

Recently a Good News critic said, “I like some of the things you people are doing, but I think you make too much emphasis on petty doctrines.”

“Can you give us an example?” we asked.

“Yes—the Virgin Birth. That’s not important.”

This prominent layman was not the only United Methodist who thinks the Virgin Birth is a trivial matter. And since the Christmas season will soon be here, the matter bears examination.

During the 1920s, the Virgin Birth became a kind of litmus-paper test of theological orthodoxy. Fundamentalists declared passionately that a person can’t be a Christian unless he believes that the Virgin Birth happened—literally. On the other side, non-fundamentalists insisted that the Virgin Birth is not important, for Jesus never mentioned it, nor do the letters of Paul. Under the influence of more radical Biblical criticism, the Virgin Birth came to be regarded by many as only a “myth,” a charming bit of folk religion.

These different opinions are very much alive today. And it is safe to say that many will read and hear the Christmas story in 1977 without believing that the Virgin Birth really happened.

The people who believe the Virgin Birth literally usually believe literally the other miracles too. And people who doubt the Virgin Birth usually also question some or all of the Bible’s miracles.

“A child can’t be born without a human father,” they insist. “That’s contrary to the laws of nature. Jesus could not have been conceived by the Holy Spirit the way the Bible says.”

So the real issue is whether or not God is Master of the universe. He set up all life processes. Has He the right to interfere with, or set aside, these processes? In this case, could He create a child without a human father? Does God rule nature, or does nature rule God?

The Bible declares from beginning to end that God is Creator and supreme Master of everything. The distant planets are under His control; also the unseen elements of which matter is composed. People who believe in this Biblical God have no trouble believing in the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and all the other miracles. Such things seem only natural to those who have glimpsed the infinite greatness and majesty of God.

The trouble comes when the Biblical God is replaced by a lesser god, one whose power and wisdom are no greater than the power and wisdom of human beings. This is humanism. It places human wisdom and human experience as the Number One source and standard of truth. God and His activity must be limited to what we can understand and explain through scientific or pseudo-scientific theories.

Humanism is idolatry because it places man where God ought to be. And it is humanism, foisted on the church through much seminary teaching, preaching, education, and program emphasis, which has shrunk down our ideas about God so that He no longer threatens our freedom to think and do whatever we please.

All of this lies beneath the question of whether or not the Virgin Birth is true—like two-thirds of the iceberg underlies the tip that is visible above the ocean’s surface. Is God supreme, or man? That is the issue.

The next issue concerning the Virgin Birth is more obvious. The Bible says Jesus was born of a virgin (Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-38). If the Virgin Birth is NOT true, then the Bible is wrong. And if it is wrong about the Virgin Birth, is it also wrong about the atonement of Jesus (dying on the cross to pay for our sins), His Resurrection, and the predictions about His coming again?

Evangelicals believe that the Bible is a reliable record of things that really did happen and will happen. We believe that nothing false is found from Genesis to Revelation. We believe that Scripture has a deeply symbolic meaning—but we insist that the symbolic must not displace or replace the literal meaning of the great events in holy history, especially the birth, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we oppose making the Virgin Birth symbolic only; rejecting or ignoring it first of all as literal fact.

A third issue on the Virgin Birth is the deity of Jesus.

If Jesus’ mother and father were both human beings, then He would be no different from you and me … a great man, but certainly not God. For this reason the biological fatherhood of God is essential if Jesus is the God-man as the Scriptures picture Him to be. And if Jesus was nothing but a great man, His death could not possibly have atoned for the sins of billions.

Historic Christian faith has insisted for many centuries that Jesus is of one essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. All three, the Holy Trinity, are united mysteriously in the Godhead. The Wesleys believed this strongly, and true Methodism has always insisted on it—but without trying to explain the unexplainable truth that we worship “God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.”

The Virgin Birth is part of the mystery of the Godhead. The Bible’s claim must not be set aside in favor of theories which make the origins of Jesus just like the origins of anybody else. We believe that His perfect Deity was expressed through His perfect humanity. And the Virgin Birth helps us to understand how this miracle happened.

We do not say that a person is a Christian because he or she believes the Virgin Birth. But we do say that the Virgin Birth is naturally and easily believed by all who have become personally acquainted with the only begotten Son of God.