For several months, a little boy had been watching his mother's stomach increase in size. It was becoming harder and harder to sit on her lap.

"Mommy, why is your stomach getting so big?” He was told that his little sister was inside her stomach.” He was told that he used to be in her stomach too. When the boy's father got home, the boy asked his father if he could talk to him in private. They went to the boy's room. "Daddy, I need answers to two questions: First, why does Mommy keep eating little kids? And second, how did I escape?" 

This little boy’s lack of understanding of the matter of how babies are born is not unlike our ability to understand the virgin birth. 

What is the importance of the virgin birth? Why did God choose to bring Jesus into the world this way? On one level, of course, the virgin birth is important simply because we are told that it occurred. If we do not hold to the virgin birth even though the Bible declares it, then we have compromised the authority of the Bible and there is in principle no reason we should hold to its other teachings. 

A second reason is that, if Jesus Christ were not virgin-born, then, of course, he had a human father; if he had a human father, then he inherited the nature of the father; as that father had a nature of sin, then he inherited his nature of sin; then Jesus himself was a lost sinner, and He himself needed a Savior from sin.

The virgin birth is a reminder that our salvation is supernatural. Jesus, in telling Nicodemus about the necessity of new birth, said, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:5-6b).

The virgin birth is evidence of the Holy Sprit's activity. The virgin birth is a reminder that our salvation, though it came through humanity, is totally of God.

The virgin birth is also a reminder that God's salvation is fully a gift of grace. There was nothing particularly deserving about Mary. That she was chosen to bear God's son, is a reminder that salvation is not a human accomplishment but a gift from God, and an undeserved one at that, unearned, undeserved, and unmerited.

·        The virgin birth is evidence of the uniqueness of Jesus the Savior.

·        The virgin birth of Jesus provided a way for us to escape the ravages of sin.

·        The virgin birth symbolizes God’s ability to accomplish the impossible task of granting a new birth to sinners (Matthew 19:26).

Although we cannot understand how it happened, we need to recognize that it was supernatural, and that Jesus' birth was representative of our new birth.

Prayer 

Father thank you for allowing us to share in the incarnation experience as seen in your Word. Our salvation is not a human accomplishment but a gift from You, and an undeserved one at that, unearned, undeserved, and unmerited.

Amen.