Does The Virgin Birth Matter?

[e v e]

He asks us to return to our Home
.. eden in the other reality.

nothing man made since the fall
improved on eden He made for us
.. in fact the total opposite.

 

[Olde Tymer]

.
FAQ: Did Jesus' virgin conception insulate him from mankind's so-called fallen
nature?

REPLY: No.

FAQ: Why not?

REPLY: Because people don't contract the fallen nature by means of heredity.

When Adam tasted the forbidden fruit, the eyes of both him and Eve were opened
and they perceived themselves indecent; so they both set about fabricating some
rudimentary aprons to cover their pelvic areas. The thing is; Eve was already fully
constructed with material taken from Adam's body prior to his eating the forbidden
fruit so it was impossible for him to pass its effects to her by means of heredity.

FAQ: Did she obtain the fallen nature from the forbidden fruit that she ate before
giving some to Adam?

REPLY: No. It was apparently God's decision that if sin and death were to come into
the world, they would do so by means of the solo actions of one man working
alone, just as life and righteousness would come into the world by means of the
solo actions of one man working alone. (Rom 5:12-21 & 1Cor 15:21-22) In other
words: if Eve was to contract the fallen nature, she had to do so by means of
Adam eating the fruit rather than herself.

FAQ: Well then maybe we should be asking about Adam. We know he contracted
the fallen nature as a result of his eating the forbidden fruit. But where did the fallen
nature come from to begin with? What was its source? Was it God? Or was it the
elephant in the middle of the room?

REPLY: The elephant is the logical source. Mr. Serpent, a.k.a. the Devil & Satan
(Rev 12:9 & Rev 20:2) has the power of death (Heb 2:14) and the ability to tamper
with the human body and the human mind in ways not easily detected; e.g. Luke
13:16, Mark 5:1-5, and Eph 2:2.

FAQ: The Bible says Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3) So then
why didn't he have the fallen nature like everyone else?

REPLY: It was likely a simple matter for the Holy Spirit to keep the Serpent's paws
off baby Jesus to ensure he would come into the world a sinless man.
_

 

[Olde Tymer]

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FAQ: Did Jesus' virgin conception isolate him from Jeconiah's curse?

REPLY: Before answering the question we should probably take a moment to
explain a few things about Mr. Jeconiah.

Back in the Old Testament, a curse was leveled upon a really bad king in Solomon's
royal line to David's throne that reads like this:

● Jer 22:29-30 . . O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord! Thus said the Lord:
Record this man as without succession, one who shall never be found acceptable;
for no man of his offspring shall be accepted to sit on the throne of David and to
rule again in Judah.

The bad king's name was Jeconiah (a.k.a. Jehoiakim and/or Coniah). Joseph was
one of his descendants. (Matt 1:11)

It's commonly believed that the curse extended to Joseph, so that had he been
Jesus' paternal father, it would have prevented Mary's boy from ascending David's
throne.

But adopted children inherit from their fathers the same as paternal children; so
had the curse extended to Joseph, it would have extended to Jesus too whether he
was virgin-conceived or not. In other words: seeing as how Jesus got into
Solomon's royal line by adoption, then of course he would've got into the curse too
because the throne and the curse were a package deal.

However; the wording "to rule again in Judah" indicates that the curse on
Jeconiah's royal posterity was limited to the era of the divided kingdom. That
condition came to an end when Nebuchadnezzar crushed the whole country and led
first Samaria, and then later Judah, off to Babylonian slavery.

When Jesus takes the reigns, the country of Israel will be unified. His jurisdiction
won't be limited to Judah within a divided kingdom, but will dominate all the land
of Israel. So the curse doesn't apply to him.

● Ezek 37:21-22 . .You shall declare to them: Thus said the Lord God: I am going
to take the Israelite people from among the nations they have gone to, and gather
them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. I will make them a
single nation in the land, on the hills of Israel, and one king shall be king of them
all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided
into two kingdoms.

FAQ: Jesus and Joseph were father and son by means of adoption?

REPLY: Yes. Joseph was instructed to give Mary's baby the name Jesus. (Matt 1:21)
Joseph complied. (Matt 1:25)

In ancient times when a man stood with a woman to name her child, he officially
declared it his (cf. Luke 1:13 & Luke 1:59-63). So from then on the neighbors, and
Mary too, identified Joseph as Jesus' dad. (Luke 2:27-28, Luke 2:41, Luke 2:48, &
Luke 4:22)
_

 

[Olde Tymer]

.
FAQ: Mary's son was virgin conceived. From whence then did baby Jesus obtain a Y
chromosome for his male gender?

REPLY: In the beginning, Eve's entire body-- inside and out, front to back, top to
bottom, and side to side --was constructed with material taken from Adam's body.
(Gen 2:21-22) So if God could construct an entire woman from material taken from
a man's body, then it shouldn't be too difficult for Him to construct a teensy little Y
chromosome from a woman's body.

The practicality of it is that a Y chromosome constructed with material taken from
Mary's body wouldn't be an alien substance created ex nihilo; rather, it would be a
100% natural substance, viz: baby Jesus' Y chromosome would be that of a totally
Jewish human being.

FAQ: Did Jesus have to be a Jew?

REPLY: Absolutely because he was put on track for David's throne. (Luke 1:32)

The thing is: God promised David that his successors would be selected from
among his paternal offspring; and that on oath.

● Ps 132:11 . .The Lord has sworn in truth unto David; and He will not turn from it:
"Of the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne"

The new testament verifies Jesus is the fruit of David's body spoken of in that oath.

● Acts 2:29-30 . . Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch
David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day.
Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him,
that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on
his throne.

● Rom 1:3 . . . His son; descended from David according to the flesh

The Greek word for "seed" is a mite ambiguous because it can refer to spiritual
progeny as well as paternal progeny; but in David's case; seed refers to paternal
progeny because Jesus was 1) the fruit of David's body and 2) of David's loins
according to the flesh.
_

 

[GodsGrace]

More on “Virgin Birth”

By ‘virgin birth’ Protestants generally mean ‘virginal conception’. Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy believe also in a literal virgin birth, whereby the baby passed out of Mary’s body in such a way as to leave her virginity anatomically unimpaired (virginity in partu, ‘in giving birth’, as well as ante partum, ‘before …’). This belief is found first in writings of Syrian origin from the mid-2nd century, such as the Protevangelium of James. It quickly became a standard part of the doctrine of Mary’s ‘perpetual virginity’, i.e. including also virginity post partum, ‘after giving birth’ to Jesus (so that *‘the brethren of the Lord’ could not have been Mary’s children). The Reformers were virtually unanimous in holding to Mary’s perpetual virginity. This article will follow common practice in using ‘virgin birth’ to denote virginal conception.

The two accounts of the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke are clearly independent of one another, and both record that he was born through the direct action of the Holy Spirit, without a human father (Mt. 1:18–25; Lk. 1:34). So the only two gospels that record the circumstances of Jesus’ birth present him as born from a virgin—although greater stress falls on conception by the Spirit than on Mary’s virginity.

Yet the historicity of the virgin birth is doubted or denied by many scholars, who often regard the birth-narratives in Matthew and Luke not as historical record but as some form of imaginative literature, expressing the significance of Jesus’ birth in symbolic, poetic, mythical or midrashic terms. The absence of explicit reference to the virgin birth elsewhere in the NT, especially Mark and Paul, is held to confirm that it was not part of the earliest traditions about Jesus.

However there may well be supporting evidence in the rest of the NT. Although a person may not say directly what he believes, he shows his belief by a turn of phrase. Thus Mark has no birth narrative, since he starts where the preachers in Acts start, namely, with the baptism by John. Yet in 6:3 he alone of the Synoptists quotes objectors as saying, ‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?’ By contrast Mt. 13:55 has ‘the carpenter’s son’, and Lk. 4:22 ‘Joseph’s son’. Identifying a son by his mother was highly unusual, and perhaps disparaging, in a Jewish context.
John also begins Christ’s earthly ministry with the Baptist. Later he indicates that there were rumours about the illegitimacy of Jesus when in 8:41 the Jews declared, ‘We (emphatic pronoun and emphatic position) were not born of fornication’. Less evidential, although accepted by some Christian writers from Tertullian onwards, is the reading in the Verona Latin codex on Jn. 1:13, which has the singular, ‘who was born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God’. (This reading is not attested in any Gk. MS.)

Paul, the companion of Luke, uses language that implies acceptance of the virgin birth. When he speaks of the coming, or birth, of Jesus Christ, he uses the general verb, ginomai, not gennao, which tends to associate the husband (e.g. Rom. 1:3; Phil. 2:7). This is particularly marked in Gal. 4:4, where ‘God sent forth his Son, coming (genomenon) from a woman’. By contrast, in 4:23 Ishmael ‘was born’, gegennētai (from gennao).
There is no evidence that a virgin birth was part of Jewish Messianic expectations. Is. 7:14 is not specific enough to have given rise to such a belief; its use by Matthew presupposes the prior existence of such a conviction about Jesus’ birth. Nor do pagan stories of gods in human form impregnating women provide a credible source for the gospels’ account. Matthew and Luke do not present Mary as impregnated by the Holy Spirit—as though Jesus had a human mother and a divine father—but as conceiving miraculously without male intervention at all.

Theologically it has been argued that the reason given for the title ‘the Son of God’ in Lk. 1:35 cannot be reconciled with the idea of the eternal Son of God of the epistles. This argument assumes that Mary and Joseph would have been given a full theological statement. The two records give the contents of what they were told, namely, that Mary was to be the mother of the promised Messiah, the Son of God and ‘God with us’. The fact that Matthew and Luke do not here reflect later theology is a further argument for the authenticity of their records.

Theologically it is also commonly alleged that someone born of only one parent could not truly be said to share our real humanity. This objection misses the significance of a proper concentration on conception. From that point onwards, there are no grounds for seeing Jesus’ birth as other than wholly normal. (The objection also sounds increasingly weak in the light of modern medical techniques to facilitate child-bearing.)
A general prejudice against the miraculous in general and the incarnation in particular, often animates denial of the virgin birth. Yet it is wonderfully congruent with the much more fundamental truth of the incarnation itself. To hold to the latter as Christian faith has traditionally believed in it, while rejecting the former, is rather like straining out a gnat while swallowing a camel. Although theologians have given different interpretations of Jesus’ birth from a virgin, it at least attests that the entry of God’s Son fully into human life was a gift of divine initiative, a new beginning independent of normal male action. The start of the new creation is God’s fiat, grounded in his grace alone.


D. F. Wright and .J. S. Wright, “Virgin Birth,” in New Bible Dictionary

Just to add: Also a painless birth.

Very informative posts!

 

[Tothalordbeallglory]

Just to add: Also a painless birth.

Very informative posts!

Trench time . stand the walls and let us contend for the true faith my friend .
The hour is late and has grown even later since when i last said the hour is late .
We must work the works of the LORD while there still be time to do so .
The MASTER of the House shall arise and shut the door
in a day and in an hour known to no man . All outside shall wail
Those within shall shout the cry of victory as are forever with THE KING who saved them .
To the trenches . Line the walls for each has their part in this end hour battle for the souls of men .