“Offspring of a virgins womb” This is an important truth, too, but many people don’t understand why. Many know the prophecy in Isaiah, given to the reluctant evil King Ahaz, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7: 13) The Hebrew word that is translated “virgin” is “alma”, which can sometimes be translated “young woman.” But there are two major problems with that interpretation: One – what kind of a miraculous sign would it be for “a young woman” to conceive a baby? Young woman do that fairly often. It is, however, a miraculous sign if a woman “who has not known a man” intimately (like a virgin) conceives a child. And Two – Matthew quotes the prophecy and applies it to Jesus in Matthew 1: 23; writing in Greek, he uses the word “parthenos” which specifically means a virgin. So, it’s important because it’s a miraculous sign that was prophecied more than 700 years earlier. Another reason it’s important that Jesus is the “Offspring of a virgin’s womb” is because that was also prophesied a lot earlier than Isaiah’s time. All the way back in Genesis 3, more than 4000 years before the birth of Jesus, and more than 6000 years ago, God gave Adam and Eve the first prophecy recorded in Scripture. After the tragically sad recounting of their sin, God judges them by expelling His creations from the Garden of Eden. But before He does, He gives them a promise, translated in the New American Standard Bible as this: addressing the serpent, who is Satan, He says “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. Did you notice the phrase “her seed”? That’s also the way it’s translated in the King James Version. In the Hebrew, it’s “the seed of the woman.” So what, you say? The problem is that women don’t have seed! The Latin-based word for “seed” is “sperm”. That’s the way the term is used other times in the Hebrew Old Testament – it always refers to the MALE’S contribution to the child, not the woman’s. But it does make sense if we understand it as a reference to the virgin birth of the promised Deliverer! No human man contributed his “seed” – God supernaturally made Mary “with child” by the power of the Holy Spirit. And not only that! Matthew’s Gospel starts with the genealogy of Jesus because he needed to establish the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, was the rightful heir of David and had a legitimate claim to the throne as the King of Israel, physically in the kingly line through Joseph. (Luke’s genealogy is through David to Mary, so Jesus was a descendent of David legally through both parents) But there’s one odd thing, you’ll notice: all through 42 generations from Abraham, it says so-and-so “was the father of” so-and-so, right. It says that all the way, that is, until the very last generation. Verse 16 reads, in the English Standard Version: “ and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.” It doesn’t say Joseph is the father of Jesus (or “begat” in the KJV); it just says he was “the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born…” Matthew is very careful to say it that way because Joseph was NOT the physical father of Jesus. Luke’s genealogy, in Chapter 3 goes backwards all the way to Adam – so-and-so “is the son of” so-and-so – but he starts with Jesus ”being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph,…” using very precise language to make sure everyone knows that the Messiah was virgin-born. All of this was necessary because of a little problem: God had cursed the Davidic line of kings! In Jeremiah, God has finally had enough of the wicked kings of Judah. King Jeconiah is so evil that God says this, in Jeremiah 22: 30 - Thus says the LORD: “Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah.” So if Jesus were the physical heir of the cursed line, He would not be able to be the legitimate king, since God promised that “NONE of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David…” But, since Jesus was virgin-born and NOT the actual physical heir of Jeconiah, He by-passed the curse! Last but not least: Jesus had to be virgin-born because He had to be free from the curse of sin on all humans. Through Adam, sin came into the world, and that sin was passed on to all his descendents. But, once again, by being “conceived by the Holy Spirit” Jesus by-passed the sin nature that all of us have inherited. Jesus is the literal son of Mary – He had to be fully human to pay the price for the rest of us. But He was also fully God, so that He could live a life of sinless perfection so He could be the spotless “Lamb of God”! And all we have to do is place our trust in Him!
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 05:09:18 +0000
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