TREASURY OF SERMONS
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The Virgin Birth of Christ According To God's Holy Word
By Rev (Dr) Timothy Tow
(Preached at Life BPC, 10.30 am service, 2 Apr 2000 )
Text: Matt 1:16 -25
Calvin states God's Saving Plan for all mankind most succinctly: "The Son of God became the Son of Man that the sons of men might become the sons of God." How is this plan to be implemented?
According to Matt 1:18-25, the Virgin Mary was engaged to be married to Joseph. In the course of courtship, before they came together, she was found to be pregnant. Joseph, being a just man, thought of putting her away privately, apparently not having asked Mary for an explanation. While he thought on these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. He told Joseph not to doubt Mary but to marry her, for that which was conceived in her was from the Holy Spirit. "And she shall give birth to a Son and he shall call his name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins."
Matthew who recorded this Holy Event commented, "Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us" (Matt 1:22,23).
In obedience to the Word of the Lord, Joseph married Mary. Thus, he became a protective cover to the Virgin. He did not touch her until the delivery of her firstborn Son.
Now Satan who brought our first parents to ruin was most displeased with the coming of the Saviour. He stirred up King Herod to kill the divine Babe, when the Wisemen mocked him without returning to report on His whereabouts. After the Wisemen left, the angel of the Lord spoke to Joseph in a dream that they should quickly escape to Egypt . They left in the night. When Herod ordered all male babies from two and under be killed who were born in Bethlehem , it was too late. God thwarted Satan's plan.
Throughout the ages Satan kept on devising new tactics to confound our Lord, but every stratagem failed.
In our modern day he conceives the plan of character assassination. This he has done by twisting translation of the word "virgin." In the Revised Standard Version (RSV) which appeared in 1952 and in the New English Bible (NEB), "virgin" is translated "young woman." This is to take away the miracle of the Virgin Birth of Christ, for what young woman cannot conceive and bear a son? Christ is demoted to come from natural birth.
As if this is not enough, Satan invents another tactic. This time is through Study Bibles. In the study notes of the New International Version (NIV), the Virgin Birth of Christ is compared to the birth of a son by Isaiah's second wife. The prophecy of Christ's Virgin Birth is subsumed under Isaiah's son by his second wife, his first wife having passed away. It is argued that when the prophecy was uttered, it referred to Isaiah's second wife who was then a virgin. Of course she was no more a virgin after her marriage to Isaiah. How subtle!
What double speak is this jargon? Jesus says, "Let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay. For whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." It is the forked tongue of the snake that hisses a double talk. Matthew, the divine writer of his Gospel states simply, "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." The NIV Study Bible says otherwise. There is a double fulfilment, first in Isaiah's second wife and then in Mary. This is Satan's dirty trick!
As our Bookroom which was privatised began to promote the NIV and other versions which take the same line, it behoved the Church to take back the business and keep it under the strict control of Church and College. Today FEBC Bookroom sells only the King James Bible to the exclusion of the corrupt Westcott and Hort text on which NIV is based. The Lord is beginning to prosper our book ministry.
When Paul says in Rom 10:9, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" did he include all the fundamental doctrines of Christ's Person? Surely the confession on the Lord Jesus Christ includes His Virgin Birth, as stated in the Apostles Creed: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary..." But there are leaders of the Church of England who repeat the Apostles Creed, tongue in cheek, especially when it touches Christ's Virgin Birth. Two or three years ago I remember the Bishop of Durham denying the Virgin Birth on the BBC to the chagrin of faithful Anglicans. The irony of it all was when a Synod of Bishops was called soon after the Bishop of Durham's denial, of fifty English Bishops the vote was taken with forty-five of them supporting the renegade Bishop. Ninety per cent therefore of the leadership of the Church of England are also deniers of the Virgin Birth of Christ. Are these not wolves in sheep's clothing, false Christs and false prophets, "who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction" (II Pet 2:1)? Whoever denies the Virgin Birth of Christ has made shipwreck of his faith even as he who offends in one point (of law) he is guilty of all (Jas 2:10 ).
Finally, our Church celebrates Christmas for this reason also. Christmas is a time of joyous and melodious singing of the age-old carols. In these carols are enshrined all the loyal confessions of the Church on the sacred birth of our Lord Jesus Christ with reference to the Virgin Mary. God blesses the truth of His coming to earth through the Virgin and hence the power of Christmas. The Gospel is preached and the Name of Jesus highly exalted and the Church blessed. There is a group of young people who on so-called puritanical principles boycott Christmas, but this to their own oblivion.
The Son of God became the Son of Man that the sons of men might become the sons of God. This saving plan for all mankind is succinctly stated by John Calvin. How is it to be implemented? By the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ through the Virgin Mary. According to the infallible Word of God, and not according to the fallible word of man. Amen.
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