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CHAPTER
III
DEVELOPMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE
VIRGIN BIRTH OF CHRIST
A.
Doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Christ in the Early Centuries
The early church cordially received the truth about the virgin birth when
it was first made known. Just when the church became the recipient of the story
behind the birth of Jesus is nowhere revealed. It could have been revealed by
the risen Lord during the forty days, or by Mary during the days of waiting for
the coming of the Spirit. Luke mentions Mary as being in close fellowship with
the Apostles during this period (Acts 1:14). The intimacy of this joyful
fellowship would provide ideal atmosphere for the disclosure of the sacred
secret so full of meaning to all concerned. Ramsay argued convincingly that the
ultimate authority behind Luke's birth account was Mary herself.64
1.
Virgin birth of Christ and the contemporaries
of Christ
Contemporaries of Jesus Christ in Palestine were unaware of the story of
the virgin birth of Christ. There was no mention of the virgin birth in the
earliest missionary preaching of the Apostles in Jerusalem. But all that is just
what could be expected even if the virgin birth were a fact. Certainly it would
not be spoken of by a person like Mary whose mediatorial character is so
delicately and so vividly depicted in the first two chapters of Luke. It would
not be spoken of to the hostile multitude. Also it would certainly not be
mentioned in the earliest public missionary preaching before the crowds in
Jerusalem. Only after the vindication of the virgin birth by the resurrection
and exaltation of Jesus, Mary had told the mystery of Jesus' birth to the
people. Hence it found its way into the Gospel of Luke and from there into the
hearts of Christians of all the ages.65
2.
Virgin birth of Christ and early
Jewish witness
A Jewish genealogical table for the period before A.D. 70 refers to Jesus
as "the bastard of a wedded wife". Later rabbis call Jesus the son of
an adulteress66. In the available sources of the Jewish history of
Christ, it is taught that Jesus is of illegitimate origin, through the union of
his mother with a soldier named Panthera.67 But these reference only
serve to underline the accuracy of the birth descriptions, and to highlight the
burden Mary and Joseph carried all the days of Jesus' upbringing, as they taught
Him bit by bit the truth about Himself, and the wonder of Gabriel's description
in Luke 1:32-35.
3.
Virgin birth of Christ and the acceptance
of it in the early church
The stories told by the primitive Christian leaders in connection with
the birth of Christ are of importance for Christological thought because they
are indicative of the high valuation which these believers placed upon the
person of Christ and their conviction that He was not be explained solely in
terms of human perfection. God was supremely and specially involved in the life
of their Lord Jesus Christ.
a. Ignatius. The first, for a long time the only witness after Luke
and Matthew for the virgin birth is Bishop Ignatius of Syrian Antioch, whose
letters came from the second decade of the century. Arguing against Docetists,
he produced a summary of the chief facts about Christ. He had used the phrase
"born of a woman" to refute the Decetists and it is a strong proof for
his acceptance of the virgin birth of Christ.68
For Ignatius the virgin birth is a piece of the Church's recognized
tradition, to which he refers in fixed phrases reminiscent of confessional
formula. But that does not mean that this point of doctrine was merely part of
his mental luggage. It has its place in the centre of his conviction. The virgin
birth is the very special sign of salvation in the Christian faith. For him
there are three great realities in the plan of salvation-Mary's virginity (in
the conception), the miracle of the birth, and death and resurrection. To
Ignatius, the humanity of the `birth' is more important than the birth form the
virgin. But in the frame work of his theology it remains in the highest degree
significant that the primary miracle of God's entry into the flesh and of His
union with human nature is documentary at this particular point by an obvious
physical miracle, namely the virgin birth.69
b. Justin Martyr. For him the virgin birth of Jesus Christ is an
established and undoubted piece of genuine Christian tradition. He believed that
the prophecy of Is 7:14 is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and he refuted those Jews
who translated ALMAH as "Young woman". For him, the whole of the Old
Testament is full of miraculous references and oracles relating to the story of
Christ. Thus for example, according to Justin Martyr, Jacob's blessing in Gen.
49 on Judah, Jesus' ancestor, who is to wash his garments in the blood of
grapes, is a clear announcement of the virgin birth. For this passage testifies,
not only that Jesus really had "blood" in his veins and was therefore
a real human being, but also that this blood originated not through human seed,
but like the "blood of grapes" from `God's strength" , and
therefore from the Holy Spirit. Regarding the parallel stories of the virgin
birth in other religions, Justin Martyr stated that the demons, being enemies of
God, have long ago obtained through the Old Testament prophets a certain
knowledge of Jesus' future coming, and on the strength of which they have
themselves spread abroad in the world the lies about the supposed sons of gods.
They hoped that when the real son of God appeared, His value would be assessed
accordingly and not one would believe in Him. He reminded the Jews that with God
nothing is impossible, and that Christ's birth from the virgin would after all
be no more unlikely than the creation of Eve from Adam's rib, or of all things
that came directly through God's words.70
c. Irenaeus. For him, the virgin birth is already a part of the old
apostolic tradition. He upholds the rightness of the canon of the four Gospels.
But the Old Testament prophecies are more important to him all along than the
birth descriptions in Luke and Matthew. Because, by these prophecies the virgin
birth is made a "sign" against Jews and heretics which they can not
overlook. According to Irenaeus, the whole messiahship of Jesus depends on His
virgin birth.71
4.
Virgin birth of Christ and the denial
of it in the early church
There is also early evidence of denials of the virgin birth.
Some of these were by pagans, and Jews. There were also objections raised
by some who claimed to be Christian believers. Among these various types of
opponents of the doctrine were the followers of Ebionism and Gnosticism.
a.
Ebionism. This group was a sect of heretical Jewish Christians. The
roots of them can be traced to Judaizing movements within the apostolic period.
They taught that Jesus, the Son of Mary and Joseph, so fulfilled the
Mosaic law that God chose Him to be His Messiah. At the time of baptism, Christ
descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, and near the end of His life, the
Christ withdrew from Him. Thus
Jesus was primarily a man, albeit a man in whom, at least for a time, the power
of God was present and active to an unusual degree. Thus the deity and virgin
birth of Jesus were denied. For them, Jesus was only the natural son of Mary and
Joseph.72
b. Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a system which promised salvation by
knowledge.73 Their
thinking was based on the belief that there are two worlds - the world of
spirit, where God is, which is pure and holy and the world of matter, which is
evil and corrupted. If God is holy and pure, He can have nothing to do with this
world of matter. According to them God can not become flesh because flesh is
considered evil. Therefore the person of Christ was approached in one of two
ways.74
Cerinthus taught that the divine Christ came up in the human Jesus at his
baptism and departed shortly before Jesus' death75
He was the first one to deny the virgin birth of Christ.76
Docetic Gnosticism held that Jesus was actually a kind of phantom, and
only had the appearance of flesh. Jesus merely passed through Mary, like water
passing through a tube. She was only a vehicle, contributing nothing.77
Machen correctly summarizes the negative testimony from the second
century:
The denials of the virgin birth which appear in
that century were based upon philosophical or dogmatic prepossession, much more
probably than upon genuine historical tradition.78
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B. Doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Christ in the Later
Centuries
1.
Virgin birth of Christ and the reformers
The Reformation marked a major turning point in the doctrinal development
of the church. For the preceding one thousand years the authority of the church
had developed continuously until the tradition of the Roman Catholic church and
the authority of the papacy determined what the people were to believe. Men like
Martin Luther brought a return to the authority of the Scriptures.
Reformers held that the Bible alone was the final authority on what was
to be believed and practised. They followed the orthodox view of Christ.79
Therefore, they liberally believed in the descriptions of the virgin
birth of Christ. Even Luther believed that Isa. 7:14 is fulfilled in the birth
of Christ. This can be understood from his comment on the meaning of ALMAH. He
says:
If a Jew or Christian can prove to me that in
any passage of Scripture ALMAH means a married woman, I will give him 100
florins although God alone knows where I may find them.80
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2.
Virgin birth of Christ and the Roman catholic church
Until very recently Roman Catholic theologians strongly upheld the
doctrine of the virgin birth. They had a double motive for doing this. The
virgin birth was a part not only of their doctrine of Christ but also of their
doctrine of Mary. Without the
virgin birth, the whole system of Mariology would collapse.
Catholic theologians interpret the virgin birth as meaning that Jesus was
not born in a normal fashion. In their view, He simply passed through the wall
of Mary's uterus instead of being delivered through the normal birth canal, so
that Mary's hymen was not raptured. Thus, there was a sort of miraculous
caesarean section. According to the related catholic doctrine of the perpetual
virginity of Mary, she at no point engaged in sexual intercourse, so that there
were no natural sons and daughters born to Joseph and Mary.81
In the last decades, however, all this has changed. Many Roman Catholic
scholars have accepted the new approach to the Bible along the lines of Bultmann
and his school, and doubts concerning the factuality of the virgin birth have
arisen within Catholic theology.82
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3.
Virgin birth of Christ and the rationalists
Earlier rationalists held that Matthew's and Luke's descriptions of the
virgin birth in reference to Jesus must be historically discounted, because they
assumed that virgin birth is impossible. They transfer their authority from
Scripture to reason.83 The
primacy of reason was permanently established by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and
George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770- 1831).84
But the rationalists did not do justice to the plain statements of the
text. Their whole approach was based on the assumption that philosophical
considerations justified the critic in making the most violent modifications to
the narrative.85
The problem of the virgin birth was not given serious consideration by
any of the rationalists, since it was either secondary to the question of
miracle, or subsidiary to the question of Jesus' moral character. As miraculous
conception, the solution to the problem was a foregone conclusion based on the
rationalistic estimate of miracle. According to them, miracle must be rejected
on rationalistic and naturalistic grounds. Therefore, the miracle of the virgin
birth of Jesus must be rejected. As a story of Jesus' origin, the problem was
obscured by the much greater importance of His life and ministry.86
C. Doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Christ in the Modern
Period
1.
Virgin birth of Christ and the moderns
All the conservative scholars believe in the virgin birth of Jesus
Christ. But some moderns would brush aside the whole subject of the virgin birth
on ground that such a doctrine is unnecessary for Christian faith. Emil Brunner
treats the virgin birth as an impertinence, since it is an attempt to explain
what should be left as a mystery. He
proposes that the incarnation be retained as central to Christianity but that
the virgin birth be regarded as an attempt of human minds to explain the
miracle.87
Adolf Harnack, a famous liberal German scholar, did not believe in the
virgin birth of Christ. The main reason was that be did not believe in the
incarnation of the son of God. To him Jesus was just a man and no more. Further,
he did not believe in miracles.88
Karl Barth believed in the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ89
and for many years his view dominated Protestant theology. He writes:
The truth of the conception of Jesus Christ by
the Holy Spirit and of His birth of the Virgin Mary points to the true
incarnation of the true God achieved in His historical manifestation, and
recalls the special form through which this beginning of the divine act of grace
and revelation, that occurred in Jesus Christ, was distinguished from other
human events.90
In his interpretative analysis, Barth referred to the mystery of the
incarnation and to the virgin birth which is a sign of that mystery. He adds:
The
sign does not prove the thing signified,
it
communicates it.
In other words, this miracle was not necessary for the incarnation. God
could have chosen another process, even as Jesus could have done other miracles
to signify the same word.91
For him the virgin birth has noetic character, and on the basis of its
noetic character it has a real place in the faith and theology of the church.
William Barclay did not believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.92
For him, the descriptions of the virgin birth of Jesus found in the
Gospels are only stories of the birth of Jesus. For he says:
The Jews had a saying that in the birth of
every child there are three partners - the father, the mother, and the spirit of
God. They believed that no child ever be born without the Spirit. And it may
well be that the New Testament stories of the birth of Jesus are lovely,
poetical ways of saying that, even if he had a human father, the Holy Spirit of
God was operative in his birth in a unique way.93
In the conservative circle, the miracle of the virgin birth of Christ was
regarded as an essential part of the Christian faith. It was strongly defended
by such men as A. Kuyper, H.Bavinck, C.Hodge, B.B. Warfield, James Orr, Robert
G. Gromacki and J. Gresham Machen.
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2.
Virgin birth of Christ and the mythical interpreters
They interpret the birth narratives in terms of myth. David Strauss was
the main advocate of this mythical theory. He regarded the genealogies as
historical because they traced the origin of Jesus from both Mary and Joseph,
whereas he treated the virgin birth descriptions as a later mythical
development. This development came about through Christian belief that Messiah
must be born of a virgin on the basis of Ps. 2:7.94
Although Strauss's mythical reconstruction were judged unsatisfactory as
exegesis of the text, his appeal to myth to explain the development of the
virgin birth idea has left some mark on interpreters.
He was convinced that the mythical explanation of the story of Jesus'
conception avoids the difficulties that are inherent in both the supernatural
and the natural explanations of Jesus' birth Strauss's view on the virgin birth
was predetermined by his mythical interpretation and that resulted in his denial
of the virgin birth of Christ. Rudolf Bultmann also believed that the virgin
birth is a myth.95
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3.
Virgin birth of Christ and the neo-liberals
Neo-liberals had a lower view of man and a higher view of God.
They had a higher view of Christ than the old liberals. yet they rejected
the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ. They spoke of the
"divinity" of Christ, and they rejected the notion that reference to
the deity of Christ demands belief in the virgin birth.96
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4.
Virgin birth of Christ and the fundamentalists
Fundamentalists believe in the verbal plenary inspiration as well as the
inerrancy of the Scriptures (2 Tim 3:16; 2 pet. 1:21).
Therefore, they believe in the virgin birth of Christ (Isa. 7:14; Matt
1:18-25; Luke 1:35). Virgin birth
and deity are inseparably connected. If Christ was born in the natural way, that
is, if he had a human father, he could not be God. He would be just as human,
inheriting the sinful nature. Christ is God, not because He is born of a virgin;
but because He is God, His incarnation must be by way of a virgin birth.97
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END
NOTES
·
64William M. Ramsay, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem?
(Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), pp. 73-92 passim.
·
65Machen, What is Christianity? p.77.
·
66Ethelbert Stauffer, Jesus and His Story, trans.
Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), p.17.
·
67Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict,
2 Vols. (San Bernardino, California: Campus Crusade for Christ International,
1977), pp. 120-21.
·
68Machen, The Virgin Birth, p.7.
·
69Hans Von Campenhausen, The Virgin Birth in the
Theology of the Ancient Church, (London: S.C.M. Press Ltd, 1964), pp. 29-30.
·
70Ibid., pp. 31-33.
·
71Ibid., p.34.
·
72Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, (Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House, 1991), p.694.
·
73Merrill C. Tenney, New Testament Survey, (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1976), p.74.
·
74Henry Clarence Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic
Theology, (Grand Rapids: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), p.206.
·
75Ibid.
·
76W.H.Griffith Thomas, Christianity is Christ,
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1965), p.128.
·
77Erickson, pp.713-14.
·
78Machen, The Virgin Birth, p.43.
·
79Enns, p.447.
·
80Foster, pp. 246-47.
·
81Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, (New
York: Doubleday, 1977), pp. 517-18.
·
82Klaas Runia, " Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born
of the Virgin Mary", Christianity Today, 6 December, 1974, p.5.
·
83Boslooper, p.84.
·
84Ibid., pp. 88-89.
·
85Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology,
(Leicester: Inter Varsity Press, 1981), p.372.
·
86Boslooper, pp. 87-93 passim.
·
87Runia, p.5.
·
88Ibid.
·
89John F. Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord,
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1974), pp. 14-15.
·
90Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, Trans. G.T.
Thomson (London : SCM Press Ltd, 1949), p.95.
·
91Idem, The Faith of the Church, (London: Fontana,
1958), p.86.
·
92John Murray, Collected writings of John Murray,
Vol.I: The claims of Truth (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1976),
pp. 340-43.
·
93Willaim Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series,
Vol.IV: The Gospel of Luke, (Philadelphia: The Westminister Press, 1975),
p.13.
·
94Boslooper, pp. 93-98.
·
95Runia, p.5.
·
96Enns, p.556.
·
97Buraga, p.40.
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