Controversies of Christmas part 3
Attacks on Christmas
Prophecy controversy; perfect fulfillment, (Bethlehem, Egypt, Ramah, Nazareth) Genealogy controversy; perfect ancestry, (Son of David, Son of Man, Son of God) Virginity controversy; perfect conception, Star controversy; perfect announcement, Date controversy; at the perfect time
Virginity controversy
Luke 1: 26 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; [e]blessed are you among women!”
29 But [f]when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. 30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”
34 Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I [g]do not know a man?”
35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. 36 Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. 37 For with God nothing will be impossible.”
38 Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
Matthew 1: 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. 19 Then Joseph her husband, being [f]a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. 20 But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is [g]conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name [h]Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
22 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
Of all the controversies of the Christmas story, this one is probably the greatest. The virginity controversy.
Matthew and Luke tell us that Jesus was born to Mary, his mother, who had never had an intimate relationship with a man. God made her pregnant supernaturally.
This is a point of question and contention in the Christmas story.
https://www.religioustolerance.org/virgin_b.htm
Conflicting quotations showing the diversity of beliefs about the
virgin birth:
"The day will come when the mystical
generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a
virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the
brain of Jupiter." Thomas Jefferson, 1823. 1
"Matthew's
Gospel was written in about AD 80-90 for Christians who were not of Jewish
provenance - that is, Gentiles who had no knowledge of Isaiah's original
Hebrew. For them, the passage announced, unambiguously, the fulfillment of an
ancient prophecy: the miraculous birth of a divine being. But the prophet
himself and readers of his original Hebrew sentence regarded it as a quite
specific allusion to the historical circumstances of Isaiah's age, and would have
found its mutation in Greek into one of the foundations of Christian doctrine
quite baffling." Geza Vermes, discussing Isaiah 7:14 5
"The
virgin birth is an underlying assumption of everything the Bible says about
Jesus. To throw out the virgin birth is to reject Christ's deity, the
accuracy and authority of Scripture, and a host of other related doctrines
that are the heart of the Christian faith. No issue is more important than
the virgin birth to our understanding of who Jesus is. If we deny Jesus is
God, we have denied the very essence of Christianity." John F.
MacArthur, Jr. 7
The controversy regarding the prophecy addresses the question, “Did the prophecy in Isaiah actually predict that a virgin would conceive?”
I. “Did the prophecy in Isaiah actually predict that a virgin would conceive?”
Matthew says it does.
Matthew 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
Two parts to the controversy; Was Isaiah 7:14 a prophecy about the Coming Messiah? And is the word “virgin” a correct translation in Isaiah 7:14.
We will hear from the critics, then we will answer the critics.
A. The critics
1. First critique
Was Isaiah 7:14 a prophecy about the Coming Messiah?
What is Isaiah 7:14 about? What is the book of Isaiah about?
Isaiah was a prophet of God,
1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
In other words, Isaiah was a real man, around the 8th century B.C. giving a message from God to real kings of Judah, during real history.
Isaiah, in a prophecy to King Ahaz about Assyria, says,
Isaiah 7: 3 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, “Go out now to meet Ahaz, …. 4 and say to him: [d]‘Take heed, and [e]be quiet; do not fear or be fainthearted …. 5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have plotted evil against you, saying, 6 “Let us go up against Judah and [f]trouble it, and let us make a gap in its wall for ourselves, and set a king over them, the son of Tabel”— 7 thus says the Lord God:
You’re worried about these threats-Don’t worry
“It shall not stand, Nor shall it come to pass. 8 For
the head of Syria is Damascus,
And the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years
Ephraim will be [g]broken, So that it will not be a
people. …. 14 Therefore the Lord
Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin (young maiden) shall
conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.[i]
15 Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings.
So, what is the first attack on Matthew’s use of this prophecy? They will say, “This prophecy has nothing to do with the Messiah coming. The prophecy was simply about a child born to Isaiah and his wife. The child would be a sign concerning the enemies of Israel who were threatening invasion.
The mother of the child would be Isaiah’s wife, here called “the prophetess.”
But, you might respond to this critic and say, hold on, the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 says…
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.[i] “
Isaiah’s wife was not a virgin. In fact, the child that she bore as a sign for Ahaz was Isaiah’s second child. Then how can she be called “virgin?”
2. 2nd critique
And that leads us to the second criticism of Matthew’s application of Isaiah 7:14 to Jesus’ birth. They say that Matthew mistranslated the word for “virgin.” The word shouldn’t be “virgin,” it should be “young maiden.”
The word in Hebrew, in Isaiah 7:14, is “alma” which is translated “young maiden.” And here’s the problem; In English, for example, we have a special word that means that a young lady has had no sexual relationship with another person. That word in English is “virgin.”
So, if we put that word in the text, Isaiah would have said to King Ahaz, “The Lord will give you a sign, a young maiden will conceive and bear a son…”
And those who attack Matthew’s use of this passage will say, this is the son of Isaiah and his wife, the child is just to be a sign, as he grows about the time limit God set on Israel’s enemies.
B. Answer the critiques
1. Isaiah 7:14 was a prophecy about Isaiah’s wife having a baby. And that baby being a sign to King Ahaz.
14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.[i] 15 Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings.
To reinforce that understanding, look at what happens in the very next chapter;
Isaiah 8: 3 Then I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said to me, “Call his name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz; 4 for before the child [b]shall have knowledge to cry ‘My father’ and ‘My mother,’ the riches of Damascus and the [c]spoil of Samaria will be taken away before the king of Assyria.”
It’s practically the same message. A young maiden has a child, and King Ahaz can watch that baby grow. But before the child is old enough to speak, God assures Ahaz that these nations that trouble him will be gone.
And they were, by the way. That prophecy was fulfilled. But, was this prophecy in 7:14 about more than just a troublesome time for King Ahaz? Let me build that case.
2. But the whole book of Isaiah is about bigger themes than King Ahaz.
https://www.carm.org/about-bible-verses/is-isaiah-714-really-a-messianic-prophecy-7/
“The problem with this argument is that it assumes that Isaiah 7 was written in a vacuum. It assumes that the story was written with no connection to the rest of the book of Isaiah and for absolutely no purpose other than to dryly record an event. The Book of Isaiah, however, is not a memoir or a work of history. There is very little narrative in Isaiah at all. When it does tell a story, it is utilizing that story to make a larger point. When the New Testament author cited Isaiah 7:14 in reference to Jesus, it was not merely ripping the verse out and slapping it on the page. It was making a larger case that Jesus was the fulfillment of a series of prophecies about a promised Messianic Son in Isaiah 7-12.”
This is the argument of this author. To say that “a virgin will conceive, and bear a son,” is only about a son born to Isaiah and his wife, is to ignore the major themes of the book of Isaiah.
The first major theme of Isaiah’s prophecy can be found in Isaiah’s very name which means. “The LORD is salvation.” This book of prophecy is about God and the salvation He offers. It is not just about some individual king of Judah.
A Second major theme is about how God is at work in Israel, and the world, and how God is Sovereign over, not just Israel, but all nations. In the book of Isaiah the prophet is given predictions about all the nations around Israel. He predicts what will happen to Babylon and Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Syria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Edom, Arabia, and Tyre. And those prophecies about those countries came true.
And then we come to a third major theme. In prophesying about Israel, the world and it’s immediate future, Isaiah interweaves prophecies about God’s plan to restore Israel, and the whole world to a right relationship with Him. Isaiah gives us great detail about the Coming Messiah, and His eventual kingdom.
Let me camp out on that theme for a moment. Critics of Matthew’s application of this verse to Jesus would have us believe that the prophecy of Isaiah was all about immediate local events. And that Matthew was just searching for Old Testament verses that bolstered his argument that Jesus was the promised Messiah. And that Matthew ripped these verses away from their original meanings, to try and convince his audience that Jesus was the Promised Messiah. But to say that ignores the fact that this was not the only verse in Isaiah that was about the Coming Messiah. The Coming Messiah was a major theme, one could say, the major theme of the book of Isaiah.
Now, we could spend a lot of time here studying all the verses about Messiah, and His Kingdom, in Isaiah. But let me just show you a few.
Isaiah 2 starts by giving us a glimpse into the future Millennial reign of Christ.
Isaiah 2: 2 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the Lord’s house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. 3 Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob;He will teach us His ways,And we shall walk in His paths.”For out of Zion shall go forth the law,And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.4 He shall judge between the nations,And rebuke many people;They shall beat their swords into plowshares,And their spears intopruning [a]hooks;Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,Neither shall they learn war anymore.
The same chapter goes on to describe that the Lord God will bring all the world into judgment before He establishes His kingdom on earth.
12 For the day of the Lord of hostsShall come upon
everything proud and lofty,
Upon everything lifted up—And
it shall be brought low—13 Upon all the cedars of
Lebanon that are high and lifted up,And upon all the oaks of
Bashan;
14 Upon all the high mountains,And upon all the
hills that are lifted up;
15 Upon every high tower,And upon every fortified wall;16 Upon
all the ships of Tarshish,
And upon all the beautiful
sloops.17 The [d]loftiness of man shall be
bowed down,
And the haughtiness of men
shall be brought low;The Lord alone will be exalted in that
day,18 But the idols [e]He shall utterly abolish.
Isaiah 4 predicts that it is the Promised Messiah who will accomplish this.
2 In that day the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious;And the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealingFor those of Israel who have escaped.3 And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy—everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. 4 When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the [a]blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, 5 then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a [b]covering. 6 And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain.
So, before Isaiah ever utters the “the virgin will conceive,” ` He has already taken us forward to the future kingdom of the Messiah.
Of course, Isaiah’s prophecy is about God’s Word on short term events and what will happen to individual nations, and Judah. But the scope of the book goes far beyond Isaiah’s lifetime. His prophecy looks forward 700 years to the birth and life of the Promised Christ.
Isaiah 8:14-15 calls Him
a “a stone of stumbling and a rock of [b]offense To both the houses of Israel,”
Isaiah 9:1-2 tells that the Messiah will do His ministry in “The
land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali,…. By the
way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, In Galilee of the Gentiles.
Isaiah 9:6 prophecies the Messiah’s birth. “6 For
unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given;And the government
will be upon His shoulder.And His name will be calledWonderful, Counselor, Mighty
God,Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
And verse 7 jumps forward to tell us of His Millennial reign. “7 Of the increase of His government and peaceThere will be no end,
Isaiah 11:10 tells us that He will be a descendent of Jesse, David’s father, and that even the Gentiles will seek HimHe is called in Isaiah 28:16, a stone laid in Zion, “A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation;
And Isaiah goes on and on about this Coming Messiah
Isaiah 40:3-5 predicts the forerunner (John the Baptist) who will announce His coming.
Isaiah 42:1-4 predicts His quiet nature
Isaiah 50:6 predicts that He will be beaten, His beard pulled out, and be spat upon
Isaiah 53:1 tells us that His message will not be believed
Isaiah 53:3 tells us that the Messiah will be despised, forsaken, sorrowful, and experience grief
So, suffice it to say, that Matthew did not just pluck some obscure reference out of the Book of Isaiah and try to force it to apply to Jesus. A major theme of the whole book is the Coming Messiah.
To which skeptics would probably respond, “Yes, the book talks about the Messiah, But Isaiah 7:14 is not about the Messiah. It is simply a prediction Isaiah made about the enemies of Judah who, Isaiah says, will be gone before this child born, named Immanuel, will be old enough to know right and wrong.
So, let’s answer that question. Is there more to this prophecy than its immediate fulfillment.
Before I answer that, let me preface this part with an explanation. This passage in Isaiah is a difficult one. And its difficulty comes down to whether “the virgin will conceive and bear a son” is just about the Coming Messiah, or if it is also about a son born to Isaiah and his wife.
And respected Christian commentators have disagreed on this question. Some say that this is just about the Messiah. Others say that it is a dual fulfillment prophecy. I lean toward it being a dual fulfillment prophecy. Let me tell you why.
3. The “virgin will conceive” passage is best understood as a dual fulfillment passage.
The initial prophecy says,
14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.[i] 15 Curds and honey He shall eat, that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread will be forsaken by both her kings.
And to me, there seem to be details that really only fit a predicted child born to Isaiah and his wife. Specifically, Isaiah talks about the “land that king Ahaz dreads.” If this were just about the Messiah, how to we apply “the land you dread will be forsaken” to Jesus?
But there are also clues here that this is more than just a prediction about king Ahaz’s enemies. Three words give us that clue; Behold, virgin, Immanuel.
The prophet says, “Behold” the virgin will conceive. Now critics will say, this word should be “young maiden” but we’ll get to that later. But let’s say they are correct. The word should be young maiden, and Isaiah is saying that his wife is going to have a baby. The word “behold” is used when something extraordinary is happening, or going to happen. If that’s what Isaiah is saying, Why does he use the word “behold?” King Ahaz, God is going to give you a sign “Behold, my wife is going to get pregnant by me.”
Now the second word that tells us that this is more than a prophecy about Judah’s enemies is the word “virgin.” A virgin, a woman who hasn’t been with a man, giving birth, would be a “behold” kind of sign. But Isaiah’s wife wasn’t a virgin. By now, she and Isaiah already had a child. (Shear-jashub) But remember, liberals say that this word shouldn’t be virgin, but young maiden. Again, we’ll get to that in a second.
The third word that indicates that this prophecy has a dual fulfillment is “Immanuel.” The child born will be called “Immanuel.” Immanuel means “God with us.” And that would be a good prophetic name for Isaiah to give to one of his children. But, there is no evidence that Isaiah ever named one of his sons “Immanuel.” He has two sons, the first is Shear-jashub, the second is Maher-Shalel-Hash-Baz.
So, this prophecy about having a son named “Immanuel” is left hanging out in prophetic space. We are never told about a fulfillment.
The prophecy was immediately fulfilled in Isaiah’s wife, a young maiden, who conceived, by Isaiah, and had a son named Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, and before the child was old enough to say ‘My father’ and ‘My mother,’ (about 11 to 14 months depending on the child) the king of Assyria would no longer be a threat to Israel. And, because this child was a sign to King Ahaz, and Israel that God was still protecting them, that child could have been called, “Immanuel” or “God with us.” But let me be clear, the text never says that Maher-Shalel-Hash-Baz was called “Immanuel.”
So, the prophecy is left incomplete. It was partially fulfilled. It awaited another day hundreds of years later for a complete fulfillment.
The second and complete fulfillment was at the birth of Christ, when a virgin conceived and bore a son who would be called “Immanuel” God with us.
These are two answers to the critics’ statement that Isaiah 7:14 isn’t even about the Coming Messiah. To say so ignores Isaiah’s larger Messianic message, and the passage is best understood as a dual fulfillment prophecy.
That gets us to a 4th answer.
4. The word in Isaiah 7:14 should be “virgin.”
Here’s the argument from liberal commentators. They say, not only was Isaiah 7:14 not about the Coming Messiah, the word that Matthew translated “virgin” was actually “young maiden” in the original text.
Why? It comes down to three words; one in Hebrew that Isaiah used (Almah), another in Hebrew that could have been used (Bethulah) and one in the Greek version of Isaiah that Matthew used (parthenos) to translate the Hebrew word.
Now we could get very deep in the weeds here. I did get deep in the weeds to prepare for this sermon. But let me just summarize the critics argument and the conservative answer to their argument.
The critics will say, “Not only does Isaiah’s prophecy have nothing to do with the Coming Messiah, but Isaiah 7:14, in the original Hebrew doesn’t say “a virgin will conceive” but rather “a young maiden will conceive.” Therefore Isaiah 7:14 is not a prophecy about the virgin conception of the Coming Christ.
Let me elaborate on their argument. They will say, Isaiah wrote in Hebrew, “An almah (young maiden, girl) will conceive. The word almah (young girl) is used generally for a young woman of marrying age, and it tells us nothing about whether she’s a virgin.
They will further say, if Isaiah had intended to say that a virgin will conceive, he would have used the word bethulah, which always means virgin.
So, Matthew, when he uses the Greek Septuagint word Parthenos which means “virgin” to translate almah which simply means young maiden, he is creating the prophecy of a virgin conception out of thin air.
Now let me give you the conservative response. Isaiah wrote, the almah (young maiden) will conceive, and almah, in the Bible is always a virgin. Every young girl was presumed to be a virgin. And as to whether he should have used bethulah, bethulah doesn’t always mean virgin.
Let me give you the liberal response to the conservative response. Almah only means young maiden, Bethulah always means virgin, and by the way, the word for virgin that is in the Greek, Parthenos, doesn’t always mean virgin.
Let me summarize how this argument goes. “Yes it does,” “No it doesn’t” “Yes it does,” “No it doesn’t” “Yes it does,” “No it doesn’t” “Yes it does,” “No it doesn’t”
And realistically, we could go all day, going back and forth about almah, bethulah, and Parthenos. So, let me conclude with the most solid argument.
Even if we read and study all this stuff about the passage in Isaiah. Even if we can see that the original prophecy had to do with Judah and reassuring King Ahaz. Even if we are not clear about the meaning of the two Hebrew words Almah and Bethulah, or the Greek word Parthenos. We have dealt, so far, with two interpreters; the liberal interpreter who says that this has nothing to do with a virgin conception of the Coming Messiah, and the conservative interpreter who says that it does. Even if we are left confused at this point, we still have one interpreter to hear from; God.
As a final argument. There is no doubt what God intended when He sent His angel to both Mary and Joseph. The narrative is clear. Mary said to the angel in so many words, “How can I bear a son, let alone the Messiah, I am a virgin, I haven’t been intimate with a man.” And the angel, again, God’s messenger, tells her that the Spirit of God will cause a miraculous conception, and so the Child will be called the Son of God.”
There’s no doubt what was intended when the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream. Joseph was afraid to take Mary as his wife, because she was pregnant, and he wasn’t the father. He was doubting that Mary had been faithful. He was doubting her virginity. But the angel said to him, “Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” In other words, the angel affirms her virginity. And then Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14 to let His audience know that it was prophesied that this would be so.
5th answer to the liberal critique
5. To say that this passage is only about Judah and King Ahaz, and nothing to do with a virgin conception of the Coming Messiah is to cast dispersions on Matthew, and all the Word of God.
If you teach that Isaiah 7:14 was not a prophecy of the virgin conception of Jesus, you are dragging Matthew’s credibility through the mud.
Let’s follow the liberal logic here to see where it goes.
a. Isaiah 7:14 was never about the Coming Messiah.
b. The Word should be “young maiden” not “virgin.” So…
c. Matthew was either ignorant of what the passage meant, or he was lying about what it meant.
d. If that’s the case, we need to throw out Matthew’s gospel.
e. And if we are going to throw out Matthew’s gospel argument that Christ would be virgin conceived, we have to also throw out Luke, who also claimed that Mary was a virgin.
f. And if we are going to throw out the virgin conception, which is a foundational doctrine to Jesus being God in flesh we’ll have to throw out the doctrine of Jesus’ being God. Which means we have to throw out John, who taught that Jesus is God, Paul who taught the same, and any other Old or New Testament book that affirms that the Coming Messiah was more than just a man.
Do you see where this interpretation leads? This is more than just a question about a word- it is questioning the inspiration of Scripture.
So, we can quibble all day long about whether Isaiah meant to say that the Messiah would be born to a virgin. But what settles the matter for me is that He was born of a virgin. And that completes the argument about what Isaiah meant. We can argue all day, but God settled the issue by having Jesus born of a virgin. And if you believe that is possible, can you not believe that God could also predict that it would happen through a prophet hundreds of years before the birth?