Christ the God-Man: An Advent Reflection on the Virgin BirthVoorbeeld

There are four ways in which humans have come into the world: 1) without human instrumentality (Adam); (2) without female instrumentality (Eve); (3) by male and female instrumentality (you and me); and (4) without male instrumentality (Jesus). For the God of the Bible, the virgin birth is no more undoable than the other ways. A similar phenomenon is the asexual reproduction that exists in the realm of nature, named parthenogenesis, the science of virgin beginnings. There is a similarity here, though not an identical parallel to the virgin birth. A honeybee colony features only one queen who lays all the eggs. The eggs that are fertilized are the female workers. The unfertilized are the male drones. Now if God in nature can produce bees from only one gender, why can He not also produce His Son from the seed of the woman only? We don’t want to lessen the miraculous nature of the virgin birth of Christ, but it is not entirely inconceivable. While God does not do what is intrinsically impossible, He can do anything that is humanly impossible. “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Lk. 1:37). The illustration from nature shows that the virgin birth is not intrinsically impossible, that is, a non-thing. Furthermore, Jesus’ birth into humanity was in a normal way. The days of the pregnancy had to be completed (Lk. 2:6); Jesus Christ was born with normal, human flesh; He added a real, human nature (cf. Phil. 2:7,8). God the Son became man. Pondering this reality prompts two distinct but related questions: How could God become completely and genuinely human, and how could a man be completely and genuinely God? Both are answered by the virgin birth. In the next few days, we will study various ways in which the virgin birth protects against false teachings on Christ’s incarnation.