Introduction
Christmas, like
Easter, marks an event which changed human history. The Bible tells us that there are times when God profoundly impacts the world with a demonstration of His power and authority. In the Old Testament we can see this happening most dramatically in the Book of Exodus, where God freed His people from bondage to Egypt by supernaturally controlling the natural order of the world.
In the New Testament at least three events far surpass the Exodus story in terms of their relevance to all of humanity. The last of these events is the coming of the Holy Spirit and the simultaneous founding of the Church. The second and greatest of these events was the resurrection of Jesus Christ because that event signals the possibility of finding forgiveness for our sins and of having a living relationship with God. The first event was the incarnation, which we celebrate today during Christmas and which is shrouded in at least two great mysteries, In this post I would like to discuss these two mysteries with the hope of adding to our supernatural knowledge of man and God.
The Mysteries of Christmas
For a man to experience heaven as a spirit he must die, but for God to become a man He had to be born. This fact brings us to the first mystery:
how God could become truly man and yet remain truly God?
Now as a side issue, this post is not the place to discuss the Trinity and the fact that the one God is Jesus who is God the Son, His Father who is God the Father and the Holy Spirit who is God the Holy Spirit, so if you have a problem with whether or not Jesus is God, then you may as well stop reading this post.
If you admit that the Trinity boggles your mind but you accept the fact that Jesus is God, then we can get back to how could the Holy, Almighty, and Everlasting God become a man. Well, theologians have debated this mystery for ages without coming up with an adequate explanation (in my opinion) so the idea that God became a man is held as true by faith.
However, I would like to point out that God and man are not incompatible. Scripture tells us that when God created man He created him in His own image:
Genesis 1:27 (ESV)27 So God created man in his own image,in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
While theologically neglected, this fundamental compatibility is to me of extreme importance. It answers the question as to how Jesus could be fully God and also fully human in one whole person. To put it in terms of modern computing, the hardware could support both operating systems simultaneously and without conflict. Jesus is God (He had all the attributes of God) and Man (He had all the attributes of a man). The Son of God as to His Divine position and the Son of Man as to human representation.
Now pre-fallen Adam initially had the same compatibility but that ended with the first sin. At that point mankind and God were incompatible and spiritually separated, a sad story told throughout the Old Testament. Only someone not conceived through the lineage of Adam could hope to have this compatibility restored from birth. Someone would have to be born of a women in order to establish his humanity and not born of a man in order to avoid Adamic incompatibility with God!
This brings us to the second mystery:
how can a human woman give birth to a son without first having sex with a man?
A rudimentary knowledge of genetics tells us that it is not possible, normally, for a women to give birth to a male child without the intervention of a male. So to understand this birth we must look at it from a supernatural or paranormal perspective. We begin with this Scripture:
So we see that even Mary was puzzled about how she was to give birth as a virgin and when she asked she was told that the Holy Spirit would “overshadow” her body and Jesus would be conceived at that point. The word “overshadow” is used as a means of indicating the presence of God’s power and person (E.G. Matthew 17:5) The Greek word for overshadow is episkiazō and it means “to invest with preternatural influence” (See Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionary). To use the terminology and concepts of this blog, the Human Energy Field of Mary was infused with the supernatural power of God to the extent that fundamental changes took place in her body down to the genetic level. The result was the virgin birth and the eventual birth of the Son of God. He was born of a women but did not inherit the separation from God typical of all children born of Adam’s line.26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”Matthew 19:26 (ESV)
So what is genetically impossible, at least according to our limited knowledge, becomes possible through the application of God’s power over the natural order of things. So the Bible makes sure that we understand that Jesus was conceived through the power of God:
Conclusion
Now the virgin birth is really cool and supernatural to the extreme, but why was it necessary? Why didn’t Mary and Joseph get married and have Jesus in the natural order of things?
If Jesus had been born in the same manner as you and I, he would have inherited a “sin nature” and having that tendency to sin he would have invariably fallen pray to sin. He would have been disqualified as the savior. His death on the cross would be for his own sin rather than as a substitute for us.
By the way, no one every caught Jesus in a sin, nor were they ever able to convict him of sin, and believe me, they tried to do that repeatedly. His sinless life is the strongest evidence to support his virgin birth. No sin nature means no sinful lifestyle!
I wish all my readers a most blessed and merry Christmas.
Got a problem with the paranormal or have a question you would like one of our authors to discuss? Fill out a Confidential Help Request Form and we will get back to you as soon as we can. If you would like to discuss this topic go to the Discussion Forum by clicking on the "Discussion Forum" link on the right side of this blog. If you have not made a commitment to Jesus and you would like to do so now, then click HERE to go to a page that will show you how to become a follower of Jesus Christ.
