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Easton's Bible Dictionary
(no entry)
Hitchcock's Dictionary of Bible Names
(no entry)
Smith's Bible Dictionary
(no entry)
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
(vur-jin' burth)
I. DEFINITION
"Virgin-birth" is the correct and only correct designation
of the birth statement contained in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. "Immaculate
conception" is of course manifestly a blunder due to the confusion of one idea
with another. "Supernatural or miraculous birth" will not do, because there is
no intimation that the process of birth was in any way exceptional. "Supernatural
or miraculous conception" is equally unsatisfactory as it involves a question-begging
comparison between the birth of Christ and the exceptional births of the Sons
of Promise (e.g. Isaac, John the Baptist, etc.). The only statement which is sufficiently
specific is "virgin-birth," inasmuch as according to the New Testament statement
Mary was at the time of this birth virgo intacta.
II. THE TEXTUAL QUESTION
We may deal with this division of our subject very briefly, because if we are
to allow any weight at all to textual evidence there is no question as to the
infancy narratives, either in whole or in part. Their position is flawless and
unassailable. There is a voluminous literature devoted to the discussion of the
subject, but it is notably jejune even for critical writing, and much more impressive
for ingenuity and dialectic skill in arguing a poor case than for anything in
the way of results. We do not hesitate to refer the reader who is interested in
discussions of this sort to entirely satisfactory reviews of them found elsewhere
(see Machen, Princeton Review, October, 1905; January, 1906; and Orr, The Virgin
Birth of Christ). We may summarize the entire discussion in the words of Johannes
Weiss (Theologische Rundschau, 1903, 208, quoted by Machen, ut sup.): "There never
were forms of Matthew and Luke without the infancy narratives." One point only
we shall consider in this connection; namely, the disputed reading of Matthew
1:16. The Ferrar group of manuscripts (nos. 346, 556, 826, 828) interpose a second
"begat" between the names Joseph and Jesus. It is affirmed that this reading with
the variants represents an original form of the genealogy preserved in the Gospels
which affirms the literal sonship of Jesus to Joseph. The first and most obvious
remark to be made upon this question is, granting--what is extremely uncertain--that
this reading is original, it does not prove nor begin to prove the point alleged.
This is now widely conceded. For one thing, the word "begat" is used elsewhere
for legal or putative fatherhood (compare Matthew 1:12 and see GENEALOGY OF JESUS
CHRIST). Allen's statement of the case indicates clearly enough that the radical
use of this variation has broken down (see ICC; "Matthew," 8). This writer holds
that the reading of Samuel 1 ("Jacob begat Joseph. Joseph, to whom was betrothed
Mary the Virgin, begat Jesus, called the Messiah," Matthew 1:16) is nearest the
original form. By four steps, which he enumerates in order, he conceives that
the original text, which was intended to convey the idea of a legal fatherhood
on the part of Joseph, was modified so as to guard the statement from misinterpretation.
This hypothesis is ingenious if somewhat complicated. The weak spot in the whole
case (for the variation) lies in the fact that all manuscripts concur in the name
of Mary and the term "virgin." It is evident, in any view of the relative standing
of the various readings, (1) that the genealogy as deposited in public or private
record would read: "Jacob begat Joseph, Joseph begat Jesus," (2) that the person
who used the genealogy in the Gospel and placed it in connection with Matthew
1:18-25 (a) had Mary particularly in mind and inserted the names of women to prepare
the way for the mention of Mary, all of which was a departure from usual and orderly
procedure; (b) that he used the word "begat" in the legal sense throughout (1:8,12;
compare 1 Chronicles 3:11,12,19); (c) that he believed in the virgin-birth as
evinced by the connection and the use of names of women including Mary's. There
is therefore no basis for the idea that the genealogy, even without the strongly
attested relative clause of Matthew 1:16, ever meant anything but an attestation
of the virgin-birth.
III. THE HISTORICAL QUESTION
1. Statement Not Dogmatic but Vital as History
The twofold birth announcement of Matthew and Luke is a statement of historical
or, more strictly speaking, biographical fact. The accounts, as we shall see,
are very rigidly confined to the matter of fact concerned. It is not a dogma and
receives very little doctrinal elaboration even in the infancy narratives themselves.
It is an event, wholly real or wholly imaginary. The statement of it is wholly
true or entirely false. But as a historical statement this narrative is of peculiar
quality and significance. (1) It touches upon the most delicate matters, at a
place where the line between that which is most sacred and that which is most
degraded in human life is closely drawn. To discredit it leaves the most intimate
mystery of our Lord's earthly life under the shadow of suspicion. It is therefore
a statement of the greatest personal moment in the evangelic record. (2) It involves
the secret history and public honor of a family most dear and sacred to the entire
Christian body. It records the inner and outer experiences of the mother of the
Lord and of His brethren, themselves honored leaders in the church. (3) It touches
upon the central mystery of the Lord's person in such a way as to involve either
a very important contribution to the doctrine of the incarnation or a very serious
mutilation of the truth. We may dismiss altogether the contention of many, that
whether true or not the fact is of no great importance. It must be of importance.
No fact in which the relationship of Jesus to His ancestors according to the flesh,
to His mother, to the laws of life in the race at large, are so evidently and
so deeply involved can possibly be a matter of indifference. The nature of His
experience in the world, the quality and significance of His manhood, the fundamental
constitution of His person, the nature and limits of the incarnation are necessarily
and vitally concerned in the discussion. It is impossible to begin with the acceptance
or rejection of the fact and arrive by logical processes at like convictions on
any fundamental matter in the region of Christology.
2. Its Importance to Leaders of the Early Church
All this must have been as patent to the earliest believers as to ourselves. The
men who incorporated this incident into the gospel narrative could not possibly
have been blind to the importance of what they were doing (compare Luke 1:3).
In view of these facts it would be well for the serious student to ask himself
this question: "On the hypothesis of invention, what manner of men were they who
fabricated these narratives and succeeded in foisting them upon the church so
early as to dominate its earliest official records and control the very making
of all its creeds?" It is clear that deliberate invension is the only alternative
to historical credit. We may throw out of court as altogether inadmissible the
hypothesis that the church as a whole, by a naive and semi-unconscious process,
came to believe these stories and to accept them without criticism. Rumors always
grow in the absence of known facts, especially where curiosity is keen. Absurd
rumors multiply among the credulous. But no statement contrary to natural expectation
was ever yet promulgated among people of even average intelligence without meeting
the resistance of incredulity on the part of some individuals who wish to inquire,
especially if means of verification are within reach. In this particular instance,
the issue may be stated much more sharply. At no period reasonably to be assigned
for the origin and incorporation of these documents could they have been honestly
accepted by any member of the Christian community, sufficiently taught to occupy
a position of authority. If the story was invented, there must have been a time
when Jesus was universally accepted as the son by natural generation of Joseph
and Mary. The story surely was not invented before His birth nor for some time
after. The first person, therefore, who spoke contrary to the prevalent and natural
belief must have had it from the family, which alone knew the truth, or else have
been a wanton and lying gossip. Such a story is recognizable on the face of it
as authoritative or pure invention. There is no middle ground. It could not have
been recounted without being challenged for its strangeness and for its contravention
of the accepted belief. It could not have been challenged without the exposure
of its groundless and fraudulent character, for the simple reason that the lack
of positive and authoritative certification would be its immediate and sufficient
condemnation. It is not difficult to draw the portrait of the inventor of this
story. He must have been lacking, not only in the sense of truthfulness, but also
in the elementary instinct of delicacy, to have invaded the privacy of the most
sacred home known to him and deliberately invented a narrative which included
the statement that Mary had come under suspicion of wrongdoing in such a way as
to shadow the life of her Son. He must also have been doctrinally lax in the extreme,
as well as temperamentally presumptuous, to have risked a mutilation of the truth
by an invention dealing with such essential matters.
3. Hypothesis of Invention Discredits the Church
Moreover, this hypothesis demands that this fabrication must have met with instantaneous
and universal success. It passed the scrutiny of the church at large and of its
authorized teachers, and was never challenged save by a small group of heretics
who disliked it on purely dogmatic grounds. To whatever origin in the way of suggestion
from without one may attribute the story--whether one may ascribe it to the influence
of Old Testament prophecy, or Jewish Messianic expectations in general, or to
ethnic analogies, Babylonian. Egyptian or Greek--the fact remains that the story
had to be invented and published by those who ought to have known better and could
easily have known better had they possessed sufficient interest in the cause of
truth to have made even casual inquiries into the credentials of such an important
statement offered for their acceptance. It is fairly true to say that ethnic analogies
for the birth of Christ fail (see article on "Heathen Wonder-Births and the Birth
of Christ," Princeton Review, January, 1908). It is also true that the rooted
Sere conviction shared by the Hebrews, that family descent is to be traced through
the male line only, so persistent even among the New Testament writers that both
evangelists, on the face of them, trace the lineage of Joseph, would have acted
as an effectual barrier against this particular legendary development. It is further
true that no passage of the Old Testament, including Isaiah 7:14, can be adduced
as convincing evidence that the story was invented under the motive of finding
fulfillment for Messianic predictions (see IMMANUEL). But far more satisfactory
is the elementary conviction that the founders of the Christian church and the
writers of its documents were not the kind of men to accept or circulate stories
which they knew perfectly well would be used by unbelief in a malignant way to
the discredit of their Master and His family. The hypothesis of invention not
only leaves an ugly cloud of mystery over the birth of Jesus, but it discredits
beyond repair every man who had to do with the writing and circulation of the
Gospels, down to and including the man who professes to have "traced the course
of all things accurately from the beginning," according to the testimony of those
who were "eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" (Luke 1:2 f). It is simply impossible
to save the credit, in any matter involving honesty or commonsense, of one who
uses words like these and yet incorporates unauthenticated legends into the narrative
to which he has thus pledged himself.
One may venture at the close of this section of the discussion to point out that
everything which the inventor of this story must have been, the narrators of it
are not. Both narratives exhibit a profound reverence, a chaste and gracious reserve
in the presence of a holy mystery, a simplicity, dignity and self-contained nobility.
of expression which are the visible marks of truth, if such there are anywhere
in human writing. |
IV. THE CRITICAL QUESTION
1. Basis of Virgin-Birth Statement
The infancy narratives evidently stand somewhat apart from the main body of apostolic
testimony. The personal contact of the disciples with Jesus, upon which their
testimony primarily rests, extended from the call of the disciples, near the opening
of the ministry, to the resurrection and post-resurrection appearances. It is
hyper-skepticism to deny that the substance of the gospel narrative rests upon
the basis of actual experience. But all four evangelists show a disposition to
supplement the immediate testimony of the disciples by the use of other well-attested
materials. Luke's introductory paragraph, if it was written by an honest man,
indicates that he at least was satisfied with nothing less than a careful scrutiny
of original sources, namely, the testimony, written or oral, of eyewitnesses.
It may reasonably be surmised that this was the general attitude of the entire
group of apostles, evangelists and catechists who are responsible for the authorship
and circulation of the Gospels. But, to say nothing of the infancy narratives,
for one of which Luke himself is responsible, these writers have embodied in the
narrative the ministry of John the Baptist, the baptism and temptation of Jesus,
all of which events happened before their fellowship with Jesus, strictly speaking,
began. In particular, assuredly no disciple was an eyewitness of the temptation.
None the less the narrative stands, simply because imaginative invention of such
an incident in the absence of accredited facts cannot reasonably be considered.
The fact that the birth narratives do not rest upon the testimony of the same
eyewitnesses who stand for the ministry of Jesus does not discredit them as embodying
reliable tradition, unless it can be proved that they contradict the rest of the
apostolic testimony or that no reliable witness to the events in question was
within reach at the time when the documents were composed. In the present instance
such a contention is absurd. The very nature of the event points out the inevitable
firsthand witnesses. There could be no others. In the absence of their decisive
word, bald invention would be necessary. To charge the entire church of the time
(for this is what the hypothesis amounts to) as particeps criminis in its own
official and documentary deception is an extreme position as unwarranted as it
is cruel. The internal harmony of the facts as recorded points in the same direction.
The silence or comparative lack of emphasis with reference to the birth of Christ
on the part of the other New Testament writers is to be explained partly on the
basis of doctrinal viewpoint (see V, below) and partly because an ingrained sense
of delicacy would naturally tend to reticence on this point, at least during the
lifetime of Mary and the Lord's brethren. The following intimately corresponding
facts are sufficiently significant in this connection:
(1) that the fact of Jesus' unique birth could not be proclaimed
as a part of His own teaching or as the basis of His incarnate life;
(2) that He was popularly known as the son of Joseph;
(3) that the foster-fatherhood of Joseph, as embodied in the genealogy (see GENEALOGY
OF JESUS CHRIST), was the recognized basis of His relationship to the house of
David. |
All these facts appear just as they should in the narrative. The very fact that
the genealogies, ending with the name of Joseph, and the current representations
of Jesus as Joseph's son, are allowed to appear in the same documents in which
the virgin-birth statements appear, together with the entirely congruous facts
that the main synoptic narrative does not emphasize the event, and that neither
Paul nor John nor any other New Testament writer gives it a prominent place, is
indication enough that it rested, in the opinion of the entire witnessing body,
on a sufficient basis of evidence and required no artificial buttressing. Internal
harmonies and incidental marks of truthfulness are of the utmost importance here
because in a narrative so complex and vital it would have been easy to make a
misstep. Since none was made, we are constrained to believe that the single eye
to truth filled the apostolic mind with light. Every item, in the infancy narratives
themselves, as well as in the more strictly doctrinal statements of other New
Testament books, is as we should expect, provided the birth statement be accepted
as true. Internal evidence of truthfulness could not be stronger.
2. Interrelationship of Narratives
This general conclusion is confirmed when we come to consider the relationship
of the two narratives to each other. To begin with, we have two narratives, differing
greatly in method of treatment, grouping of details, order and motive of narration,
and general atmosphere. It is evident that we have two documents which have had
quite a different history.
In two points, at any rate, what might be considered serious discrepancies are
discoverable (see BIBLICAL DISCREPANCIES). These two points are:
(1) the relationship of the Massacre of the Innocents and
the journey to Egypt, as related by Matthew, to Luke's account, which carries
the holy family directly back to Nazareth from Bethlehem after the presentation
in the temple;
(2) the discrepancy as to the previous residence at Nazareth (Luke) and the reason
given for the return thither (Matthew). |
As to (1) it is quite clear that Matthew's account centers about an episode interpolated,
so to say, into the natural order of events (see INNOCENTS, MASSACRE OF THE).
It is also clear that the order of Luke's narrative, which is in the highest degree
condensed and synoptic, does not forbid the introduction of even a lengthy train
of events into the midst of Luke 2:39 (compare condensation in 2:40 - 42 , 51
, 52). It may easily be that the lacunae in each account are due to a lack of
knowledge on the part of either writer as to the point supplied by the other.
Matthew may not have known that the family had resided formerly in Nazareth, and
Luke may not have known that a return to Galilee as a permanent residence was
not contemplated in the original plan. The difficulty here is not serious. We
consider the discrepancy as it stands as of more value to the account as indicating
the independence of the two accounts and the honesty of those who incorporated
them into the Gospels without attempting to harmonize them, than any hypothetical
harmonization however satisfactory. We introduce this caveat, however, that Matthew
had an especial reason for introducing the episode connected with Herod and for
explaining the residence at Nazareth during our Lord's early years as occurring
by divine authority (see Sweet, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ, 218 f, for
discussion of this point; and compare INNOCENTS, MASSACRE OF THE).
We are now free to consider the remarkable convergence of these two documents.
The following particulars may be urged:
(1) the synchronism in the Herodian era;
(2) the name "Jesus" given by divine authority before birth;
(3) Davidic kinship;
(4) the virgin-birth;
(5) the birth at Bethlehem;
(6) residence at Nazareth. In addition we may urge the essential and peculiar
harmony of descriptive expressions (see V, below) and the correspondence of the
inner and outer experiences of Mary. See MARY, II. |
3. Sources, Origin and age of Documents
We have now reached the final and crucial point of this phase of our discussion
when we take up the question as to the sources, origin and date of these narratives.
Our method of approach to the general question of their credibility delivers us
from the necessity of arguing in extenso theories which have been framed to account
for the narrative in the absence of historical fact. We resort to the simple and
convincing principle that the story could not have been honestly composed nor
honestly published as derived from any source other than the persons who could
have guaranteed its trustworthiness. Every indication, of which the narratives
are full, of honesty and intelligence on the part of the narrators is an argument
against any and all theories which presuppose a fictitious origin for the central
statement. Negatively, we may with confidence assert that wide excursions into
ethnic mythology and folklore have failed to produce a single authentic parallel
either in fact or in form to the infancy narratives. In addition to this, the
attempt to deduce the story from Messianic prophecy also fails to justify itself.
In addition, there are two considerations which may justly be urged as pointing
to trustworthy sources for the narrative: First, the strongly Hebraic nature of
both narratives. It has often been pointed out that nowhere in the New Testament
do we find documents so deeply tinged with the Hebraic spirit (see Adeney, Essays
for the Times, number XI, 24 f; and Briggs, New Lights on the Life of Christ,
161 f). This statement involves both narratives and is another evidence of profound
internal unity. A second important fact is that the doctrinal viewpoint is Jewish-Christian
and undeveloped. The term "Holy Spirit" is used in the Old Testament sense; the
Christology is undeveloped, omitting reference to Christ's preexistence and interpreting
His sonship as official and ethical rather than metaphysical. The soteriology
is Jewish and Messianic, not unfolding the doctrine of the cross. All these facts
point in one direction, namely, to the conclusion that these documents are early.
It is impossible reasonably to suppose that such documents could have been composed
in the absence of sources, or by persons devoid of the historical spirit, after
the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus had shed such light upon His
person and mission as to transform both Christology and soteriology through the
ideas of incarnation, atonement and the Trinity.
It is still asserted, in the face of the most convincing evidence to the contrary,
that the infancy narratives are late addenda to the gospel tradition as a whole.
This idea is due, primarily, to a confusion of thought between origin and publication.
The latter must have been coincident with the original issue of the Gospels in
their present form. The textual evidence here is convincing. On the other hand,
the main body of testimony incorporated into the Gospels at the time of their
publication had been in the hands of the apostles and their helpers for some years,
as evidenced by the Pauline letters and the Book of acts. In all probability the
sources upon which the infancy narratives rest, which had their origin and received
the impress which characterizes them in the period antecedent to the public ministry
of Jesus, came into the hands of the Gospel writers toward the end of the formative
period at the close of which the Gospels were issued. In other words, the story
of the Lord's birth was withheld until the time was ripe for its publication.
Two occasions may have served to release it: the death of Mary may have made it
possible to use her private memoirs, or the rise of anti-Christian calumny may
have made the publication of the true history imperative. At any rate, the narratives
show every indication of being contemporary documents of the period with which
they deal. This fact puts an additional burden of proof, already heavier than
they can bear, upon those who would antagonize the documents. We may reasonably
affirm that the narratives will bear triumphantly any fair critical test. |
V. THE DOCTRINAL QUESTION
1. In the New Testament
The discussion of the doctrinal significance of the virgin-birth statement falls
naturally into three parts:
(1) Its doctrinal elaboration in the New Testament;
(2) its historic function in the development of Christian doctrine;
(3) its permanent value to Christian thought. |
We begin with the narratives themselves. As has just been said, they were incorporated
into the Gospels at a time when the New Testament Christology had reached maturity
in the Pauline and Johannine writings and the Epistle to the Hebrews. The doctrine
of the incarnation was fully unfolded. It had been unequivocally asserted that
in Jesus all the fullness of the Godhead was historically and personally manifested
(John 1:14 ; Philippians 2:5 - 8; Colossians 1:18 ; 2:9 ; Hebrews 2:14). In contrast
with these statements the infancy narratives not only, as adverted to above, exhibit
on the surface a rudimentary Christology, but in several items, of profound interest
and most surprising tenor, show that the birth notice was not apprehended or stated
in view of the doctrine of the incarnation at all.
The detailed justification of this statement follows:
(1) Matthew (see 1:18-25) does not use the term "Son of
God." The only expression implying a unique relationship to God, other than in
the "of Holy Spirit" phrase, twice used, is in the word "Immanuel" quoted from
Isaiah, which does not necessarily involve incarnation. At the beginning of the
genealogy Jesus is introduced as the son of David, the son of Abraham.
(2) The assertion as to His conception by Holy Spirit is conditioned by three
striking facts:
a) His conception is interpreted in terms of conception
by the power of Holy Spirit, not of begetting by the Father. The Old Testament
expression "This day have I begotten thee," used twice, occurs in quite a different
connection (Hebrews 1:5; 5:5).
(b) The term "Holy Spirit" is used without the article.
(c) The phrase descriptive of the being conceived is expressed in the neuter,
'the thing conceived in her is of Holy Spirit' (to gar en aute gennethen ek pneumatos
estin hagiou).
The implication of these three facts is
(i) that the sonship of Jesus through His exceptional birth
is interpreted in terms of divine power working upon humanity, not as the correlative
of divine and essential fatherhood; it is the historical sonship that is in view
(contrast with this the two passages in Hebrews referred to above);
(ii) the writer is speaking in the Old Testament sense of "Holy Spirit" as the
forthgoing of creative power from God, not as personal hypostasis;
(iii) he is also emphasizing (in the use of the neuter) the reality of the physical
birth. These three facts, all the more remarkable because they are attributed
to a heavenly messenger who might be expected to speak more fully concerning the
mystery, exclude the supposition that we have one historic form of the doctrine
of incarnation. On the contrary, had we no other statements than those found here
we should be unable logically to postulate an incarnation. Every statement made
concerning Jesus, apart from the virgin-birth statement itself, might be true
were He the son of Joseph and Mary. |
The case is far stronger when we turn to Luke's account, in spite of the fact
that the terms "Son of the Most High" and "Son of God" ordinarily implying incarnation
are used. We notice
(d) that the anarthrous use of "Holy Spirit" reappears and that a poetic parallelism
defines the term (Luke 1:35), making "Holy Spirit" = "Power of the Most High";
(e) that the neuter phrase is also found here, "the holy thing which is begotten,"
etc. (dio kai to gennomenon hagion klethesetai);
(f) that future tenses are used in connection with His career and the titles which
He bears: "He shall be (as the outcome of a process) great," and "He shall be
called (as a matter of ultimate titular recognition) the Son of the Most High"
(Luke 1:32); "The holy thing .... shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).
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In these instances the title is connected directly with the career rather than
the birth. Even the "wherefore" of Luke 1:35, in connection with the future verb,
carries the power of God manifested in the holy conception forward into the entire
career of Jesus rather than bases the career upon the initial miracle. These three
facts taken together exclude the reference to any conception of the incarnation.
The incarnation is directly and inseparably connected with Christ's eternal sonship
to the Father. The title "Son of God" includes that but does not specify it. It
includes also the ethical, historical, human sonship. The term "Holy Spirit" used
without the article also is a comprehensive expression covering both a work of
divine power in any sphere and a work of divine grace in the personal sphere only.
These accounts are concerned with the historic fact rather than its metaphysical
implications. This historic fact is interpreted in terms of a divine power in
and through the human career of Jesus (which is so stated as to include an impersonal,
germinal life) rather than a dogmatic definition of the Messiah's essential nature.
The omission of all reference to pre-existence is negatively conclusive on this
point. The divine power manifested in His exceptional origin is thought of as
extending on and including His entire career. This leads us directly to a second
phase in the interpretation of Christ and compels to a reconsideration at a new
angle of the miracle of His origin.
2. Portrait of Jesus in Synoptic Gospels
The narrators of the life and ministry of Jesus on the basis of ascertained fact
and apostolic testimony were confronted with a very definite and delicate task.
They had to tell with unexaggerating truthfulness the story of the human life
of Jesus. Their ultimate aim was to justify the doctrine of incarnation, but they
could not have been unaware that the genuine and sincere humanity of Christ was
a pillar of the doctrine quite as much as His essential Deity. To portray the
human experience of a being considered essentially divine was the Herculean task
attempted and carried to a successful issue in the Synoptic Gospels. These writers
do not conceal for a moment their conviction that they are depicting the career
of the wonder-working Son of God, but they never forget that it is a career of
self-limitation within the human sphere, the period of self-imposed and complete
humiliation undertaken on behalf of the Father, "for us men and for our salvation."
Hence, the nature and limitations of the narrative. Mark omits reference to the
virgin-birth. Matthew and Luke narrate it and forthwith drop it. These facts are
exactly on a paragraph. It is no more remarkable that Mark omits the story than
that Matthew and Luke make so little of it. To allege either fact as a motive
to doubt is to misinterpret the whole situation. By the terms of their task they
could do nothing else. The Fourth Gospel and the Epistles announce that the human
life of Jesus was due to the voluntary extra-temporal act of a pre-existent Divine
Being, but in the synoptic narrative four passages only hint at pre-existence,
and then as incidental flashes from the inner consciousness of Jesus. This omission
is no more remarkable and no less so than the omissions noted above. By the terms
of their task the synoptic writers could do nothing else. The fact of pre-existence
could be announced only when the earthly task had been triumphantly finished (see
Mark 9:9 , 11). During the entire period of the earthly life as such Jesus was
under trial (note Matthew 3:17, correctly translating the aorist; compare the
remarkable words of John 10:17), performing a task, accomplishing a commission,
achieving a victory as human son. The story of the Temptation exhibits the conditions
under which Jesus performed His task. The temptations were one and all addressed
to His consciousness as God's Son. They were resisted on the sole basis of self-humiliation
and dependence. The entire synoptic narrative is consistent with this representation.
Jesus is consciously one in will and spirit with God, but that oneness with God
is consummated and conducted in the Spirit, through faith, by prayer. They describe
His entire career of holiness, wisdom and power, each unique, in the terms of
the Spirit-filled, trustful, prayerful human life. Here is the vital point. They
disclose the eternal Sonship (in which beyond question they believe) on its ethical,
not on its metaphysical side, by prediction of His future triumph rather than
by definition of His person. In such a narrative, consistently carried out, there
can be no resort to the preexistent, eternal Sonship, nor to the miracle of His
human origin in the story of His career under trial. In particular, the miracle,
whereby His germinal connection with the race was established could not extend
to the personal and spiritual life in which His victory was His own through the
personal Holy Spirit. The argument from the virgin-birth to His sinlessness (see
IMMACULATE
CONCEPTION) was made by the church, not by the New Testament writers. The
sinlessness of Christ was His own achievement in the flesh which He sacrificed
through His holy will of obedience to the Father.
3. In Rest of the New Testament
This leads us to a third phase of development in the New Testament doctrine of
incarnation. In the Fourth Gospel and the Epistles it is asserted that the innermost
moral significance of the earthly career of Jesus lay in the fact that it was
the consistent carrying-out of an extra-temporal volition of divine mercy and
love whereby He became the Revealer of God and the Saviour of men. This doctrine
is based upon the story of the human career completed in the glorification which,
according to the testimony, ensued upon His death and disclosed His place in the
divine sphere of being. But it is also based upon the virgin-birth narrative and
grounded in it. Attention has already been called to the fact that the virgin-birth
is not (in the infancy narrative) connected with the metaphysical sonship of Jesus.
All that is said then, doctrinally, concerning Jesus might be true were He the
son of Joseph and Mary. On the contrary, what is said in John and the Epistles
depends upon the virgin-birth narrative for its foundational basis. It has often
been asserted that Paul and John do not refer to the virgin-birth. This statement
the present writer takes to be more than doubtful, but if it is true, all the
more striking is the indirect and unconscious testimony to the virgin-birth involved
in their doctrinal reliance upon it. According to these writers the incarnation
was due to a divine act of self-limitation whereby the divine mode of existence
was exchanged for the human (Philippians 2:5 - 11 et al.). According to the infancy
narrative, the birth of Jesus was due to a divine creative act whereby a human
life began germinally and passed through the successive stages of growth to maturity.
The synoptic narrative outside the infancy narrative supplies a third point, that
the entire conscious personal career of Jesus upon earth was lived in the power
of the Holy Spirit. The infancy narrative is the keystone of an arch, one half
resting upon the synoptic account, the other upon the doctrinal construction of
John and the Epistles. The virgin-birth statement by its adoption of Old Testament
terminology makes room for a divine activity both in the impersonal and in the
personal spheres. The doctrine of incarnation implies that as in every new human
being the creative divine power manifests itself impersonally in germinal beginnings,
so in the life of Christ the divine power conditions itself within the impersonal
forces of germinant life with this important and suggestive difference: In the
career of Jesus there issues from the sphere of germinal beginnings not a new
human person created from the life-stock of the race, but the personal human life,
including all human powers, of a pre-existent divine person self- conditioned
and self-implanted within the human sphere. The central conscious self, the agent
of His activities and the subject of His experiences in the historic sphere was
the eternal Son of God. His life in the human sphere was that of a true human
being in the full actuality of a human life. Hence, it follows, since ordinary
generation involves necessarily (that is the intent of it) the origination of
a new person not hitherto existing, that the birth of Jesus could not have been
by ordinary generation. The birth of Christ through ordinary generation would
have involved a quite incomprehensible miracle, namely, the presence and action
of the ordinary factors in human origins with a contrary and unique result. The
virgin-birth is the only key that fits the vacant space in the arch. In addition
it may reasonably be urged that the relationship of human parents to each other,
ordinarily a natural, necessary and sacred act, could have no part in this transaction,
while the very fact that Mary's relationship was to God alone, in an act of submission
involving complete self-renunciation and solitary enclosure within the divine
will, fulfils the spiritual conditions of this unique motherhood as no other imaginable
experience could.
4. Oppositions to the Doctrine
Historically the virgin-birth statement performed a function commensurate with
the importance ascribed to it in this discussion rather than the current depreciation
of it. The doctrine of Christ was menaced in two opposite directions, which may
be designated respectively by the terms "Ebionite" and "Gnostic." According to
the former teaching (the word "Ebionite" being used in a general sense only),
Jesus was reduced to the human category and interpreted as a Spirit-led man or
prophet, in the Old Testament meaning of the term. According to the opposite tendency,
He was interpreted as divine, while His human experience was reduced to mere appearance
of a temporary external union with the Logos. The virgin-birth statement resisted
both these tendencies with equal effectiveness. On the one hand, it asserted with
unequivocal definiteness a real humanity conditioned by true birth into an actual
connection with the race. On the other hand, it asserted an exceptional birth,
setting Jesus apart as one whose entrance into the world was due to a new, creative
contact of God with the race. Historically, it is difficult to see how the New
Testament doctrine could have escaped mutilation apart from the statement, seemingly
framed with express reference to conditions arising afterward, which so wonderfully
guarded it. The holy mystery of the Lord's origin became the symbol of the holier
mystery of His divine nature. It thus appears in every one of the historic creeds,
an assertion of fact around which the belief of the church crystallized into the
faith which alone accounts for its history, a profound and immovable conviction
that Jesus Christ was really incarnate Deity.
5. Its Importance to Modern Thought
The importance for modern thinking of the virgin-birth statement is threefold:
1) First, it involves in general the question, never more
vital than at the present time, of the trustworthiness of the gospel tradition.
This particular fact, i.e. the virgin-birth, has been a favorite, because apparently
a vulnerable, point of attack. But the presuppositions of the attack and the method
according to which it has been conducted involve a general and radical undermining
of confidence in the testimony of the gospel witnesses. This process has finally
met its nemesis in the Christus-myth propaganda. The virgin-birth statement can
be successfully assailed on no grounds which do not involve the whole witnessing
body of Christians in charges of blind credulity or willful falsification, very
unjust indeed as respects their character and standing in general, but very difficult
to repel in view of the results of denial at this point.
(2) The virgin-birth is important for the simple historical reason that it involves
or is involved in a clear and consistent account of the Lord's birth and early
years. Apart from the infancy narratives we are utterly without direct information
as to His birth, ancestry or early years. Apart from these narratives we have
no information as to the marriage of Joseph and Mary; we are shut up to vague
inferences as to this entire period. No biographer ever leaves these points obscure
if he can avoid it. It is very earnestly suggested that those who cast discredit
upon the infancy story do not clearly recognize the seriousness of the situation
brought about in the absence of any narrative which can be trusted as to this
vital point. Calumny there is and has been from an early day. If there is nowhere
an authoritative answer to the calumny, in what sort of a position is the Christian
believer placed? He can assert nothing, because apart from what he has too lightly
thrown away he knows nothing.
(3) Lastly, the more closely the statement as to the Lord's birth is studied,
the more clearly it will be seen that it involves in a most vital and central
way the entire doctrine of the incarnation. This doctrine is an interpretation
of facts. Those facts stand together. In the midst of those facts, harmonizing
with them, shedding light upon them and receiving light from them, resting upon
the same consentient testimony is the statement, which is thus worded in the oldest
symbol of our historical faith: "Conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin
Mary" (see APOSTLES' CREED). There is no adequate reason why the intelligent believer
should feel uncertain as to this statement of our holy religion. |
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LITERATURE
There is a vast and growing literature which more or less directly deals with
the subject of our Lord's birth. The literature may be classified as follows:
(1) Lives of Christ; (2) critical commentaries on Matthew and Luke; (3) critical
and historical investigations of Christian origins; (4) monographs on the Apostles'
Creed; (5) monographs and articles on the specific subject. For a list and analysis
of discussions see Sweet, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ, 354-57.
Louis Matthews Sweet
Tags:
bible commentary, bible history, bible reference, bible study, birth of jesus christ, define, immaculate conception, virgin birth
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