Christ’s Virgin Birth
One of the fundamentals of our faith is the virgin birth of Christ. Both the reality and significance of Christ’s humanity are inseparably connected with belief in His virgin birth.
Because it is fundamental it has been often denied. Some in the early church (the Gnostics) denied Christ’s virgin birth. It is still under attack today. Some modern Bible versions, such as the Revised Standard Version, attack it by translating the word “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14 as “young woman.” The Mormons deny it with their filthy teaching that Christ was born of sexual relations between the Father and Mary. Many today think the virgin birth was only a legend about Jesus which the early church believed but which is no longer credible today.
All these attacks, however, only serve to show how important the doctrine is. The devil does not waste his time attacking matters of no consequence.
The virgin birth of Christ is important, first of all, because it is a testimony to His real humanity. Though He did not have a human father He was nevertheless born as we are. If He was not, He would not be “like us in all things except sin” (cf. Heb. 2:17; 4:15).
Also, the virgin birth, with emphasis on the word “virgin,” is a confirmation of the fact that though Jesus was born a man, of the flesh and blood of Mary, He was nevertheless not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (cf. John 1:13). As Isaiah pointed out long ago (Isa. 7:14) the virgin birth is a sign—a sign that Jesus is indeed Immanuel, God with us.
Faith in the virgin birth, however, does not require belief in the “perpetual virginity of Mary,” as Rome teaches, or as the Swiss Reformer, Zwingli, taught. It is not the virginity of Mary either before or after Christ’s birth that guarantees Christ’s sinlessness, but His conception by the power of the Holy Spirit. Luke 1:35 clearly teaches this: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee … therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
In many respects the conception and nativity (birth) of Christ are a great mystery, part of the wonder of grace. When ordinary human conception and birth remain a mystery, how can we expect to understand fully the miracle of Christ’s coming into the world?
May that miracle of Christ’s coming in the flesh point us to the even greater miracle of what He did in the flesh when He suffered, bled and died for the sins of all those whom the Father had given Him. Rev. Ron Hanko
The Certainty of Salvation
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17).
The point of submitting this text for consideration in our News was explained in the accompanying question: Does the word “might” imply that it would be the decision of an individual as to whether he or she would be saved or not?
The question arises out of the ambiguity of our English word “might,” for the word seems to imply doubt. We say, for example, “It might rain today.” We really do not know, but there is some possibility. Or we say, “So-and-so might go to heaven.” By this we mean that there is some possibility that that person will go to heaven, but we are not sure.
So it could be argued that what Scripture is saying here is this: “It might happen that the world through God’s Son will be saved, but there is no certainty about it.” What will be finally determined whether or not that person will be saved? God has sent His Son into the world to make salvation possible, but the certainty of salvation still rests upon man’s willingness to accept Jesus Christ and be saved.
So goes this line of reasoning.
Such reasoning is, however, sadly wrong.
We ought to get straight first of all the idea of the text and why the word “might” appears here.
As a matter of fact, the word itself does not appear in the Greek text. (Anyone with a smattering of the knowledge of Greek, sufficient to use an interlinear Bible, will soon discover this.) The very same construction is used here which is used in verse 16. We could just as well, as far as the Greek is concerned, translate verse 16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, in order that every one who believes in him might not perish, but might have everlasting life.”
Or, to turn this around, we could translate verse 17: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world through him be saved.”
We can put the word “might” into verse 16; or we can leave the word “might” out of verse 17. It does not make any difference.
I prefer not to get technical in answering questions such as this, but perhaps just a point of grammar might help some of our readers.
Although in modern English we have pretty much dropped all use of the subjunctive mood in our speaking and writing, good English teachers and students know that the subjunctive is (and was) an important part of correct speaking. The word “might” in English was (and is) one way to express this subjunctive mood.
The Greek requires the subjunctive mood here (also in verse 16 and the first part of verse 17) because the Greek uses a purpose clause. In every case the text tells us what is the purpose of God.
And now things get important, and the truth here is something everyone can understand.
Verse 16 is saying, therefore, that God, out of love for the world, gave His only begotten Son, with the purpose, not to condemn the world, but with the purpose that every believer be saved.
Verse 17 is saying much the same thing, but with a slightly different emphasis: God sent His Son into the world, not with the purpose of condemning the world, but with the purpose that the world through Christ be saved.
The text is talking here about the purpose of God. That purpose of God is the eternal and unchangeable purpose of His counsel. That purpose of God’s counsel is what God determined before the foundations of the world. See, for example, Ephesians 1:11: “In whom [i.e., In Christ] also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.”
So both verses speak of God’s eternal purpose in sending Christ into the world. His purpose was not to condemn the world. His purpose was to save the world.
In an earlier article we explained what is meant here by the “world” and pointed out that this cannot possibly mean every man head for head. We also pointed out that the word “world” is defined in verse 16 by the words “whosoever believeth.” We will not go into that here.
But what needs emphasis is exactly that the purpose of God is always accomplished, or God is not God. It is incredible to think that God the Creator of heaven and earth, the sovereign Lord of the universe, the ruler of kings and princes, the great God who does all His good pleasure, cannot accomplish His purpose in sending His Son. What utter travesty of our God!
And we can just as well add this: Thus is the doom of those who hold to the “well-meant offer of salvation” (a desire of God to save all humans) for such teach that in some respect it is God’s purpose in the preaching to save all men.
Let us be thankful our God is sovereign! Prof. Herman Hanko
Rule of Life or Method of Condemnation?
In the previous issue of the News we said that it was a form of antinomianism to deny that the law is a rule of life for believers today. This was in response to a question from a reader: “Is the law a rule of life or a method of condemnation?”
In further answer to that question we wish to explain why we believe the law is both a method of condemnation and a rule of life for New Testament believers, for that is what we believe the Bible teaches.
That the law is a “method of condemnation” would be difficult to deny. Such passages as Romans 3:20 (“by the law is the knowledge of sin”), Romans 7:7 (“Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law”) and Galatians 3:10 (“Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them”) clearly teach otherwise.
There is dispute, however, about whether the law is a rule of life for believers. To some it seems that this would “bring New Testament believers once again under the bondage of the law” and would be “a denial of salvation by grace alone.”
The law of God as a rule of life is the teaching of the Reformed creeds. The Westminster Confession of Faith 19.5-6 says,
The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it. Neither doth Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation (Rom. 13:8-10; Eph. 6:2; I John 2:3-4, 7-8; James 2:10-11; Matt. 5:17-19; James 2:8; Rom. 3:31).
Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned; yet it is of great use to them, as well as to others, in that, as a rule of life informing them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly (Rom. 7:12, 22, 25; Ps. 119:4-6; I Cor. 7:19; Gal. 5:14, 16, 18-23).
The Heidelberg Catechism says much the same thing in Q. & A. 114:
But can those who are converted to God perfectly keep these commandments? No; but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience; yet so, that with a sincere resolution they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God.
And in Q. & A. 115:
Why will God then have the ten commandments so strictly preached, since no man in this life can keep them? First, that all our lifetime we may learn more and more to know our sinful nature, and thus become the more earnest in seeking the remission of sin and righteousness in Christ; likewise, that we constantly endeavour, and pray to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may become more and more conformable to the image of God, till we arrive at the perfection proposed to us, in a life to come.
The Belgic Confession says in Article 25:
We believe that the ceremonies and figures of the law ceased at the coming of Christ, and that all the shadows are accomplished, so that the use of them must be abolished amongst Christians; yet the truth and substance of them remain with us in Jesus Christ, in whom they have their completion. In the meantime, we still use the testimonies taken out of the law and the prophets to confirm us in the doctrine of the gospel, and to regulate our life in all honesty to the glory of God, according to His will.
To this we add the testimony of Scripture in the next issue. Rev. Ron Hanko
