In view of the fact that Heb. 2:14 (20th century translation) states that Jesus partook of our nature in the same way, also that Christadelphians hold that, in spite of the alleged supernatural begettal, he was under Adamic condemnation and needed to die for himself, and as his sinlessness is in no way attributed in the Scriptures to alleged supernatural begettal, it follows that, if true, it was a useless miracle, but as God does not perform “useless miracles,” I have concluded it never happened.
When the Apostle Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, the Synoptic Gospels had not been published, and when we analyse Peter’s sermons and letters, together with those of the Apostle Paul, we find they never mentioned the story of the Virgin Birth. The only conclusion is that they knew nothing about it; it was no part of the faith once delivered to the saints.
The general commission given by our Lord after his resurrection, and previous to his ascension, and expressed in Luke 24:44-49, embraces the vital elements of the Christian faith, but fails to mention the Virgin Birth.
In Acts 2 the personality of Jesus is mentioned, and his descent from David referred to, but there is no reference to supernatural begettal. The fact that Peter omitted this proves he knew nothing about it. The same observation applies to Acts 10: Peter said that God anointed Jesus with Holy Spirit and with power, but did not say he was begotten by the Holy Spirit.
In 1 Cor. 15:1, 2 we read that Paul said of the Gospel, “. . . by which ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you.” No mention being made by Paul in his letters or sermons, it is quite clear that salvation is possible without believing in the Virgin Birth. . . Notwithstanding Luke 2:11, we deny that Jesus was born “Lord,”
“Saviour” or “Christ,” but became such by his obedience, death and ,resurrection.
REPLY
The “argument from silence,” on which our correspondent lays such stress, is not by any means proof of ignorance, but even it it seems to some that Peter and Paul were not aware of the Virgin Birth when they wrote their epistles, it certainly does not follow that Jesus was the naturally-born son of Joseph and Mary.
J.B. seems to have overlooked entirely Luke’s claim that he had “traced the course of all things accurately from the very first” (R.V. rendering of Luke 1:3). As a certain theologian has written: “Nobody would suppose from such a preface that the Evangelist was proposing to add to the stock of essential information that Theophilus had already received. The natural Werence is that Theophilus had already been taught about the Virgin Birth, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of the Saviour, and that Luke was about to fill in the historical details.”
We do not- want to be unfair in any way to J.B., but it seems to us that he accepts without reservation such Scriptures as Acts 2 and 10, and I Cor. 15:1, 2, but rejects quite arbitrarily Matt. 1 and Luke 1, simply because they record the Virgin Birth of Jesus, which he rejects on other grounds. This seems to us to indicate positive bias, and does not savour of “rightly dividing the word of truth.”
But because it is vital to our correspondent’s argument, he maintains that Jesus became Lord, Saviour and Christ after his resurrection. We suggest that this contention is required by the argument, and is not based in the slightest degree on Scripture. In fact, Scripture testimony seems to demolish the contention altogether. According to Luke 1:41-43, Elizabeth, whilst “filled with the Holy Spirit,” described the yet-unborn Jesus as “Lord.” In Luke 2:11, Jesus is called Saviour, Christ and Lord on the day that he was born. Eight days later, Jesus is called ” the Lord’s Christ ” (Luke 2:26), and quite early in his ministry Jesus himself declared that he was ” Christ ” (Luke 4:26).
In Jno. 10:36 we read that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, but our correspondent would probably say that Jesus was not the Son of God at that time, but became so later.
Jesus said, “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” ( Jno. 17:3). Thus, before his death, Jesus declared that he was “Christ.”
He often said that he had been “sent” by God, but on the hypothesis that Jesus was at that time only the natural son of Joseph, these declarations seem meaningless. In ,Jno. 6:62, for example, Jesus is recorded as saying to his disciples, “What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?” This non-personal pre-existence seems to us inexplicable if we deny that Jesus was then the Son of God.
Our correspondent, intentionally or otherwise, does not attempt to explain how a post-Apostolic and false tradition (as J.B. contends) could be incorporated into the faith of the early Church, and how such a false tradition could be believed by Luke, when Paul, who was a close friend and associate of Luke, was ignorant of it, and did not therefore believe it.
The Doctrine of the Virgin Birth appears in the Old Roman Creed, which may be dated about the year 100 A.D. “I believe in Christ, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary . . .” One writer, commenting on this says, “If the Virgin Birth was not taught by the Apostles, it would have been practically impossible for anybody else to teach it with authority, and altogether impossible for it to have commanded in the acceptance of the whole Church, and found its way into the Creed.”
We commend this aspect of the matter to the careful study of our correspondent.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One