“Behold, A Virgin Shall
Conceive”
About 700 years before the incarnation, the prophet Isaiah made
several remarkable prophecies, giving specific details about the virgin birth,
humble and holy life, substitutionary, sin-atoning death, resurrection, and
glorious exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ. These prophecies have all been
fulfilled to the letter. Isaiah 9, 32, and 53 cannot be explained in honesty
except by the fact that these were divinely inspired prophecies of the person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
However, we must never expect skeptics and infidels to be
bothered by facts or honesty. Faith is never produced by proving infidels
wrong. Faith is the gift of God. Divine truth cannot be understood or believed
on the basis of science, logic, history, or human learning. The only way anyone
can ever understand anything in the Book of God is by believing God. And the
only way any sinner can ever believe God is by the gift and operation of God in
the new birth. While I have no delusions about convincing unbelieving men and
women of divine truth, it is always beneficial to God’s elect to see how easily
the skeptic’s brilliant objections to
Divine Revelation are foiled.
One of the most commonly attacked statements of the Old
Testament is Isaiah’s declaration in the fourteenth verse of chapter seven. – “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a
son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” We are told that the word “virgin”
simply means “young woman,” and that if Isaiah had really meant to say “virgin”
he would have used another word. But the skeptic has a problem. The word Isaiah
used for “virgin” is found eight times in the Old Testament, and is translated
“damsel,” “maid,” and “virgin.” Yet, the dominant translation of the word is
“virgin,” and there is no indication any of those “young maidens” were not
young virgins. In fact, the Septuagint (the first Greek translation of the Old
Testament) always translates the Hebrew word used for “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14
by a Greek word which cannot mean anything except “virgin.”
When we refer to the irrefutable fact of our Lord’s incarnation
and his entrance into the world through the womb of the virgin Mary, we often
speak of what we call “the virgin birth of Christ.” That phrase is really a
little misleading. The fact is, our Savior’s birth was as ordinary as ordinary
can be. He was born in a cow stable by the normal biological process of birth.
The amazing thing is not how he came out of his mother’s womb,
but how he entered it. The account given in Holy Scripture is emphatic. That “holy thing” formed in the virgin’s womb
was conceived in her virgin womb by God the Holy Spirit (Lk. 1:35). That “body,” in which the Son of God was able
to bear our sins and suffer the wrath of God as our Substitute, was prepared by
God the Holy Spirit in Mary’s virgin womb (Heb. 10:5). Thus, it came to pass, “when the fulness of time was come, that
God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law” (Gal. 4:4-5).
It came to pass exactly as God the Holy Spirit said it would more than seven
hundred years earlier by the prophet Isaiah. – God the Son came forth from the
virgin’s womb, Immanuel, the incarnate God, to save his people from their sins.
Grace Baptist Church of Danville
- Grace For Today Radio Message #882
2734 Old Stanford Road -
Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438
Donald S.
Fortner, Pastor -Telephone 859-236-8235 - Email grace@mis.net