TOGETHER:
Virgin birth is crucial to understanding Christmas
___For those who grew up with carols ringing in your ears from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, the "reason for the season" goes as far back as memory goes. For those who learned the meaning of Christmas only after giving your life to Jesus, you may still remember how different that "first" Christmas felt to you.

CHARLES WADE Executive Director, BGCT Executive Board

___Every year, many people come to Christmas and wonder how they ever will get through it. The presents, the trees, the lights, the travel, the schedule, the sheer work of it all--especially for mothers, retail sales personnel and church choirs! Let me express my gratitude to all of you who do so much for so many.
___That is the story of Christmas, God doing so much for so many.
___And it happened like this: An angel of the Lord appeared in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." Matthew continues, "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel --which means, 'God with us'" (Matthew 1:20-23).
___Blessed miracle! No man could do this. Only God could make salvation possible. And what a wonderful God is revealed to us in his choice to send his Son to Earth, born of a virgin and placed in a manger in a Bethlehem barn.
___I believe in the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus. I believe it because the Bible says it. I believe it is the fulfillment of prophecy. I believe God chose to become a physical and emotional part of our humanity because he wanted us to know him intimately. He became fully man while remaining fully God. John Calvin said: "If he had been only divine, he could not have reached us. If only human, he could not have saved us."
___The virgin birth of Jesus tells us that Jesus was born without any connection to Adam's sin. He was sinless at birth, and he remained sinless by his perfect obedience to the Father. He kept and fulfilled the law of Moses. When he died, the sinless for the sinful, he became the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He took our place, becoming our substitute. He bore our sins on the cross. We can be saved, because he would not save himself that day.
___There is yet another reason I believe in the virgin birth. If Jesus had been born of a man and a woman, who do you think would have taken credit for his glorious and wonderful life? Men would have said to God: "Look, God. Look at Jesus dying on the cross. He is the best we have to offer you. He is good and wise and compassionate. There has never been a better man. We are very proud of what a man can become."
___But God has taken away all our boasting. Jesus is God's gift to us, not our gift to God. God brought the sacrifice to the cross, and it was himself. We are humbled and ashamed by what the human family did to God at the cross. But we are delivered and made whole when, in repentance and faith, we open our hearts to his love and vow to follow Jesus.
___The doctrine of the virgin birth teaches us that we owe God everything because he took the initiative and made his way to earth that we might, by his graceful invitation, make our way to heaven.
___There is no other name--no other way.
___We are loved.


The Baptist Standard