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Matthew now adds an explanatory note to show the fulfillment of the Old Testament types and prophecies in the person and work of Christ:
v. 22. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
v. 23. Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son; and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
It was not an incident that just happened that way which the evangelist records, but an occurrence definitely decided upon and fully planned by the Lord centuries before. For it was He that spoke the prophecy through Isaiah, chapter 7:14. The words as written by the prophet referred to a sign or miracle which the Lord promised King Ahaz in order to assure him that the counsels of the enemies of Israel should not stand, but that the latter should finally be utterly discomfited. In giving this sign, the Lord had in mind the spiritual Israel and its enemies, the deliverance being the redemption wrought by the Messiah. Before the eternal God, the space of seven hundred years is as a watch in the night. This sign was now to be given and the prophecy fulfilled. The virgin, not any virgin, but the one designated and chosen by God, being with child, was now about to bear a son. And they, not only His parents, but men and people that would know Him, especially those that would accept His salvation, would call His name Emmanuel: God with us. In the son of Mary these words were fulfilled, her son is God Himself; in His person the strong God, the almighty Lord, is with us, not according to His condemning justice, but according to His loving-kindness and tender mercies, Isa_9:6; Joh_1:1-14; 1Ti_3:16.
The Virgin Birth
For about eighteen centuries after the ascension of Christ and the founding of the Christian Church the fact of the virgin birth was not called into question and the comforting doctrines drawn there from were universally accepted. Throughout the Christian Church the words of the Apostolic Creed: "Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," were confessed and believed. But the era of rationalism, of believing only what reason admitted to be true, ushered in a new conception of Bible criticism, and this played havoc with our doctrine. One critic attacked the idea of a supernatural origin of Jesus and tried to find a natural explanation of the event. Another declared that Joseph was the father of Jesus. A third calmly treated the stories of Christ's nativity as myths. In this manner, the entire Bible account was soon discredited, both the fact of the virgin birth and the doctrine of the necessity of the sinless birth of the Savior being denied. It is stated that the modern world cannot believe in, and therefore has no place for, miracles. This standpoint evidently overthrows the entire Bible and the history of the Church, both of which are replete with miracles. Some have maintained that the virgin birth has no doctrinal significance anyway, not the physical basis of Christ's existence, but the moral and spiritual character of His personality being involved in redemption. But such statements reveal the fact that they are very well aware of the vital connection between the doctrine of the virgin birth and faith in the divinity of Christ. A third class of critics favors the mythological explanation, declaring that legends and myths have ever sprung up in connection with the development of all religions. Unfortunately the critics themselves disagree, some of them assuming a Hebrew, others a Greek, others an Indian origin of the story. Besides, their examples are poorly chosen, a divine paternity by carnal intercourse being assumed in the majority of cases. And a recent writer has shown all these theories to be untenable and not analogous, besides referring to the fact that the heathen myths in connection with such stories are of an incredibly vile and immoral character, while nothing can equal the simple, chaste, convincing language of the Bible narrative. The final argument of the critics that historical and textual criticism has proved consecutive editing of New Testament stories and the presence of material foreign to essential Gospel sources, revivals the intention they are anxious to put into execution, namely, to destroy the faith of Christians in the truthfulness of the Bible story.
Let us, in combating these attacks, rely upon the weapon which Christ Himself indicated to us, namely: "It is written. " It is plainly written, Isa_7:14, that the Messiah should be born of a virgin, for the Hebrew word there used, both according to its etymology and according to usage, designates not merely a "woman of marriageable age," but a virgin, a maiden that has not known man. Dr. Stoeckhardt has proved this meaning even in the passage Pro_30:18 The virgin birth is most decidedly taught in the passage above, Mat_1:20-25, as well as in Luk_1:34-35. It agrees, moreover, with the prophecy, Gen_3:15, where the Seed of the Woman alone is named as the crusher of the Serpent's head. It finds its final confirmation in the fact that St. Paul refers to it in the most self-evident way, when he speaks of the Son of God as having been made of a woman, Gal_4:4.
In the light of these plain passages we have every reason to say: "Therefore these learned men and critics are the falsifiers, visionaries, and writers of legends, not the apostles and evangelists. Their historic-critical research is plain fraud. From the view-point of their unbelief, indeed, they cannot do otherwise. Theirs is the experience of the Jews: With seeing eyes they see nothing, and with hearing ears they hear nothing, and they have their reward. The devil thanks them for it."
We shall retain the doctrine of the virgin birth as a necessary part of our faith. We believe that it is essential for a full appreciation of the supernatural, the divine character of the Savior. "In order to constitute a divine-human personality, the divine Being had to enter into the procreative depths of humanity and select and assume a human nature of His formation and purifying, and unite Himself personally with it. It must be bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, soul of our soul, in order to be organically connected with the human race; but it must be our nature lifted out of itself, separated, purified, transmuted—a human nature that, strangely and mysteriously enough, could be 'tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. '" Christ "indeed is become a real, true, natural man, but not conceived and born in sins, as other children of Adam. For that reason His mother had to be a virgin whom no man had touched, in order that He might not he conceived and born under the curse, but without sin, and the devil might have no right or power over Him. Such mercy we celebrate today in order to thank God that He purified our unclean, unholy conception and birth through His holy conception and birth, took the curse from us, and brought the blessing upon us. We by nature have a filthy, sinful conception and birth, but Christ has a pure, holy conception and birth, and through His holy conception and birth our unclean nature, flesh, and blood are blessed and sanctified. " The fact of the sinless humanity of Christ, guaranteed to us by the virgin birth, made His being placed under the Law, His perfect fulfillment of the Law, and thus His entire work of redemption possible.