1. Because Mary 'was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit' (Matt 1:18), it guaranteed his heavenly identity of being God the Son.
2. Jesus lived a sinless life since there was no sexual liaison between a male and a female for his conception. With a human father, he would have inherited a sinful nature. The sin nature is passed down through the male as it was Adam who was responsible for the first sin of disobedience (Gen 3; Rom 5:12). The virgin birth guarantees that Jesus 'appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin' (1 John 3:5). No sinful human being could guarantee cleansing from sin.
3. For the cleansing of human sin, God required a perfect sacrifice in the OT (Ex 12:5) and the sinless Jesus, with his crucifixion, was a sin offering for Christian believers (2 Cor 5:21). Hebrews 7:26 confirms that Jesus was a high priest who truly meets our need because he was the 'one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens'. This was possible because of his virgin birth.
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4. Christ's unparalleled attributes are revealed in Scripture. Don Stewart's summary of this matchlessness is:
What the virgin birth does is show the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. No one else has ever come into the world the same way as Jesus. The unique and miraculous nature of Jesus carried on through His entire life. His birth was a miracle, His public ministry consisted of miracles, Jesus miraculously lived a sinless life, He miraculously came back from the dead, and left this world in a miraculous way. From His entrance into this world until His departure, the life of Jesus Christ was a miracle.
5. The historically reliable Bible confirms Jesus' virgin birth. Discussion of the trustworthy Bible content is for another time.
With commercialised Christmases, these core elements are ignored and replaced.
(2) The meaning of nativity
Nativityis a special name for a baby's birth place. If I was born in Brisbane, you could say my nativity was in Brisbane. However, it predominately refers to Christians' pointing to the birth place of Jesus Christ. Nativity 'comes from the French word nativité, which also means "birth." The Latin root word is nativus, "born or native"'.
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Often Christian nativity scenes include the Christ child in the manger, Mary and Joseph, shepherds, some barn animals, three magi and angels.
Should there have been angels in the first nativity scene? Luke 2:8-9 informs us that the shepherds were out in the fields watching their flocks at night when an angel appeared to announce the Messiah's arrival. The shepherds 'were terrified'. So the angels should not appear in a nativity scene.
As a passing comment, to talk about angels appearing today could cause great anguish amongst many because we don't believe in that such characters. They are made for movies!
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