Anglicans, Christmas, and the birth of God?

Evangelical Anglican: Christmas as the birth of God

One phrase caught my attention from Phillip Jensen several times in the telecast as he spoke about Christmas being a celebration of 'the birth of God.' Could this kind of language give the wrong impression? He has a brief article online that is titled, "Celebrate the Birth of God" (published 2 December 2005). In it he writes of Christmas as a time to 'celebrate the coming of the Lord Jesus, who is God in the flesh' and 'give thanks to God for the great privilege of celebrating the birth of our Mighty God in this way.'

He seems to be trying to communicate that Jesus is both God and man, but does the language, 'the birth of God' have potential problems? These are my questions:

• Is it misleading to speak of the birth of God when God the Son has always existed and has had no birth eternally? The God-man was born in Bethlehem.
• Could it be better to say that the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, became flesh (a man) and we celebrate His birth at Christmas time?
• Many do not understand how a virgin could conceive and give birth to the Son of God as flesh, without the insemination of a male. Does the language of 'the birth of God' convey orthodox theology, or is it meant to get the attention of secular people who celebrate Christmas for materialistic and holiday reasons?
• I cannot ever understand the supernatural act of God in the virgin birth if I reject miracles as John Shelby Spong (an Episcopalian/Anglican) does when he states, 'Let me say bluntly that I no longer think that the miracles of the gospels have anything to do with what we once called the miraculous.'

Phillip Jensen clarified this in 2013, 'We celebrate more than the birth of the baby, Jesus. When we retell the history of his birth, we are celebrating the meaning and purpose of God's action in our salvation.' That's a better way of putting it.

Prophecy of Jesus' birth

The prophecy of Christ's birth in Isaiah 9:6 states, 'For to us a child is BORN, to us a son is GIVEN.' For this one event of the incarnation, there are two distinct matters.

(1) A CHILD is born – this is the human Jesus, and

(2) A SON is given. The Son was not born; Jesus the Son was GIVEN. He was from eternity.

I am not sure that Phillip Jensen made this distinction as clearly as he should have. I consider that he ought to have made it unambiguous about the humanity of Jesus (a child is born) and the deity of Jesus (the eternal Son is given). God was not born on the first Christmas Day. God the Son has always existed as God and he became a human being on that first Christmas Day but there was no 'birth of God' as such.

We know this from a well-known verse such as John 3:16, 'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.' So, God SENT his Son. This presupposes that the Son was always with the Father and was ready to be sent.

The apostle Paul is clear about what this means at Christmas time. According to Romans 1:3-4,

concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord (ESV),

The eternal generation of the son is orthodox Christian doctrine. The Nicene Creed affirms the eternal nature of the Son: