“The LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.” (Jeremiah 31:22)
The entire gospel authority rests on the fact of the sinless life of the Lord Jesus—beginning with His conception.
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). An ‘owth (the Hebrew word for “the token” or “the miracle”) would prove that the child born, the son given, would be none other than the “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
When Matthew and Luke speak of the virgin birth (Matthew 1:23; Luke 1:27), they use the Greek word parthenos, which is only used of an actual virgin. Yet, even as clear as the words may be, the reason for the virgin birth is more important still.
The Lamb of God (John 1:29) must be “a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19). Resting on the centuries of the example of the perfect sacrifice with the Passover lamb (Exodus 12:5), “even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthains 5:7).
This “last Adam,” created to be the “quickening spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45), was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens” (Hebrews 7:26). This virgin-born Immanuel was “made flesh” (John 1:14) “to take away our sins” (1 John 3:5) “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
This all began (in real time) with the sinless, virgin-born conception of the Messiah “which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Titus 1:2). HMM III
