Jesus Is Born of a Virgin

Luke’s Objectives

• Complement existing information

• Corroborate that information with eyewitnesses and facts

• Chronicle the information

• Confirm Convincingly

An Important backstory in Elizabeth and Zechariah

• Sarah - “Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.” (Genesis 11:30, ESV)

• Rebecca - “And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived.” (Genesis 25:21, ESV) 

• Rachel - “When the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.” (Genesis 29:31, ESV)

• Hannah - “But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the LORD had closed her womb.” (1 Samuel 1:5, ESV)

These first 3 are about the keeping of God’s promise to Abraham.

Childlessness as a judgement - “For the LORD had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.” (Genesis 20:18, ESV)

The permissive will of God - ““Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does?” (Job 39:1, ESV)

Luke’s Emphasis in the point

Repetition - “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.” (Luke 1:26–27, ESV)

Protestation - “And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”” (Luke 1:34, ESV)

Intercession - “And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”” (Luke 1:35–37, ESV)

Questions:

1. What are your thoughts about the virgin birth of Jesus? Is it important to you? Is it something that you have thought about?

2. Thinking about how involved God has been with Mary and with the lives of so many in Scripture – even mountain goats! – how involved do you think God is in your life? Can you site an example of God intervening in your circumstances?

3. How does God’s intervention in the details of your life and in the lives of people we’ve talked about this week, make His supernatural intervention more believable or even expected?