Category Archives: Apologetics

Is the Virgin Birth Doctrine Really All That Necessary?

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How important is it that Christians believe in the virgin birth? This may seem like a strange question, as most reading this probably wouldn’t dream of doubting the miracle of the virgin conception. It’s clearly taught in Scripture (Matt 1:18, 23; Luke 1:34–35), consistently believed throughout church history, and once we’ve accepted miracles like the resurrection of Jesus or the splitting of the Red Sea, it’s really not all that hard to believe that God could pull off a virgin conception. In fact, our understanding of the physiology of human procreation—especially in light of modern developments in reproductive technology—makes the miracle of a mother having a child without a father seem less, well, miraculous.

Nevertheless, the contemporary minimalist focus on things “absolutely essential for salvation” has pushed the virgin birth to the margins of what are often called “primary doctrines.” Now, it’s not that evangelicals are eager to abandon the virgin birth. Rather, almost all retain the doctrine “as is,” but some are now allowing for less conservative (let’s avoid the label “liberal” for now) Christians to redefine the doctrine and still claim to be heaven-bound believers. The argument goes like this: all that’s necessary for salvation is belief that Jesus is God and man who died for our sins and rose from the dead. According to some, that’s the sum of the tightly-packaged “simple gospel message” in the key New Testament passages (Romans 1:1–4; 1 Corinthians 15:1–4). There’s no clear mention of the virgin birth outside the Gospels, and only two of those, Matthew and Luke, bothered to include it. So, some less strict evangelicals, still regarding the doctrine as true, don’t make it an indispensable part of the Gospel message. And if it’s not a necessary part of the Gospel, then it’s not necessary for salvation. At least that’s how the argument tends to unfold with the “minimalist message” approach to the Gospel. For fear of adding too much confusing (or unbelievable?) content, the so-called superfluous elements are stripped away, leaving such secondary items to be handled after initial conversion.

So, three tendencies emerge when dealing with the doctrine of the virgin birth—1) rejecting it (flat out disbelief); 2) redefining it (finding the spiritual meaning of the mythical metaphor); or 3) re-categorizing it (demoting it to a secondary doctrine, true and good, but unnecessary for salvation).

My question to those who reject or redefine the doctrine of the virgin birth is always the same—why? What’s so offensive about the miracle of a virgin conception that would force us to regard it as either a loony legend or a meaningful myth? If a person reads a passage like Matthew 1:18 and says, “That’s ridiculous” or “That can’t possibly mean this,” I wonder what that same person does with the miracle of Christ’s bodily resurrection. (That’s a rhetorical question. I know what they do with it.) I have no patience for this kind of rejection or redefinition of the virgin conception. Those positions have no place within the Christian tradition. Never have, never will.

But is the miracle of the virgin conception of Jesus necessary for orthodox theology? Is it best to re-categorize it from “dogma” to “doctrine”? From “central” to “peripheral”? From “primary” to “secondary”? Often evangelical theologians and pastors argue for retaining the centrality of the virgin conception for a soteriological reason related to the work of Christ—His atoning death on the cross. The argument is that if Jesus had been the natural child of Joseph and Mary, then He would have inherited the stain of Adam’s sin. Jesus would have then been born a sinner who was Himself in need of redemption and therefore unable to pay the price for other sinners. Sounds reasonable enough, doesn’t it? But it assumes that sin and guilt are passed down only through the father’s seed, a doctrine not clearly taught in Scripture.

Another reason often cited for keeping the virgin conception primary is a bibliological reason. The argument goes like this: the Bible clearly teaches the virgin birth of Christ. In fact, it even prophesies the virgin birth in Isaiah 7. So, to deny the virgin birth is to deny the truthfulness of the Bible. And to deny the truthfulness of the Bible leads to potential doubt about everything it teaches. Such doubt undermines what the Bible says about sin, Christ, and salvation. So, every clear doctrine—and especially the virgin birth—becomes a primary issue for the Christian faith. Okay, I get it. But is an unbeliever really expected to believe everything in the Bible before he or she is regenerated by the Spirit? Would we need to convince a person that Peter literally found a coin in a fish’s mouth before we regarded that person’s confession of faith to be genuine? Would we check our new convert’s salvation pulse if she thought the story of Jonah might be a parable? Probably not. Most of us would likely say that a proper understanding of the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture comes early in the process of discipleship, not as a pre-requisite for conversion.

Yet there’s more important reason for retaining the centrality of the virgin conception—a christological reason. For me the necessity of the virgin birth relates primarily to the person of Christ—one of the fundamental pillars of the Gospel message itself. You see, the miracle of the virgin conception is not so much a miracle of a woman becoming pregnant without the contribution of a man. There are scientists alive today who could pull that off! The real miracle of the virgin conception is the incarnation of God the Son. The fact is, without the virgin conception, there could be no incarnation. There could be a Jesus of Nazareth possessed by a divine being, but not the God-man, two complete natures in one unique Person. Rather, He would be a complete human person who was adopted by the divine Person, an “indwelled” human being, no different from the way the Holy Spirit indwells a believer in Christ. In short, rejecting the doctrine of the virgin conception results in an adoptionist—not incarnational—christology.

When God the Son took on humanity, He did not adopt a human person. Yes, He took on full humanity—with body and soul, with human mind, human emotion, and human will. But to accomplish true incarnation (rather than adoption), there could be no personhood in the womb apart from incarnation. When the person, Jesus of Nazareth, began to grow in the womb, He had to already be divine and human, two natures in one person. Had Mary become pregnant the natural way, the divine Son would have descended upon a human being who was already a person. This would have resulted in two natures and two persons, the opposite of incarnational Christology. What would have been the result? A radically different Jesus than the One who died and rose again. Paul warns against those who preach “another Jesus” other than the One He preached (2 Corinthians 11:4). A different Jesus quite clearly constitutes a “different gospel, which is really not another” (Galatians 1:6–7).

So, Christians should not only take a stand against rejecting or redefining the doctrine of the virgin conception of Christ. We should resist the trend to re-categorize it as non-essential, or we’ll lose the essential truth of the Gospel—the Person of Jesus Christ, who alone, as fully God and fully man in one Person, is able to accomplish the work of redemption for us.

[Originally posted April 20, 2010 at www.retrochristianity.com]

Leading Evidence

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Throughout my college and seminary training, I often heard both teachers and students say things like, “You can’t conclude that based on the evidence,” or “The evidence clearly points to such-and-such a conclusion.” My least favorite statement of all, however, was “We need to be willing to go wherever the evidence leads.”

The problem with this whole approach is that evidence leads nowhere.

Perhaps I ought to nuance that slightly. On very rare occasions the evidence is so clear that it leads to an obvious conclusion for the vast majority of reasonable (i.e., “sane”) people. Two examples: “something exists” . . . “I exist.” From that point any assertion based on evidence begins to move—ever so slightly—away from the center-point of certainty. But once a person steps from that very small bounded pasture of certainty into the open range of uncertainty and probability, the evidence must be shepherded by arguments—guided toward a reasonable end.

Let me be clear: I don’t buy into the idea of “following the evidence wherever it leads” because in the vast majority of cases the evidence does not lead . . . we lead the evidence. An argument, which incorporates evidence, leads in a particular direction. And arguments, while hopefully including all evidence in a cohesive, coherent, and consistent manner, are led by the arguer. Thus, the arguer leads the evidence. Even when people are all examining the exact same evidence, the result will be a variety of interpretations supported by different groups and individuals. Sometimes when the amount of evidence increases—or old evidence is reevaluated—the picture may change. But not always. Each of us is leading the evidence in a particular direction based on our pre-understandings, presuppositions, agendas, methodologies, questions, and biases. The point? Every endeavor to analyze evidence is perspectival.

In decades (and centuries) past, when a scholar claimed to be compelled by the evidence in a particular direction, many times he or she strived to act as a judge or juror, valuating and evaluating the objective facts without bias. With the decline in modernist confidence in such objectivity, most scholars today admit that they approach all evidence with biases and questions. But often people suggest that the solution to this problem is to strive to strip away biases—that is, “Admitting that you have a subjectivity problem is the first step in overcoming your subjectivity.”

Shouldn’t we strive to be as objective as possible and then proceed with the investigation? No! This is impossible and could, in fact, be more dangerous than simply embracing our perspectives and running with them. Here’s why: if overcoming our perspective is not really possible, then believing that we have somehow overcome them is worse than not being aware of them in the first place. It’s like digging ourselves into a pit, looking up, realizing we’re in a pit, then solving the problem by making the pit larger. We may have worked harder at digging. We may have even employed people to help us dig. But in the end, we’re still stuck in a pit.

Another problem with buying into the method of approaching evidence with as much objectivity as possible is this: what if your original perspective, bias, and set of presuppositions is right? What if your understanding of a particular subject and therefore your arrangement of the evidence is actually the correct one? If this is the case, then stripping yourself of those presuppositions is not only unnecessary—it’s dangerous!

A while back, when I worked for a particular ministry of a well-known pastor, the ministry received a letter from a critic stringing together evidence from the pastor’s writings proving that he held to a particular false doctrine. That man examined the evidence, drew his conclusions, and demanded repentance and an apology. The problem is that that person completely misinterpreted the evidence. For a few rounds, we tried to combat the person’s views by pointing him to other writings of the pastor that showed that he clearly did not hold the false view. But it didn’t work. Finally I said, “This is ridiculous. We know this guy’s interpretation is wrong because we know Pastor So-and-So doesn’t hold this view.” There was no point in argument or evidence in this case, and even though we couldn’t prove to the critique that we were interpreting the pastor’s writings correctly, our unique perspective guaranteed that we were.

I think in many cases this analogy works for reading Scripture. Christians should not be ashamed to read the entire Bible in conformity with classic Christian theology. I am completely unimpressed with lexical, grammatical, and exegetical arguments based on probabilities, historical parallels, or other evidences that do not align with a normal Christian understanding—touching on issues of orthodoxy. In my mind, when a person’s methodology leads to conclusions that are at odds with the classic Christian faith, it doesn’t mean my interpretation needs to be revised or that the faith needs to be modified—it means the methodology is flawed.

This works best at the macro-level, dealing with big issues of orthodoxy (God, Christ, Salvation, etc.). But it can also function as a working principle at the micro-level. For example, I am unimpressed with evidence and arguments that conclude that the “Angel of the Lord” appearances of the Old Testament—classically regarded as appearances of the pre-incarnate Son of God—are merely created angels acting as stand-ins or heavenly representatives of God. The traditional interpretation of the Angel of the Lord as the Son/Logos of God is so ancient and compelling that in my mind the methodologies used to arrive at competing views are discredited. That God the Son (Logos) has always served as the divine mediator between the Father and the creation goes back to Ignatius of Antioch, the Epistle of Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and more. But isn’t this reading the Bible in light of tradition? YES! That’s the whole point.

But wait! Am I not, then, simply approaching this question from my own particular perspective? Of course! Then how do we arrive at the undisputed truth of the matter?

We don’t. There will always be dispute. There will always be challenges. Our responsibility is to engage in the real practice of theology. It’s not understanding seeking faith. It’s faith seeking understanding. It’s not exegesis leading to a biblical theology. It’s traditional theology guiding biblical exegesis. This means contributing to the quest for understanding in community, offering up arguments and critiques, incorporating new evidence as it comes, constantly re-evaluating evidence, exploring new arguments, and always operating under the assumption that the dialogue will continue long after we’re gone. But we must always carry on the conversation in the context of the tradition and in the confines of the believing community.

Ideally my dialogical hermeneutical method ought to take place in a community of free and open dialogue in which various perspectives are heard, understood, discussed, and critiqued. But this is, of course, impossible. So, in the absence of such an ideal dialogical community we’re really just left with one practical solution. It’s the solution through which the Holy Spirit guided the church into truth for the last 2000 years. We struggle with the questions, we agonize over them, and we debate each other, all the while trusting that the Spirit will guide His church into the future as He has faithfully done in the past—in, though, with, among, and, more often than not, in spite of us.

Proof of Paul’s Miracles: A Case of Self-Authenticating Testimony

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“Self-authenticating testimony” refers to written statements concerning a past event that must be regarded as accurate if both the writer and recipient of the correspondence shared first-hand knowledge of the event. This rule works for direct written correspondence (not hearsay or non-correspondence), and it obviously doesn’t apply to anonymous letters or forgeries. People can lie about what happened to them personally. They can exaggerate about what happened to somebody else. But people can’t get away with inaccurately reporting events that happened to both themselves and those to whom they are writing.

To illustrate this, let me use a couple modern examples. Imagine that I come to your home for dinner. While we chat, you and I begin to fiercely disagree over a political issue. I become so irate that I throw a whole bowl of potatoes at you then smash all your dishes before stomping out in a rage, vowing never to speak with you again. Then, two days later you receive a thank you letter from me that says the following: “Dear friend, thanks for the delightful evening. I genuinely enjoyed the meal and the splendid fellowship, especially the pleasant and stimulating conversation. It’s so good to know that we see eye-to-eye on things. I look forward to seeing you again soon.” Now, if you received that note, you would probably think I had either lost my mind or needed an exorcist. The fact is, nobody except a lunatic would write such a wildly inaccurate account to people who would know better.

Let me move this example into another realm. You invite me over to lead a small group Bible study. I arrive, give a brief lesson, spend time answering questions, pray, then leave. Nothing remarkable. The next week, however, your group receives a letter from me that says the following: “Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I really enjoyed the time we had experiencing the Holy Spirit. I was especially amazed at the signs, wonder, and miracles God did through me, demonstrating Christ’s awesome resurrection power in your very midst. I look forward to doing this again real soon.” If your group received that letter, I would lose all credibility because I hadn’t done any signs, wonders, and miracles. Nobody but a lunatic would make such claims in written correspondence if his recipients would know it wasn’t so.

Now for a biblical example. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians is a written correspondence referring to events that his readers would have been able to confirm or refute. (Remember, even liberal scholars regard 2 Corinthians as one of Paul’s “Hauptbriefe,” German for “primary letters”; that is, 2 Corinthians is universally regarded as an authentic letter of Paul, not a later forgery.) In this letter Paul wrote, “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles” (2 Corinthians 12:2). As he tried to assert his God-given authority as an apostle, Paul reminded his readers about the signs, wonders, and miracles he did when he was with them. This fits our description of self-authenticating testimony. Just as in my own illustration above, if Paul had done no signs, wonders, and miracles while he was in Corinth, he would have lost all credibility the moment the church read that claim. Why? Because they would have known better. So, we can conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Paul did, in fact, perform miraculous deeds in Corinth.

These were not the T.V. healer kind of “miracles” that are unverifiable, faked, or exaggerated. The people in Corinth would have known immediately whether the miracles Paul performed were real or not. People of the ancient world may have believed in the supernatural (like most people today), and may even have been somewhat superstitious (like many people today), but they weren’t all ignorant and gullible. With all the wonder-working charlatans running around the Roman empire in those days, Paul’s signs, wonders, and miracles had to have stood out if he were to point to them later as proof of his divine authority. Furthermore, Paul’s actions were more than just one or two isolated events. Paul said he did multiple signs, wonders, and miracles—not just “a miracle” or “a sign.” And he did them “among you [plural],” not to some unknown individual whose story could be exaggerated. These had to have been major memory-makers for Paul to rely on the events to build his credibility in 2 Corinthians.

What does this mean for us? Hebrews 2:3–4 says, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord [Jesus], it was confirmed to us by those who heard [the apostles], God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.” The writer of Hebrews claims to have been part of those who were on the receiving end of the signs, wonders, and miracles of the apostles. And the implication is serious: because God enabled them to perform these miracles to confirm that their message about Christ was from God, we must pay close attention to their claims. The same is true today. We don’t need to have seen Paul’s miracles to know, based on his self-authenticating statements, that he actually did them. Second Corinthians 12:2 proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he actually and literally performed signs, wonders, and miracles.

So, Paul did miracles, proving that the message he preached came from God. He preached Christ as God’s Son who became man, died for our sins, rose from the dead, appeared to hundreds of his disciples . . . and then appeared to Paul, who had been working against Christians until that moment (see 1 Corinthians 15:1–9).

If you’re still skeptical about Paul’s claims, you might want to take another look. . . .

Is Christianity Absurd?

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In 1 Corinthians 1:22–23, Paul wrote, “For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness.”

Let’s face it. The heart of Christianity really does sound rather absurd to well-educated minds. When a person steeped in the world’s wisdom steps back and takes an objective look at what we believe about Jesus Christ, Christianity comes out looking pretty foolish. Think about it. The eternal God becoming a human being? That makes as much sense as a man becoming a gnat . . . or a blade of grass . . . or a popsicle stick. Or what reasonable person would believe that the divine Source of all creation—of life itself—could die? And what modern person would ever believe that a dead man could come to life after three days?

The absurdity mounts to such a degree that one marvels that anybody believes at all . . . yet you and I stake our whole existence on such seemingly ridiculous claims! Why?

If you think the incarnation of the Son of God sounds absurd in 2006, try to imagine what it would have sounded like nearly 2000 years ago. Believe it or not, the situation was far worse in the early days of the faith. Imagine how you’d feel about your own flesh if we had access to only herbal remedies to treat diseases. Think about how you’d feel about your body if you had no deodorant, poor dental care, no eye glasses, no corrective surgery, and no way to treat mental illness or depression. Consider how you might view your body if you had no running water, no sewage system, and no toilet paper. If a loved one came down with a debilitating disease, you personally cared for him or her as that frail body and mind wasted away before your eyes. And when people died of accidents, injuries, or illnesses, you dealt with it up front and personal.

Today, we sanitize and sterilize almost all aspects of life . . . and death. But for most people living two thousand years ago, flesh was not their friend. That’s the same world in which the early Christians tried to convince everyday Jews and Gentiles that the holy and pure God took on grubby humanity—flesh, bones, blood, sweat, bodily functions, odors, accidents, and illnesses. You can almost hear the response: “You’re telling us God did what?”

It’s no wonder that over the centuries embarrassed “Christians” have tried to make the incarnational core of Christianity sound less offensive and more reasonable. Some early deviations from the norm sought to down-play Christ’s humanity or deny it altogether. Others rejected His true divinity to prevent God from mixing too intimately with the imperfect creation. Others separated the human Jesus from the heavenly Christ—two separate persons sharing space, like a spirit might possess a man.

More recently in historical critical studies, some have said Jesus didn’t literally rise from the dead on the third day, but “lived on” in the religious experience of the believing community—that the New Testament stories of the resurrection are just myths. In this way the “truth” of Christianity supposedly becomes more acceptable to modern minds. In response, we try to present the truth of the incarnation in language that makes more sense—adapting the message to human notions about what’s reasonable and what’s absurd. We sometimes believe that if we just make the gospel sound more reasonable, reasonable people will believe.

But perhaps we need to come to terms with the fact that the gospel message is absurd by the standard of the world’s wisdom.

Let me turn the tables on this. Unlike the ancient and modern skeptics who find Christianity too absurd to accept, couldn’t we just as easily believe the truth of Christianity not in spite of its absurdity, but because of it? If Jesus Christ was not God incarnate, and if He did not really rise from dead, this would mean the early disciples made up all these stories about Jesus. But why would anybody make up stories that would be difficult for both Jews and Greeks to accept? Why not fabricate more “user friendly” and less “kooky” tales? Tertullian, a Christian of the early third century, put it this way: “The Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd. And He was buried and rose again; the fact is certain, because it is impossible” (Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ 5.4).

Is the incarnation absurd? Yes! Is it impossible? Yes! But only a fool would fabricate philosophically-incorrect doctrines like the incarnation and the resurrection if the goal was to convert the world. Yet Paul said, “The foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:25, NIV).

Tertullian was right. Nobody would make this stuff up.

Therefore, I believe.