Mary and Joseph Beside the Baby Jesus in the Mangerby CBPepper
1:25Matthew 1:25
And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.
Joseph had no marital relations with Mary before she gave birth to Jesus, and he himself gave the child the name Jesus in obedience to the angel's command. He stands as Jesus' legal and reputed father, not his biological father, for Jesus was born of Mary by supernatural conception while being placed legally in Joseph's family. The virgin birth fulfills Isaiah's prophecy that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and confirms that the promised seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 is the Messiah Jesus born of Mary. Conceived by the power of the Highest, He was truly Son of man in real human nature and truly Son of God, God with us whose essential deity makes Him an adequate Redeemer for a lost race. The literal virgin birth is a fundamental, cardinal landmark of Christian faith and essential doctrine, so that denial of it cannot be separated from denial of His deity and His office as Saviour.
Wording and Historical Setting
Joseph had no marital relations with Mary before she gave birth to Jesus, and Mary had not been with a man before Jesus was born. This abstinence affirms the virgin birth and miraculous conception described in Matthew's Gospel. Joseph himself called the child Jesus, in obedience to the angel's command and as he had been instructed.
Joseph had first decided not to marry Mary when he learned she was pregnant, then married her after accepting the angel's message given to him in a dream about Jesus' birth. The word rendered firstborn is the Greek prototokos, meaning firstborn, not firstbegotten.
Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary as her firstborn Son, and Mary is identified as the mother of Jesus and the Mother of God whose birth is the Nativity. Jesus is identified as Mary's son, and Joseph is identified as Mary's husband, the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the earthly guardian of Jesus. This guardianship does not give Joseph divine power or authority over Christ, and his origin was divine following the announcement that the Holy Ghost would come upon Mary and her child would be called the Son of God, not merely human with a separate Christ spirit connected to him after birth.
The verse belongs to the account of the birth of Jesus Christ at Nazareth and Bethlehem in B.C. 5, given together with Luke 1:26-35 and Luke 2:1-7. It is included in the account of Jesus' life and birth and in the account presenting his birth as the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning him, but it gives no birth date. His birth is placed in the latter part of the Jewish year 5 B.C., a little over four years before the era marked by his name.
Family Line and Heirship
Matthew 1:25 places Jesus legally in Joseph's family, while his fleshly descent came through Mary. Under Jewish law Joseph was regarded as Jesus' father, and as Mary's husband was treated as the son of her father. Joseph is thus Jesus' legal and reputed father, not his biological father. Jesus was born of Mary and was not simply Joseph's son by ordinary wedlock, for Mary gives birth to Jesus and Joseph is not his father in the miraculous birth.
Matthew traces the royal line from David through Solomon to Joseph, while Luke traces a line from David through Nathan on Mary's side. Luke's genealogy gives the line through the mother Mary, with Joseph named in Mary's place because the record is reckoned through the male line. Judah's genealogy was preserved so that Jesus' lineage could be traced through his father's side as well as his mother's. Matthew's first chapter gives the royal genealogy of Christ showing that the throne of David belonged to Jesus. His parents were Jews, descended from David's family and the tribe of Judah.
The birth completes the preserved line of promise, with earthly lineage traceable literally and legally through Abraham, Jacob, Judah, and David. The preserved succession establishes Mary's son as the promised heir to the material promise to Abraham, which included the whole world. The record assures believers in Christ that Abraham's promises belong to his spiritual descendants. Natural descent was privilege and opportunity, but did not by itself guarantee heirship, and through faith in Christ believers share the inheritance promised to Abraham and are joint heirs with Christ in the throne of David.
Christ entered the human family by birth with a pedigree from Adam, beginning days as an infant, and he was both born and died. This proves he was distinct from Melchizedek, who has no pedigree and no beginning of days or end of life, though both are priests of the same order. Jesus was born into a human line that included sinful people and people of other races. His human ancestors were subject to the iniquities common to humanity. He took human nature, was tempted as human beings are, and lived a perfect life, entering human flesh by divine power to conquer sin on humanity's behalf.
Prophecy Fulfilled at Birth
The birth to the virgin fulfills Isaiah's prophecy that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, fulfilling the prophecy of the virgin-born Immanuel. The account of the virgin bearing her firstborn Son is evidence of Christ's virgin birth and stands as a sign of His first advent. That fulfillment identifies His birth as a sign that He is the true Messiah. The record of the birth is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the birth of the Messiah. It confirms that the seed of the woman promised in Genesis 3:15 is the Messiah Jesus born of Mary. It confirms that the serpent whose head is to be bruised is Satan, the devil who deceived Eve and led Adam and Eve into sin.
The birth marks the fulfillment of the Gospel promises made in the Old Testament and of the prophecies concerning Him. It presents the arrival of the one foretold in prophecy and announced by angels. Yet the passage gives no birth date. Christ's first coming was literal and personal in the virgin birth to a virgin at Nazareth, fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy, and was not mystical or symbolic. Therefore the equally literal predictions of His second coming must also be fulfilled literally and visibly, not by conversion, death, the Holy Spirit, or a reform movement.
Humanity and Divine Sonship
Jesus was born of Mary in Bethlehem, conceived by the power of the Highest and named Jesus. His human birth followed a supernatural conception, yet that supernatural origin does not make His humanity unreal. His birth and infancy are part of the facts showing that He was a real human being who truly possessed human nature. He was truly born of a woman into human life, so while truly Son of God He became truly Son of man.
The birth provided the body the Father prepared for Christ when He came into the world. That body was conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. Its blood provides an adequate atonement for sin because the blood of bulls and goats under the Mosaic law could not take away sin. Made like His brethren in all things, He became a merciful and faithful high priest.
His origin was divine, announced by Gabriel that the Holy Ghost would come upon Mary and that her child would be called the Son of God. He was not merely an ordinary good man, and His conception was not fabulous. Nor was He merely human with a separate Christ spirit connected to Him after birth.
He is God with us: God was manifested in Christ, whose birth was due to the Holy Spirit. His miraculous birth confirms that He is the divine Saviour, and His essential deity makes Him an adequate Redeemer for a lost race. He is different from other men in quality and not only in quantity. The name Jesus given at birth is one of the many names applied to Christ, which express His relation to people at different times.
Defense and Application of Virgin Birth
An angel's message corroborated Mary's explanation and convinced Joseph that her pregnancy was not the result of impurity but belonged to the supernatural birth of Jesus. God's plan in this provided a basis for faith in her claim, so that she could stand innocent before Joseph and before the universe, covered with a spotless robe of glory. Joseph's familiarity with the prophecy of the virgin-born Immanuel enabled him to understand the angel's message, though the angel did not cite the prophecy directly. He had been praying and looking for its fulfillment, and God could trust him to become the husband of the mother of the Lord. The testimony of Matthew and Luke to the virgin birth is worthy of credence, and the evidence for it is of the same character as the evidence for Jesus' miracles, resurrection, teaching, sinless life, and existence.
The birth of Christ from a virgin is a miracle, not explained by ordinary natural processes. It is recorded as literal, true history and part of the trustworthy record of the New Testament, an old landmark of Christian faith to be held with loyalty and not denied. It affirms the miraculous birth of Christ as fact, not a story that can be dismissed because of modern science. Matthew 1:18-25 with Luke's infancy narrative is the Gospel witness to the virgin birth, telling the manner of his birth. With the bodily resurrection it is one of two points in the recorded career of Jesus under special attack, and to cut out this part of the infancy narrative on critical grounds while accepting the rest of the Gospels as veracious and reliable is bad logic and flagrant inconsistency that cannot stand as a widespread and permanent faith.
The truth of this delicate and important matter involving the most sacred matters of human life decides the credibility, competence, and reliability of Matthew and Luke as historians and witnesses. If the account were gullibility, ignorance, romance, deception, or gross blunder, they would be discredited at once and could not be trusted at any other point. The mind must finally choose between the criticism that rejects Matthew and Luke on the birth and the faith that accepts their whole remarkable record with Mark and others. The miraculous birth belongs to the truth of the Word of God and is a true part of Scripture, not legend invented by Matthew. The supernatural birth is essential to Jesus' divine identity, and denial of it cannot be separated from denial of his deity and his office as Saviour.
The literal virgin birth is one of the most cardinal points of belief and a fundamental of Christian faith, not a dispensable detail. Denial of its literal truth marks apostasy and belongs to a broader tendency to disparage the Bible, minimize the miraculous, and diminish Christ. Belief in the virgin birth is an essential doctrine of the gospel and of Christian teaching, part of the Bible in its entirety as divine revelation, and a proper prerequisite for fellowship in evangelical churches and for the office of a Christian minister. To deny it robs Jesus of his divinity, reduces him to only the highest type of man, puts the denier outside Christian ranks with humanistic and rationalistic fellowship, shakes the faith of hearers, and tears the Bible to pieces. Faith in the miraculous birth and character of Christ stands together with faith in the inspiration of the Bible, for doubt of inspiration leads to doubt of the miraculous birth, and doubt of the miraculous birth leads the way to general unbelief, so the first doubts are dangerous and must be put down and crushed out. Denial is part of modern unbelief by those who regard biblical miracles as incredible, including Spiritualists who dismiss the miraculous conception and birth as a fabulous tale. Christ being born into a family shows that God wants to save families.
Joseph had no marital relations with Mary before she gave birth to Jesus, and he himself gave the child the name Jesus in obedience to the angel's command. He stands as Jesus' legal and reputed father, not his biological father, for Jesus was born of Mary by supernatural conception while being placed legally in Joseph's family. The virgin birth fulfills Isaiah's prophecy that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and confirms that the promised seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 is the Messiah Jesus born of Mary. Conceived by the power of the Highest, He was truly Son of man in real human nature and truly Son of God, God with us whose essential deity makes Him an adequate Redeemer for a lost race. The literal virgin birth is a fundamental, cardinal landmark of Christian faith and essential doctrine, so that denial of it cannot be separated from denial of His deity and His office as Saviour.
Wording and Historical Setting
Joseph had no marital relations with Mary before she gave birth to Jesus, and Mary had not been with a man before Jesus was born. This abstinence affirms the virgin birth and miraculous conception described in Matthew's Gospel. Joseph himself called the child Jesus, in obedience to the angel's command and as he had been instructed.
Joseph had first decided not to marry Mary when he learned she was pregnant, then married her after accepting the angel's message given to him in a dream about Jesus' birth. The word rendered firstborn is the Greek prototokos, meaning firstborn, not firstbegotten.
Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary as her firstborn Son, and Mary is identified as the mother of Jesus and the Mother of God whose birth is the Nativity. Jesus is identified as Mary's son, and Joseph is identified as Mary's husband, the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the earthly guardian of Jesus. This guardianship does not give Joseph divine power or authority over Christ, and his origin was divine following the announcement that the Holy Ghost would come upon Mary and her child would be called the Son of God, not merely human with a separate Christ spirit connected to him after birth.
The verse belongs to the account of the birth of Jesus Christ at Nazareth and Bethlehem in B.C. 5, given together with Luke 1:26-35 and Luke 2:1-7. It is included in the account of Jesus' life and birth and in the account presenting his birth as the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning him, but it gives no birth date. His birth is placed in the latter part of the Jewish year 5 B.C., a little over four years before the era marked by his name.
Family Line and Heirship
Matthew 1:25 places Jesus legally in Joseph's family, while his fleshly descent came through Mary. Under Jewish law Joseph was regarded as Jesus' father, and as Mary's husband was treated as the son of her father. Joseph is thus Jesus' legal and reputed father, not his biological father. Jesus was born of Mary and was not simply Joseph's son by ordinary wedlock, for Mary gives birth to Jesus and Joseph is not his father in the miraculous birth.
Matthew traces the royal line from David through Solomon to Joseph, while Luke traces a line from David through Nathan on Mary's side. Luke's genealogy gives the line through the mother Mary, with Joseph named in Mary's place because the record is reckoned through the male line. Judah's genealogy was preserved so that Jesus' lineage could be traced through his father's side as well as his mother's. Matthew's first chapter gives the royal genealogy of Christ showing that the throne of David belonged to Jesus. His parents were Jews, descended from David's family and the tribe of Judah.
The birth completes the preserved line of promise, with earthly lineage traceable literally and legally through Abraham, Jacob, Judah, and David. The preserved succession establishes Mary's son as the promised heir to the material promise to Abraham, which included the whole world. The record assures believers in Christ that Abraham's promises belong to his spiritual descendants. Natural descent was privilege and opportunity, but did not by itself guarantee heirship, and through faith in Christ believers share the inheritance promised to Abraham and are joint heirs with Christ in the throne of David.
Christ entered the human family by birth with a pedigree from Adam, beginning days as an infant, and he was both born and died. This proves he was distinct from Melchizedek, who has no pedigree and no beginning of days or end of life, though both are priests of the same order. Jesus was born into a human line that included sinful people and people of other races. His human ancestors were subject to the iniquities common to humanity. He took human nature, was tempted as human beings are, and lived a perfect life, entering human flesh by divine power to conquer sin on humanity's behalf.
Prophecy Fulfilled at Birth
The birth to the virgin fulfills Isaiah's prophecy that a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, fulfilling the prophecy of the virgin-born Immanuel. The account of the virgin bearing her firstborn Son is evidence of Christ's virgin birth and stands as a sign of His first advent. That fulfillment identifies His birth as a sign that He is the true Messiah. The record of the birth is the fulfillment of the prophecies of the birth of the Messiah. It confirms that the seed of the woman promised in Genesis 3:15 is the Messiah Jesus born of Mary. It confirms that the serpent whose head is to be bruised is Satan, the devil who deceived Eve and led Adam and Eve into sin.
The birth marks the fulfillment of the Gospel promises made in the Old Testament and of the prophecies concerning Him. It presents the arrival of the one foretold in prophecy and announced by angels. Yet the passage gives no birth date. Christ's first coming was literal and personal in the virgin birth to a virgin at Nazareth, fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy, and was not mystical or symbolic. Therefore the equally literal predictions of His second coming must also be fulfilled literally and visibly, not by conversion, death, the Holy Spirit, or a reform movement.
Humanity and Divine Sonship
Jesus was born of Mary in Bethlehem, conceived by the power of the Highest and named Jesus. His human birth followed a supernatural conception, yet that supernatural origin does not make His humanity unreal. His birth and infancy are part of the facts showing that He was a real human being who truly possessed human nature. He was truly born of a woman into human life, so while truly Son of God He became truly Son of man.
The birth provided the body the Father prepared for Christ when He came into the world. That body was conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. Its blood provides an adequate atonement for sin because the blood of bulls and goats under the Mosaic law could not take away sin. Made like His brethren in all things, He became a merciful and faithful high priest.
His origin was divine, announced by Gabriel that the Holy Ghost would come upon Mary and that her child would be called the Son of God. He was not merely an ordinary good man, and His conception was not fabulous. Nor was He merely human with a separate Christ spirit connected to Him after birth.
He is God with us: God was manifested in Christ, whose birth was due to the Holy Spirit. His miraculous birth confirms that He is the divine Saviour, and His essential deity makes Him an adequate Redeemer for a lost race. He is different from other men in quality and not only in quantity. The name Jesus given at birth is one of the many names applied to Christ, which express His relation to people at different times.
Defense and Application of Virgin Birth
An angel's message corroborated Mary's explanation and convinced Joseph that her pregnancy was not the result of impurity but belonged to the supernatural birth of Jesus. God's plan in this provided a basis for faith in her claim, so that she could stand innocent before Joseph and before the universe, covered with a spotless robe of glory. Joseph's familiarity with the prophecy of the virgin-born Immanuel enabled him to understand the angel's message, though the angel did not cite the prophecy directly. He had been praying and looking for its fulfillment, and God could trust him to become the husband of the mother of the Lord. The testimony of Matthew and Luke to the virgin birth is worthy of credence, and the evidence for it is of the same character as the evidence for Jesus' miracles, resurrection, teaching, sinless life, and existence.
The birth of Christ from a virgin is a miracle, not explained by ordinary natural processes. It is recorded as literal, true history and part of the trustworthy record of the New Testament, an old landmark of Christian faith to be held with loyalty and not denied. It affirms the miraculous birth of Christ as fact, not a story that can be dismissed because of modern science. Matthew 1:18-25 with Luke's infancy narrative is the Gospel witness to the virgin birth, telling the manner of his birth. With the bodily resurrection it is one of two points in the recorded career of Jesus under special attack, and to cut out this part of the infancy narrative on critical grounds while accepting the rest of the Gospels as veracious and reliable is bad logic and flagrant inconsistency that cannot stand as a widespread and permanent faith.
The truth of this delicate and important matter involving the most sacred matters of human life decides the credibility, competence, and reliability of Matthew and Luke as historians and witnesses. If the account were gullibility, ignorance, romance, deception, or gross blunder, they would be discredited at once and could not be trusted at any other point. The mind must finally choose between the criticism that rejects Matthew and Luke on the birth and the faith that accepts their whole remarkable record with Mark and others. The miraculous birth belongs to the truth of the Word of God and is a true part of Scripture, not legend invented by Matthew. The supernatural birth is essential to Jesus' divine identity, and denial of it cannot be separated from denial of his deity and his office as Saviour.
The literal virgin birth is one of the most cardinal points of belief and a fundamental of Christian faith, not a dispensable detail. Denial of its literal truth marks apostasy and belongs to a broader tendency to disparage the Bible, minimize the miraculous, and diminish Christ. Belief in the virgin birth is an essential doctrine of the gospel and of Christian teaching, part of the Bible in its entirety as divine revelation, and a proper prerequisite for fellowship in evangelical churches and for the office of a Christian minister. To deny it robs Jesus of his divinity, reduces him to only the highest type of man, puts the denier outside Christian ranks with humanistic and rationalistic fellowship, shakes the faith of hearers, and tears the Bible to pieces. Faith in the miraculous birth and character of Christ stands together with faith in the inspiration of the Bible, for doubt of inspiration leads to doubt of the miraculous birth, and doubt of the miraculous birth leads the way to general unbelief, so the first doubts are dangerous and must be put down and crushed out. Denial is part of modern unbelief by those who regard biblical miracles as incredible, including Spiritualists who dismiss the miraculous conception and birth as a fabulous tale. Christ being born into a family shows that God wants to save families.