I always want to encourage my fellow Christians that theology is not a stuffy subject reserved for uptight scholars to study in their ivory towers. Theology literally means “the study of God.” It is our extraordinary privilege to investigate the God-breathed text of the Bible and discover the truth about God and what He calls us to be. And if the goal is the knowledge and worship of God, there’s hardly anything more life-giving and thrilling to the soul than theology. On that note, I want to share four big reasons why the virgin conception matters for you today, and why there is no Christmas without it.

 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34, NIV)

Why the Virgin Conception Matters:

1. The virgin conception shows that the coming of Jesus Christ is the sovereign work of God alone.

With every other birth that has taken place, both a mother and a father were needed to create new life in the mother’s womb. One modern embryology textbook explains:

“Human development begins at fertilization when a sperm fuses with an oocyte to from a single cell, the zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell (capable of giving rise to any cell type) marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”[1]

This is the natural process that God has designed from the beginning. One of the reasons God created marriage to be for one man and one woman is that in God’s design, a baby can only be conceived through the sexual union of a man and a woman. But here in this one unique case, we see a baby growing in the womb of a woman who has never been with a man.

This proves that God is the One who sovereignly sent Jesus into this world. The fact that no human father was needed demonstrates that God didn’t need our help to bring Jesus into this world. He did it supernaturally to show that salvation could only be accomplished by Him.

Also, note that God didn’t come down and start asking several Jewish women who would be willing to carry His Son. He simply chose Mary for this task. He didn’t ask Mary whether she was willing or have her sign any papers. God sovereignly chose her alone to have this extraordinary responsibility of carrying and giving birth to His Son.

2. The virgin conception proves that Jesus has always been the eternal God.

If Jesus was merely a man, then there would be no need for a virgin conception. But because the Son of God existed from all eternity, it only makes sense for Him to be born apart from human means.

In the virgin conception, we have the most astonishing miracle in all of human history. This is God Himself coming to earth, becoming one of us.

There have been numerous heresies throughout history that have gotten Jesus wrong, and it all comes down to His nature. Was He truly God in human flesh? Some early heretics tried to say that Jesus was such a remarkable human being that God adopted Him as His Son and gave Him a godlike status. Others have tried to argue that Jesus was the first and greatest creation of God the Father. But Scripture is clear. Christmas is about God Himself becoming one of us.

Speaking of Jesus, John 1:1 says:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1, ESV)

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14, ESV)

This “becoming flesh” is what happened in Mary’s womb. This is not something we can analyze, dissect, or figure out scientifically. Satan loves it when people worship at the altar of scientific materialism. Those religiously devoted to scientific materialism have adopted a belief system that rules out God and miracles from the start. I can almost hear the devil cackling when I hear people say, “I only accept what science tells me.” Such an absolute statement exposes a deeply religious conviction and idolatrous form of worship, akin to saying, “I only accept what the priests of Baal tell me.”

The virgin conception is a supernatural work of God, meant to draw our attention to the truth about Jesus. Jesus has been divine from all eternity, and yet he took on a human nature that He inherited from His mother, Mary. So in Jesus, we have the only one in history who is somehow both fully God and fully man.

3. The virgin conception means that Jesus understands us completely.

Of course, as God, Jesus already had perfect knowledge about what it means to be human. He made us, after all. But because of Christmas, Jesus now knows experientially what it means to be human. He can relate to us and personally identify with all the struggles, temptations, and miseries that come with being human in a fallen world.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15, ESV)

Think of this. Right now, in Heaven, at the Father’s right hand, you have an advocate, a high priest who knows exactly what it is like to be human. Have you lost your temper recently with someone in your family? Jesus understands. Have you been tempted to lust or to want to control everything? Jesus understands.

He understands you completely, and yet He is totally free of sin. Jesus knows what it means to live as a full-fledged human in this world.

4. The virgin conception ensures that Jesus would be the perfect and sinless sacrifice we need.

We all came into this world through a mom and a dad. And we inherited from them both their genetic traits that make us who we are and the corruption of original sin.[2] We all arrive stained with the corruption of Adam. So for Jesus to come as that perfect atoning sacrifice who could bear our sin and endure the penalty we deserved, He needed to come in a supernatural way.

“Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” (Hebrews 2:17, ESV)

That word “propitiation” is a very important word. Some translations render this verse to say “atonement” instead of “propitiation.” But propitiation has a very specific meaning: “a sacrifice that removes or satisfies wrath.” By dying in the place of sinners, the sinless Jesus absorbed the wrath of God that we deserved. By trusting in Jesus, we are trusting in His sacrifice in our place. The Bible teaches that we are naturally enemies of God and that the most urgent need for every man, woman, and child is to trust in the saving blood of Jesus Christ.

“Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” (Romans 5:9, ESV)

Baptist pastor Adrian Rogers summed it up:

“All Christianity is described in three sentences. 1) I deserve hell. 2) Jesus took my hell. 3) There’s nothing left for me but His heaven.”

Only through being born of a virgin could He be human in every way and yet utterly sinless, too. He never once failed His Father. Because of that, He could be our atoning sacrifice and represent us so that we could be reconciled to God.

The famous Heidelberg Catechism teaches the importance of Jesus being both truly divine and truly human:

Q.17. Why must he also be true God?

A. So that, by the power of his divinity, he might bear in his humanity the weight of God’s wrath, and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life.

The virgin conception matters because we can’t understand the purpose of Christmas without it. The whole purpose of Christmas is that Jesus is the God-man who was born to live, die, and rise again to save us from the wrath of God and reconcile us to Himself.

Have thoughts on this post? Feel free to comment below!

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[1] Keith L. Moore, T. V. N. Persaud, and Mark G. Torchia, The Developing Human: Clincially Oriented Embryology, 11^th ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier, 2020), 11.

[2] https://lampandlightdevotionals.com/2021/11/16/is-original-sin-a-biblical-idea/