I believe, proclaim, and teach: that our Lord Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He is both the Son of God and the Son of Man—truly God and truly man.
The virgin birth is not a minor detail in the Christian faith. It is part of the biblical testimony concerning who Jesus Christ is and how He entered the human race. Jesus was not merely a good man whom God later adopted as His Son. He was the eternal Son of God who became flesh and entered the world through a miraculous conception.
Genesis 3:15 — The Protoevangelium
“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
Immediately after humanity's fall into sin, God gave a promise concerning a coming Redeemer. The striking expression is “her seed.”
Throughout Scripture, genealogical descent is ordinarily expressed through the man. Yet here, in the midst of God's judgment upon the serpent, Scripture speaks of the seed of the woman.
The New Testament ultimately identifies Jesus as the One who defeats Satan. The cross would bring the suffering pictured by the bruised heel, while Christ's resurrection and ultimate victory would accomplish the crushing of the serpent's head.
The promise of redemption therefore appears very early in Scripture. Before Abraham, before Moses, before David, and before Isaiah, God had already announced that a Deliverer would come.
Isaiah 7:14
“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 speaks of a remarkable sign: a virgin would conceive and bear a son.
Matthew later connects this prophecy directly to the birth of Jesus. The significance is not merely that Jesus would be born. Children are born every day. The sign was the extraordinary manner in which this particular child would be conceived.
And His name, Immanuel, means “God with us.”
That name points us toward one of the great truths of Christianity: in Jesus Christ, God truly came into the human world.
Matthew 1:18–25
Matthew gives us the historical account.
Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was discovered to be pregnant. Matthew makes the explanation unmistakable:
“she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.”
Joseph initially did not understand what had happened. Because he was a righteous man, he intended to separate from Mary privately rather than publicly disgrace her.
But God intervened.
An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and said:
“Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.”
Notice how carefully Matthew protects two truths.
Mary was genuinely pregnant.
And Joseph was not the biological father.
The conception was the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.
The angel then told Joseph that the child would be called Jesus, because:
“he shall save his people from their sins.”
Matthew immediately connects the event with Isaiah's prophecy:
“Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.”
Matthew then tells us that Joseph obeyed God. He took Mary as his wife, “and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son.”
Jesus therefore entered the world through Mary, but His conception was not the result of a human father.
Matthew emphasizes Joseph's experience. Luke gives us Mary's experience.
Luke 1:35
“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
This verse is extremely important.
Jesus is not merely described as a remarkable human being. The angel identifies Him as “the Son of God.”
His conception is attributed to the Holy Spirit and the power of the Most High.
At the same time, Jesus is genuinely human. He is conceived in Mary, carried in Mary's womb, born as a human child, and descended from David according to the flesh.
This is the beginning of the biblical presentation of the mystery of the incarnation: the eternal Son of God became truly human without ceasing to be truly divine.
John 1
John takes us even further back than Bethlehem.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Then:
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”
The virgin birth does not mean that Jesus began to exist when Mary became pregnant.
Jesus existed before His human birth.
John begins with Him already present “in the beginning.”
The virgin birth concerns the entrance of the eternal Son into human history. The One who was already God became flesh and lived among us.
This is why the virgin birth and the deity of Christ belong together. Jesus is not half-God and half-man. He is not a divine spirit temporarily inhabiting a human body.
He is truly God and truly man.
Mark begins his Gospel with these words:
Mark 1:1
“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
Jesus is the Son of God.
But throughout the Gospels He also identifies Himself as the Son of Man.
These two truths belong together.
He possesses true deity.
He possesses true humanity.
He is God's eternal Son who became man.
The virgin birth therefore stands at the doorway of the incarnation. It tells us that Jesus' humanity was real, while His conception was uniquely supernatural.
The virgin birth matters because Christianity is not simply teaching that a special man was born.
Christianity teaches that God the Son came into the world in human flesh.
Jesus received genuine humanity from Mary. He was born, grew, became tired, became hungry, suffered, bled, and died. His humanity was not an illusion.
Yet His conception was accomplished by the Holy Spirit, and He was declared to be the Son of God.
The biblical picture is therefore:
The eternal Son did not begin at Bethlehem.
The eternal Son became flesh at Bethlehem.
And the child born of Mary was not merely another descendant of Adam. He was the promised Redeemer—the One who came to save His people from their sins.
From Genesis 3:15, the promise of the woman's seed, through Isaiah 7:14, the prophecy of the virgin bearing a son, to Matthew 1 and Luke 1, the Scriptures present Jesus' birth as the supernatural entrance of God's Son into the human family.
He is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man—truly God and truly man.