Steve Gaines

Christianity is different from any other religion. World religions like Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, and others teach men how to earn favor with their gods through “good” behavior and through religious activities.

Christianity, however, is unique. The one true God knows that sinful man is incapable of meriting salvation through works. The good news is that no one needs to try. In Christ, God has provided eternal salvation. How did it happen?

In order for Jesus to become a human and retain His deity, He had to experience a miraculous birth. Therefore, when Jesus stepped onto this earth, He did so through the womb of a virgin. All people are born with a sinful nature that they inherited from Adam (Romans 5:12). We have an innate propensity toward selfishness. Jesus could not be born of the seed of Adam, or He, too, would have inherited a sinful nature. He was born, not of Adam’s seed, but of a woman’s seed (Genesis 3:15), free from a nature of sin, so that He could die vicariously for the sins of man.

The first person to question Jesus’ virgin birth was the virgin herself (Luke 1:34). Yet what seemed a biological impossibility to Mary was a theological necessity for God. He performed it by His Spirit. Matthew 1:25 says that Joseph “kept her a virgin” until after Jesus was born. Without the virgin birth, there is no salvation. This Christmas season we can be thankful for the miracle of the virgin birth. After all, how else could God have been born?