DECEMBER 2018 / THE CHOSEN PEOPLE - 4
BETHLEHEM BIRTH
BY ROBERT WALTER
Nestled in the Judean hills just south of Jerusalem stands Bethlehem, the ancient
town whose claims to fame include being the site where David was anointed
king and where the Messiah was born. Both Matthew and Luke mention this
important location and how it relates to Jesus in their respective birth narratives.
Certain chief priests and scribes answered Herod’s paranoid question about
where the Messiah would be born. “They said to him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for
this is what has been written by the prophet: “And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are by no means least among the leaders of Judah; for out of you shall come forth a
ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.”’” (Matthew 2:5-6). This appears to be
a loose quote of Micah 5:2-4, where the prophet spoke of a unique, future ruler
in Israel who would come from Bethlehem but who would also have divine,
eternal roots. Micah states that this ruler’s “…goings forth are from long ago, from
the days of eternity.” For Matthew, Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem fulfills this prophecy:
He was born as a man in Bethlehem but was ultimately God in the flesh.
In Luke 2:1-7, a Roman census called for Joseph to take Mary to register in
the “city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family
of David.” In that city, Mary gave birth to Jesus, wrapped him in cloth, and laid
him in a manger. The humility of the scene is striking. The true King of Israel
was born not in a palace but in a manger; and not in a free, sovereign Israel but
under the compulsion of a Gentile ruler who forced Joseph and Mary to travel
to Bethlehem. For Luke, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem meant the true King
had arrived in the humblest fashion.
VIRGIN BIRTH
BY BRIAN CRAWFORD
In this season, we celebrate not only the birth of Yeshua, but also His reason
for coming into the world. The Gospel accounts teach that Yeshua was
“conceived…of the Holy Spirit” in His mother’s womb (Matthew 1:20, cf. Luke
1:35). Many skeptics deny that the virgin birth could have happened because of
assumptions about the supernatural, but Yeshua’s
miraculous conception is essential if our faith has
any truth at all!
Any Messiah who could redeem us from our
sins would have to be sinless himself. But how
can a human being, descended from Adam, live
without sinning from birth to grave? Likewise,
any Messiah had to be born from David’s line
(2 Samuel 7:16). But if someone is descended
from David’s line, then surely he is tainted by
humanity’s sinful nature!
The virgin birth was God’s solution to this
paradox. Just as God created Adam as a perfect
living being out of nothing, so too the Holy
Spirit miraculously provided twenty-three perfect
chromosomes to fertilize the egg in Mary’s womb.
It was through this fusion of the miraculous and the
natural that the pre-existent Son of God was made
incarnate. On the one hand, this broke the chain
of sin inherited from Adam (Genesis 3, Romans 5),
enabling Yeshua to have a human nature untainted
by sin. On the other hand, by having Mary as his
physical mother and Joseph as his adopted father,
Yeshua was born from David’s line (Matthew 1:6).
Thus, the virgin birth enabled Yeshua to be
our sinless, perfect, unblemished lamb for the
forgiveness of our sins and guaranteed that Yeshua
could fulfill the Messianic prophecies about the
Redeemer coming from David’s line. Only God
could have come up with such a profound and
awe-inspiring solution for our sin. For this reason
and many others, we come and adore Him,
Messiah the Lord.
MATTHEW CHAPTER 1
BY NEAL H. SURASKY
Matthew was the consummate Jewish
evangelist. He had come to faith in Jesus and now
had a burden to see his Jewish brothers and sisters
come to the same saving faith. As a Jewish man,
he understood just what it would take to convince
his people. It started with proving that this man
Jesus, who the Jewish people would know as
Yeshua, fulfilled the required prophecies. First and
foremost, he had to establish the proper lineage.
Of all of the prophecies regarding the Messiah,
there were two that had to precede the rest. First,
the Messiah had to be Jewish, a descendant of
Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. Second, he
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