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Jesus’ miraculous conception, or virgin birth, is significant in Scripture. First, with God as his Father, he did not inherit Adam’s sin nature, as have all other men and women in the world who have two human parents. Thus, he could be the “spotless lamb,” the unblemished sacrifice that would satisfy God’s judgment of sin. Anything less than perfect is not good enough as payment for our sin. Jesus was sinlessly perfect.

The Historical and Biblical Mary vs the Mary of Catholicism

Second, because Jesus is God, his becoming a human, his perfect life, and his sacrificial death are actions of God involving himself personally in the solution to our problem. God did not just sit back and shout “I love you!” from the heavens. Nor did he send someone else as a messenger or servant to do the work. God himself became one of us! Only God himself could satisfy his own standards of perfection. Only God could offer himself as a full payment that would satisfy his own righteous demands, fully appeasing his own wrath against our sin. God, the judge, passed the death sentence against us; then God, the Savior, came down to stand in front of us and absorb that sentence himself. This could not have happened if Jesus had been born of a human father.

Third, because Jesus is human, he qualifies as a representative of the human race, a mediator, before God (see Heb. 4:14–5:3; also Rom. 5:12–21). It would have been meaningless for a nonhuman to die for the human race, because he would have had no connection or identity with those for whom he died. In order for Jesus the Christ to die in our place, he had to be one of us. This point of identification is critical to the success of God’s plan. Without a human mother, Jesus could not have carried out God’s plan to redeem (buy back) his own people. Nor could he have done it without a divine Father.^[1]

NTTC MATTHEW 1:16: Defending Mary’s Virginity

^[1] Stuart K. Weber, Matthew, vol. 1, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 25–26.