Evidence That Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell & Sean McDowell (PhD)

Author:Josh McDowell & Sean McDowell (PhD)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2017-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

C. Jesus’ Resurrection Renders Credible His Virgin Birth

Earlier we showed that the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, while not something that can be proved historically (since there was only one human witness, Mary herself), was not a later legend or myth but was part of the earliest Christian traditions about Jesus, probably originating from Jesus’ family members. This evidence is perhaps not enough by itself to convince a skeptic—even an open-minded one—that the virgin birth is historical fact. However, the virgin birth does not stand on its own without some context. It is part of the early church’s testimony to someone that we know performed amazing miracles during his mortal lifetime and rose from the dead to immortality. In the context of Jesus’ miraculous ministry and especially his miraculous resurrection, his virgin birth looks far more credible than it would otherwise.

We are not arguing that the virgin birth is as central to the Christian message as the resurrection, or that if you believe in the resurrection, then you must automatically also believe in the virgin birth. Rather, the point is that the resurrection shows that the entire story of Jesus in the Gospels, including his birth to a virgin, is consistent with what the resurrection reveals about Jesus. The two make eminent sense together. Thomas Torrance, a renowned theologian at the University of Edinburgh, explains:

We must not start out with a minimized conception of God such that a miracle like the Virgin Birth of Jesus is automatically excluded from sane consideration. We are to think of it as we must think of all the other miracles and particularly as we do the miracle of the resurrection of our Lord at the end of his earthly life: the Virgin Birth of Jesus and the Resurrection of Jesus complement one another. (Torrance, DJC, 116)

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