Continued from Chapter 18b
Could God bring about such a miracle as is proclaimed in the doctrine of the virgin conception?
The Jewish Scriptures teach that God is omnipotent: “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for Me?” (Jeremiah 32:27).
Technically, God, being Almighty, can do whatever He wants, without being limited or determined by the laws of nature that effect that which He created. Omnipotence implies that God can do anything He desires, which would include a virgin conception and even His taking on of a human form. It may even be assumed that He can commit suicide or even create a God that is greater than He is. He may even be said to have the ability to create something that can be existent and nonexistent at the same moment in time. We are taught, however, by the Jewish Scriptures that God is consistent and unchanging in His ways: “For I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6). God performs the miraculous, but He is not irrational and does not do that which is self-contradictory or absurd. In fact, it is irrelevant whether God can actually do that which is self-contradictory and absurd. Ability, whether in God or man, does not automatically mean that an action must follow. In His relationship with man, God sets limitations upon Himself as to what He will or will not do (Genesis 9:14-17; Exodus 32:13; Deuteronomy 7:8; Psalms 89:4, 132:11). As a result, we are not concerned here with what God can do but with what God does do.
Now to the all-important question: Did God perform a miraculous virgin conception and birth and become flesh, a god-man?
In truth, nowhere in the Jewish Scriptures is the notion of virgin conception to be found. Matthew and Luke claim a virgin conception for Jesus whom they regard as a divine being, but not God Himself.6 Both Matthew and Luke state that Jesus was conceived by a holy spirit (not “God, the Father,” who thus, is not logically “the Father” of Jesus in the trinitarian concept of the Godhead)7 without the aid of a human father.
6 The Gospel of Mark, considered the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels, and the Gospel of John, the last of the Gospels to be written, include neither the mode of Jesus’ conception nor details of his infancy.
7 If “a holy spirit” or the “Holy Spirit” is a separate person within the triune god one might say that God, the Father, is the father of the Son, the second person of the triune god, and that the Holy Spirit is no less part of the triune god than is the Father and the Son. But, if the Son is no less part of the triune god than the Father and the Holy Spirit then, in essence, the Son fathered himself. In addition, if the second member of this triune god is “begotten” in Mary (in a fleshly form) by the “Holy Spirit,” the third member of this group (Matthew 1:20) or, in its alternate form, the “Holy Spirit will come upon . . . [Mary], and the power of the Most High will overshadow . . . [her] (Luke 1:35) then there is a time period when the three “gods” are neither co-equal or united (cf. Philippians 2:7-8).
Continued
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