What the Virgin Birth Teaches Us About Salvation

The following is an excerpt from our resource, Dominoes, available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dominos-A-Dynamic-Commentary-Jude/dp/1490334610/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1387327369&sr=8-1-spell

The Virgin Birth starts with God approaching humanity, not humankind approaching God. The same is true of salvation. Salvation is God reaching down to man, not man reaching up to God. The fact of Mary being a virgin obviously disqualifies her from any active part in the conception of Jesus. The Bible goes to great pains to tell us that Joseph did not know her sexually until after the birth of Jesus. Just as Mary was acted on by the Holy Spirit to bring forth new life, so in salvation, the Holy Spirit acts upon us and a new life is brought forth.

In the Virgin Birth, all human autonomy was set aside. Joseph was not consulted until Mary is already pregnant. Jesus is not born of a husband’s will or action but by God.  Joseph’s only role is to provide for Mary and the Child after His birth. Mary, through the angel Gabriel, is told that she has been elected by God to be the mother of the Messiah. She is told that God has chosen her. She is told that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her and she will conceive a son. Her permission is never asked. She receives the word and believes but this belief is not of her, but strength given to her by the Lord. She becomes the pattern for our faith.

It is not through our self-will or free-will that we are born from above. We are elected, chosen to salvation just as Mary was chosen, elected to be Jesus’ mother. As she was sanctified through her calling so are we. God sanctifies us. We receive Jesus by faith, belief, but God gives this faith to us, it isn’t produced by our own efforts.

The Virgin Birth is important because it shows the consistency of a Sovereign God who elects things to happen and by His might, what He ordains comes to pass. The sovereignty of God is not merely that He has the power and the right to rule all things, but that God actually does so, without any exceptions at all. God is not a beggar, wringing His hands and pleading helplessly, hoping sinners will decide to choose Him. He is a God who both can save and who does save whom He chooses.

While there are many other aspects of the Virgin Birth that are worth exploring, I trust that just this one part of the doctrine highlights how interrelated they all are. The same holds true about the doctrine of Jesus eternally existing, not coming into existence 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem.

Do you begin to see how interconnected doctrines are? To deny that Jesus was sinless from birth is to deny that He is God because God cannot sin. It is a belief that Jesus was not the Divine Son of God come down in human form but a mere man raised to great heights by the power of God. Such a view misses the whole point of the gospel message. Humanity could not save himself. It took God Himself to extricate us from our sinful state. He did this by sending His Son to be born of the Virgin Mary, to illustrate from day one how this salvation would come about.

New Resources Available

The newsletter for July will (hopefully) be up this weekend, but the news of our newest resources can’t wait! Dominoes: A Dynamic Commentary on Jude has been released in print. It is available from retailers such as Amazon and it is also available in digital form for the Kindle.  Just as exciting is the news that Dominoes is under production in audio form. When completed, it will become available on iTunes and Audible.com.

On another note, The 180 Project is underway and while the project will take a while to complete, we believe it will be a valuable resource on the subject of biblical repentance. Stay tuned for more information of upcoming events and grab yourself a copy of our commentary on Jude.

New Resource Coming

The debut of the newest resource from Ta Ethne is here! Dominos: A Dynamic Commentary on Jude is finally available in digital form on Kindle. This weekend, Friday the 21st through Sunday the 23rd it will be free to download. The print version of this resource will be available before the end of the month from Amazon and also directly from us. We are excited to offer this, the first in a series of commentaries we are planning for the future.
Pass the word and make sure to grab your free copy this weekend. We believe you will enjoy it. Watch for announcements of the print debut later in June.

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Jude Commentary Chapter 2 Available

The next chapter of the resource Dominoes: A Dynamic Commentary on the Epistle of Jude with Study Guide is now available. Simply click on the Bible study tabs to the right or jump to this link: https://taethne.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/jude-chapter-2.pdf
As always, feel free to use these resources as you see fit. Leave comments or suggestions. When finished, it will collected and put into paperback, Kindle and audio formats

Jude Commentary and Study Guide Chapter 1

Ta Ethne is proud to announce that the next chapter of our next book, Dominos, A Dynamic Commentary on the Epistle of Jude, is now available with study guide here on our site. Simply click on the Bible Study tab to the right or use the following link: https://taethne.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/dominoes-a-dynamic-commentary-on-jude-chapter-1-plus-study-guide.pdf