Chapter 3 – The Second Rejection of the King (Part 4 of 8)

 

Jesus’s Right to Rule - Spiritually

In Matthew 1:18-25, Matthew establishes the fact that this baby “who is called Messiah” (v. 16)—who has been born with the right to rule on the throne of David from a physical, earthly, human, and political perspective—also has the “right to rule” from a spiritual perspective.

This section establishes the virgin birth of Jesus, which is one of the foundational doctrines of Christianity. I would venture to say it may be the foundational doctrine of the Christian Church, for without it, Jesus was just a good teacher and a product of the union between Joseph and Mary.

Just another man.

And we already have seen what mankind is like in our study thus far. Man’s history is not pretty.

Jesus’s death would have been just another death in a long line of casualties in this spiritual war within which we live, day in, day out.

However, the virgin birth changed everything. It set in motion a series of events that changed history, and it still continues to change people today. This doctrine, coupled with the life and ministry of Jesus and culminating with His death, burial, and resurrection, are the triumvirate foundation of Christianity. Each part is so needed by mankind and inextricably dependent on the other to have full impact of what God intended.

A baby born of a virgin has no impact, if the baby grows up and becomes a sinner who rebels against God. Thus, the importance of Jesus’s perfect life and ministry.

A perfect life and ministry has no impact, if Jesus is just another man and not “God in the flesh” (Isaiah 9:1-7). Thus, the importance of the virgin birth.

And neither of the above have an impact, if Jesus doesn’t become the perfect sacrifice for sin on the cross and then defy death by rising again on the third day, as He stated He would do (John 2:19).

Therefore, the virgin birth of Jesus sets in motion a critical moment in God’s redemptive plan (Galatians 4:4-5). It sets Jesus apart from every other Israeli king, every other Levitical priest, every other Old Testament prophet of God, as well as every other king, priest, or prophet that ever existed. Kings and queens always demand that their subjects die for the purpose of the expansion of their kingdoms but rarely do they get into the fight themselves, and never on the front lines. Nor would any king or queen be willing to die for people outside the kingdom in hopes they would become part of his kingdom, with no guarantee anyone will accept the gracious offer. No human priest would take the place of the bulls, sheep, and doves he normally would sacrifice. No prophet would willingly present his life as a sacrifice either. Thus, the virgin birth makes Jesus the perfect example of qadosh (i.e., holiness), never asking us to do that which He was not willing to do Himself.

The virgin birth also sets Jesus apart from all other deities, for no god or goddess ever dwelt amongst mankind for the purpose of dying for humanity. The other deities always demand the sacrifice be in reverse only, sometimes even demanding children be the sacrifices, which is atrocious.¹

The first part of Matthew 1 establishes Jesus as one hundred percent Man (vv. 1-17). This second section of Matthew 1 (vv. 18-25) establishes Jesus as one hundred percent God. Hence, the references throughout Matthew of Jesus being the Son of Man (Matthew 9: 6; 11:19; 16:27-28; 24:30; 26:2, 24) and also being the Son of God (Matthew 2:15; 3:17; 17:5; 27:43). In the person of Jesus, we have the reinstatement of God as the King, of His Kingdom of Heaven, in His own way, by His own means.

Without this second section of Matthew 1:18-25, Jesus is just another king in the long line of David. King number forty-three. He’s just another man with a human father, subject to sin and its effect like every other human being. This is why all other religions reject Jesus’s virgin birth. If Jesus was virgin born—in other words, born as the Son of God—then their gods and goddesses, whoever they may be—are false and inept.

Throughout the twenty centuries since the birth of Christ, there has never been a doctrine attacked more than the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth. Most people are very quick to ascribe honor to Jesus. They will acknowledge that He was a good teacher, a good moralist, a reputable man who lived an exemplary life. Some even go so far as to say He was a prophet. However, they cannot accept Him as deity.

Christianity is the only religion that assigns deity to Jesus alone. There are other religions that attach to Jesus as sense of “godhood” or god-like qualities, but He would be among many in which they would attribute such characteristics. In their religious understandings and teachings, His deity would not be any different or unique.

Now, before we bash other religions or their secular counterparts too mercilessly, it must be understood that the Church herself, within the last one hundred years particularly, has also had a hard time accepting the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ.

In a poll taken in 1998, 7,441 Protestant clergy in the U.S. showed a wide variation in belief.² The following ministers did not believe in the virgin birth:

·       American Lutherans: 19%

·       American Baptists: 34%

·       Episcopalians: 44%

·       Presbyterians: 49%

·       Methodists: 60%

In 1999, twenty-five percent of Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant priests in the UK did not believe in the virgin birth either. In 2002, another poll of 140 Anglican priests found twenty-seven percent did not believe in the virgin birth. In 2004, a poll amongst ministers in the Church of Scotland found that thirty-seven percent did not believe in the virgin birth. Many stated that their interpretation of the virgin birth event in Matthew 1:18-25 was metaphorical, not literal.³

The point is clear. When anywhere between 19% and 60% of the leaders of some major denominations within the Christian church do not believe in one of the most foundational doctrines of Christianity, then it’s hard to point fingers at a world setting itself ablaze and say they are the bad guys. In the eyes of God, if a pastor, minister, priest, vicar (or whatever the title) claims to be a messenger of God and teaches blasphemous doctrine and leads people astray and away from God and His teachings and instructions, then all He has for them is woe and destruction. Matthew 23 deals with this very issue. Matthew 18:6 is another. These Christian ministers are falling into the same traps into which the Pharisees and teachers of the law in Jesus’s day had fallen.

They simply do not believe God’s Word. And as a result, they no longer wish for God to be their King. Instead, they want to follow someone else’s “Word.” And we all know whose “Word” that is (1 Peter 5:1-9).

Sometimes, these ministers and clergy members have a hard time understanding the truths surrounding the virgin birth, so they rationalize away the things that are hard to understand into a concept around which they can wrap their finite minds. Sometimes, they have a hard time accepting it because they feel its truths are too restrictive or not inclusive enough, or the truth seems too farfetched for our modern, sophisticated societies of today. Sometimes, they have a hard time believing it because what it teaches doesn’t align with their personal beliefs and understanding of the world. Again, it boils down to which “King” they wish to obey and serve. The Israelites wanted to be “like all the other nations around them” and have “an earthly king” (1 Samuel 8:4-5). It would seem the Church, in varying degrees, wants the same thing, and in some circles, wants to reject God altogether, just like the elders in Samuel’s day.

At the 1993 Reimagining God conference, sponsored by the World Council of Churches in honor of their “Decade of Solidarity with Women,” 1,700 delegates came from all over the world to “reimagine God” in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As one commentator summed up the event, “When one begins to re-imagine God, then nothing is sacred—everything in on the table for reconstruction. Truth, reality, social institutions, modes of communication all fall prey to the corrosive analysis of post-modern subjectivism” (emphasis added).⁴

Five years later, a similar group met again in Minneapolis to continue to re-imagine God, and the assault on Jesus’s identity and virgin birth continued. Carter Heyward, who is the Howard Chandler Robbins Professor of Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church in 1978,⁵ asked, “What does it take for us to break rank with the slave masters’ religion?” Her answer? Re-imagine Jesus. She claimed it is a mistake to emphasize “the singularity of God’s presence in Jesus…It was not Jesus’ identity with God, as if Jesus somehow thought of himself as divine…Jesus in reality was not God…Jesus was human like us, and also, like us, he was infused with God, with sacred spirit, and in that sense was divine, and he had a clue.”⁶

Do you see how it works? Are you hearing the same, tired, attacks and the same satanic verbiage? “Jesus wasn’t deity.” “Jesus was human like you and me.” “Jesus also was infused with divinity, a spark of the divine, if you will, which is available to all of God’s children.” These are the kinds of teachings being taught inside the Church! These “Christian” feminists and other “biblical scholars” have their own websites and push this theology into our bible schools, our schools of divinity, and our seminaries. So, it should not be surprising when we see church leaders joining hands with groups who flaunt their anti-God and anti-Christ rhetoric, because in their minds, God and Jesus have already been “re-imagined” into a more palatable, human definition and explanation of what truth really is…to them, or course.

Why is there such push back against God’s Word and its teachings? Why do people—even people who call themselves “Christians”—gather together at conferences and convince themselves and others of such things? Because they know that if Jesus was virgin born, then He is God in the flesh. And if He is God in the flesh, then what He said is true. And if what He said is true, then His words are true. And if His words are true, then passages like John 14:6 pose a huge problem for people trying to re-imagine themselves into a divine figure. If what Jesus said was true: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And no man comes to the Father but by me, then you cannot touch the divine without Jesus.

That’s extremely exclusive toward sinful people who chose not to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and obey Him. That’s very intolerant of sin. The passages like John 14:6 drive people like Carter Heyward insane because they wish to have their cake and eat it too. In other words, live sinful lives and still get to experience a heavenly existence. However, it doesn’t work that way. The clay doesn’t get to tell the potter what shape it should take (cf. Isaiah 45:9-13; 64:6-8; Jeremiah 18:6-10). Another way to put it is, the creation doesn’t get to tell the Creator how things are going to work. If you are a parent, then you understand this concept. Your children may wish to “run away from home” so they don’t have to abide by your “laws” any longer, but they cannot tell you how your relationship will be dictated. You’re the parent. They are not. That will never change. Just like our relationship with God. He’s God. We are not. That, too, will never change, no matter how much we “reimagine” it.

As you can see, if the church is having a hard time with the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth, it is little wonder those outside the church are as well. However, understand also that God is not in need of people to believe in Him. The concept of delegates voting on church doctrine doesn’t change God or His instructions and teachings (torah). He is about reigning in His Theocracy. Israel was not to be a democracy nor an aristocracy in the Old Testament. Christianity isn’t a democracy nor an aristocracy in the New Testament. Our disbelief as humans does not affect God’s character or His Word. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:3-4, “What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar.” God rules. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, whether we believe in it or not. Therefore, we can never lose our faith to majority rule, although the push toward that kind of thinking grows stronger every day. “Majority-rule theology” always leads to sinful compromise and perversions of Scripture.⁷ If Jesus is not God in the flesh, then He cannot be the savior. And if He is not the savior, we are doomed, for God proved time and time again in Scripture His sovereignty over all the other gods of the nations. There is only one true God. If He’s a fraud, then we have no hope.

 

Thought for the Week:

How often do you hear in the news a report about a Christian religious group abandoning their Christian heritage and embracing the verbiage of groups, like the one referenced previously that met in Minneapolis? This kind of rhetoric has been plaguing God’s people for centuries. The Israelites had fallen prey to the worship of “The Queen of Heaven” (Jer. 7:18; 44:17-25). This queen came and went throughout history with many names (Semiramus, Aphrodite, Venus, Isis, Diana, etc.).

The point is that a “feminist” infiltration into the doctrines of God has always been an issue. We see it now in our political landscape, as religion and politics are joining hands and marching against everything they wish to change within the “slave master’s religion.” Does that sound familiar? Have you heard that phrase, or something like it, thrown around lately in the political debates of today? It’s a not-so-veiled reference to Christianity. They wish to eradicate the Christianity of the virgin-born Jesus from the world. They, instead, wish to re-imagine God in their own image, and while they are at it, re-imagine Jesus, too, into a kinder, gentler Jesus who really didn’t mean what He said in John 14:6.

I hope you are beginning to see the battle between the Kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of men. The former is run by God. The latter is run by the man of lawlessness (2 Thess. 2:1-12).

As we move forward, this divide will only become more pronounced. It will become harder and harder to remain true to the Kingdom of Heaven, but we must, if we wish to see God in all His glory at the Second Coming of Christ.

 

NEXT WEEK:

We continue our study into Jesus’s spiritual right to rule.

 

Endnotes

 

1. Some would argue, as I do, that people of our times, particularly here in America, worship the god of Freedom. For many, committing abortion is their form of child sacrifice to this god, as they flaunt their freedom and want that “freedom” to be available to everyone, even encouraging it through various means, like lobbying for government funding to provide such “services,” encouraging promiscuous activities with abortion as the “parachute,” etc.

 

2. Robinson, B.A. “The virgin birth of Jesus: Beliefs of Christian clergy & public. Alternate explanations of Jesus birth.” Religioustolerance.org. Last updated: 23 Dec. 2007. Web. 25 July 2020. <https://www.religioustolerance.org/virgin_b7.htm>

 

3. Ibid.

 

4. Lensch, Christopher. “‘Re-imagining’ Review: Radical Feminism in Sheep’s Clothing.” WRS Journal. 10/1. (February 2003), pp. 9-11. Web. 25 July 2020. <https://www.wrs.edu/assets/docs/Journals/2003a/Lensch%20-%20Re-imagining%20Update.pdf>

 

5. According to the Virginia Tech University’s Center forDigital Discourse and Culture, a list of projects Carter Heyward was working on at the time of the writing of this blog chapter were:

•        Long-term Research/Writing project on Feminist Liberation Theology and Ethics (with Dr. Beverly W. Harrison of Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY).
•        Queer Theology and Ethics.
•        Christology (special attention to: suffering, passion, and atonement).
•        Racism, anti-racism, and the construction of "white people."
•        Mutuality and connections between healing and liberation (theological, psychological, and political study in collaboration with Dr. Janet L. Surrey of The Stone Center, Wellesley College.)
•        Sex, Gender, and Power: emerging issues.
•        Christian Right—Its history, theology, and political resurgence.

As you can see by this list, when we re-imagine God, current affairs—like the ones America has been facing now—become the reality mankind must face and embrace. Those who preach “tolerance” will become very intolerant, especially if you are a follower of Jesus in the traditional sense. Then, other movements will join forces, and interestingly enough, they will espouse the same “beliefs,” even if they are not “religious,” by definition.

As was noted before, Satan is getting very close to creating the kind of havoc needed to bring each human to the brink of all-out war, filled with hatred toward one another while believing at the same time they have “exonerated” themselves from the “strictures” of God’s instructions and teachings and from the “white Jesus theology” of the traditional Christian Church. In this clash of subjective ideologies, everybody is right in his or her own mind (and thus, nobody is right). Agreeing to disagree will no longer be an option. As everyone will see eventually, mankind cannot survive without morals (i.e., God’s instructions and teachings). This will be the time when Satan introduces his anti-Christ and supposedly delivers what he has been promising all along: peace, fulfillment, and contentment apart from God. This “heavenly, utopian nirvana-like existence” will last for a few years (three and a half, to be exact, according to God’s Word), but then the gloves come off, and the world will see (too late, we might add) who they really are serving (See Revelation 12, particularly verse 9).

Oh, and by the way, the anti-Christ figure and what follows after the three and a half years of peace will make Hitler and his barbaric acts look like an amateur.

6. Lensch, Ibid. Another attack on Christianity, specifically the virgin birth of Jesus, as well as the validity of the New Testament is found in the works of the Jesus Seminar. Started in 1985, it has done more to discredit the authenticity of the Scriptures than possibly any other group because they claim to believe in the Bible, but they wish to understand it through didactic reasoning. When they were finished examining the four gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they concluded that 82% of Jesus’s words were inauthentic. Only fifteen sayings of Jesus should be in “red letters,” all of which are short, pungent remarks of little spiritual value when taken from their contexts. To read more about it, you can find it here: https://www.westarinstitute.org/projects/the-jesus-seminar/. When you couple this kind of “scholarly” work with people like Carter Heyward, it is no wonder Christianity is in shambles today. It’s no wonder the world is setting itself ablaze, overdosing itself to death, and curled up in a ball in the corner of some room, feeling depressed and seeing no hope around them. The Church is taking the only hope there is (Jesus) and making Him, in their own minds, just like us. Without a savior from sin, where can anyone find hope?

7. This is not to mention the tearing apart of His Church in the process. All participants must dedicated to God, His Torah, and His Messiah. If they are not, and church splits occur to allow worldly beliefs to infiltrate, Satan wins another battle in a war he cannot win. However, he knows this, so he’s working hard to take as many captives with him to eternal punishment. Satan hates God, and he hates everything to do with God, including His creation (John 8:44; 10:10; Romans 16:20; 2 Corinthians 11:3; James 4:7; 1 John 3:8). For a very current example of this battle taking place, see Reyner, Solange. “Methodist Conservatives to Split from United Methodists over LBGTQ Rights.” Newmax.com. 04 March 2022. 15 May 2022. <https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/lgbt-methodists-church-religion/2022/03/04/id/1059744/>

Pictures courtesy of  Pixabay and the following photographers/artists:

Heaven by jplenio

King Jesus by malst

Blinded by StockSnap

Saddened by StockSnap

Aphrodite/Venus etc by Gordon Johnson