“The Holy Spirit will come upon you [Mary], and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also,
that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35, NKJV).
Someone recently said to me, “I don’t know why the Christian Church doesn’t just admit that Joseph was Jesus’ father; then maybe I could buy into their religion.”
One of the saddest statements I’ve ever heard, for if the Church (God forbid!) should ever confess such a thing, it would be apostate and all true believers would have to disassociate themselves from it.
The very heart of the Christian faith hangs on the truth of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of Christ. Without those underpinnings, our faith is a futile and dead religion. Though the faithless might then be able to “buy into it,” the faithful simply could not do so.
Years ago, when I first became a born-again believer, a wise old pastor said to me, “Make Bible study and prayer your daily disciplines. As you do so, begin to make a list of things you’re willing to go to war over—things you believe so strongly you would die for them. And then never compromise.” Then he smiled and added, “But keep your list short.”
That was more than four decades ago, and I have never forgotten his excellent advice. I have made my “willing to go to war over” list short and to the point, not including negotiable items such as baptism (sprinkling or dunking), rapture (pre-, mid- or post-), etc. But the few items that are on that list must never be changed or compromised, and the Virgin Birth is one of those items. If we concede that the father of Jesus could have been Joseph, then we have denied His divinity, relegating Him solely to human nature, which is flawed. How then could His death on the Cross have atoned for our sins, if He too was in need of atonement?
No, the Church can never confess such blasphemy, and that means that none of us as individuals dare do so. When we encounter people who say they might be able to “buy into” the Christian faith if only the Church would stop asserting the Virgin Birth as fact, then we must pray for such deceived individuals. For it is for them (as well as us) that Christ came to earth, was born of the Virgin Mary, atoned for our sins on the Cross, rose again—and will one day return to reign.
Those are unchanging truths you can literally bet your life on.