A Cornerstone, Not a Hurdle

As I was running on the treadmill at the Healtplex yesterday, I saw the news ticker at the bottom of one of the news stations talking about Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury's, which is the head of the Anglican Church, critiques on the birth of Jesus. In a story in the London Times he states that the Three Wise Men were probably not kings and there were probably more than three. All of this is fine and does not violate Scripture. In fact it is what is afforded in Scripture according to Matthew's Gospel.

Where Williams begins to stumble is when he says that New Christians need not believe in the "hurdle" of the Virgin Birth before they could be signed up to be Christians. While I may agree to some point with the statement, the fact is that Williams sounds a lot like Rob Bell in de-emphasizing the importance of the Virgin Birth. Both make it seem that the Virgin Birth is not essential to the Christian faith, when indeed it a cornerstone belief in orthodox Christianity.

As Mark Driscoll puts it, "Would we really lose anything if there wasn't a Virgin Birth? Yea, we'd lose Jesus."

Without Jesus being born from a Virgin the prophecy of God's word in Isaiah 7:14:

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel."

wouldn't be fulfilled and therefore, Christ wouldn't really be the Christ and we would still be in our sins.

This is not a minor issue, but rather a foundation truth of the Christian faith. I pray that as the time to celebrate Christ's birth comes closer this would be savored by Christians more and more. I pray that in all of it the glory of God would be revealed.