Charles Capps:The Miraculous Conception - The Christian Online Magazine

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A thorough study of the scriptures reveals that God and the righteous of the earth are working together to destroy the kingdom of darkness. Man's earthly authority is needed to go along with God's ability to perform the work. All of the Universe must have sighed in relief the day Abraham raised the knife against Isaac. The redemption of all mankind rested upon his obedience. And God swore an oath that shall stand FOREVER.

"...By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and has not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore: and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies." (Genesis 22:16-17).

You ought to underline this statement in your Bible: "Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies." Notice He said, THY SEED, not seeds as many, but Seed-- as one. He is referring to Jesus Christ. HE was the SEED! Yet, it includes us; for the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3:29, " If ye be Christ's, then ye are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise."

We find an important connection in Genesis 24:60. "And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and LET THY SEED POSSESS THE GATE of those which hate them." In those days, if you possessed the gate of a city, you had control of the city. This seems to be what God was saying.

Let's look at Isaiah 7:14. "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." In Genesis 3, when God was telling of the curse, He said to the serpent, "The seed of woman shall bruise your head."

Isaiah said: "A virgin shall conceive and bear a son…" Why did God say this through His prophet? Why didn't God just do it? You will find, as you study the Bible, that God never did anything without saying it first. This prophecy was given seven hundred years before Jesus was born of a virgin. This is the way God works! He establishes it by His Word before it is performed.

God framed the world with WORDS. In these verses He was framing the birth of Jesus, and setting it in motion by saying it through His prophet. The Bible tells us it impossible for God to lie. Why? Because He releases sufficient faith in every word he speaks to bring it to pass. Seven hundred years later, the Word became flesh, just as God spoke it through His prophet, Isaiah.

MARY RECEIVED THE WORD

In the first chapter of Luke, we find that God sent an angel to talk to Zacharias about Elisabeth conceiving and bearing a child. Zacharias said unto the angel, "Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years." (Luke 1:18)

The angel answering, said unto him, "I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and you should not have said that!" (paraphrased).

Zacharias wanted a sign that it was going to happen. That's just like people today. They will believe the postman or the guy at the gas station, but if God says something, they want a sign!"

God in His wisdom, knew he had to shut Zacharias' mouth or he would blow the whole deal. When God dealt with Abraham, He changed his name, so that every time anyone called his name, it built his faith. (Abraham means "father of nations.") But it seems that God knew He had to shut Zacharias' mouth to stop him from speaking unbelief.

"And behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season" (verse 20) When it was fulfilled, Zacharias' voice was restored.

Luke 1:26-31
"And in the sixth month the same angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

"And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus".

The word behold means "look", in other words, observe the picture I'm framing with my words. Medical science tells us that a woman has no seed. The male carries the sperm, which is considered to be the seed. But God said: "...Thou shalt conceive in thy womb . . . He shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and she shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" (Luke 1: 31-34)

Mary didn't doubt that it was going to happen. She had a perfectly legal question, she wanted to know HOW it would happen. "And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee." The Greek states: "as a cloud."

John 1:1,14 said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." There are people today who say it couldn't possibly have happened. They try to go at it strictly biologically, but it was both spiritual and biological. It was the incorruptible seed which was conceived in her womb. It was an act of the God kind of faith that caused the miraculous conception.

"The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that Holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:35-37). The literal Greek states, "It is possible for God to perform His every declaration."
And Mary said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to thy Word" (verse 38).

Jesus tells us how the God kind of faith works in Mark 11:23. "Whosoever shall say . . . believe . . . and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith."

It was evident that God had found a woman who would believe and conceive His Word. She didn't say, "Be it done unto me according to feelings", but according to His spoken Word.

Mary conceived the Word of God in her spirit, and by the Holy Ghost it was manifest in her physical body, THE WORD was MADE FLESH. She went to Elisabeth's house and told her, "He that is mighty hath done great things." How did she know? Because the angel of the Lord had told her, and she received the Word from God. Do you think she felt any different, or looked any different? Probably not. Her evidence was FAITH AND SHE RELEASED IT IN HER WORDS! "He that is mighty hath done great things." She had conceived the Word of God in her spirit.

Mary conceived the Word of God in the womb of her spirit. Once it was conceived in her spirit, it manifested itself in her physical body. If she had not received God's Word in faith, God would have had to have found another woman. But Mary's words were, "He that is mighty hath done great things." She accepted God's Word at face value and told Elisabeth.

Some theologians say it couldn't possibly have happened; but the Bible plainly reveals that Jesus was not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God and THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US. The embryo in Mary's womb was the pure seed of God's Word. When it took flesh upon itself, Jesus was born on the earth. The Living Word of God (Jesus) was the Word personified, the Word of God IN FLESH FORM! How did it happen? Mary dared to believe God's prophetic word, and speak in agreement with that word. It was an act of the God kind of faith. God's Word is incorruptible seed. When it is properly conceived in the human spirit, it produces after its kind.

The miraculous conception came through the God kind of faith. The faith of God in Mary's heart caused her to conceive the Word in her spirit, and it manifested itself in her physical body.

In I Peter 1:23, Peter reveals that we are born again the same way: "Being born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible see which is the Word of God that liveth and abideth forever."

THE INCORRUPTIBLE SEED

The seed that Mary conceived was the incorruptible seed. When God prophesied about Eve in Genesis 3, she didn't have a seed, but he said the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent. The seed Mary received was the incorruptible seed which abideth forever. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin through the miraculous conception of the GOD KIND of faith. He came to earth, born of the everlasting Word, and there was no death in Him.

The reason He had to be born of a virgin was that the bloodline followed the father. The life of the flesh is in the blood. If the life of the flesh is in the blood, the death of the flesh is also in the blood. When Adam sinned, every child born from Adam until now, had life and death in his bloodstream. But Jesus was different, there was no death in Him. Jesus said, "No man takes my life, I lay it down."

Someone said, "I don't understand why Jesus had to be born on earth. Why didn't God just come down here, and destroy the devil?"

He couldn't do that, it was illegal, because God had given dominion of the earth to man. (Genesis 1:26-28) Jesus had to come to earth in the form of a man, with the body of man, with the feelings and ability of a man. He had to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil as a man. This made it perfectly legal for God to anoint Him so he could destroy the works of the devil.

The immortal Words that Jesus spoke in Luke 4:18-19 are still resounding throughout all the universe, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach to gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Jesus was God's gift of salvation to the world. "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. (John 1:10-12) The Word has truly become flesh through the miraculous conception.