Why We Believe In The Virgin Birth Of Christ -- By: James M. Gray

Journal: Central Bible Quarterly
Volume: CENQ 02:4 (Winter 1959)
Article: Why We Believe In The Virgin Birth Of Christ
Author: James M. Gray


Why We Believe In The Virgin Birth Of Christ

James M. Gray

1924

I.

The reason your attention is called to this subject is because at present it is the focal point of the enemy’s attack against Christianity. Contemporary conditions in the world make certain subjects of defense more urgent at one time than another, and this is the particular subject for today. Therefore we say:

1. We believe in the virgin birth of Christ because we believe the Bible to be true, that is to say, credible in its statements of fact.

But some one may say, “Is not that begging the question?” How do we know the Bible to be credible in its statements of fact? The reply to this was given on another occasion,1 but we may here say that Christianity, which is synonymous with the Bible, is a historic religion, the only religion in the world of which that may be said in the same sense. Christianity is based on historic evidence. What the Apostle John says of its Divine Founder may be said of it, “that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled” (I John 1:1). In other words, any one sufficiently interested may ascertain for himself how the Christian church originated, whether Jesus Christ arose from the dead, and whether, such being the case, He ever authenticated the Bible which was before His day.

As a matter of fact, the historic evidence of Christianity on which the faith of our fathers rested is as strong and valuable today as it was in their day. Were all our fathers fools? Had they no interest in investigating this question, and being nearer its source, did they not have opportunities for doing it? Or will it be said that they were lacking the intelligence?

Moreover, there is evidence for the credibility of the Bible now possessed which was denied our fathers. Evidence from archaeological research and from the contemporary history of the world. Professor Robert Dick Wilson, of Princeton, to whom reference was made on the other occasion referred to, is almost a living embodiment of this evidence, whose forty-five years given to the subject, and whose phenomenal acquaintance with original sources gives potency to his declaration that no man living knows enough to assail the truth of the Old Testament. But if the Old Testament be true there can be no question about the New Testament. And yet the evidence for the New Testament is quite independent of that for the Old, so strong and clear that if it be rejected, then facts have lost their value and no human testimony can be accepted for any historical event of an antiquity anywhere approaching the apost...

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