Tim Maas Retired Quality Assurance Specialist with the U.S. Army

God made clear to Israel that the life of any creature (including man) was in its blood (Leviticus 17:11). That was why the Israelites were forbidden to consume the blood of any animal; why anyone who did was to be cut off from the nation (Leviticus 17:14); and why the shedding of human blood through murder had to be satisfied by the death of the murderer (Genesis 9:6).

It was also for this reason that God required the sacrificial shedding of the blood of animals (resulting in their death) as a condition for His forgiveness of the people's sin -- to emphasize that sin was such a serious matter in His eyes, that only the death of an unblemished, innocent living creature could be sufficient to satisfy God's justice. However, even that sacrificial system was imperfect, because it had to be performed repeatedly.

God instituted this sacrificial system as a prophetic foreshadowing of the manner in which He would deal finally and for all time with the separation between Himself and humanity resulting from mankind's universal sin.

He did this by miraculously incarnating Himself in the person of Jesus, who was born of a virgin, and who, because He was fully God in addition to being fully human, was born without the sin nature that had tainted all other humans from birth ever since man's initial disobedience to God.

Jesus kept God's Law perfectly (which no other human had been or could be capable of doing). He then allowed Himself to be killed, and His own innocent, untainted blood to be shed, in a full and final satisfaction of God's justice on behalf of all those who would place their faith in His death and subsequent resurrection, rather than in their own imperfect righteousness, to make them acceptable to God, so that they could then live eternally in God's presence. The blood of no other person or creature could have accomplished this in the "once-for-all" manner achieved by Jesus.

That is what makes the blood of Jesus not just special, but both completely unique and absolutely necessary -- to save us from being eternally separated from God, and to allow us instead to live forever with Him.

July 01 2016 • 1 response • Vote Up • Share • Report

Thomas K M A retired Defence Scientist from Indian Defence R&D Orgn.

Jesus' birth was a highly supernatural birth. First of all, it was a virgin birth. No human can comprehend or explain the birth of Jesus. It is beyond our human perspective. Birth of Jesus is a mystery. God the father wanted a sinless blood to accomplish the redemption and restoration of the mankind. This would not have been achieved by the natural birth of Jesus. To have a sinless blood, it was necessary that a supernatural birth was necessary. Therefore, ' that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit'(Matt. 1:20). 

The doctrine of the Virgin Birth states that the conception of Jesus was miraculous, in that he had no human father. The Incarnation says that God became flesh; the Virgin Birth tells us a little more about how this was done. The Incarnation was a supernatural event and involved a special kind of birth. If the child to be born was merely human, there would have been no need for a supernatural conception.

I would also like to add that the Baby Jesus would have grown in Mary's womb in a supernatural way.

July 02 2016 • 1 response • Vote Up • Share • Report