During the Christmas season, Christians all over the world rejoice at the birth of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe Him not only to be the Savior, but the Messiah, ( the Christ, the Anointed One sent by the Father as our Redeemer). He is Emmanuel, being interpreted, God with us. He is a co-equal member of the Godhead having all the attributes of Deity. Some of these He laid aside, such as omniscience, ubiquity, among others in order to be born a man that He might fully identify with humanity.
Born miraculously of the Holy Spirit, a virgin conceived and gave birth to one in the line of King David. It was imperative that this conception be of God himself, and not thru the agency of man lest the bloodline, (received from the loins of man), be corrupted, and thereby unable to cleanse us from sin.
There are some, though, who would challenge this and boast that Mt. 1:16 is ambiguous as regards the seed.
(This is where it gets interesting)
The text reads,
‘And Jacob begat Joseph, (the husband of Mary), OF WHOM was born Jesus who is called the Christ.’
Notice the clause, ‘the husband of Mary,’ this could actually be removed and still make perfect grammatical sense in English.
The sticky part lies in the relative pronoun ‘of whom.’
The way the King James reads, the antecedent could be either Joseph or Mary. If Joseph, it would nullify Jesus’ divinity and prove that he was born of man, just as you and I.
Where the English is obscure, the original text is quite clear and leaves no room for confusion. That little preposition (έξ) coupled with the pronoun (ής), translates literally, ‘from, or ‘out of whom.’ But the real key is the pronoun whose gender (you guessed it) is FEMININE and therefore could only refer to Mary. Proving that Joseph had zero involvement in the conception, thereby shutting the mouth of the gainsayers.🤨
Alleluia!!😁
I’m so thankful we serve a God who is detailed and precise with His revelation!
While in seminary, my Greek professor told me I knew just enough of the language to be dangerous.😂
I believe that to be a fair assessment. But for some weird reason I love the language and can’t seem to keep my nose out of it. So many wonderful treasures to be mined.
Finally, we know Christmas probably didn’t fall on December 25th, but who cares if it was May 1st or or August 11th. The point is that we worship the One who was born of a virgin in Bethlehem, who fulfilled every prophecy from the Old Testament, and proclaim Him King of kings and Lord of lords. If you’ll do that personally, removing yourself from the throne of your life and giving place to His Lordship, you can make every day Christmas.
Merry Christmas, EVERBODY!!😌🎄