Can someone please explain to me how the eternal, unlimited God of the universe can become a human baby? Because, quite frankly, I don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, I believe it happened. I just don’t understand how it all worked.
Consider the conception of Jesus within the virgin Mary. Clearly no human sperm was involved, but by what process did God accomplish this? Did he use one of Mary’s ova and create a perfect sperm to fertilise it? Or did God bypass Mary’s ovum completely and create a perfect zygote (fertilised egg) from nothing? We simply don’t know and can’t know. God hasn’t seen fit to provide us with a detailed biological blueprint of how this miraculous conception occurred.
Leaving aside these speculations, a more fundamental question needs to be considered. Why did God bypass the normal process of human procreation in the conception of Jesus? Why was no human sperm donor to be involved? Why did Jesus need to be born to a virgin?
The answer appears to have multiple facets.
- The Dual Natures of Jesus. Jesus was fully human and fully divine. Both natures resided within him. By bypassing human procreation, the birth of Jesus underscores his divine origin. He is conceived by the Holy Spirit, indicating his divinity, yet born of a woman, affirming his humanity. This dual nature is critical for the role Jesus plays in salvation, as it enables him to mediate between God and humanity.
- The Sinlessness of Jesus. Psalm 51:5 states that humans are sinful even from the moment of conception. Theologians refer to this as original sin and posit that the act of procreation that results in conception is the point at which our sinful nature is somehow transmitted. In bypassing this process, Jesus was not tainted with our fallen nature and was able to live the prefect, sinless life that we failed to live (Hebrews 4:15).
- Jesus, The Second Adam. The New Testament refers to Jesus as the “second Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45) who brought life and redemption to mankind, in contrast to the first Adam who brought death and condemnation. Significantly, both Adams were created directly by God, without human conception. The virgin birth therefore symbolises the new creation in Jesus and, through him, the new creation for all who trust in him.
- Jesus, The Miraculous One. The virgin birth serves as a sign of the supernatural nature of Jesus’ entire ministry. From his miraculous birth to his resurrection, the life of Jesus is marked by divine interventions that authenticate his identity and mission. Christ’s supernatural birth foreshadows the miraculous works he would perform, reinforcing the belief in his divine authority and mission to bring about God’s kingdom on earth.
- A Symbol of Grace. The virgin birth also emphasizes the grace of God. Salvation is a gift from God, not earned by human effort. Ephesians 2:8-9 states, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” By initiating the birth of Jesus through divine intervention, God highlights that the coming of Christ is an act of grace, entirely initiated by God without human intervention or merit.
These implications of the virgin birth are all commonly understood and voluminously elaborated. Yet there still remains a great, unanswerable mystery surrounding Christ’s birth as a human baby.
For example, at what point did the eternal Son of God inhabit or ‘become’ this tiny human being? If it was at the point of conception, at the level of a single cell, what became of his divine consciousness – not only his omniscience, but also the even more basic level of his conscious mind? If he fully indwelt the multi-cellular zygote, how could he have been conscious at all? Or did Christ inhabit or ‘become’ the human baby at a later stage? When he was an embryo? A foetus? A fully formed baby in the womb? At the moment of birth? Even the latter still poses the conundrum of divine consciousness. How conscious of his eternal divinity was Jesus as he lay in the manger after his birth? Did he retain his full divine consciousness from birth or did it develop gradually as he “increased in wisdom and stature, in favour with God and people” (Luke 2:52).
Certainly, by the time Jesus was twelve he was aware of his divine Sonship. Luke records the twelve-year-old Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem after Passover where he engaged in theological discussion with rabbis in the temple courts. When his frantic parents eventually located him and expressed their bewilderment at his disappearance, he responded, “Why did you have to search for me? Didn’t you realise I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49).
The scriptures do not give any further details about Jesus’ childhood, and because of this, many questions are left unanswered. How did Jesus’ divinity impact his infancy and childhood? Did he cry as a baby? (The traditional hymn, Away In A Manger, claims he didn’t!). Did he suffer from colic? Did he fall over and hurt himself as he grew older? Did he contract the usual childhood diseases? In what ways was Jesus different from Joseph and Mary’s other children? Did his divinity and perfection shine through in ways that demonstrably set him apart from all other children his age? We are simply not told.
The question of Jesus’ divine consciousness during his in-utero existence and early childhood is a particularly puzzling one which has generated much speculation for centuries. Did his divine consciousness grow in a linear and incremental fashion in line with the gradual development of his human consciousness in the same way that consciousness and self-awareness develop within all of us throughout infancy and early childhood? Or was his divine consciousness fully formed even in the womb, residing quietly within him throughout his early years while he waited for his human consciousness to ‘catch up’ as it developed naturally?
Perhaps we will never know. I pose these questions not in order to arrive at an answer, but so that we might appreciate the incredible mystery of Christ’s incarnation and marvel at it from a position of deep humility. The simple statement at the beginning of John’s Gospel, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), carries within it a profound mystery, the depths of which we will probably never fully fathom.
Moving on from the ‘how’ question (“How did God become a human baby?”), it is the ‘why’ question that carries more practical significance for us. Why did Jesus have to go through the whole conception, birth and infancy process? Why did he have to spend all those childhood years living with a poor family in a tiny village in the hill country of Galilee? Why did he have to live an ordinary life as a young adult and wait thirty years until he began his ministry? Why couldn’t Jesus have simply turned up on earth as a fully grown man and gone straight to the cross? For, surely, that was the ultimate goal of his mission among us.
The scriptures give us several answers to these questions, some of which we have already briefly mentioned in previous chapters.
Firstly, in order to represent us on the cross and die a substitutionary death in our place, Jesus had to be a true and complete representative. As he hung on the cross, Jesus was an acceptable substitution for us because he had travelled the same road of human existence, from the very moment of his conception. He was truly one of us.
Secondly, Jesus also needed to have lived a completely sinless life, because the one big lesson that God had been teaching humanity throughout the whole of the Old Testament was that only a perfect sacrifice, without blemish or stain, was acceptable to him. And not only did Jesus need to be sinless, but his sinlessness also needed to have weight; to have gravitas. He needed to have lived a full life up until that point, experiencing all the frustrations and temptations that are common to humanity, yet remaining without sin. If Jesus had simply popped into existence on earth half an hour before his crucifixion, he would have been sinless on the cross but his perfection would have been shallow and unimpressive. By fully immersing himself in our messy human existence from birth to adulthood yet remaining untainted by it, Jesus’ sinlessness is extraordinary and it earns his right to die as the perfect sacrifice in our place.
Thirdly, Jesus’ ongoing ministry in the present as our great high priest and mediator is rendered more meaningful and effective because he understands us completely and empathises with our struggles. Because he has been through everything we go through, he is the perfect mediator between us and the Father:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” (Hebrews 4:15).
Fourthly, Jesus’ perfect life also gives him the right to impart his righteousness to us as a free gift. The Apostle Paul develops this concept by referring to Jesus as the second Adam (Romans 5:12-19) or “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22) He explains that Jesus lived the perfect life which the first Adam failed to do and achieved the righteousness that Adam fell short of. Jesus is therefore now able to impart his righteousness to us – righteousness that he earned the hard way and now grants to us as freely:
“For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!” (Romans 5:17)
Finally, the perfect life of Jesus, from the cradle to the grave, is an exemplar for us to follow. He is the perfect demonstration of what a godly life looks like and his sinless life is the model that we seek to emulate. Jesus is our perfect example of humility in a world of pride, forgiveness in response to hurt, grace in response to injustice, love in response to hate, selflessness in response to self-centredness, contentment in response to greed and purity in response to temptation. Jesus’ life is a spectacular visual demonstration of what it means to live in a right relationship with God. And while we will never reach a state of perfection in this life, we can look to Jesus for inspiration as we continue our life-long journey of being transformed into his image and character.
“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)
It is for all the above reasons that Jesus didn’t just turn up five minutes before his crucifixion. The eternal Son of God was born a human baby and lived a full life as one of us. The ‘how’ of Jesus’ birth remains an unsolvable mystery. How could God become a tiny human baby, or even an embryo? How did it all work? We may never fully know. But the ‘why’ is crystal clear. And it can be summed up in a single word.
Love.