QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR

Evening Star, Issue 19665, 19 September 1927, Page 14

QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR

Ba PETTIT'S SIXTH LECTURE On Saturday evening Uio subject of Dr Pettit's address at Knox Church was ‘ The Virgin Birth.’ Dr Pettit said they had now reached a point in the coarse of lectures where they wore able to take their stand upon tlie impregnable rock of Holy Scripture and face with confidence all the storms of destructive criticism. _ When the Christian accepted by faith the testimony of tho Son of God to the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures be would before long have to meet the assaults of unbelief. It was well, therefore, that they should look in detail at the question of the incarnation and the virgin birth of the Son of God. They would seo at tho outset how faith in tho Scriptures, “which cannot be broken,” would establish tho fact of the virgin birth. In tho Gospel of Luke, where the helmed physician recorded the his tory, as Mary doubtless gave it to him they read that tho angel Gabriel said to Mary: “Behold, thou art now con ceiving in thy womb and shalt bring forth a son, and shalt call ,iiis name Josus.” Matthew recorded how the angel of tho Lord said to Joseph'. “ Fear not to take unto theo Mary, thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” Faith took its stand upon tho divine record. There was no expectation whatovoi among tho Jews that the Messiah would ho born of a virgin. Tho' exact significance of Isaiah’s prophecy was never fully realised until it was fulfilled This, of course, was equally true of most qf tho Messianic prophecies. Even to-day the .lews did not understand those prophecies. There was a veil over their eyes as they read them, which was never removed except through faith in Jesus as tho Christ, the Messiah' the Son of the Living God. One had only to recall tho abhorrence with which the Jews to-day regarded tho idea of tho virgin birth to understand how fantastic was tho theory that any such idea could have given rise to the Gospel .records.

Referring to heathen mythology, tho lecturer pointed out that heathenism was viewed with absolute abhorrence bv both Jews and Christians, and notiling could have been more impossible than' for the early Christians, cither of Jewish or Gentile origin, to have absorbed these heathen conceptions, which were steeped in the grossest immorality. As a matter of fact, the heathen mythologies contained nothing of tho nature of a virgin birth at all. Tho demigods of heathenism were tho result of tho supposed _ carnal intercourse of a pagan god in human form with the victim of his lust, and yet many Modernist theologians asked them to believe that out of such a cesspool came the chaste and beautiful passages of Scripture reaching in parts to the heighest heights of prophetic utterance, which were recorded in tho opening chapters of Matthew and Luke. No Christian could ponder upon his knees tho divine record of the conception and birth of his Lord and Saviour without his whole soul rising iu revolt against the blasphemous suggestion of unbelieving criticism. Turning to tho argument of the silence of other New Testament writers, the speaker pointed out that this had force only to a mind which was blind to the harmony and purpose | of the Scriptures. Mark presented Christ as “ the servant of Jehovah,” Genealogy had no place iu the case of a servant. John presented tho Eternal Son-ship of Christ, and it would havo hen entirely out of keeping with his Gospel to have given a detailed description of the circumstances of the Lord’s birth. The humble Christian saw clear reference to the incarnation in the words ‘‘The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” The critics loitj them that the virgin birth might be rejected without losing anything that was essential to the Christian faith. Nothing could be further from tho truth. No man who denied tho virgin birth could retain his faith in the Scripture’s. Very few of those scholars who rejected tho virgin birth were able for long to believe in the Deity and tho atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. The whole body of divine truth must stand or fall together. Yesterday aitcnioon there was o» large attendance at the evangelistic meeting held iu the Octagon Hall, when Dr Pettit gave an address on * Jesus Christ, the Answer to Human Need.’