The Virgin Birth Of The Messiah.
The virgin birth of the Messiah can be more profoundly grasped when we understand an important translation issue from the original Hebrew language of the Tenach, or Old Testament.
Leviticus 17:11 is commonly translated, “the life of the flesh is in the blood”; but the Hebrew Bible actually says, “the soul of the flesh is in the blood”. The difference is important. The word often translated “life” in Hebrew (נפש) and Greek (psyche), is more accurately, “soul”, not “life”. This occurs in the Hebrew Old Testament 117 times, and an additional 4 times it is wrongly translated, “desire”.
Now consider the following verses:
“You are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” [1 Peter 1:9].
“Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.” [James 1:21] Simply stated, the purpose of our faith is that our souls be saved, because our souls are corrupted. Of course this has profoundly affected our bodies as well, which also need salvation.
Now the Lord, Himself commanded us to take up our cross daily. But immediately after saying this, He added, “Whoever wants to save his soul (psyche) will lose it, and whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it.” [Mt. 16:25]. Yeshua clearly stated that in order for our soul to be saved we must lose it, and He indicated the method which He Himself pioneered; the cross needs to crucify it.
Back to our verse, “the soul of the flesh is in the blood”. It is medically proven that a baby’s blood is formed solely from the blood of the father even though the baby may have a different blood type. Have you ever wondered why YHVH visited the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation and not the mothers; or why all Biblical genealogies are reckoned through men and never women? Here is an amazing truth!
Taking the illustration of seed and soil:
which one determines the nature and form of the plant? Of course it's the seed.
No matter what the quality of the soil is, planting a carrot seed will always produce a carrot, and nothing else. Well, the same is true of a women’s womb. The womb, just like the soil, can only provide the environment and sustenance for the seed to grow to maturity. But it is the seed of the man (going all the way back to the first man, Adam) which determines the quality of the “plant”, in this case, a human being. The father’s seed carries the sin to his son or daughter, through the blood from his seed. “The sins of the fathers….”
So sin is proliferated from generation to generation in a very literal and biological manner; passed from the blood of the father, and particularly, the sin-filled soul which is in that blood, down to the children, from generation to generation. The man’s sperm is the seed, the woman’s womb, the soil. Seed and sperm are the same words in Hebrew. In the same way, every bread which is baked has a bit of the old leaven in it from the last batch. So every baby has the leaven (blood) of the father.
We have, in the feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread the perfect example of how the cycle of sin was terminated by the Messiah. Passover puts an end to sin through His perfect sacrifice, (and its cleansing blood), and Unleavened Bread terminates the cycle of leaven from bread to bread and typifies the breaking of the chain of sin passing from blood to blood, soul to soul.
This is why Yeshua (Jesus) is the promised seed of Woman and why the Virgin Birth was necessary. Women do not have sperm. And the Lord had no earthly father, and therefore, carried none of the blood of fallen man in his veins, since sin is transferred through fathers, in the blood which carries the soul.
Now, here is our real hope. A grain of wheat that dies and is buried in the soil, then sprouts and bears a hundredfold, yields wheat grains which have the same DNA as the grain of wheat that died. We have borne the DNA of our first father Adam. But through our faith in Yeshua, the Second “Adam”, our Adamic nature is crucified with Messiah, and we have inherited the DNA of Him that died, was resurrected, and became the first born of many brothers. We can now keep the feast of Unleavened Bread, since Yeshua cancelled the DNA of a thousand generations all the way back to Adam. And it was His birth through a virgin which qualified Him perfectly for this sanctifying work.