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The importance of confessing or denying the virginal conception
lies not in its Christological consequences. The virginal
conception and birth did not make Jesus the Son of God. It was
not required to keep Him holy and undefiled. What is at stake
involves not a doctrine of Christ but of Scripture. [80]
Jesus did not teach a universal fatherhood of God. Never did He
base this relationship with God as Father on something that
could apply to everyone, such as God’s being Creator of all
things. Quite the contrary, Jesus even described some people as
having the devil as their father. It was only through faith in
Him that this relationship with God was possible. [133]
Certainly the picture of Jesus given in the Gospel accounts is
far from the weak, effeminate Christ found in so much Christian
art. In this scene Jesus is portrayed as God’s righteous
servant. Armed with right, empowered with zeal for God,
confident of the correctness of His actions, he was
irresistible. No one could stand against His prophetic action,
for His moral power, virtue, and holy action melted away the
will of any who might seek to resist. [191]
Jesus knew that His mission was one that divided the sheep from
the goats, the wheat from the tares. At no time in His career
did He shrink from His mission because people would become
guilty for rejecting Him. There was nothing He could do to
change the fact that some love darkness rather than light. [216]
It was not the accounts of the empty tomb that brought about the
rise of faith in the disciples but the appearances of the risen
Christ. On the other hand, whereas the emptiness of the tomb did
not prove the resurrection of Jesus or give birth to it, the
presence of Jesus’ body in the tomb would have ruled it out.
[263]
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