Virginity and the Virgin Birth Part 2

In part two of this series Lawson discusses why virginity is important and what it looks like on a spiritual level. Lawson adapted these articles for New Church Perspective from one of his sermons. -Editor.

Why was it necessary for the Lord to be born of a virgin? Because the father’s soul and image is in his seed. In a working marriage, the Lord provides that the husband’s seed is received by the wife and adds itself to her life. In this way, a wife leads a life that is more and more of one mind with her husband. The union of souls and joining of minds comes right down into ultimate effects (Conjugial Love 172). If Joseph or any other man had been Jesus’ father, Jesus could only have been an ordinary man like his father. His soul would then have been a finite receptacle of life, like all of ours, instead of the Divine life itself. The Lord put on an ordinary, mortal, human body from Mary, the mother, but His soul was Divine, the Everlasting Father.

For a woman to give up her virginity is the deepest sign of love and commitment. The cleanness, purity and holiness of conjugial love makes one with her virginity. With it she promises to love her man to eternity, so she cannot rationally make this promise except in the security of a holy marriage covenant. And no man should ask her to give him this crown of her honor unless he is her husband, praying to the Lord to draw them together forever (Conjugial Love 460).

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Virginity and the Virgin Birth Part 1

This week Lawson paints a picture of what it must have been like to be Joseph learning about and then dealing with the reality that Mary was pregnant before they were married. In this two part article adapted from a sermon Lawson looks at the significance of marriage and virginity. -Editor.

Think how Joseph must have felt, when he first realized that Mary was expecting a baby. When the angel Gabriel came to Mary and announced to her that she would be blessed to be the mother of the Lord, she did not tell Joseph, but “arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste” (Luke 1:39), to share this wonderful news with Elizabeth, her cousin. Elizabeth was the one person in the world she could share such astonishing news with. Since she was to be the mother of John the Baptist, who would prepare the Lord’s way, she knew that the birth of the Lord Himself was imminent, and must have been wondering who would be so highly favored as to be His mother. Anyone else, probably including Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, could not have believed her. So Mary went straight to Elizabeth, and remained with her about three months, almost to the time when John was born.

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