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The Virgin Birth

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). (Matthew 1:23)

 

This is a favorite prophecy for Atheists. “Parthenogenesis is impossible for humans, so it’s impossible, so it didn’t happen…and by the way, prove your god exists. How? I don’t know, but no, something happening that isn’t possible isn’t evidence because it couldn’t happen, so it didn’t happen, blah, blah, blah, case closed.” Of course, even if they saw a clear miracle, after a short time, they’ll decide it was a trick.

This is also a favorite prophecy for Christians. I like it, too, but we tend to only read the Matthew quote and don’t put the Isaiah quote in context. At the time of the prophecy, it referred immediately to the birth of a son to Isaiah who would still be young when Israel was delivered from her enemies.

          This brings to our attention what is called double, multiple, or partial fulfillment of prophecy. Other examples I found listed online include, Joel’s prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit being partially fulfilled at Pentecost, the Olivet discourse about the destruction of Rome which will be more fully fulfilled in the End Times, Daniel’s prophecy about Antiochus Ephiphanes’ desecration of the temple in 167 AD and further fulfillment prophesied by Jesus in Matthew 24:15. I would include Jesus’ time on Earth being a partial fulfillment of the prophecies about the Messiah. He did not fulfill all the prophecies yet.

          I’m both frustrated and thankful for double/multiple/partial fulfillment. I’m frustrated because it’s easy to find correlations between things that happened in Scripture and what is happening now. Interpretation is involved and that always sets off a low-level alarm. On the other hand, it gives me great reassurance that God isn’t done with the big story yet, and that it hangs together. It also reassures me that it’s at least possible that God isn’t done with me yet.

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