The Announcement of the Virgin Birth–One of God’s Angry Promises

The first article in a series called: “Doing history.”  These articles will explore the historical contexts of events in Biblical and Church history.

Oh, Isaiah!

Last summer my Bible class sped read Isaiah. What a great way to spend summer! For good reason many call Isaiah “the fifth evangelist.”

His book sings some of the most memorable prophecies of Jesus. Isaiah tells us of a Wonderful Son, a Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. Isaiah focuses eyes on the root coming from Jesse’s stump. Isaiah describes for us a Servant who redeems the nations, a light for revelation to Gentiles. Isaiah portrays that Servant stricken, smitten, and afflicted.

And don’t forget this promise: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Matthew makes much of these words when he records the details of Jesus birth.  What you might not remember (or know) is that God uttered them harshly, in anger. With these words he rebuked an unbeliever.

He wouldn’t ask!

It happened in the mid to late 730s BC. Ahaz rules the southern kingdom of Judah. He’s young, in his early 20s. And pagan. Kings and Chronicles tell us that he “did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Kings 16:2). Among other things, he sacrificed his own son, to an idol.

With a young, somewhat untested king on the throne, enemies move quickly. From the southeast Edomites emerge. From the southwest Philistines pick off one town after another. The most serious attack comes from the north, Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, king of Israel gang up to attack. With great success. They devastate Judah. In one battle they kill 120,000 soldiers (2 Chronicles 28:6). They carry off 200,000 women and children (to be returned when God threatens to punish them).

When things like this happened during the time of the Judges, Israel cried out to the LORD. That’s the cycle: sin, punishment, repentance, delivery. Ahaz doesn’t. Chronicles says, “In his time of trouble King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the LORD” (2 Chr. 28:22). He closed the temple. He set up idols in every town. And, rather than call on the LORD for help, he texted the big kid on the block:  Assyria. He summoned their king, Tiglath-Pileser, and said, “I’m your servant. Help me.” It didn’t go well. Scripture says Tiglath “gave him trouble instead of help” (2 Chr. 28:20). From that moment, Judah teetered on the edge of the cliff, always on the verge of conquest by the Assyrians, culminating in another siege of Jerusalem thirty years later.

You’d think at some point Ahaz might have glanced in the LORD’s direction. Nope. Not even with the enemies at the gates and his country devastated. Instead he copied a pagan altar he saw in Damascus to use in God’s temple.  Instead he used one of the divinely designed altars “for seeking guidance” (2 Kings 16:15), that is, occult divination.

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Not content to make promises, God says, “Go ahead, ask me for a sign. Anything. Anything at all.”  To which Ahaz replies, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.” Sounds noble and pious, doesn’t it? After all, didn’t Jesus say the same to Satan?

There are two problems here. Martin Luther, lecturing on the book of Isaiah, identifies the first, “God is not being tempted when he himself orders it” (Luther’s Works, 16:83). In other words, God gave Ahaz permission to test him. And the second? Ahaz isn’t the pious believer he claims to be. He sacrifices children. He replaces the worship of the LORD with the worship of every other false god under the sun. He reads tea leaves instead of asking the LORD.

Ahaz sounds a lot like the foolish man in this Quizno’s commercial you might remember.

Despite everything he knows, despite the assurance given by Isaiah and the history of Israel, he says, “No, I will not listen to you God.  I won’t ask you for anything. I refuse.” Ahaz ignores history. Ahaz ignores HIS-story.

So God says, “You won’t ask? Fine. Here’s the sign: ‘The virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.’”

Déjà vu all over again!

Jesus did this once. After miraculously feeding four thousand people, some Pharisees said, “Give us a sign from heaven.” He just fed four thousand! So Jesus, in frustration, says, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 12:39), the sign of Jonah being Jesus’ resurrection.

Interesting, isn’t it, that God prophesies both Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ resurrection in anger. It reminds me of something C.S. Lewis wrote:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell” (The Great Divorce).

Ahaz made his choice. Yet God didn’t say, “To hell with you.” He said, “I’ll send the virgin born Savior, God in the flesh.” The Pharisees chose too. They rejected Christ, and he said, “I will rise from the dead.” In both cases, in every case, in our case, God declares that he will prove us wrong. In so doing God gave us the sign for which we refused to ask, the sign which is our salvation: Christ the Lord!