Sex leads to Virgin Birth

I think I am having a Eureka moment, but it’s still a bit vague and hasn’t quite crystallised yet.

Sam Norton has been talking about the virgin birth. Kyle Potter has been talking about marriage and this has led to a wider debate on sexuality in the comments. Martin Hallett has been talking to me about ‘one flesh’ as a divine mystery.

Martin says that the orgasm is a celebration of the creative act of God. From this conversation I have concluded that the primary function of sexuality is for relationship/procreation. I don’t place them in any order or make too great a distinction between them, and yet they can exist independently. You can relate to your sexual partner without procreation, to can have a baby without the parents being in relationship. Independently, they are in their own way expressions of the image of God but the fullest image of him is where they come together. [dare I say….cum together?] So man and woman become one flesh, in relationship, in the jigsawing-together of their bodies, but equally in the creation of a new life that combines theirs.

So, how do we view the virgin birth through this vision of sexuality?

Sexual reproduction creates a NEW human who is a combined version of the parents; a whole that is more than the sum of the halves; a whole in which the halves cannot be distinguished.

So, if Christ’s conception was a sexual one his person would be a NEW human, not the pre-existing ‘Word-Son’ of God through whom the universe was created.

And, if Christ’s conception was a sexual one his person would be part Mary, part A.N. Other; a whole that is more than the sum of the halves; a whole in which the halves cannot be distinguished. Yet our knowledge of Christ through the scriptures and the church fathers and the creeds is that Christ is part human and part divine; a whole that is more than the sum of the halves; a whole in which the halves cannot be distinguished. If Christ was born of a one-flesh human union, then he was fully human, and only fully human. He was a new creation, not an incarnation. There is no way for him to become Divine.

It is because of ‘one flesh’ union that each child is a celebration of the image of the creator god. It is about creation of something new, not incarnation of something old.

It is because of ‘one-flesh’ that virgin birth is necessary, for Christ was not a new creation.

It is because of ‘one-flesh’ that for Christ to be divine his origin must be divine, not human.

It is because of ‘one-flesh’ that Christ’s conception was not sexual, but incarnational.

It is because of ‘one-flesh’ that we must so jealously guard and carefully cultivate our relationships, our actions, our theology of marriage, our theology of contraception, our theology of divorce, our theology of homosexuality, and our church practices on these issues.

It is because of ‘one-flesh’ that our sexuality is the image of God – three in one, diversity within unity of relationship and of substance; diversity and unity within relationship and substance; diversity and unity in relationship creating substance.

It is because of ‘one-flesh’ that the contrast of virgin birth is so vivid and so dramatic and so important.

It is only by understanding ‘one-flesh’ that we can understand virgin birth.

Eureka?

(maybe the Lord is indeed calling me to become a Roman Catholic!)