Q & A 35 

What does it mean that he “was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary”?

That the eternal Son of God, who is and remains true and eternal God,took to himself, through the working of the Holy Spirit,from the flesh and blood of the virgin Mary,a truly human nature so that he might also become David’s true descendant,like his brothers and sisters in every wayexcept for sin.

Q & A 36 

How does the holy conception and birth of Christ benefit you?

He is our mediatorand, in God’s sight, he covers with his innocence and perfect holiness my sinfulness in which I was conceived.

Article 10: The Deity of Christ

We believe that Jesus Christ, according to his divine nature, is the only Son of God— eternally begotten, not made or created, for then he would be a creature. He is one in essence with the Father; coeternal; the exact image of the person of the Father and the “reflection of God’s glory,” being like the Father in all things.

Jesus Christ is the Son of God not only from the time he assumed our nature but from all eternity, as the following testimonies teach us when they are taken together. Moses says that God created the world; and John says that all things were created through the Word, which he calls God. The apostle says that God created the world through the Son. He also says that God created all things through Jesus Christ.

And so it must follow that the one who is called God, the Word, the Son, and Jesus Christ already existed before creating all things. Therefore the prophet Micah says that Christ’s origin is “from ancient days.” And the apostle says that the Son has “neither beginning of days nor end of life.”

So then, he is the true eternal God, the Almighty, whom we invoke, worship, and serve. 

Article 19: The Two Natures of Christ

We believe that by being thus conceived the person of the Son has been inseparably united and joined together with human nature, in such a way that there are not two Sons of God, nor two persons, but two natures united in a single person, with each nature retaining its own distinct properties. Thus his divine nature has always remained uncreated, without beginning of days or end of life, filling heaven and earth.

Christ’s human nature has not lost its properties but continues to have those of a creature— it has a beginning of days; it is of a finite nature and retains all that belongs to a real body. And even though he, by his resurrection, gave it immortality, that nonetheless did not change the reality of his human nature; for our salvation and resurrection depend also on the reality of his body. But these two natures are so united together in one person that they are not even separated by his death.

So then, what he committed to his Father when he died was a real human spirit which left his body. But meanwhile his divine nature remained united with his human nature even when he was lying in the grave; and his deity never ceased to be in him, just as it was in him when he was a little child, though for a while it did not so reveal itself.

These are the reasons why we confess him to be true God and truly human—true God in order to conquer death by his power, and truly human that he might die for us in the weakness of his flesh.