Mid-Cities Presbyterian Church Library

Book Description

In the spring of 1927, Dr. J. Gresham Machen delivered the Thomas Smyth Lectures at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, about the virgin birth of Christ. The content of these lectures comprise the substance of his book, The Virgin Birth of Christ, which was first published in 1930 by Harper & Row Publishers, and reprinted seven times with special permission between 1965 and 1980 by Baker Book House. Additional supplementary material was also drawn from a number of Machen’s articles published in the Princeton Theological Review—”The Virgin Birth in the Second Century,” “The Hymns of the First Chapter of Luke,” and “The Origin of the First Two Chapters of Luke,” which appeared in 1912, and “The Integrity of the Lucan Narrative of the Annunciation,” which appeared in 1927.

The first eleven chapters attempt to demonstrate that the virgin birth of Christ is a historical fact, and defends the character of the birth narratives in Matthew 1 and Luke 2 as authentic and reliable witnesses thereto. In chapters twelve through fourteen, he interacts with the competing claim that the idea of the virgin birth of Christ was derived from Jewish or pagan sources and only later added to the Christian creed.

In his second preface, Dr. Machen expresses encouragement by many affirming interactions with critical Protestant scholars who valued his work, despite their disagreement, as at least a useful “compendium of information.” “The author is encouraged by such recognition, since he believes that truth is furthered by full and open debate” (page vii). This work exemplifies a depth in Evangelical scholarship which is so often dismissed by skeptical and critical scholars, and Dr. Machen “makes bold to think that the scholarly tradition of the Protestant Church is not altogether dead even in our day, and he looks for a glorious revival of it when the narrowness of our metallic age (of modernist liberalism) gives place to a new Renaissance” (page x).

Dr. J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937)

About the Author

John Gresham Machen, (born July 28, 1881, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.—died January 1, 1937, Bismarck, North Dakota), was born to a prominent family in Baltimore. Machen studied at Johns Hopkins University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the universities at Marburg and Göttingen. In 1906 he joined the faculty of the Princeton Theological Seminary. He criticized liberal Protestantism as unbiblical and unhistorical in his Christianity and Liberalism (1923), What is Faith? (1925) and struggled to preserve the conservative character of the Princeton Theological Seminary. Machen defended the historical reliability of the Bible in such works as The Origin of Paul’s Religion (1921) and The Virgin Birth of Christ (1930). He left Princeton in 1929, after the school was reorganized and adopted a more accepting attitude toward liberal Protestantism, and he helped found Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. His continued opposition during the 1930’s to liberalism in his denomination’s foreign missions agencies led to the creation of a new organization, The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions (1933). The trial, conviction and suspension from the ministry of Independent Board members, including Machen, in 1935 and 1936 provided the rationale for the formation in 1936 of the Presbyterian Church in America, which became the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in 1939. Machen was the principal figure in the founding of the OPC if for no other reason than that the Presbyterian controversy in which he played a crucial role provided the backdrop for the founding of the denomination.

Sources: Britannica, and OPC.org

415 pages
Publisher: Baker Book House; distributed by Westminster Discount Book Service
Publication Date: 1930; Seventh Reprint, 1980
ISBN: 0801058856