Loving the Scriptures December 22, 2025 Issue

Birth of Jesus

To Christians, Jesus’ birth to a virgin was prophesied in Isaiah 7:14 and fulfilled centuries later in the Judean town of Bethlehem (see Matthew 1:22, 23). David had been born and anointed king in Bethlehem, and the prophet Micah had foretold it as the Messiah’s birthplace: “Thou, Beth–lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2).

Christ as Jesus’ divine title first appears in Matthew’s genealogy. We also see it in Herod’s query and Luke’s account of the shepherds’ angelic visitor (see Matthew 1:16; 2:3, 4; Luke 2:8–11). Throughout the New Testament, the Master is known as Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ.

Referring to the Savior’s statement “Before Abraham was, I am,” Mary Baker Eddy clarifies the distinction between Jesus and Christ: “Jesus, the only immaculate, was born of a virgin mother, and Christian Science explains that mystic saying of the Master as to his dual personality, or the spiritual and material Christ Jesus, called in Scripture the Son of God and the Son of man—explains it as referring to his eternal spiritual selfhood and his temporal manhood” (Message to The Mother Church for 1901, pp. 8–9).

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