Everyone needs to know the truth about his relationship with God. The Bible states emphatically that we are all sinners (Romans 3:10, 12, 23), and the wages of our sin is death (Romans 6:23). It also tells us that forgiveness is very costly,“…without shedding of blood is no remission (Hebrews 9:22).”
The blood of animals, because they are not eternal beings, was never sufficient to purchase forgiveness for the sins of men, who are eternal beings (Hebrews 10:4). This would require human blood. But the blood of sinful men could never be sufficient to atone for even one of their many sins, because all of their “righteous deeds” are as “filthy rags” before God (Isaiah 64:6). Man has nothing to offer. To pay the wages of sin would require a unique, sinless, perfect sacrifice, and only God is perfect, but God is not a man, …at least not until the birth of Jesus.
The Bible teaches very clearly that Jesus’ mother was a virgin when He was born (Matthew 1:22-23; Luke 1:26-34; Galatians 4:4). He was Mary’s son—a man. It also tells us that God the Holy Spirit supernaturally caused her to become pregnant (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35). He was the Son of God—Deity. Jesus was both God and man—the God/Man—exactly what was needed to purchase man’s pardon.
Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem? Because sinful man needed a God/Man to pay the penalty for his sin, and “…God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)” Jesus is God’s gift to the human race. He alone is the perfect sacrifice for sin: human in order to atone for human sin, and Divine in order to satisfy the demands of God’s holiness and justice.
The angel told Joseph, when he discovered his fiancé was pregnant and it was not his child, “…Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:20-21).” Merry Christmas!