Luke 1.29-33 records, Mary was thoroughly shaken, wondering what was behind a greeting like that. But the angel assured her, “Mary, you have nothing to fear. God has a surprise for you: You will become pregnant and give birth to a Son and call His name Jesus. He will be great, be called ‘Son of the Highest.’ The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; He will rule Jacob’s house forever—no end, ever, to His kingdom.

The most significant aspect of the Christmas story in my opinion is that of the Virgin’s conception. Only Christianity portrays such an event in its sacred writings. The doctrine of the virgin conception is integral to our faith, without it, we have nothing. Christianity portrays only two men to ever have lived on earth sinless, without inherent defect: Adam and Jesus. Adam chose to disobey God, he rebelled against His rule, the consequence of which is that all future people, conceived by men, would have a DNA flaw called sin.

Modern psychology teaches we are born good but go bad because of our environment. Nurture rather than nature is to blame for human evil. The Bible teaches the opposite. The proof is obvious every time a child is born. Infants, toddlers, reveal to us over and over the selfish, rebellious nature inherent to all of us. Today’s youth believe Jesus was born a sinner and sinned at some point in His life. Orthodox Christianity rejects this belief.

The Bible is clear, the Savior came into the world without sin, lived His life without committing sin then was punished on the cross unto death for sin, not His but everyone else’s from all time in all places for all things. Therefore, Christianity alone is good news to the world. God has come and has removed the consequence of our inherent nature that rebels against God, appropriating to us instead, His perfection, so that we can be forgiven, pardoned and accepted into eternal dwelling places for all eternity.

This is the good news of Christmas. Merry Christmas.