Joseph and Mary must have been legally married, for Joseph “took Mary as his wife.” Is it possible that they did not have sexual relations all those years living under one roof as husband and wife?
Which is more difficult for you to believe, that it is possible for a married couple to live together in celibacy, or a virgin could conceive a baby? Which is more difficult to believe, that a husband and wife did not have sexual relations, or that angels appeared to shepherds singing God’s glory to announce the birth of Mary’s baby?
Mary is a unique creature for several reasons. She is the mother of God the Savior of us all. She conceived God the Son by God the Holy Spirit.
In the Old Testament God says He is the faithful spouse of Israel and Israel is unfaithful to Him. Through the prophets He speaks of Israel’s unfaithfulness in chasing after other gods likening Isreal to an adlutleress wife.
Jesus refers to Himself as the bridegroom and His Church, the people of God, male and female, as His bride.
Mary in conceiving by the Holy Spirit, within Mary heaven and earth are joined, married. In the person of Jesus the God-man, God becomes joined (married) to humanity forever. He took His body to heaven with Him. He is ascended to heaven bodily.
This joining of God and man took place in a place. In the Old Testament we see the Arc of the Covenant. It is the place where God dwells. It is the dwelling place of God made by the hands of men. Any man who would touch this Arc of the Covenant would die and that happened when a man reached up to stop the Arc from falling. On the surface this seems like God killed a man for trying to do something good. But there is something there for us to see. Why is this thing withing which God dwelt called an arc? Think about Noah’s arc that protected Noah and his family from destruction and carried them as survivors of the flood to safety.
Mary is the living arc of the covenant, the God bearer. She bore and carried God. By conceiving of God the Holy Spirit she becomes the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the virgin arc of the New and Everlasting Covenant and no man can touch her. She is the faithful spouse of God, and His mother.
She is also a child of God, a daughter, as the rest of us are children of God the Father.
This woman is very unique whether or not anyone agree with the Marian doctrines of the Catholic Church.
But Protestants do not simply reject these doctrines. They deny she is unique by saying she is an ordinary woman, no different than any other. This is completely irrational. How many women were visited by an archangel who said she is full of grace to announce to them that they would become pregnant with and give birth to God? How many ordinary women were impregnated by the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity?
There must be many woman who experienced these things if Mary is an ordinary woman, nothing special, a useful vehicle who then got on with an ordinary life. If there are no such women she is certainly not ordinary. She is a special creature, made by God totally unique in salvation history.
Jesus is Son of God and Son of Mary. Doesn’t that make Mary married to God? If she who is the living Arc of the Covenant who conceived God by God has relations with, is touched by a man doesn’t that make her an adulteress and the man is struck dead?
Apparently it is more difficult for Protestants to believe that a woman and man could live together without having sexual relations than a woman could conceive a child by the power of God and give birth to God. It is impossible for a man and a woman to live together without sex, but there is no problem believing a virgin could be a mother.
Luther always revered Mary and did not question the Marian doctrines of the Catholic Church. Those who are separated from the Catholic Church and defend Luther’s doctrines do. We can only conclude that they do not agree with the man whose doctrines they claim to embrace. They see no disconnect (further separation and disunity) in this.
The person God created to give motherly comfort and consolation to His people is lost to those who reject her and they see no loss. They are happy to be rid of her. They tell Jesus they want no part of His mother. There is no room for her in their theology or in their faith lives and they see no insult to Jesus in this.
Oh – and the explicit mention that Joseph named him Jesus is relevant, too… the legal father of a child had the right to name the child (take a look at the story of John the Baptist’s birth). So, Matthew is saying both that Joseph was not Jesus’ natural father and that Joseph was his (adoptive / legal) father – in other words, there was no other man in the picture who could claim (human) fatherhood…
There are many reasons to remain a virgin. You are assuming that being human means you’ll want to have sex or need to have sex. Mary is believed to have given an oath to God at an early age to always remain a virgin. This is why when the angel announced that she would have a son she said “How can this be?” She was already betrothed. As a woman of that culture, she would know very well where kids come from. If she had been planning on having sex after marriage, then she wouldn’t have asked how could this be, but simply realized that eventually she would indeed have kids.