Everyone knows that it’s not possible for a virgin to get pregnant. Many have considered this impossibility as the open-and-shut reason for disbelieving in the biblical teaching of the virgin birth of Jesus. Others though, have seen this impossibility as the whole point of the story: if God exists, and he has decided to become a human being in order to save the world, then doing something radically impossible to make that happen seems like the kind of thing God would do. But what does the virgin birth mean? It can’t be the necessary ground of Jesus’ sinlessness, since Mary herself contributed her humanity to Jesus’ birth. Instead, it’s best to see the virgin birth of Jesus as an exemplary instance of God’s grace. He breaks into humanity purely of his own volition, for his own purposes, to display his own glory, and to act in love toward his own people.