It is difficult to think of God as the Infinite One who inhabits eternity; the very idea is so vast that it seems to melt away into vagueness. It is intangible; we cannot lay hold of it. But Christ we can see and understand. That this is so we can believe, not because we are informed of the doctrine of the Incarnation on authority, but just because, when we come to know Christ for ourselves, we can see God in him. The grace. This great truth lies at the foundation of the gospel.
All Christianity is built on the Incarnation. Although men may deliver one another from minor ills, only God can save from sin. Therefore, if Jesus is a Saviour in the deepest sense of the word, he must be God as well as man. But this is only one side of the subject. He saves us by bringing God into us. Pulpit Commentary - Notes on Matthew Jesus our Immanuel. None but Jesus was ever born of a pure virgin.
The truth proved by this sign is, that he is the Son of God, and the Mediator between God and man: for they shall call his name Immanuel; that is, he shall be Immanuel; and when it is said, He shall be called, it is meant, he shall be, the Lord our righteousness. Immanuel signifies God with us; a mysterious name, but very precious; God incarnate among us, and so God reconcilable to us, at peace with us, and taking us into covenant and communion with himself.
The people of the Jews had God with them, in types and shadows, dwelling between the cherubim; but never so as when the Word was made flesh—that was the blessed Shechinah.
What a happy step is hereby taken toward the settling of a peace and correspondence between God and man, that the two natures are thus brought together in the person of the Mediator! Behold, in this, the deepest mystery, and the richest mercy, that ever was. By the light of nature, we see God as a God above us; by the light of the law, we see him as a God against us; but by the light of the gospel, we see him as Immanuel, God with us, in our own nature, and which is more in our interest.
Herein the Redeemer commended his love. Nor is it improper to say that the prophecy which foretold that he should be called Immanuel was fulfilled, in the design and intention of it, when he was called Jesus; for if he had not been Immanuel —God with us, he could not have been Jesus—a Saviour; and herein consists the salvation he wrought out, in the bringing of God and man together; this was what he designed, to bring God to be with us, which is our great happiness, and to bring us to be with God, which is our great duty.
In the OT the name was given to a child born in the time of Ahaz as a sign to the king that Judah would receive relief from attacks by Israel and Syria. The name symbolized the fact that God would demonstrate his presence with His people in this deliverance.
Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible. It was used as a cry to God Himself to be with Israel when the Assyrians threatened to destroy them Isa. With us is God. This proper name occurs twice.
It is the name to be given to the child to be born of the virgin Isa Isaiah addresses Judah's king, of Davidic lineage, as Immanuel Isa The prophet also gives the meaning and application of the name by stressing that, in spite of what a disobedient king does, God will be with his covenant people Isa The name Immanuel gives expression to the truth God had expressed in various ways to his covenant people in times previous to Isa iah.
He had specifically said that he would be God to Abraham and his seed Gen He would go with Jacob Gen and Moses Exo God identified with his people saying he had taken them to be his possession Exo The angel of his name would go with and guard his people Exo , To David God said, "I have been with you" 2Sam Solomon earnestly prayed that the Lord would be with him and Israel as he had been with David 1Kings By various visible means, i. He was with his people. He led, upheld, and blessed them.
Isaiah, speaking to Ahaz, assured him that the faithful covenant God was present as he had been and as he would be in the incarnate Son to be born of the virgin. Thus the past, present, and future intimate relationship of God's presence with his people is summed up in the name Immanuel.
O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell; O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!
I will be with your mouth Exod. His cool immensity of splendor, His universal grace, small folded in a warm, dim, female space, the Word stern sentenced to be nine months dumb. Infinity walled in a womb until the next enormity, the mighty. But now I in Him surrender to the crush and cry of birth. Because eternity was closeted in time, He is my open door to forever.
From His imprisonment my freedoms grow, find wings. Part of His body, I transcend this flesh. From His sweet silence my mouth sings. Out of His dark I glow. We must get away from the notion that God is up there somewhere sending down a program for us to carry out. He is down here working for, in, and among His people. Our Lord did not die to placate an angry Deity. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. The Christian life is not something we try to live by God's help.
Christ lives His life in all who can truly say, "To me to live is Christ. He works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. It is all God's work with our consent and cooperation. All the Days. The words of this classic chorus by Naida Hearn are simply a list of names for Jesus.
Simple, yet profound. Simple, yet powerful. Simple, yet it will take eternity for us to worship Christ. One day she wrote out some of the names on a piece of paper, and she happened to take that paper out to the washhouse so she could mull over it while washing her clothes.
Like many New Zealanders, she had a washhouse behind the regular living quarters of her home. Is that all right like that? Even in the washhouse, even in the garage, even in the kitchen, even on the basketball court—we do not have a God who is merely above us; we have a God who is among us and His name is above all names. The Word became flesh and has pitched His tent among us.
He is:. However, God, with His great patience, turned the tables on him. Years later, Van Sickle was sitting in a service where a choir sang his hymn. He came under conviction and gave his heart to Christ! All hail to Thee, Immanuel, our risen King and Savior! Thy foes are vanquished, and Thou art omnipotent forever. All hail Immanuel! He said a Guest was coming so we swept the temple bare, compiled our sacrifice reports and memorized each prayer. But while we tidied up the altar, dusted off the pews, a sound came from the city streets to smash our stained-glass views:.
A priest, we could anticipate; a prophet, we might tolerate; philosopher, evaluate; a prince, we could applaud. But who had thought to see the day when Potter climbed inside His clay, when Monarch in a manger lay, when Heaven walked the sod? You send us running home again to wash our windows clean, to sweep our floors and open doors, to break the tired routine. You drive us to the streets and squares to glimpse you passing by.
You beckon us to follow there— and wait for our reply. J C Ryle on Mt "Lo! I am with you always, even to the end of the age. It is impossible to conceive words more … comforting, strengthening, cheering, and sanctifying than these. Though left alone, like orphan children in a cold, unkind world, the disciples were not to think they were deserted.
No words could be imagined more consolatory to believers in every age of the world. Let all true Christians lay hold on these words and keep them in mind. Christ is " with us " always.
Christ is " with us ," wherever we go. He came to be "Emmanuel, God with us," when He first came into the world. He declares that He is ever "Emmanuel, God with us," when He comes to the end of His earthly ministry and is about to leave the world. He is… with us daily to pardon and forgive; with us daily to sanctify and strengthen; with us daily to defend and keep; with us daily to lead and to guide; with us in sorrow, and with us in joy; with us in sickness, and with us in health; with us in life, and with us in death; with us in time, and with us in eternity.
What stronger consolation could believers desire than this? Whatever happens, they at least are. Christ is ever with them. They may look into the grave, and say with David, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
We could ask nothing more. None have… such a King, such a Priest, such a constant Companion, and such an unfailing Friend, as the true servants of Christ. He has said it, and He will stand to it, "and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. The virgin birth of Jesus is a revealed truth, the importance of which no one can properly appraise.
Upon this fact hangs the whole plan of redemption. It tells us that God entered into human conditions, became Man without ceasing to be God, took our flesh and blood apart from sin, in order that He might by Himself effect purgation of sins by dying upon the cross.
With the denial of the virgin birth goes the denial of the true vicarious atonement of Christ. Joseph Damien went as a missionary to the Hawaiian Islands in In , he volunteered to minister at the leper colony on the island of Molokai. In Molokai there was no doctor, nurse, clergy or even a gravedigger. The island was a place of quarantine for people with leprosy.
Damien built a small chapel on the island but few came to worship. After twelve long years of unfruitful ministry Joseph Damien decided to leave Molokai in Standing on the pier waiting for his ship to take him home to his native Belgium, Damien looked down at his hands and noticed white spots—he had contracted leprosy.
The news of the missionary's disease spread quickly and hundreds of lepers gathered outside of Joseph Damien's hut. The people could identify with his pain and despair. The following Sunday the little chapel was filled to overflowing because the people knew that Joseph Damien could now identify with their condition.
In the next four years, before his death at age forty-nine, Joseph Damien shared Christ's love in a way he never could before his leprosy.
Jesus Christ humbled Himself to be a man. Though He did not sin, He took on the sins of the world. He became part of the human race so we could accept Him. Thank Christ today that He humbled Himself for you so you could be with Him. A virgin shall conceive. A human baby bearing undiminished deity. The glory of the nations, a light for all to see, and hope for all who will embrace this warm reality. In proportion as we love Jesus, will be our joy at the dignity conferred on Him, and the glory ascribed to Him.
It delights the spiritual mind to know that it cannot think too highly of Jesus, or ascribe too much to Him; and as it thinks over His names and titles, it rejoices to find that all honor and glory are given Him.
He is not only Jesus, the all-sufficient, ever-loving, and ever-living Savior — but He is Immanuel, "which is, being interpreted, God With Us.
His heart was set upon us from everlasting. He always loved us, and loved us with an infinite, consequently with an inconceivable, love. He delighted in us ages before he appeared among us. When creation-work was going on, He was rejoicing before His Father, and His delights were with the sons of men.
In the looking-glass of the eternal decrees He saw us, anticipated the time when he would come among us, and rested in His love to us.
In the covenant He engaged for us, in the promise He was pledged to us, in the types He was presented to us, in the predictions He appeared as though among us; and, at length, He literally became one with us. For "the children being partakers of flesh and blood, He likewise Himself also took part of the same. God WITH us. God in our nature; God in our world. God in our nature and in our world, as one of ourselves. This is the great mystery of godliness, "God was manifest in the flesh.
The body became the temple of Deity. The whole human nature became one with God. In that nature dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Thus God came as near to us, as He possibly could. He became one with us, dwelt among us, sympathized with us, spoke to us, wrought before us, suffered instead of us, and died to save us.
O mystery of mercy! O wonder of wonders! The man of Nazareth, who was despised and rejected of men, who suffered the just for the unjust, who was put to death in the flesh — was Immanuel, God with us! The babe of Bethlehem, sitting on Joseph's knee, or lying in Mary's bosom — was the true Almighty God! The youth in the temple, listening to the rabbis and asking them questions — was the Creator of the universe! The stranger, sitting on the edge of Jacob's well, and talking with the guilty Samaritan woman — was God over all, and blessed for evermore!
True, the Divinity did not become human, nor the humanity Divine; the natures were distinct — but were so united that the two became one person. The Divine nature was one with us. Man once aimed to be as God, and now God stoops to be as man. Jehovah Jesus is like us; he thinks, he speaks, he feels, he works, he suffers, he dies, as we do.
He enters, by experience, into all the peculiarities of our nature. In our afflictions, He is afflicted. He Himself bore our sicknesses, and carried our sorrows; He is therefore still touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
We do not conceive it possible for God to become more like us, than He has. He is God IN us. This was the effect of His being one with us. Our persons are the temples of God. God dwells in us — the affections are His throne, the heart is His home.
Thus God was for us before time, therefore He became God with us in time; being God with us, He became as much as possible like us; and having become like us, He takes up his abode in us. Thus God dwelleth in us — and we dwell in God. That we may think for Him, speak for Him, work for him, suffer for Him, and, if required, die for Him, as many have.
The Lord says, "I will be for you — and you shall be for Me. Jesus came to earth — that we might go to heaven. He tabernacled in a tent among men — that we might dwell with God in a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. O glorious mystery! I live — because Jesus died; I shall be happy — because Jesus suffered; I shall dwell with God — because Jesus dwelt with men. Not divinities, not deified; but like God in holiness, in happiness, in glory.
My will running parallel with His will; my heart beating in unison with His heart, and having the same object in view, and aiming at the same end. As God became as much like me as possible — so I shall be as much like God as possible.
That we may be IN God. Hence Jesus prayed, "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me.
May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me! What can it be to be in God? Get a writing assignment done or a free consulting with qualified academic writer. Read also What is critical thinking example? Why Immanuel Wallerstein's classification is preferred by sociologist? Who is known as prophet of French Revolution? How do you rotate 90 degrees clockwise?
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Merry Christmas! Danielle Bernock is an international, award-winning author, coach, and speaker who helps people embrace their value and heal their souls through the power of the love of God. A long-time follower of Christ, Danielle lives with her husband in Michigan near her adult children and grandchildren. Share this. Danielle Bernock Crosswalk. Why the Different Spelling With the original text of the Bible not being in English, it must be translated.
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