IMMANUEL (OCTOBER 20)

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14).

ONE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS OF THE GOSPEL IS THE INCARNATION. From the Latin for “flesh,” the Incarnation means that God took fleshly form. In order to deal with human sin at its deepest level, God allowed Himself to be born into the world as a human being. In the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God was both true God and true man. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

In Isaiah 7:14, the birth of One who could rightly be called Immanuel (“God with us”) was foretold. This is one of the many “messianic” prophecies in the Old Testament, predictions that anticipated the coming of a great king (Messiah means “Anointed One”) who would inaugurate the kingdom of God and rule with divine sovereignty. In addition to Isaiah 7:14, we think of other texts like Psalm 2:1-12; 110:1-7; Isaiah 52:13-53:12; and dozens more.

One of the solid evidences of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah is the fulfillment in His life and death of every one of these messianic prophecies. They are fulfilled in such minute detail, and so many centuries after the prophecies were made, no one person could have arranged his life in such a way as to fulfill them all. How could Jesus have decided to be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), be of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10), be a descendant of David (Isaiah 9:6,7; 11:1), be put to death in such a gruesome manner (Psalm 22:1-18), and then be brought back from the grave (Psalm 16:10)? No one merely pretending to be the Messiah could have done all these things.

But in regard to “God with us” in Isaiah 7:14, it is an important part of the gospel that God did, in fact, enter our world and live among us as He did. He loved us and saved us, not from a distance but by becoming one of us. Jesus, as God in the flesh, is our Lord, but He is also our Brother and Friend. We worship and adore Him knowing that He knows what it is like to be “us.” How could such a thing as this be possible? We do not know; we simply give thanks that our salvation has been wrought by “God with us.”

Jesus, name above all names: Beautiful Savior, glorious Lord,
Emmanuel, God is with us, Blessed Redeemer, Living Word.
(Naida Hearn)