Consider Jesus: Emmanuel

Let us continue to “consider Jesus.” (Heb. 3:1) 

Matt. 1:21-23“And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, 23 “‘BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD, AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,’” which translated means, “‘GOD WITH US.’”

Isaiah 7 records Judah fighting against both Syria and Isreal. King Ahaz was tempted to call on Assyria to relieve Judah by having them attack from the north. Isaiah assures him God will be deliver him and uses the symbolic names of children to make God’s point. He took his own son, named “Shear-jashub” (“a remnant shall return”) to assure him that the two kings will not succeed (Isa. 7:3-9). Then, to assure Ahaz that the first prophecy was true, he gave another, saying that a virgin (young maiden) will have a child, named “Immanuel” (“God with us”) and before that boy knows the choice of right and wrong, these enemies will be defeated. (Isa. 7:14-16) It might take a few years, long enough for a girl to marry, conceive and carry a child, and that child grow, but it would still be a little one when the victory God gave was complete. 

While this prophecy surely came to pass in Ahaz’s day, likely with the marriage and motherhood of a young woman known to the prophet and the king, we don’t know of its particulars. But it is the second fulfillment of this prophecy that is of most known to us. 

Here is Jesus, appearing in the world as “God with us” in the fullest sense possible. God as with Ahaz, and is with us too, but not in theJohn tells clearly that He is God “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (Jn. 1:1,14)