God with us. That’s what Emmanuel means… and it was one of the most important names given to Jesus Christ upon His arrival into humanity.
And as always when God gives a name it has a great meaning.
Isa 7:14 "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
Mat 1:23 "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us."
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"Adoration of the Shepherds" by Gerard van
Honthorst, 1622
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The word “incarnation” , which we used above , literally means “in the flesh”.
Many times I’ve tried to think of something analogous to God becoming a man – but every analogy seems to fail. A man to a dog? A start but not even close.
C.S. Lewis said this of trying to comprehend the Incarnation…
"For certainly no seed ever fell from so fair a tree into so dark and cold a soil as would furnish more than a faint analogy to this huge descent and re-ascension in which God dredged the salt and oozy bottom of Creation."
For we know for certain that a man named Jesus existed. Although the four Gospels contain most of what we know about Jesus and what he did and said – and we know that these have been proven historically reliable - Jesus is also mentioned in secular works and there is really no legitimate debate in any circle as to whether He lived.
There is neither a question, if you read the Gospels, that He claimed to be the Son of God. And I suppose this is where some folks get hung up …
A Virgin birth?
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Paper on wood Nativity scene from 1750, Milan, presenting a
tender image of Jesus.
At this point you may be scoffing or simply doubting the science of it all. For the latter – fair enough. But all that is needed for this to be a real possibility is the belief in the miraculous.
If the miraculous can happen, then this could have happened.
Of course many claim the miraculous, and I do not intend to go into the apologetics of this specific miracle – but we must always ask ourselves “What becomes of said miracle?” Does it flash in the pan and then die out ? Does it ever really affect the real world? Do the preceding, surrounding and proceeding events of the miracle ever lend credibility to its claim?
As for me, I believe Jesus when He said he was the Son of God and that is why I am thrilled to meditate on this idea of my God becoming a man – retaining His almighty power and purity – but inhabiting and experiencing humanity first hand.
Emmanuel – o how sweet that sound. God with us.
This year my wife and I were blessed with a child and I watched that child grow in the womb and eventually burst into this world. It was violent and messy and more beautiful than I could have imagined.
And now I think – God did this? He subjected Himself to this?
From a zygote to an embryo to a fetus to a baby to a child to a teenager to a man – Jesus was all of these things or rather, all of these stages of humanity.
"What Child is this?" The hymnist cried.
"The divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needed to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child... The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets."
J. I. Packer
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The boy Jesus. Elaine Golden http://www.ignitumtoday.com/2011/09/11/the-child-jesus/
Hbr 2:17 Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice (Propitiation) that would take away the sins of the people.
Hbr 2:18 Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested. NLT
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Hbr 4:15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Hbr 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. NKJV
Notice the phrases “in every respect” and “in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin”.
Could it be?
God knows what it is like to feel the sting of temptation? The trials of humanity?
Every temptation ? Every trial?
He knows what it is like to be as helpless and dependent as an infant, to be obedient to earthly parents as a child, to struggle with all the confusion of adolescence?
He knows all the human hurts of love and the lack thereof?
The depth of pain at the loss of a loved one? ( John 11:35)
The stress and sometimes, dreariness, of the daily grind?
The physical weaknesses of exhaustion, hunger, poverty, homelessness and so on?
Without being mentally ill Himself, He yet knows their suffering and feels their pain?
Without so much as a dirty or ungodly thought, He still knows all the struggles men and women have with their sexuality?
Even a cursory reading of the Gospels will tell you that indeed Jesus has felt the relentless cruelty of “the bully”…. Both in mockery and physical assault, to a degree we know nothing of.
Do we struggle with self-esteem and body image issues?
We often have that “anglicized” image of Jesus in our minds – the tall, blonde, blue eyed version. But the Bible tells us that there is no special physical beauty to Him, He was very average in appearances.
It was what was inside that changed history…
Isa 53:2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him
In Matthew chapter 8, verses 23-27, we have the account of Jesus in one moment sleeping in the haul of a boat and in the next commanding the wind and the waves to be calm.
Both weary and Almighty? What Man is this?
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| Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane before His betrayal and crucifixion |
And we have not even spoken of the spiritual yet. Oh, the sorrow and pain He suffered in Gethsemane and then the cross – forsaken, bearing all the wrath against humanity’s sin. He knew this wrath was justified – but the sin was not His.
Every sentence ever handed down to any man, woman and child – and those to come – He took, He served, He paid.
He ransomed us.
And this is love.
The Incarnation takes singer
Joan Osborne’s query,
“What if God were one of us?”
to a whole new level.
As one preacher put it…
“ The Incarnation is God’s Grace made evident and obvious. People matter.
Life is sacred.
Men, women and children are worth the greatest sacrifice, the Supreme Effort, the Ultimate Gift….”
And it is , of course, of the utmost importance to understand that although Jesus felt the sting of temptation and trial – He did not sin, not even once in thought or deed.
As Charles Spurgeon said “Jesus entered into all that men did except their sins.”
In understanding how God became a man, we must understand the theology of the Bible in saying that Jesus Christ was not 2 different people – one deity and one human – Jesus was indeed both fully God and fully man all at once.
Nor was His Deity diluted by His humanity – for Jesus bore the full nature of both the Divine and the human in one Person… and according to the Bible, He still does to this day and will forever.
Theologians have simply put it this way:
Remaining what He was, He became what He was not.
"The glory of the incarnation is that it presents to our adoring gaze not a humanized God or a deified man, but a true God-man - one who is all that God is and at the same time all that man is: one on whose almighty arm we can rest, and to whose human sympathy we can appeal." Benjamin B. Warfield
Have you ever wondered what God is like?
What if He were one of us?
Read about Jesus this Holiday season and find out – that was the whole point of the Incarnation and it is the whole point of Christmas…
"....who being the brightness of His (God's) glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.." Hebrews 1:3
(* The phrase "express image" is the Greek word Charakter from which we get "Character")
He is the image of the invisible God……
Col 1:15
May God richly bless you all.
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When God the Almighty was making mankind through His own Word, He perceived that they, owing to the limitation of their nature, could not of themselves have any knowledge of their Artificer, the Incorporeal and Uncreated. He took pity on them, therefore, and did not leave them destitute of the knowledge of Himself, lest their very existence should prove purposeless.
For of what use is existence to the creature if it cannot know its Maker? How could men be reasonable beings if they had no knowledge of the Word and Reason of the Father, through Whom they had received their being? They would be no better than the beasts, had they no knowledge save of earthly things; and why should God have made them at all, if He had not intended them to know Him? But, in fact, the good God has given them a share in His own Image, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and has made even themselves after the same Image and Likeness.
Athanisius, 4th century scholar and early church father
