Jesus: "God With Us"
All this happened in order to fulfill what the Lord declared through the prophet: "A virgin will conceive and bear a son, and he shall be called Emmanuel," a name which means "God with us." When he woke Joseph did as the angel of the Lord had directed him; he took Mary home to be his wife, but had no intercourse with her until her son was born. And he named the child Jesus. Matt. 1:22-25, REB.
The first Gospel proclaims Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. He is Emmanuel or "God with us" (Matt. 1:23). That is perhaps the greatest claim in the New Testament. And the recognition that Jesus is truly the Son of God is a central point in each of the four Gospels.
Matthew 1:23 does not present Jesus as merely a great teacher. For Matthew, Jesus is no guru or seer, nor is He God's messenger in the sense that Islamic believers view Muhammed as the spokesperson of Allah. No! Matthew is empathetic: Jesus is "God with us." Christianity is built upon that essential claim. It cannot be discarded without totally abandoning the faith.
Nor does Matthew present Jesus as the God above us. The Old Testament often pictures God as above humanity. He is the God of the unapproachable Most Holy Place. But from the very first chapter of the New Testament, we begin to get another view, a fuller revelation, of the Old Testament God. He is no longer the Deity above us but is present, through Jesus, as "God with us."
Jesus, through His preaching, teaching, and healing acts of kindness, becomes the fullest revelation of God's character. "Anyone," Jesus claimed, "who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9, NIV). And the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature" (Heb. 1:2, RSV). The fourth Gospel fills out the picture when it noted that "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son" (John 3:16, RSV).
In that only Son we have "God with us," the Son of David and the heir of David's throne and of God's promises to David and Abraham. We have the Messiah of God, the child born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, One whose mission is to "save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21). That divine Person is the theme of all the New Testament.
And He ought to be the theme and center of our lives. Through Jesus we need to be with God just as much as He is God with us. Today is the day to reorder our priorities. Today is the day for me to get with God and let Him be the center of my life in a new way.
All this happened in order to fulfill what the Lord declared through the prophet: "A virgin will conceive and bear a son, and he shall be called Emmanuel," a name which means "God with us." When he woke Joseph did as the angel of the Lord had directed him; he took Mary home to be his wife, but had no intercourse with her until her son was born. And he named the child Jesus. Matt. 1:22-25, REB.
The first Gospel proclaims Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. He is Emmanuel or "God with us" (Matt. 1:23). That is perhaps the greatest claim in the New Testament. And the recognition that Jesus is truly the Son of God is a central point in each of the four Gospels.
Matthew 1:23 does not present Jesus as merely a great teacher. For Matthew, Jesus is no guru or seer, nor is He God's messenger in the sense that Islamic believers view Muhammed as the spokesperson of Allah. No! Matthew is empathetic: Jesus is "God with us." Christianity is built upon that essential claim. It cannot be discarded without totally abandoning the faith.
Nor does Matthew present Jesus as the God above us. The Old Testament often pictures God as above humanity. He is the God of the unapproachable Most Holy Place. But from the very first chapter of the New Testament, we begin to get another view, a fuller revelation, of the Old Testament God. He is no longer the Deity above us but is present, through Jesus, as "God with us."
Jesus, through His preaching, teaching, and healing acts of kindness, becomes the fullest revelation of God's character. "Anyone," Jesus claimed, "who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9, NIV). And the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature" (Heb. 1:2, RSV). The fourth Gospel fills out the picture when it noted that "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son" (John 3:16, RSV).
In that only Son we have "God with us," the Son of David and the heir of David's throne and of God's promises to David and Abraham. We have the Messiah of God, the child born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, One whose mission is to "save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21). That divine Person is the theme of all the New Testament.
And He ought to be the theme and center of our lives. Through Jesus we need to be with God just as much as He is God with us. Today is the day to reorder our priorities. Today is the day for me to get with God and let Him be the center of my life in a new way.
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