This was written about 700 years before Christ and was a prophecy given by Isaiah the prophet to Ahaz, the king of Judah. While it is part of a larger prophecy concerning Ahaz, Judah and Assyria, it also served as a Messianic prophecy because it foretold the coming of God Himself to mankind.
The Jewish people had longed for the coming of the Messiah, the King of Righteousness, for centuries. The Messiah was the fulfillment of the hopes and prayers of many people in many generations who sought their Heavenly King to rescue/deliver them in the midst of a very broken world wrought with sin and great oppression. Jeremiah 23: 5-6 states: "'The days are coming,' declares the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness."
Matthew, the writer of the book of the same name, repeats the prophecy (Isaiah 7:14) in Matthew 1:23 to illustrate that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah that was promised. The name 'Jesus' means "God is salvation" and the name 'Immanuel' means "God with us" which speaks of Jesus being both God and man. He was fully man so he could share in our humanity and that by His death He would destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For this reason He had to be made like us in every way, in order that He would become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He would make atonement for the sins of the people (Hebrews 2:14-15, 17-18). He was also fully God because He was, and is, the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word (Hebrews 1:3).
The Old Testament believers prior to Christ were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised (Hebrews11:39). But for us today, who know Him as our Lord and Savior, we have the fulfillment of what they hoped for, which is the presence of God with us!
Jesus is our Immanuel and we therefore have the riches of God's grace lavished upon us with all wisdom and understanding (Ephesians 1:8). Also,..."because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace [we] have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-7).
Not only is God with us, He is also in us by the person and power of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1:13-14 says: "Having believed, we were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a guarantee of our inheritance in God" (Ephesians 1:13b-14a). The fact that each of us as believers has the Holy Spirit is a guarantee that we belong to God, that we have every spiritual blessing in Him (Ephesians 1:3), that our future hope of eternity with Him is very real and will be fulfilled because of His faithfulness. What a hope! What a joy! What a life we have in Him!
May God open the eyes of our hearts that they may be enlightened in order that we would know the hope to which He has called us, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe (Ephesians 1:18-19).
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses (the Old Testament believers who hoped and prayed for the coming of Immanuel), let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith..." (Hebrews 12:1-2).
Jesus is our Immanuel who in ages past was the unrevealed mystery of God, but who has now been made known to us as God in us and amongst us, our hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).
No comments:
Post a Comment