On the third day of Christmas, my Bible said to me that Jesus would be born of a virgin and become Immanuel - God with us.
Today's Reading: Isaiah 7:10-17
Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: 11 “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.” 12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” 13 And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? 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. 15 He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted. 17 The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria!”
Devotional Thoughts - God With Us
The prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 is one of the best known of the Christmas story. A virgin will conceive and bear a son and that son will be "Immanuel" - which means "God with us." We are most familiar with this passage from it's New Testament setting when it is clearly applied to Christ, the virgin-born Son of God. Bot when we look at it in context here, it becomes a little confusing.
Like many prophecies, it has a dual fulfillment. The first was the OT fulfillment, the specific focus of Isaiah's prophecy. Then, during the time of Jesus, the prophecy was applied in a more powerful way to Christ. In Isaiah's day, Pekah and Remaliah were threatening Judah and King Ahaz was scared. God gave him a sign. He would marry a young woman, a virgin maiden, and she would conceive and bear a son who would represent the fact that God was with him, with Israel, and would not abandon them to the wicked kings Pekah and Remaliah. This prophecy came true.
But this rescue of Israel from two evil kings bent on its destruction foreshadowed the greatest act of rescue God would undertake. A virgin would conceive again, but this time it would not be because she married a prophet but because of the miraculous power of God. This baby boy would be a deliverer, God incarnate, the promised Messiah, the Savior of the world.
The first baby, in Isaiah's day, was a symbol of the fact that God was with Israel. The baby that would be born in the second fulfillment, the greater fulfillment, was no symbol. He was literal! God with us. God in a human body. The Creator becoming part of his creation. God did not send us a set of principles to live by, a list of rules to follow, a series of rituals to perform. He did not even give us an example to follow. He gave us himself. He came to us. He became one of us.
And because God came to us we can go to him! We have access to God through Jesus Christ. God became a man so that we could become the children of God. He left heaven so that we could go to heaven. He took on our nature so that we could share in his.
Thank you, Father, for sending your Son - not just rules, or religion, but Jesus himself. Thank you for Immanuel.
Think and Pray
Reflect on the fact that God gave himself to us - the greatest act of love. Christmas is God's great gift of love to the world.
Carol of the Day
O come, O come, EmmanuelAnd ransom captive IsraelThat mourns in lonely exile hereUntil the Son of God appearRejoice! Rejoice! EmmanuelShall come to thee, O Israel.
(By the way, have you ever wondered why the word is Immanuel in some places and in others it is Emmanuel? It's simple. Immanuel is a transliteration of the Hebrew word in Isaiah which means "with us is God." That word was also taken into the Greek New Testament as a transliteration. Some then use the Greek spelling and transliterate it Emmanuel. The word is pronounced the same and means the same either one. One is Hebrew, the other is a Greek spelling of the Hebrew word.)
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