Matthew 1:20-23 NKJV
“God With Us”
The Bible teaches us that Mary and Joseph were a God-fearing couple. They were not perfect in any way, and yet God used them for His glory! Our lesson in St. Matthew begins at an Angel of the Lord that St. Luke lets us know is Gabriel, who after revealing to Mary the will of God concerning Jesus then comes to Joseph in a dream. But both Mary & Joseph have their doubts… In Luke 1:34 Mary asked the angel, "How can this be, since I do not know a man?" And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.” In Matthew 1:19 When Joseph hears that Mary is pregnant, he begins thinking about calling off the marriage quietly… But while he thought about these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.”
The Incarnation of God (She Will Bring Forth A Son And You Shall Call His Name Jesus) Incarnation is a theological term for the coming of God's Son into the world as a human being. Matthew says “So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.” What did the prophet Isaiah say? Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah goes on to say in 9:6a For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given… The Angel says, “and you shall call his name JESUS.” The Birth of Jesus Changed Everything… The calendar of time and history changed when Jesus was born. We mark time by BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini translated “In the year of our Lord.”). I know the world has their reason for using BCE/CE but when you know your history its always about Jesus! John said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. The Incarnation is based on clear references in the New Testament to Jesus as God "in the flesh" Verse 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus participated fully in all that it means to live a human life. But the apostle Paul declared, "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" Colossians 2:9. The capacity of Jesus to reveal God to us and to bring salvation depends upon His being fully God and fully man at the same time. C. S. Lewis, speaking in 1942 demands us to answer the question of “whether Jesus is a Liar, a Lunatic or our Lord.” He said, and I quote, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. . . Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.” (Mere Christianity 1952, 55-56) And because He is Incarnate, we have a High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses! (Hebrews 4:15).
The Intention of God (For He Will Save His People From Their Sins) John 3:17 says, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Jesus is our Savior because we needed SALVATION! You See If…
• our greatest need had been information, God would have sent a educator.
• our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent a scientist.
• our greatest need had been medicine, God would have sent a physician.
• our greatest need had been money, God would have sent an economist.
• our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent an entertainer.
• our greatest need had been military, God would have sent a soldier.
• our greatest need had been justice, God would have sent a judge.
• our greatest need had been legislation, God would have sent a politician.
• But, our greatest need was salvation and therefore God sent a Savior!
He will save! The intent of God has never changed since the beginning of time. Paul says in Galatians 4:4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law… Isaiah (9:6b) says... and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. And because He is Intentional, our salvation is sure!
The Immanence of God (And They Shall Call His Name Emmanuel, Which Being Interpreted Is, God With Us) God’s immanence refers to His presence within His creation. A belief in God’s immanence holds that God is present in all of creation, while remaining distinct from it. In other words, there is no place where God is not. His sovereign control extends everywhere simultaneously. He is in fact Omnipresent – All places at once! There are some who believe that everything is God, making Him equal with His creation and unable to act upon it (Pantheists). There are others who hold that God is distinct from His creation but deny that He plays an active role in it (Deists). Contrary to these false views of God, the Bible says that God is both different from His creation and actively upholding it. Colossians 1:16 is the biblical standard for God’s Immanence, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” He is Immanuel, “God with us” And because He is Immanent, we are never alone, “even to the end of the age.”
