God With Us

Text Matthew 1:18-25

Matthew 1:18–25 ESV

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Albert Victor Nicholas Louis Francis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma was a British statesman, naval officer, colonial administrator and close relative of the British royal family. Mountbatten was born in the United Kingdom to the prominent Battenberg family. He was a maternal uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a second cousin of King George VI. He joined the Royal Navy during the First World War and was appointed Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command, in the Second World War. and the last viceroy of India.

In August 1979, he was killed in his yacht by an IRA bomb. His funeral service was attended by 1,800 invited guests. Due to the injuries they sustained in the explosion, Mountbatten's elder daughter and son-in-law, the now 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma and Lord Brabourne, and grandson, Timothy Knatchbull, were absent from the funeral. His younger daughter, Lady Pamela Hicks, and her family led the Mountbatten family, Queen Elizabeth II and the entire British royal family attended, as did numerous members of European royal families. It was the largest gathering of royalty in London since the funeral of King George VI in 1952.

On the day of his funeral in Westminster Abbey, some members of the Burma Star Association (veterans from the Burma War) were asked by a BBC reporter what they thought of him. “He was the greatest Englishman since Lord Nelson,” said one.

When asked what were the qualities of his greatness?

“He was one of us.”

“He brought himself down to our level, and became one of us.”

In Isaiah, the Prophet was speaking of a coming Deliverer for Israel. The immediate context was a promise of deliverance from the Assyrians at that time, but he was pointing past this present deliverance to a greater deliverance. He was promising a Deliverer who would ultimately deliver Israel from the sin and death brought about by sin.

And who was that deliverer?

The Deliverer would be born of a virgin

This is different than anything God had ever done before or since. The child would be born of a virgin.

This is not like other religions like the story of Zeus where he would have intercourse with humans and give birth to demigods, half-human, half-god like Hercules. No, the woman was a virgin. This means that the birth was miraculous. God's spirit would overcome her and she would give birth to a child not in the natural way of a man with a woman.

God was doing something different, something special.

God’s promise was that when he did what he was going to do it would be apparent.

But the significance is also found in the fact that the son would fulfill God’s promise given to Eve in Genesis.

Genesis 3:15 LSB

And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Notice what God says to Eve. “Between your seed and her seed...” This is key.

The woman’s offspring is referred to by the singular noun seed, and that seed is immediately followed by the singular pronouns he and his. So, the seed of the woman is individualized. There is one Seed in particular who is to come. Thus the tempter will be countered by the sole Savior.

Also, Genesis 3:15 speaks of the seed of a woman rather than the seed of a man. This unusual wording could indicate that the woman’s offspring would not have an earthly father. This verse is certainly fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who was begotten of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin.

Luke 1:34–35

He would be a Son

Notice God said this child would be a son. This is also significant. Let us not miss this, because this is incredibly important. The fact that he was a son focuses on the fact that Jesus would be a New Adam. It was through Adam's sin that sin entered the world. Thus, what we needed was a New Adam.

Why, because we learned in Romans that we inherited a sin nature from our father Adam.

Romans 5:12 ESV

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Jesus inherited genetic material from Mary (to be fully human, i.e., descendant of Adam to become the Last Adam) but not from Joseph, therefore, original sin must pass through the father to the offspring. This allows Jesus to avoid original sin.

Jesus was born perfect, without the blemish of a sin nature like ours. What we needed was more than a good man, what we needed was a new Adam, one who like us was born of woman, but unlike us was free from sin and who would live a sinless life in our stead.

He would Be Immanuel, God With Us.

Finally, the one prophesied would be Immanuel. The name Immanuel comes from three Hebrew Words. Im - with Manu - Us and El- God. Thus the name literally means "God is with us". God's promise was that through this Son, born of a virgin, that God would fulfill his promise and reversal of the Curse in Genesis 3.

Genesis 3 ends with one of the most heartbreaking verses in all of scripture.

Genesis 3:22–24 ESV

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

In that passage, God drove man from his presence, dividing the divine from his creation. We have remained in this state to this time. But God promised Israel:

Jeremiah 31:33–34 ESV

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Revelation 21:3 ESV

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

What a glorious truth. In Christ, all the promises of Isaiah 7:14 are fulfilled. Christ truly became one of us so that he could save all his people from their sins.