Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”
Isaiah 7:14
Immanuel – it means God with us. This is quite a striking statement all by itself, but it is even more remarkable when we see that in the previous chapter Isaiah was given a vision of God – and what a God He saw!
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”
Isaiah 6:1-3
It is a vision that matches the description of God given by Isaiah later in his prophecy:
For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place . . .”
Isaiah 57:15
The two stand-out features about God in these passages are His highness and His holiness. There is no one bigger than God, and there is no one better than God. And yet, God came to be with us.
With us in our smallness
Such a God certainly didn’t need us. We had nothing to offer. But as the carol puts it:
He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall;
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.
To the high and mighty in this world, you are unknown and insignificant. But to the highest and mightiest, you are known and significant. He didn’t ignore us, and when He came, He came to the poorest of places in the humblest of circumstances to show that He is for everyone.
With us in our sinfulness
If it is hard to understand that one so high would come to be with people so small, then it is impossible to understand that one so holy would come to be with people so sinful. The word holy means separate. God is distant from all that is evil. He can have no fellowship with darkness and can make no compromise with sin. So, you would think then that He would have to keep His distance from us and remain far away. But He came to us. He wasn’t ignoring our sin, but came to deal with it. By becoming human, He could become accountable for our sin, and that’s what happened on the cross – “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3). He paid the penalty on the cross, and rose from the dead, so that our sins can be forgiven.
I quoted from Isaiah 57:15 earlier. The verse goes on to say this:
“I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit . . .”
The High and Holy One says He dwells in the high and holy place with . . . Well? Whom do you think God shares His high and holy place with? The verse tells us it’s the one who is contrite and humble. A contrite person knows he isn’t holy; a humble person knows he isn’t high. God is saying He will dwell with those who know they aren’t fit for His presence.
Those who admit their sinfulness and smallness, and accept Immanuel as their only qualification – God dwells with them in this life, and they will dwell with God in the next.
