Matthew 1:23 The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel – which means, “God with us.”
Read Isaiah Chapters 6 and 7: This is where the prophecy of Jesus being born from a virgin appears. King Ahaz is being told not to worry or be afraid to stand firm on his faith, or not stand at all. There are two kings planning to attack Jerusalem, but God tells Ahaz that this will never happen. He says that before Immanuel is born both the kingdom of Damascus and the kingdom of Samaria will be in ruins, for more information about this invasion see 2Kings 15 and 16.
Also note that in King James the name Syria is used in the place of Aram. Looking into a bible dictionary we find that Aram and Syria are interchangeable. The word Aram is the name of the youngest son of Shem who was one of Noah’s son’s making Aram his grandson. Aram was the founder of the Aramaean nation and so the country of Syria is rightly called Aram, though the same Hebrew word means Mesopotamia and Syria. The designation Syria as an abbreviation of Assyria and came into common usage after the conquests of Alexander the Great. During Ahaz’ time there were actually two separate countries/nations Assyria and Syria.
In the story of King Ahaz, God was with Ahaz and God had Isaiah give a prophecy of when God would be with us in the flesh. The prophecy was given to the people of the House of David. Obviously, this part of the prophecy wasn’t taking place that day or being fulfilled in Ahaz’ life time. Jesus wasn’t born for several hundred years after this, but it was a promise from God, and these people knew that God keeps his promises.
The thing about prophecies in the Bible is that God almost always gives a “short term – in their life time” prophecy whenever he is giving a long term “somewhere in the future, but not necessarily in your life time” prophecy. One reason for this is to show that the prophet is legitimately a prophet and can be trusted that if he gives a prophecy it will eventually come true.
In this case the short term prophecy was directly to King Ahaz and his people that God is with them in spirit “right now” and will take care of their problem…all they have to do is to wait on the Lord to act…they just need to wait faithfully. The second half of the prophecy is that later on God will be with his people, literally, “in the flesh.” Walking among them.
Sometimes, I don’t think that, as Christians, we really give enough thought to the idea of God walking around in the flesh and what that tells us about God. He didn’t just send Jesus to “die” for us…he also sent him to “live” with us. So that we would know exactly who God is, and what God believes is the best form of worship, and so that we can have constant communion with him….each and every day of our lives.
We could never reach up to God…so God came down to us…isn’t that just the most awesome thing? Whenever, I think of it…how deep is his love for us that he would enter the hardship of living in a physical body with its daily needs and aches and pains just so that he can get close to us? I know, you are thinking, but how can God house himself in a human body? Well, I don’t know the specific answer to that question, except to just acknowledge that He is God..by the very nature of being God…shouldn’t he be able to do anything? If there is something that God cannot do, then He would not be God, would he?!!
We do not need to know how God does everything…we just need to know that he can and he does…God is able and he is with us! What more can we ask for in life?
Charlene's Road 