Our Savior has many names: Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace,
Almighty God, Everlasting Father, and Jesus Christ, to name a few (cf. Isaiah
9:6). All of these names are fitting for our Savior, describing him in his true
glory and his purpose. Immanuel is among these appropriate names, perfectly
describing who Jesus is and what he has done for us. Immanuel, or Emmanuel, is
a Hebrew name meaning “God with us.” This name is fitting of our Lord God in
general. He is always with us in times of joy and elation, as well as in times
of pain and suffering. But its meaning goes deeper than God’s omnipresence.
Matthew’s Gospel reports how Joseph was encouraged by an angel of
the Lord to stay with Mary, despite the fact that the coming child was not Joseph’s
own. The angel said: “What is conceived in her is from the Holy
Spirit” (Matthew 1:20). Thus the child
is of a dual nature, being both true man and true God. Matthew noted that this is
the fulfillment of the words of the prophet Isaiah. The LORD had commanded Ahaz
to ask for a sign, but Ahaz had refused to “test the LORD,” as he put it. A sign was given nonetheless: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14).
Christ’s dual nature gives the name Immanuel an even greater
meaning, as it is central to our salvation and the fulfillment of many Old
Testament prophecies. At the same time, the dual nature goes beyond our understanding.
Ever since the Christian church began, it has faced a great challenge in
explaining Christ’s dual nature. How can a person be both a human being among
us, and yet be God over us at the same time?
The key to seeing what Christ’s nature is and why it is important
lies in the Old Testament. In order for God to fulfill his promise of salvation
to Adam and Eve and their descendants, he chose to conquer Satan through their
offspring. Thus, only someone who was true man could defeat the devil. The only way to be saved in God’s eyes was by
the perfect fulfillment of his law, but no man was able to do this. So “the Son of God appeared … to destroy the
devil’s work” (1 John 3:8) – and he did so by his perfect life, his death, and
resurrection in our place.
We take caution in explaining Christ’s nature, lest we lead
others to a wrong idea of who Christ is. If we treat Christ as if only God and
not man, we take away from the promise of the virgin birth, and discredit
everything that Christ did on earth by claiming it never happened as actual
events. However, if we regard Christ only as a man, we discredit his death and
resurrection and make him out to be just a good prophet through whom God
worked. When Christ is only regarded as one or the other, he is not truly “God
with us.”
God has always been with us, even before the birth of Immanuel. It
was this birth as a baby boy that fulfilled the prophecies of the Old
Testament. Christ then completed the
task of gaining salvation for all mankind through his death and resurrection. Therefore,
we take great comfort and rejoice in the birth of our Savior, and his
willingness to become one with us in order to carry out our salvation.
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