How is it that "God with us" came to be with us?

“Immanuel” – Part 1

(Matthew 1:18, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, December 12, 2010)

18 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.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ...

The coming of Jesus Christ was very good news for mankind. That news was announced to shepherds in the vicinity of Bethlehem who were keeping watch over their flocks by night. Angels sang about it in the sky and sent the shepherds into the town to find the baby wrapped up in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. But several months before that moment, an angel of the Lord appeared to Mary, and an angel appeared to Joseph to explain what was happening. Even these announcements were not the first indications of Messiah. This was just the way that the birth of Jesus Christ took place. Centuries before these moments, God had revealed in many times and through many ways, that he would send salvation to mankind in the form of a person.

One of those times and ways was through a very particular prophecy given through Isaiah hundreds of years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But that little prophecy would not have seemed extraordinary at the time it was given. The Lord was dealing with a very wicked king of Judah named Ahaz. God told the king through Isaiah the prophet, that the Lord would have mercy on Judah who was being attacked by some formidable enemies. To prove His point to Ahaz, God told Isaiah to have Ahaz pick a sign that God would then perform for him so that Ahaz would know of the certainty of the Lord's mercy and deliverance for Judah.

Ahaz refused. He would not cooperate. Not only that, but he cloaked his refusal in words of spiritual superiority. He said he would not put God to the test. So God chose the sign of mercy and deliverance Himself. He said, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” That was not necessarily a very remarkable sign. A young girl will have a baby boy. What makes it so special are two very important facts. First, the maiden or “virgin” will have a baby and will actually remain a virgin. Therefore she will conceive a child in a completely unprecedented way. Second, the identity of the child will be “Immanuel,” which means “God with us.”

We have been waiting for God to come and save us. We have been waiting for Jesus, whose name means “Jehovah saves.” We have been waiting for the Christ, which means “The Anointed One” or “The Messiah.” We have been waiting for the Savior of Mankind who would be God and Man. We were hoping that God would be with us.” We are extremely interested in any Bible passage that begins with the words, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.”

The announcement of the sign of the virgin birth through Isaiah to King Ahaz is understated and easily missed until it happens. The events that have led to the coming of Jesus Christ are monumental. First among them is the determination by the God of creation to receive glory not only through the display of His perfect justice against evil, but also through His perfect love and mercy for those that He loved from before the foundation of the world. The second event is the coming of sin through Adam, and the entrance with it of death and the resulting announcement of a solution to this massive problem of futility through One who is called the “Seed of the woman.” The actual coming of Jesus is the third event. First, God decrees to bring about His perfect eternal justice and mercy; second, Man sins; and third, Jesus Christ is born.

When his mother Mary...

Now we need to consider how God brought about this third event after His decree and the assault of sin. How was it that Jesus Christ was born? That is a very important question. Many people could have been confused by the ambiguity of the Hebrew in Isaiah 7 to think that the sign to the wicked Ahaz that God had chosen was deliberately no sign at all. A young woman will have a baby boy. Maybe some few people could have seen from the various meanings of the word “virgin” and the announcement of the name “Immanuel” that God would be the baby and that no other father would be required for a sign-baby who would be called “God with us.” That is possible, though not very likely. But no one could have expected that the virgin would be someone like the young, poor, Mary from Galilee who was betrothed to a young, poor, man from Galilee, Joseph, the carpenter. No one could have predicted that. After hundreds of years of waiting, and passing by many other descendants of King David, to whom God had promised that one of his descendants would be a king forever, God chose this one woman to be the mother of Immanuel with no explanation as to why He went so low in society to find a vessel to hold the little one who would be the Messiah. The birth of Jesus Christ took place that way, and that has to mean something to us.

Despite, the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, and even all the miracles of Jesus, all of this only came together after this baby did what He came to do. He died on a cross in lowly disgrace. Again, that has to mean something to us, that this is the way that heaven was won for you, not only through an unknown virgin bearing a child, but through a great man being despised, rejected, and killed with the most humbling method that the powerful Roman Empire had at its disposal. It would take the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the wonderful gift to the church of the Holy Spirit for the church to be able to look back at Isaiah 7 and say, “Yes, a virgin, really a virgin, a lowly virgin, Mary the poor Galilean, betrothed to the carpenter Joseph, that virgin, before she and Joseph came together in intimate love, that Mary was pregnant with the baby.”

She was found to be with child...

She was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. In the verses that follow we learn of Joseph's plans in light of this fact of Mary's pregnancy. We will look at that another day. Today we don't want to explore Joseph's confusion. We need the truth, and we are given the facts. Joseph was not the father of this child. No other man was the father of this child. The baby that was with Mary was from the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is one of the eternal persons of the Godhead. Just as the Father is fully God, the Holy Spirit is fully God, and Jesus, the Son of God, is fully God. The Holy Spirit is eternal, just as the Father and the Son are eternal. In the earliest verses of the Bible, at creation, we read that the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep. The prophets spoke by the Holy Spirit. Battles were fought and won against overwhelming odds by the Holy Spirit. Demons were cast out of men by the Holy Spirit. People were healed by the Holy Spirit. And now, the eternal Son of God became man in the womb of the virgin Mary, without any sin at all, by the Holy Spirit.

It is true that your Savior's mother was a very lowly unmarried Galilean woman. It is true that Jesus died for you at the lowliest place that the Romans had for killing the worst criminals in Jerusalem. It is true that your Savior was hated without a cause, betrayed, abandoned, tortured, buried, and just not believed. But it is also true that this Jesus is God with us, and that Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit. You have before you now the lowly way of the cross. But you also have the same Spirit that did the miracle of the God/Man, and that raised that Servant of the Lord from the dead. That has to mean something too. In His birth we have both cross and resurrection.

1. What were the major events that led to the birth of Jesus?

2. What do we know about Mary and Joseph?

3. What was the fact that set apart this pregnancy from all others?

4. What does it mean that Mary was “with child from the Holy Spirit?”

OT Passage: Isaiah 7:10-14