#8 - God With Us
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” - Matthew 1:18-23, NKJV
In previous articles I have shown that God’s first and best plan for humanity has always been to have a personal, intimate relationship with us. In Eden we see a wonderful picture of what this looks like—God and man walking together in the cool of the evening, face to face and heart to heart. Tragically, this communion was broken by Adam and Eve’s sin of disobedience, and they lost the sweet fellowship they had enjoyed in the Garden. But we have seen that, even then, God never stopped pursuing an intimate relationship with His greatest creation. Between the time of the Fall and the giving of the Law, we have numerous examples of individuals who knew God in a very real way, with no need for rituals or moral codes. And we also saw that in God’s perfect plan, He and His chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, would have that same kind of relationship—“I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.” - Leviticus 26:12, NKJV.
But the people couldn’t understand and didn’t want that kind of intimacy with God. They preferred to keep God at arm’s length, with an intermediary between them. So God gave them the Law, established the Levitical priesthood, and instituted the elaborate rituals and sacrifices which became the religion of Judaism. But even then He let them know that He had something better in mind: “Moses himself told the people of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people.” Acts 7:37, NLT. Indeed, down through the ages God again and again spoke of a time when He would reveal Himself in a new and marvelous way—He would be both with us and in us!
That promise was fulfilled with the coming of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, “God with us.” At long last humanity was presented with the opportunity to have what Adam and Eve had, and what the Israelites could have had:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. - John 1:1-3, 14. NKJV
“I am the Light of the world. If you follow Me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the Light that leads to life.” - John 8:12, NLT
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” - Matthew 11:28, NLT
“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture…I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” - John 10:9-10, NKJV
“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, Who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, Who leads into all truth…you know Him, because He lives with you now and later will be in you.” - John 14:16-17, NLT
Here is God’s ultimate gift to mankind, wrapped in the flesh of a human just like us. We could not reach up to God, so He reached down to us in the person of Jesus Christ. We could see Him, touch Him, hear Him, truly know Him! Because of Jesus, we no longer needed someone to be our “go-between,” an intermediary between us and God. Through Christ we now had direct access to the Father—no priests, no sacrifices, no curtained-off “holy of holies” where only a chosen few could enter. Jesus fulfilled all of these things so that we might finally have the intimate communion with God that He has wanted to have with us from before time began! Is it any wonder that the message of redemption through Christ Jesus is called the “Gospel—Good News”?
But, just like the Hebrews at Mt. Sinai, when given the opportunity to dispense with ritual, tradition, and dogma, and be spiritually one with our God, mankind once again rejected the offer. He came into the very world He created, but the world didn’t recognize Him. He came to His own people, and even they rejected Him. - John 1:10-11.
In my next article, I will show how mankind has twisted the Gospel from a message of freedom to just another hollow, humanistic religion which spurns liberty in favor of slavery.
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