Thayer Thursday – The cosmic significance of “Immanuel”
In the last two posts we’ve looked at the meaning of fulfillment in the Gospel of Matthew: that he means something much more than predictions from the past coming true in the future.
Instead, Matthew shows how Jesus is not only the long awaited Messiah foretold by the prophets – but He fills fully the entire history of Israel, becoming the true Israelite; embodying and completing her mission to point & deliver the world to the one true God: YHWH.[1]
This theme of Matthew’s continues in the name given to the child born in the first chapter: Jesus; and in his title: Immanuel.
One of the distinctives of the God of the Bible is that He is intimately involved with His creation. This is why I like reading the Old Testament so much. It doesn’t simply present us with dry teaching about who God is – but shows His character in His actions. The stories of the Old Testament are filled with the movements of a God who is tremendously gracious. Time and time again He gives grace and patience to people when He would be perfectly just to do otherwise.
However, the Old Testament ends with unfulfilled hopes and expectations.
After being destroyed by the Babylonians, the temple was rebuilt…yet failed to live up to its previous glory. Not only that, but the Glory of God – His presence which resided in that temple – never seems to have returned.
The time between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament was marked by continual war and oppression for the people of Israel.
All hope seemed to be lost.
When would God return?
When would He reveal Himself once again?
When would He act with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and deliver Israel from bondage and slavery as He had when she was in Egypt?
Matthew takes all of these expectations and unfulfilled dreams and points the tentative reader to the fact that the name “Jesus” and the title “Immanuel” once again fills fully Israel’s expectations, hopes, and dreams.
Jesus doesn’t simply deliver them from the oppression of a foreign nation. Instead He delivers them from their sins – He delivers them from the root of the entire problem.
Jesus, stepping onto the soil that He spoke into being, becomes Immanuel, God with us.
It is impossible to overstate the significance of the surprising reality about who Jesus is and what He accomplished. YHWH, the God of this Universe, shows once again that he is intimately involved with His creation by placing Himself within the very creation He spoke into being. In doing so He brought defeat to the death humanity birthed into to that very creation.
Jesus: the one who saves His people from their sins.
Immanuel: God with us.
Chris Thayer
Categories: Biblical Theology, Blog, New Testament, Thayer Thursday