Immanuel — God With Us, Near And Forever!

By Dn Ho Qi Heng

MATTHEW 1:21–23

21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel”

(which means, God with us).

God did not become Immanuel only when Jesus was born. God had walked in close fellowship with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden at the beginning of creation. However, sin and death entered the picture through Adam and Eve’s disobedience, breaking humanity’s fellowship with God. Still, God was not absent from humanity and his people from then on — God was with Israel when he led them out of Egypt, leading them in a pillar of cloud and fire, and continued to be with them in the promised land, filling the tabernacle with his presence (in fact, the word “tabernacle” means to dwell). Yet, God’s presence needed to be mediated — only priests could minister in the tabernacle by staying ceremonially clean, and the high priest could only enter directly into the Most Holy Place, where God’s presence would dwell, once a year and with great care (see Leviticus 16, Hebrews 9). The sacrifices offered repeatedly reminded God’s people of the distance that sin had put between God and man.

Jesus’ entrance into the world on the first Christmas shows how God truly desires to dwell with us. Not satisfied to just relate to us from a distance, the divine Son of God took on flesh and came into the world to dwell among humanity as part of humanity (John 1:9-14). By fully taking on flesh and dying in the flesh for sin, Jesus made the way to heal and reconcile the broken fellowship that sin had created between God and man — reconciliation with God is for communion with God. Even more, God does not seek to dwell with us only temporarily but forever. Jesus died for us so that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Immanuel points us to a God who seeks intimate fellowship with us for eternity!

Jesus’ ascension into heaven does not mean God is not with us at the current moment. In fact, Jesus said that his going away was for the better, because it meant that the Holy Spirit would come to dwell with and in all believers (John 14:16–17). “God is with us” is the assurance and promise that all believers can experience and claim, even in trials, sickness, weakness and sorrow. The Holy Spirit is our true companion who walks with us through all seasons of life.

Finally, God is with us not only individually, but also with us as a people of God, the church. We help one another, as fellow Christians, to experience “God with us” through loving, genuine and reconciled relationships with one another, bringing the fellowship and presence of God into each other’s lives. As the body of Christ, we the church make visible the reality that God is with us through our lives and witness to those around us, in our workplaces and schools.

May God help us to fully experience and live out the precious truth that He is indeed Immanuel — God with us, near and forever!