“They shall call His name Immanuel, which translated means, ‘God with us’.” - Matthew 1:23

When you hear the name  “Immanuel”,  what comes to your mind?  For most people, Christmas will come to mind.  And for those who know it, the carol,  “O Come, O Come, Immanuel”,  comes to mind.  But  “Immanuel”  is a glorious truth in the Bible.  As the verse tells us, the meaning of  “Immanuel”  is  “God with us.”

God created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden.  And God was with them.  We learn from  Gen. 3:8  that God used to come and visit with them.  They would actually hear the sound of God coming to them.  How glorious that must have been!   But when Adam and Eve sinned a separation came between them and God.  Verse 8 tells us that when they heard God coming, for the first time they did something they never did before.  They ran and hid from the presence of the Lord God.  God was no longer with them because they were no longer with God.  This separation from God is overtly sealed in  Gen. 3:24.  We read,  “So God drove the man out [from the Garden].” 

Before God drove them out a promise was made in  Gen. 3:15.  The woman’s seed will come and crush the serpent, that is, the devil.  Rev. 12:9 says,  “the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan.”  God’s promise is repeated in  Isa. 7:14,  “Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.”  The promised Immanuel, God with us, is the Lord Jesus Christ.  John says He  “became flesh and dwelt among us.”  (John 1:14).  God with us.  Jesus came to bring us back to God.  And those whom Jesus brings back to God no longer have to run from God. 

The Gospel of Matthew begins with the coming of Immanuel, God with us.  In  Matt. 18:20  the promise is made to the church,  “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”  God with us.  The Gospel of Matthew ended just prior to the ascension of Jesus.  The final words in Matthew’s gospel is the promise,  “behold, I am with you always (lit. all the days), even to the end of the age.”  (Matt. 28:20).  Even though Jesus has ascended to the Father, He is still Immanuel, God with us. 

2 Cor. 6:16  says,  “God said,  “I will dwell in them and walk among them;  And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”  God with us.

"Jesus came to bring us back to God.  And those whom Jesus brings back to God no longer have to run from God." 

This world will end with the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.  This will usher in the new heaven and the new earth.  In  Rev. 21:3  we read,  “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.”  Immanuel, God with us, for all eternity!  Rev. 22:3-4  says the Lamb will be there,  “and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face.”

If the Lord Jesus is your “Immanuel” now, then and only then will He be your “Immanuel” for all eternity. 

Pastor Amresh Semurath