God With Us
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel
(which means, God with us)”
Over 500 years before Jesus was born, Isaiah prophesied verse 23. Astounding isn’t it, but what’s even more amazing is that before God created the world, He had this planned - we talked about this a couple of days ago – and included in His big plan is that He will dwell with His people, that is the end goal, for Him to dwell with us.
The Garden of Eden was bliss, it was paradise, God walked in the cool of the day, and Adam and Eve enjoyed sweet fellowship with God. There was no pain, nobody had ever heard of stubbing their toe before. There was no sadness, the only tears that existed in this garden, were tears of joy after a great belly laugh. But as we all know; this bliss came to an end. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, and God banished them from the garden.
Paradise was lost, and sin ruled the world, sin was passed down from Adam to all of His descendants, and sin spread like a flame in a dry forest. You see sin separates us from God, for God is good and sin is evil; they are direct opposites, God hates sin, and sin hates God, and all who sin are therefore separated from and opposed to God.
But God had a plan, He wanted to dwell with His people again, for out of His abundant grace He loves them dearly. And He did this in a couple of ways in the Old Testament, God dwelt in the tabernacle, and later on in the temple. But God’s plan was not yet complete, for not all of God’s people could access God’s dwelling place, in fact only the high priest could enter the holiest part of the tabernacle or temple once a year. So, this brings us to Isaiah’s prophecy - there would be one who would come who is called Immanuel, which means, “God with us”.
God intended to dwell with His people, but still there is this problem, sin. God is so holy, He cannot dwell with an imperfect, sin-stained people. And that is why Jesus came.
Jesus came to earth to save sinners like me and you, we talked about this yesterday. To deal with this problem Immanuel was born a man so that He could die, Jesus was born to die a sinner’s death. Why? Well, as Jesus was hung upon the cross, the weight of our sin was placed on His shoulders, our burdens became His, and He became the curse of sin for us who put our trust in Him. And remember I wrote earlier that God hates sin. Well God poured out His wrath upon Jesus that day. All of our sin which makes God angry was placed on Jesus, and that means God’s anger turned away from us and turned towards the cross were His Son hung.
And so, in Jesus death our sins are taken away, and our penalty has been paid. Do you remember what happened directly after Jesus’ death?
“50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.”
Well, behind this curtain was God’s dwelling place. So, God made a statement that Jesus has brought peace between God and man. And in His resurrection, we have a firm hope that we will rise also to be with Him, for His name is Immanuel, and He will be with His people.
But while we wait for that day to come, He is with us right now, God dwells with us right now by His Spirit. In fact, God’s Spirit dwells in His people, and guides us, and transforms us into people who are like Jesus. And we don’t need a high priest anymore, because we can talk to God in Jesus name wherever we want, whenever we want. What a privilege it is to know God.
I have gone on too long, and this may be difficult to understand, but know that when we trust in Jesus, we can walk with God, and talk with God by His Spirit. And indeed through Christ one day we will dwell with God in paradise again!
