Advent Day 15 – Immanuel

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14 ESV

Whenever I am thinking through the Advent season, my mind always turns to the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah. We actually all go there whether we are aware of it or not. It was Isaiah who first spoke the name “Immanuel.”

Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6 are pivotal places where the virgin birth of Jesus is introduced. “The virgin shall conceive a bear a child,” we see in Isaiah 7:14. The conception of Jesus through a virgin mother is not a concept created by the church. It was actually introduced hundreds of years before Jesus was physically born!

The concept of the virgin birth has given a lot of people problems. They struggle to think about something so “unscientific” and outside of normal biology happenings. And yes, it is one of those claims that cannot be scientifically verified or reproduced. It must be accepted by faith.

But if this claim were not true, then Jesus truly could not have been fully sinless and holy. His birth to a human father would have offloaded a sinful bloodline into His body. This is why the claim is so often attacked. Without it, the cross would have been a martyrdom but not a sacrifice for sin. The resurrection would have been meaningful to Jesus, but we would still be under a sentence of death.

Yet with this reality in place, the totality of the story of redemption is possible. We cannot negotiate at this point and surrender the claim, no matter how hard it may be to accept the miraculous in place at Jesus’ birth.

And with this reality in place, Jesus could be our Savior. Our Savior’s mother, though not an object of worship, was a crucial piece in God’s intricate plan.

He is the Savior, and He is Immanuel… God with us.