What does it mean that Jesus is God with us?

We open the New Testament, and all is changed, for we are immediately introduced to JESUS, who is EMMANUEL, which being interpreted is, "God with us." Here we have something entirely new. He who once dwelt in the devouring fire on Sinai was now amongst men in perfect manhood and in lowly grace. The One who is light and who dwells in light unapproachable, had now appeared in such fashion as to soften down the piercing rays of His glory so that human eyes might take them in. Those who were His disciples in the days of His flesh could say, "We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." God was with them indeed, and they were not afraid. We have not His personal presence today, but we have the inspired record of His presence, and we have what the disciples who followed Him on earth did not have — the presence and indwelling of the Spirit of God — and therefore, "God with us," may be a reality to us today.

Here, too, alone in any of the Gospels, it is that we hear of Jesus as "Emmanuel." This is equally instructive and beautiful, because the Jew was apt to forget it. Did he look for a divine Messiah — for one who was God as well as man? Very far from it. Comparatively few of the Jews expected anything so astonishing as this. They craved and looked for a mighty king and conqueror, yet still a mere man. But here we find that the Holy Spirit, by their own prophet Isaiah, besides speaking of Him as man, takes care to show that He was much more than man, that He was God (vers. 22, 23). Matthew alone brings out this clear testimony of the great evangelical prophet — "God with us." So perfectly did God provide for these poor Jews, and develop the neglected seeds of their prophecies, and reflect light on the obscure parts of their law; so that if a Jew rejected the Messiah, he did it to his own eternal ruin. Besides being the son of David and Abraham, then, He was God with us. Such was the true Messiah, and such the witness produced to Israel. Could they reject Matthew's history, if they received Isaiah's prophecy? In vain they worshipped God, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Some have seen a difficulty that the child was to be named Emmanuel, and instead of this name, He is named Jesus. The Jew often comes with this question. We point out to him that this apparent contradiction is really a proof of the inspiration. How easy it would have been for Matthew to have all fit in so that every word would be in harmony with the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit guided his hand in writing. The prophecy in the Old Testament says, "And call His name Immanuel." Here it says, "They shall call his name." In the first chapter of Matthew we read that Joseph called the child's name Jesus, but in Luke we read that Mary calls His name Jesus. The name Emmanuel, God with us, is only given in Matthew. He is Emmanuel, and as such Jehovah the Saviour, so that in reality both names have the same meaning. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated His glory, a glory as of an only begotten with his Father) full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). He is the exalted One over all.

How very blessed it is to see all this! All that God is shines out in the lowly Jesus. He is Emmanuel, God with us. God was in His own world, visible amongst His creatures. There was nothing behind that revelation, nothing still shrouded in darkness, all was come to light in Him who was a “Man of sorrows,” who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, an object of curiosity and wonderment to the fickle crowd that followed Him, but the Son of the living God to those whose eyes received the light, which shone from the Shekinah within, through the veil of His flesh. This revelation is perfect, and the light is truly the light of life. Its beams are life-giving. God was speaking to men in this life of righteousness, holiness, kindness, love, and self-sacrifice. It was not an angelic messenger with a fiery law, the declarator of His just demands, but God Himself in the midst of His devil-deceived, sin-stricken, and afflicted creatures, with all His almighty power commanded by the love of his heart for the salvation of the world. Righteousness was there in the midst of sin, love in the midst of hatred, God in the midst of men, and life in the midst of death. The fullness of the Godhead was there in the body of Jesus. There was nothing lacking. The sullen darkness might refuse to give place to the true light, and might still retain its stubborn sway over the minds of men, but the light has come to abide, and eventually the darkness must disappear.

God had from the beginning visited His people. With a redeemed people, though it were only the shadow of the later redemption, the witness of what was in His heart was given, and the Pillar of Cloud and Fire became the Leader of His people from the border of Egypt into the land. But all this only prepared the way for the full reality which now appeared: the Word, the personal Wisdom of God, became flesh. An expression is used which most completely declares the reality of manhood into which He entered. It was not some docetic form of it, but the verity of that which we know as such, and which most implies the weakness of the creature. And that He became flesh imports this manhood, not as something outside of or other than His true Self, but assumed into it. While yet this was not, nor could be, transmuted Deity, but the Tabernacle of Deity: the divine and human not being confused together, but united; the Word tabernacling among us by becoming flesh. The Glory beheld was of an Only-begotten with the Father: One in whom the divine nature was, not as what might be in some true sense communicable to the creature, but in a way unique, peculiar to Himself; not derived, therefore, from the Manhood He assumed, but His relationship in the Godhead; "with the Father" implying that communion in the Godhead, the necessary result of this.

The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us in the fulness of grace and truth. This is the great fact, the source of all blessing to us; that which is the full expression of God, adapted, by taking man's own nature, to all that is in man, to meet every human need, and all the capacity of the new nature in man to enjoy the expression of all in which God is suited to him. It is more than light, which is pure and shows all things; it is the expression of what God is, and God in grace, and as a source of blessing. And note, God could not be to angels what He is to man — grace, patience, mercy, love, as shown to sinners. And all this He is, as well as the blessedness of God, to the new man. The glory in which Christ was seen, thus manifested (by those who had eyes to see), was that of an only Son with His Father, the one concentrating object of His delight as Father.

Then we have the momentous statement, "And the Word became flesh." It was not simply a manifestation of God in flesh, but the Eternal Word becoming Man, so that we have in one Person Him who is very God yet perfect Man. He took the very nature of Man, but apart from sin, being born of the Virgin. All that was proper to man was found in perfection in the Son, all the thoughts, desires, feelings and affections: and He entered into the conditions and circumstances of life that belonged to man, and in them shed abroad the light of divine grace, and the light of His moral glory.

The fact that the Word became flesh guarantees not only that He possessed a real human body (which was denied by some of the earliest heretics), but also that having passed by angels and "taken hold of the seed of Abraham," He had become in every proper sense a Man. It is significant that it is in this Gospel, which starts with such a full assertion of His Deity, that He speaks of Himself as "a Man" (8:40). At last all that God is was revealed to men in a Man. He dwelt among us "full of grace and truth." The basis of all truth lies in the knowledge of God. Had that knowledge reached us apart from grace it would have overthrown us; but here was One full of both grace and truth, and dwelling among us.

Let it be ever remembered that it was not God dwelling in a human body — which is one of the many heresies as to the person of our Lord. Nor is it even God dwelling in a perfect man — with body, soul and spirit — as though He could or would finally be separated from this manhood. But it is "the Word became flesh." He became identified with perfect humanity (may God give us to tread with bowed hearts and unshod feet in the presence of this holy truth), took up humanity so absolutely that there was but one person, the blessed Son of God. All the perfection of His humanity was so absolutely associated with the dignity of His divine person, that while He ever remains a perfect Man, there is all the divine essence calling forth the worship that is His due as "God over all blessed forever" (Rom. 9:5).

What an amazing fact is revealed to us in this short sentence. He who WAS when time was not, at whose fiat the pendulum of time began to swing, who set all the forces of nature into motion, and made the universe pulsate with life: Who is Himself personally the exact expression of the infinite thoughts and eternal glory of the Godhead — the ever-existing Word — He became flesh and dwelt among us, taking part in flesh and blood that He might come near to us without making us afraid: it is this that fills the souls of those who have received Him with wonder and worship.