Emmanuel “God with us”
December 24th, 2008The mentor of my first mentor, was Dr. J. Sidlow Baxter. A Scottish theologian who wrote many books and ministered all over the world. Dr. Baxter has gone on to his reward, but his writings still pack a punch. On the “eve” of the most celebrated day in the world, I recall one of my favorite lessons that Brother Sid wrote concerning what we’ve long forgotten about Christmas. Unfortunately, the holiday season has overtaken and consumed the earth’s focus of what we’re actually celebrating. I gladly and lovingly share these truths with you!
In the first chapter of Matthew there are three names used of the wonder child born at Bethlehem; in verse 23, “Emmanuel”; in verse 16, “Christ”; in verse 21, “Jesus”. These three express the essential mystery and meaning and message of the Incarnation.
“EMMANUEL.” Verse 23 reads, “They shall call His name Emmanuel which interpreted is, GOD WITH US.” If our Lord Jesus is only a creature, as certain modern unitarian sects aver, then, even though He may now be the most exalted of all creatures, there is really nothing in the Christmas story to command the utter astonishment of the human intellect; for the Creator and the creature are still infinitely apart. But if, as our texts says, He is “EMMANUEL…God with us’, then (let everlasting amazement be ours!) there is a union of the Creator with the creature. Once you grant that the awful Power within and behind phenomena has parted the veil and appeared in fashion as Man, then the proper reaction is that nothing else matters except in relation to this all-eclipsing event. This union of the Divine and the human necessarily dwarfs all other facts and concerns. Indeed, all other phenomena, knowledge, events and concerns must now be viewed in the light of it; for it not only dwarfs all others, it illumines and changes them all, whether natural, social, political, racial, or individual. All other appearances which have held the gaze of admiration, including all the trophies of art, philosophy, and science, are burned, as it were, in the unique white light of this super-fact. That is to say, it is the continual surprise from which the mind never recovers, so long as the mind is awake and real, and not torpid with unthinking acquienscence.
“EMMANUEL.” This is the miracle-of-miracles, the meaning-of-meanings, which should rivet the attention of so-called Christendom today as never before! It is the fundamental interpretation of things, compared with which the splitting of the atom is merely and infinitesimal incident. As the angels of heaven look down upon this earthly scene, surely their biggest marvel must be the absence of human marvel at this eternal surprise that our local regimes and revolutions are temporary surface things compared with the possibilities open to us under One who is the “appointed Heir of all things.” If the Son of Man be the predecreed corner-stone of the long human story, it is inept to build on any other foundation. Every thing that men need is in HIM, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom.
Today the nations of Christendom long for deliverance from international strife and the threat of global chaos through war. It can be found in HIM. Today millions everywhere long for release from “the deadening dullness and secular prose of the ant-hill exsistence”. The answer is in HIM. But the cleverest brains of our little epoch are straining, eye-wearied, after electrons and protons; and the churches are wonderfully busy with merely secondary things. The Lord Jesus Christ, EMMANUEL, He is the “Door of Hope” to the badly needed “New Order”. In our time, all tributary questions and secondary controversies should be given a rest, for the sake of concentration upon this master-idea, the gathering together in one of “all things which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him” (Eph. 1:10).
Patti and I pray that your day is filled with the wonder of HIS coming!
Love you all,
Mike
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