Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Shadows of glory, whispers of grace. Isaiah offered Israel glimpses of the coming Messiah, continuing the tapestry that began with a single thread in Genesis. The very nature of his coming would be inherently miraculous and specifically identifiable.
It had already been promised that a woman’s son would crush the serpent’s head, and now the curtain was pulled back a little further.
He would be born of a virgin, but not of worldly royalty. His rule and reign would not be passed down from an earthly father, but from a heavenly ruler.
And then there was his name. Immanuel. God with us. Israel had experienced God’s presence in fire and lightning and thunder. They had heard his word through his prophets. He had dwelt among them in the tabernacle and the temple. But this was something wholly different: the proclamation that the Messiah would be God himself, come to earth to live among his people.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
- Philippians 2:5-8
