Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1270
“They shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” Matthew 1:23.
THOSE words, “being interpreted,” salute my ear with much sweetness. Why should the word, “Emmanuel,” in the Hebrew, be interpreted at all? Was it not to show that it has reference to us Gentiles and, therefore, it must be interpreted into one of the chief languages of the then existing Gentile world, namely, the Greek? This, “being interpreted,” at Christ’s birth and the three languages employed in the inscription upon the Cross at His death, show that He is not the Savior of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.
As I walked along the wharf at Marseilles and marked the ships of all nations gathered in the port, I was very much interested by the inscriptions upon the shops and stores. The announcements of refreshments or of goods to be had within were not only printed in the French language, but in English, in Italian, in German, in Greek and sometimes in Russian and Swedish. Upon the shops of the sail makers, the boat builders, the ironmongers, or the dealers in ship supplies, you read a mixture of announcements setting forth the information to men of many lands. This was a clear indication that persons of all nations were invited to come and purchase, that they were expected to come and that provision was made for their peculiar needs.
“Being interpreted” must mean that different nations are addressed. We have the text put first in the Hebrew, “Emmanuel,” and afterwards it is translated into the Gentile tongue, “God with us,” “being interpreted, “that we may know that we are invited, that we are welcome, that God has seen our needs and has provided for us, and that now we may freely come, even we who were sinners of the Gentiles and far off from God! Let us preserve with reverent love both forms of the precious name and wait the happy day when our Hebrew Brethren shall unite their, “Emmanuel,” with our, “God with us.”
Our text speaks of a name of our Lord Jesus. It is said, “They shall call His name Emmanuel.” In these days we call children by names which have no particular meaning. They are the names, perhaps, of father or mother, or some respected relative, but there is no special meaning, as a general rule, in our children’s names. It was not so in the olden times. Then names meant something. Scriptural names, as a general rule, contain teaching and especially is this the case in every name ascribed to the Lord Jesus. With Him names indicate things. “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace,” because He really is all these.
His name is called Jesus, but not without a reason. By any other name Jesus would not be so sweet, because no other name could fairly describe His great work of saving His people from their sins. When He is said to be called this or that, it means that He really is so. I am not aware that anywhere in the New Testament our Lord is afterwards called Emmanuel. I do not find His Apostles, or any of His disciples, calling Him by that name literally. But we find them all doing so in effect, for they speak of Him as, “God manifest in the flesh.” And they say, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of Grace and truth.”
They do not use the actual word, but they again interpret and give us free and instructive renderings while they proclaim the sense of the august title and inform us in many ways what is meant by God being with us in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a glorious fact, of the highest importance, that since Christ was born into the world, God is with us! You may divide the text, if you please, into two portions—“GOD,” and then, “GOD WITH US.” We must dwell with equal emphasis upon each word.
Never let us, for a moment, hesitate as to the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ, for His Deity is a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. It may be we shall never fully understand how God and Man could unite in one Person, for
who can, by searching, find out God? These great mysteries of godliness, these “deep things of God,” are beyond our measurement. Our little skiff might be lost if we ventured so far out upon this vast, this infinite ocean, as to lose sight of the shore of plainly revealed Truth.
But let it remain as a matter of faith that Jesus Christ, even He who lay in Bethlehem’s manger and was carried in a woman’s arms, and lived a suffering life and died on a malefactor’s cross, was, nevertheless, “God over all, blessed forever,” “upholding all things by the word of His power.” He was not an angel—that the Apostle has abundantly disproved in the first and second chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews—He could not have been an angel, for honors are ascribed to Him which were never bestowed on angels. He was no subordinate Deity or was elevated to the Godhead, as some have absurdly said—all these things are dreams and falsehoods.