IMMANUEL

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 10, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 37.

“Man turns from God, not God from him.”

Said the Prophet: “And they shall call His name IMMANUEL; which is, being interpreted, God-with-us.” Matt. 1:23.

Jesus Christ—the union of the Divine and the human—is the expression of God’s desire for mankind through all the ages. He was Divinity clothed with humanity. He was humanity expressing Divinity, just what God desired that every man should be.

When man was created, he expressed Divinity. In all his physical, mental, and spiritual beauty and symmetry, he showed forth the praise of his Maker. God was with him and dwelt in him. Adam was the son of God. Luke 3:38. He expressed in his own person the name given to Jesus, Immanuel—“God-with-us.” God was incarnate, dwelling in the flesh of sinless man.

But Adam, free to choose or refuse, to accept or reject, turned God from him, and admitted the enemy, who perverted his entire being. Sin—the transgression, the perversion, of God’s law of righteousness and life, became incarnate, and man became separate from God, having no hope and “without God in the world.” Eph. 2:12. It was no longer God-with-us, but sin-with-us. Humanity, separate from God, becomes an expression of sin, despite his divine origin and Godlike form. The relationship is abnormal and incongruous. Man feels it and is wretched.

But when man sinned, God did not turn from him. Man’s change of masters did not affect God’s character, God’s purpose, or God’s desire. He beheld with sadness the sin of man. He felt pain in the breaking of the tie which bound man to Him. In the very nature of His infinite love He could not compel man to do otherwise; but tho man had sinned, He would not leave the poor soul without divine effort to save him. As true as ever in the past the thoughts of the unchangeable God were “thoughts of peace and not of evil.” Jer. 29:11.

It was man that turned from God. God still came to greet and bless, but “the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah.” Gen. 3:8. It was not man who first called upon God, altho in his great and sore need; it was Jehovah who called after Adam. Verse 9. And when Adam listened, God’s message was not one of hopelessness. While He told the sinner of the fearful crop his seed-sowing must bear, He also told him that the former conditions could be restored through “the Seed of the woman.” Man had without God measured his power with that of the serpent and lost. God would have man receive again power from on high that the serpent might be conquered. This is revealed in the words that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, while the serpent should only be able to bruise his heel. The bruising of the heel is but temporal; the bruising and crushing of the head is eternal.

Pre-eminently that Seed is Christ Jesus. Gal. 3:15. But it includes all those also who are “born of God,” “born from above,” who are of Christ Jesus. That privilege was as open to Adam by virtue of the offering of the Son of God as it is to us. Abel received the “incorruptible Word,” and became of the Seed of God. His heel was bruised by the enemy, but he shall come forth from that bruising an eternal conqueror. Cain rejected the Seed in God’s Word, and went on to destruction.

To induce man to accept this divine power, this presence of God, and so come into union with the Divine, our Father and our God has exhausted all heaven’s resources. On the other hand Satan has done all that he can through sin to lead man to look upon God as a tyrant, as a being who hated man, or as one so pure and holy that He could not tolerate sinful man in His presence.

Now there is seeming truth in some of Satan’s arguments, God is pure and holy; God does hate sin; but God loves the sinner—loves him that He may take the sin away and save the man. And so with pleading, infinite love He asks man to yield the sin, yield the rebellion, and let Him in. He does not ask man to change himself; for He knows the slave of sin can not break from his master. But He does plead with man to choose a better Master—God who is love; a better condition—the joy of perfect liberty. If man will but choose God, Infinite Love, Power, and Wisdom will enter the human flesh and separate and eradicate the sin; God, by His Spirit, will come in and dwell there, and in His Spirit bestow all the riches of His grace.

Then, dear soul, come to Him through Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, the Life. You need no human intercessor save Jesus. He has placed no virgin however blessed, no angel or saint, between Himself and you. No cordon of ecclesiastical police bars the way. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, says, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” To come unto Christ is not stopping short by a single inch. The poor sinful leper came, and Jesus touched him. He wants to touch you with His healing power. He wants to come into your life to cleanse away the sin. He wants to develop in your life His own righteous character so that you shall be to all beholders the expression of the thoughts of God, a testimony to the truth of the name Immanuel.