God With Us

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. 

Isaiah 7:14

We take great pride in our names and are offended when people call us by the wrong name or spell it incorrectly. After all, our name is a part of who we are. Just think about the names you like and those you don’t like. Your opinion probably is influenced by the people you know with those names and what you think of them.

I’ve always had problems with people spelling my name wrong. Growing up, the name Stacey was somewhat common, but it could be spelled many different ways. Stacy, Staci, Stacie, Stacey. For some reason, people were always leaving the E out of my name, and I really hated it; I am definitely not a Staci or a Stacy. As a result, I got into a habit of over-emphasizing the letter E whenever I was giving the spelling of my name, and my feistiness at the age of 5 was very funny to my parents. 

But, it wasn’t funny to me. Even today, I still get a bit annoyed when people spell my name wrong when replying to an email from me, where my name is right in front of them to see. (I will admit that sometimes I’ll return to my feisty ways and reply by making the E in my name capital, bold and underlined to correct their error!)

In Jesus’ day, names carried even more meaning than they do today, by giving insight into the character and conduct of people in the Bible. Recall that the Lord changed the name of Abram to Abraham, indicating his special calling to be the father of many nations. (Genesis 17:5). Jacob’s name, which means heel snatcher (from the circumstances of his birth, Genesis 25:26) was changed to Israel, indicating that "as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." (Genesis 32:28)

Isaiah 7:14 is a prophecy written more than 650 years before Christ was born, telling us that the Son will be called Immanuel, meaning God with us. In other words, the Son born would be God. In some way, God would be with us through this Baby.

Joseph was told in Matthew that he was to call the Baby Jesus, which means Jehovah saves. This direction from the angel of the Lord gave Joseph the authority to name the Baby and was an indication that Joseph was His earthly father, since naming the child was the father’s responsibility.

But is there a discrepancy in the names to be given to Jesus? No; rather, we are given many names for Jesus throughout the Word, each indicating His character and His role as Savior. Many of the names were not used to call Him, but rather to show us who He is. 

The fact is, Jesus is too many things to us for one name to suffice. 

“... His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6b)

May we look to our Jesus, our Immanuel, and recognize that He is our All-Suffiency. He is our Everything.