Immanuel

“ The whole soul is caught up, invigorated, revitalized, inspired. It gives mighty strength. Giants tremble and quake and run for their lives when they see a pilgrim fresh from his wine-cask move upon them. Blessed be Immanuel! Glory, praise, and honor, hallelujah to His high name, forever and ever! Oh, He provides such power and unction and sweetness! Never rest, pilgrims, till you get your vineyard started. And may Immanuel bless you!"
Thanks to Caleb for his words!
Listlessness in prayer is the result of a lack of interest; no one is listless about things he is vitally interested in. ”

“ Declare, as far as the force of words will go, declare the inexhaustible fulness of that great atonement, whose merits are commensurate with the glories of the Divinity. Tell the sinful wretch what pity yearns at Immanuel's breast; what blood He has spilt, what agonies He has endured, what wonders He has wrought for the salvation of His enemies. Invite the indigent to become rich; entreat the guilty to accept of pardon; because with the crucified Jesus is plenteous redemption and all-sufficiency to save. ”

“ The created nature thus assumed into personal unity with the divine nature in Immanuel, who is the only-begotten Son of 536God the Father from eternity, has become the nature of God, and as such entitled to receive from the divine nature the communication of its plenitude of being and of good, in so far as this is communicable in a finite mode and measure. The Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Son, both in the eternal order of the Trinity and in the temporal order of creation, is communicated to the human nature of Immanuel as the principle of life and beatitude. ”

“ The character is the nearest one gets in Hebrew to the best heroines of the troubadours. Immanuel and she exchange verses, but the path of flirtation runs rough. They are parted, she, woman-like, dies, and he, man-like, sings an elegy. Even more to Immanuel's credit is his praise of his own wife. She has every womanly grace of body and soul. On her he showers compliments from the Song of Songs and the Book of Proverbs. If this be the true man revealed, then his light verses of love addressed to other women must be, as I have hinted, a mere pose. ”

“ That fact rights everything even now, in one sense, to faith for the path closest to the King must be really necessarily the highest, though it be in the sight of man the lowest. Immanuel, the Son of David, walking as a servant up and down the land that was His own—The Lord Jesus, The Son of Man, having less than the foxes or birds of the air, not even where to lay his head,—Christ, the Son of God, wearied with His journey, on the well of Sychar,—this has thrown a glory about the lowly path now, that makes all the grandeur of the great ones of the earth less than nothing. ”

“ Sound our Immanuel’s praise!
175 C. M.
They nailed him to the cross.
Behold the Saviour of mankind
Nailed to the shameful tree!
How vast the love that him inclined
To bleed and die for me!
[109]
2 Hark! how he groans, while nature shakes,
And earth’s strong pillars bend!
The temple’s vail asunder breaks,
The solid marbles rend.
3 ’Tis finished! now the ransom’s paid,
“Receive my soul!” he cries:
See—how he bows his sacred head!
He bows his head and dies!
4 But soon from death he’ll rise again,
And in full glory shine;
O Lamb of God! was ever pain—
Was ever love like thine? ”

“ EMMANUEL, or Immanuel, a Hebrew symbolical proper name, meaning “God (is) with us.” When in 734–733 B.C. Ahaz, king of Judah, alarmed at the preparations made against him by the Syro-Ephraimitish alliance, was inclined to seek aid from Tiglath-pileser of Assyria, the prophet Isaiah endeavoured to allay his fear by telling him that the danger would pass away, and as a sign from Yahweh that this should be so, any young woman who should within the year bear a son, might call his name Immanuel in token of the divine protection accorded to Judah. ”

“ In the words: "Thy land, O Immanuel," the prophecy of the wonderful Child, in chap. viii. 23–ix. 6 (ix. 1–7) , is already prepared. The land in which Immanuel is to be born, which belongs to Him, cannot remain continually the property of heathen enemies. Every destruction is, at the same time, a prophecy of the restoration. A look to the wonderful Child, and despair must flee. Behind the clouds, the sun is shining. Every attempt to assign the Immanuel to the lower sphere, must by this passage be rendered futile. For how, in that case, could Canaan be called His land? ”

“ And when she saw the infant Jesus she exclaimed, Behold Immanuel! Behold the signet cross of the Messiah on his brow!
10. And then the woman knelt to worship him, as God with us, Immanuel; but one, a master, clothed in white, appeared and said,
11. Good woman, stay; take heed to what you do; you may not worship man; this is idolatry.
12. This child is man, the son of man, and worthy of all praise. You shall adore and worship God; him only shall you serve.
13. The woman rose and bowed her head in thankfulness and worshipped God.
14. And Mary took the infant Jesus and returned to Bethlehem. ”

“ He was a true model of Humanity,—a perfect man. He was what man ought to be. Whatever attributes of the Most High could be grasped by a finite nature were fully given to him; so it is no wonder when we call him Immanuel or the “express image of God.” We are all made in the image of God; but it is a pity that we do not long stand in the state of purity, do not retain our original stamp; the world paints us over, and thereby disfigures us. ”

“ He entered Immanuel's land at that very hour, and is now (as himself would have said) "sleeping in the bosom of the Almighty," till the Lord come.
We may add his latest words. "There is nothing now between me and the Resurrection but 'This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise.'" He interrupted one speaking in praise of his painfulness in the ministry, "I disclaim all. The port I would be in at is redemption and forgiveness of sin through His blood." Two of his biographers record that his last words were, [22] "Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land!" ”

“ A body subject to all the infirmities of our nature, yet wholly free from the [24] sinful principles, and evil propensities of the human race. His name shall be called "Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us," God in our nature. [28] Yes, the uncreated word was "made flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." "In him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." The Socinian may smile with contempt when the Deity of Jesus is attested, but is it not written? ”

“ The glorified humanity, the Divine Humanity, is truly justified by its results. Immanuel, God-with-us, means to us heaven on earth and heaven hereafter, for God's presence makes heaven. Let us not think again of a divided God, but remembering that "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father," let us approach to the Lord Jesus Christ as the only God of heaven and earth, our Saviour, and realize that we shall never know any other God. ”

“ Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. ”

“ He calls his Messiah Immanuel, and yet dares to present Him as nothing but a Sufferer—a Sufferer for the sins of others. Born only to suffer with His people, who should have inherited their throne—that is Isaiah's first doctrine of the Messiah.
Through the rest of the prophecies published during the Syro-Ephraitic troubles the Sufferer is slowly transformed into a Deliverer. The stages of this transformation are obscure. In chap. viii. Immanuel is no more defined than in chap. vii. He is still only a Name of hope upon an unbroken prospect of devastation. ”

“ He told of the Millennium, when not only the Saints should burst the barriers of the tomb, but come forth and live and reign with Christ a thousand years on the earth, when righteousness and truth should prevail, and iniquity hide its hoary head, and the power of God be made manifest; and every nation, tongue, and people bow to the sceptre of King Immanuel, and all acknowledge him as Lord over all. ”

“ The doctrine of the Holy Spirit who regenerates, sanctifies, comforts, and saves, becomes an indispensable element in preaching, and so becomes ingrained into the preacher's confession of faith. A personal and present Christ, Immanuel, God with us, is the source of the missionary's power; he has practical proof that the Holy Spirit is Christ in spiritual form, with his people alway, even to the end of the world. ”

“ He suffers defeat in grammar, but makes a conquest in love. Immanuel's description of hell and paradise, in which he imitated his friend Dante, is full of fine satire. Whilst the Christian romantic poet shows gravity and elevation in his poetical creation, represents sinners and criminals, political opponents and enemies of Italy, cardinals and popes, as being tortured in hell, metes out, as it were, the severe sentences of judgment day; his Jewish friend, Immanuel, invents scenes in heaven and hell for the purpose of giving play to his humorous fancy. ”

“ Let us think of God as Immanuel—God with us—an ever-present, omnipresent, eternal One. Long, long ago, God made matter, then He made the flowers and trees and animals, then He made man. Did He stop? Is God dead? If He lives and acts what is He doing? He is
Making men better. ”

“ Let me remind you, dear brethren! of how this great thought of my text is heightened and transcended by the New Testament teaching. We believe in One whose name is 'Immanuel, God with us.' Jesus Christ has come to be with men, not only during the brief years of His earthly ministry, in corporeal reality, but to be with all who love Him and trust Him, in a far closer, more real, more deep, more precious, more operative Presence than when He dwelt here. Through all the ages Christ Himself is with every soul that loves Him ”

“ Still open thy kingdom more fully and powerfully within me.”
“In all things I come short; but I have the testimony of a good conscience.”
*“I stand as in the presence of God. The awe of God I feel rests upon my soul. O how dreadful, and yet how joyful is this place! Lord Jesu, thou art Immanuel, God with me!”
“I mourned for the sins of the people, and found a willingness even to lay down my life, if that would save them from hell. Many wept, and trembled. O the depths of love in God!”
“I felt this day an ardent desire to suffer for his name-sake, tho’ I am conscious of my own weakness.” ”

“ Though Yahweh’s chastisements on Ephraim and Judah would continue to fall till scarcely a remnant was left (Isa. vi. 13, LXX.) , yet all was not to be lost. A remnant of the people was to return, i.e. be converted to Yahweh. The name given to an infant child—Immanuel—was to become the mystic symbol of a growing hope. God’s presence was to abide in Jerusalem, and, as the century drew near its close, “Immanuel” became the watchword and talisman of a strong faith that God would never permit Jerusalem to be captured by the Assyrians. ”

“ The talismanic name Immanuel became the nucleus out of which the later Messianic prophecies of Isaiah grew. To this age alone can we probably assign Isa. ix. 1-7, xi. 1-9, xxxii. 1-3. The hopes expressed in the word Immanuel, “God with us,” were to become embodied in a personality of the royal seed of David, an ideal righteous ruler who was to bring peace to the war-distraught realm. Thus Isaiah became in that troubled age the true founder of Messianic prophecy. ”

“ All illustrations of Deity fall short, but just as a man could ransom all the ants that crawl upon the earth, were they under moral law and had violated it; just as a man [Pg 43] could, on account of the vast difference in the scale of being, suffer in his own body all that all the ants upon earth could suffer; so Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, redeemed us from "all iniquity." ”

“ It becomes certain that in the famous words read on Christmas-day the prophet Isaiah was not meaning to speak of Jesus Christ to be born more than seven centuries later. It becomes certain that his Immanuel is a prince of Judah to be born in a year or two’s time. It becomes certain that there is no question at all of a child miraculously conceived and born of a virgin; what the prophet says is that a young woman, a damsel, at that moment unmarried, shall have time, before certain things happen, to be married and to bear a son, who shall be called Immanuel. ”

“ But the security for deliverance from this danger also--the conqueror of the world's power which was soon to begin its course in Asshur, is none other than Immanuel, whom the Prophet, in the beginning of the humiliation of the people of God, makes, so to say, to become man, in order that, during the impending deep humiliation of the people of God, He may accompany it in its history during all the stages of its existence, until He should really become man. ”

“ He rarely mentions his father, but often names his mother Justa as a woman of pious and noble character. As a youth, he had a strong fancy for scientific study, and was nourished on the "Guide" of Maimonides, on the works of the Greeks and Arabs, and on the writings of the Christian school-men, which he read in Hebrew translations. Besides philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, Immanuel studied the Bible and the Talmud, and became an accomplished scholar. He was not born a poet, but he read deeply the poetical literature of Jews and Christians, and took lessons in rhyme-making. ”

“ But it was indicated to Jesus that it would afford his Paradise brother, Immanuel, great satisfaction if he, Jesus, should see fit to finish up his earth career of incarnation as he had so nobly begun it, always subject to the Father's will. On the third day of this isolation Jesus promised himself he would go back to the world to finish his earth career, and that in a situation involving any two ways he would always choose the Father's will. And he lived out the remainder of his earth life always true to that resolve. ”