Isaiah's Sign Found Fulfillment in Jesus

DID YOU KNOW?
Isaiah’s Hebrew word almah meant “young woman.” When ancient Jewish scholars translated Isaiah into Greek centuries before Jesus, they chose parthenos (virgin). Matthew, writing in Greek, used this same word to describe Mary’s miraculous conception.

Seven hundred years before Jesus, Judah’s King Ahaz faced a crisis. Three neighboring kings were plotting to attack Judah, and Ahaz was frightened. The prophet Isaiah told him to ask God for a sign that God was with him. The stubborn king refused, but Isaiah gave him a sign anyway—a young woman would give birth to a son. Isaiah’s sign was fulfilled through his own family. His wife (whom he called ‘the prophetess’) gave birth to a son who would witness God’s protection of Israel. Before the boy reached age 13, the plotting kingdoms would lose their power (and they did). Centuries later, Matthew quoted Isaiah’s words of promise and applied them to Jesus. Pastor Hamilton wrote, “Matthew was not confused nor was he misinterpreting Isaiah…. I think he was saying, ‘Jesus, like that first Immanuel, was a sign sent by God that you might know God is with you, that you might know he will never leave you’…. Jesus, in a way that the first Immanuel could not, incarnated the presence and love of the God who rules over the entire universe.” *

• By quoting Isaiah, Matthew linked Jesus with Emmanuel—the name that meant “God with us.” ** Later in his gospel, Matthew quoted Jesus saying, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I’m there with them” (Matthew 18:20). In the gospel’s final verse, Jesus pledged, “I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age” (Matthew 28:20). What settings or practices help to make God’s presence real to you? What makes God’s presence as necessary for you as it was for King Ahaz?
• Scholar William Barclay captured Matthew’s central message: “Jesus is the one person who can tell us what God is like, and what God means us to be. In him alone we see what God is and what [humans] ought to be.” *** In what ways have you made Jesus central to your understanding of what God is like? Has that helped you avoid some of the negative, frightening images of God that some people hold?