God With Us

The creation of earth culminated in the creation of humanity, whom God placed in a garden so He might walk with man. Man destroyed that relationship with selfishness.

The expulsion of men from the garden came with some instructions that we know nothing about that allowed man to restore a relationship with God. Man failed to do so with faith.

Choosing the family that allowed God’s plan to move towards reconciliation established a relationship with God based on revelation and interactions with God. Man failed to understand God.

The plagues against Egypt allowed God to display His power on the earth to all peoples so they could know God’s capabilities. Man failed to trust in His power.

Crossing the Red Sea and the falling of manna from heaven showed God’s ability to provide. People refused to depend on Him.

The conquest of the land showed God’s ability to overcome impossible odds and defeat the unimaginably powerful. Man still turned away from Him.

The judges repeatedly revealed God’s willingness to rescue as long as the people would admit their need. Eventually, they quit thinking they needed Him.

The provision of a king showed God’s patience to allow a people to be like the people around them that they weren’t supposed to want to be like. They trusted their king more than their God.

The prophets delivered messages to deaf ears and performed signs before blind eyes.

Story after story. Time after time. Rejection after rejection. God’s people seem determined to quit being God’s people.

God tried power, patience, and provision. God rescued, redeemed, and revealed. God punished and rewarded. None of it worked.

So God sent Jesus, the Emmanuel, who is “God with us.” God couldn’t impress us, so He sent Jesus to become one of us. Maybe their inability to see a distant God would be solved by God in their midst. Man rejected Him, spit on Him, whipped Him, and threw Him on a cross.

The story of “God with us” is one of the most ironic and significant stories of twists and turns ever experienced by man. The One who created life, who lived eternally, became a created life who would live temporarily. The One who lived became dead so that we might die to death and experience resurrection to live life eternally. The One who died lived again so those alive would experience a first death, avoiding a second death. The One who first lived eternally went before us to live eternally again so we might live eternally for the first time.

Only God could put this together. Only God could concoct a plan that works like this. Only “God with us” can become God in us.

That same God, who desired to live with us from the beginning, has also given us His Spirit, who lives in us because of the gift of God (Act 2.38). We once again have “God with us.” We gain God when we forfeit ourselves in baptism. A death in exchange for life—all possible because Jesus was life in exchange for death.

Thank God we have “God with us.” And we still have God with us today.