God WITH Us?
Is God Really WITH Us?
Many people do not realise, or forget, that according to Scripture, Jesus Christ existed before he was born in the manger over 2000 years ago. This is a ‘mystery’ that is hard for humans to comprehend, but God (whom Jesus claimed to be) exists beyond time and space. He is an immaterial being, a spirit. He is not bound by physical dimensions, time, matter or distance.
The question often put by people who don’t realise this, the ‘Who made God?’ question, is what philosophers call, a category error. The question confuses the true God, with the Greek or Roman type gods; mythical human inventions that came into existence and exist only in Greek poems and Roman folklore. Genuine sceptics must logically concede that the God who brought the universe into existence, must not be bound by natural laws, and, having never come into existence, is by definition, uncreated.
Many people also do not realise that Jesus Christ, widely recognised as the greatest figure of all human history, made the explicit claim that he had and does exist eternally! When questioned by the religious rulers of the time, he claimed; ‘before Abraham was I AM!’(John 8:48-59). They knew what Jesus was claiming, that he existed eternally, was uncreated and was, in fact, God.
This must be a shocking realisation for those who’d prefer to patronisingly fob-off Jesus Christ as a wise teacher or a good man. In the words of C S Lewis, the renowned scholar and author of the Narnia books, if Jesus was not who he claimed to be, he was either an evil liar of the worst kind or a mad-man. Jesus Christ could not have simply been wise or a ‘good man’.
At Christmas, we celebrate one of the essential claims of Christianity, that God himself chose to reveal himself to humankind- not in an email or on Facebook, but by becoming one of us. One title the nativity accounts gives Jesus is ‘Immanuel- God WITH Us’.
It’s patently obvious that for mere humans to be able to comprehend God in any tangible way, God would need to reveal himself to us. As far as life forms go, humanity compared to divinity are at least as far apart is single-cell life to us, humans. Even if single-cell life had some minute sense of awareness, how could they possibly comprehend human beings? Likewise, no new age atheist, if they are intellectually honest, could possibly claim the brainpower to comprehend God.
And so we are left with the uniquely Christian claim, that God chose to become one of us, Emmanuel, ‘God WITH Us’. But the advent of Christmas and the Gospel accounts make at least two even more startling claims about ‘God WITH Us’.
Firstly, that God would choose, not just to reveal himself to us, but to identify WITH us. The child born in a manger, identified with the poorest and weakest among us. The saviour crucified between two thieves, identified with the vilest and most depraved of humanity. No matter what our past or present condition, God chose to become like us, to be WITH us.
Secondly, the God who is ‘God WITH Us’, chooses to know us personally, to understand our condition, to become our knowing, forgiving and accepting friend.
This is the true meaning of Christmas- this is the Gospel.
Matthew 1:18-23
18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.
19 Because Joseph, her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet:
23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
