We may also experience and enjoy Christ as Emmanuel. “‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel,’ (which is translated, God with us)” (Matt. 1:23). In His humanity, Jesus, God incarnate, is Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus was the name given by God, whereas Emmanuel was the name called by man. Jesus the Savior is God with us. He is God incarnated to dwell among us (John 1:14). He is not only God but God with us. Without Him we cannot meet God, for He is God. Without Him we cannot find God, for He is God incarnate. Therefore, when we call on the Lord Jesus, we have the sense that God is with us.
Christ is the complete God becoming a perfect man. Hence, He is both the complete God and the perfect man, possessing genuine divinity and real humanity. As the almighty God, He has the capacity in His divinity and the capacity in His humanity to meet all of our need in every way. We need Him in His divine capacity that we may be divine as He is. We need Him in His humanity that we may be human as He is in the highest standard of humanity. Therefore, by Him, with Him, and in Him we can be not only a proper and uplifted man but also a God-man, a divine man, as He is. He is divine becoming human that we may be human becoming divine. He is now humanly divine to make us divinely human. In this way He, as the all-inclusive One, meets our need adequately and sufficiently in the most superior way.
Christ passed through the processes of incarnation and resurrection in order to dispense Himself into us. Through incarnation Christ could be Emmanuel outside of His believers, but this would fulfill only part of His intention in being with us. His being with us outwardly does not fulfill His purpose to dispense Himself into our being, so He had to go through another process. The second process was His death and resurrection. In resurrection His physical form became a spiritual form. Through death and resurrection, He as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). As the life-giving Spirit, He is Emmanuel, the presence of the Divine Trinity. This presence is always with us in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22), not only day by day but also moment by moment. To live with Christ, we need to be in His divine presence (Gal. 5:25a). The divine presence is the life-giving Spirit as the consummation of the Triune God. This presence is Emmanuel, who is the real, practical Jesus, the Triune God with the tripartite man.
We live with Christ as Emmanuel and walk by Christ as the life-giving Spirit. In order to walk by Christ as the life-giving Spirit, we must live with Christ as a person, who is Emmanuel. Today Emmanuel is the very life-giving Spirit, who is the consummated Triune God as His presence with us moment by moment. We have to realize that all day long we have another One with us. He is not only with us outwardly but also with us inwardly in our spirit every minute of the day. We do and say things one way when we are alone, but when we have someone else with us, we do and say things differently. We must ask ourselves, “Are we doing things in our own way, or are we doing things in another way because we realize that another One is with us?” If we realize that another One is with us, everything we do will change.
There are very few Christians who walk, live, speak, and do things with Emmanuel as another One with them. We have the doctrine of Emmanuel, but we have very little experience of Emmanuel. If we had more experience of Emmanuel, we would not do many of the things we do today, such as gossip. The presence of the Lord changes our life. We all must have the realization and sensation that the Lord Jesus, who is our Savior, is also Emmanuel. He is the Triune God with us, the tripartite men. We should not say or do anything in ourselves or by ourselves. We need to experience Emmanuel.
Living with Christ is not I living alone but with Christ living in me (Gal. 2:20). If you live every day and every moment by yourself, you are defeated. You must realize that you are no longer living alone, but Christ is living with you and in you. When you have this sensation, it will revolutionize your entire life.
To live with Christ, we still live, yet not by ourselves alone but by Christ living with us as Emmanuel. The name Emmanuel is first mentioned in Isaiah (7:14; 8:8). Many Christians address the Lord as Jesus and Christ, but few address the Lord as Emmanuel. We must learn to call our Lord, “Emmanuel.”
Home | First | Prev | Next