In this message we want to see the issue and the purpose of God's incarnation.
The first item we need to see as the issue of the incarnation is Jesus—Jehovah our Savior (Matt. 1:21). The Hebrew equivalent of the name Jesus in the Old Testament is Joshua. In Hebrews 4 Joshua is set forth as a type of the Lord Jesus, bringing the people of God into rest (vv. 8-9). The Old Testament Joshua is a type of the New Testament Jesus. We may say that Joshua is the shadow, and Jesus is the real man. A man's shadow is his type.
Joshua and Jesus both mean Jehovah the Savior or the salvation of Jehovah. Salvation is a person, and that person is divine. His name is Jehovah. Jehovah is our Savior, so He is our salvation. In the Old Testament there was a person who was called Jehovah the Savior. Then the real One came, whose name is Jehovah, the Triune God Himself. In the Old Testament God had the titles Elohim (Gen. 1:1) and Jehovah (2:4), and often these two titles were placed together as Jehovah Elohim, that is, the Lord God. Elohim means the strong and faithful One. Jehovah is the eternal "I Am." In Exodus 3 Moses asked God what he should say to those who asked him the name of the One who sent him. God then told Moses that His name was "I Am" (v. 14). "I Am" is Jehovah. Jehovah means To Be. In the whole universe there is only One that is To Be. He is the self-existing and ever-existing One. His name is "I Am That I Am" (v. 14). He is the One who is, the One who exists. That is His name.
The day came when this One left His eternity and came into time. As the To Be in eternity, He entered into time to become a man. Before He was born, God through His angel charged the virgin Mary to call this man Jesus, Jehovah the Savior. Many people know the name Jesus but they do not know who Jesus is. Jesus is God becoming a man to be our Savior.
We have to realize that even if we had not become fallen, we would still need to be saved. Man was created into a situation of needing salvation. His fall increased his need of salvation. God created Adam, and Adam was not sinful. He was innocently perfect. It seemed he had no need. But anything that is organic, that is of life, needs feeding. Even the plant life needs the sunshine, air, fertilizer, and water as the nutrients for its growth. These items are for feeding. The sunshine, air, fertilizer, and water are the salvation of the plant. If you take away these four things from any plant, the plant will die. All plants need this kind of salvation.
For Jehovah to be our Savior means that He is the One to meet our need. The entire Bible reveals that He is our sunshine (Psa. 84:11; Mal. 4:2), our air (John 20:22), our living water (4:10, 14), and our food (6:35). At the end of the Bible, the tree of life is the food and the water of life is the drink within the New Jerusalem. In the New Jerusalem, there is no need of the physical sun, because God the divine light will be shining there (Rev. 21:23). Outside the New Jerusalem, the nations will still have the sun, but in the New Jerusalem we will have our unique sun—God Himself. The sun, the air, the water, and the food are the items of God being our Savior to save us. His saving us means that He supplies us with all that we need.