Who is Immanuel?

Isaiah actually refers to two historical figures when he prophesizes of the coming of Immanuel. He foresees the turmoil and the challenges of Israel because of their infidelity to God. He is offering hope at a desperate time in history for the deliverance of Israel out of Babylon. This is recorded in Isa 7:14 where a remnant will survive the persecution and a Messiah will come to deliver them as their Lord and King. He says that his name will be Emmanuel.

The first sign is the birth of the son of Ahaz which will become the King Hezekiah which fulfills the prophecy of Nathan and preserves the Davidic line which remains Israel’s hope. But, there is obviously something more being spoken of in His prophecy than just the historical facts of a delivering king of the people out of bondage. There is more than the historical and here the symbolism takes on more importance with the name Immanuel which means God among us. Beyond Hezekiah there is the prophecy of a Messianic King that fulfills the epitome of the Davidic dynasty and the hope if Israel in the man-God Jesus Christ. Isaiah further explains this in Isa 9:6 where we learn that He will be born of a virgin as the Church understands the Ark of the New Covenant and will be the Anointed "Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" and surely the Christ. His virtues speak of His authority and teaching but most of all to His obedience to God as the Savior of the world in Isa 49.

In Isa 53:3-5"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our' iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed" Reading this leaves all doubt as to Jesus being the fulfillment of the Prophesies of Isaiah and confirms that Jesus was indeed “God with us”.

In Christ
Fr. Joseph

Did Jesus have two natures?

The first century Christians referred to Jesus as “Lord” and in doing so acknowledged the deepest mystery of our faith but it was central as the confession of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. At the same time it was difficult to put into words or express with human understanding what was impressed upon the human spirit by the Spirit which was the intuitive knowledge that Jesus is God in the flesh. Theologians were perplexed for more than two centuries on how to place into proper context on even the most rudimentary parameters of this confession of the Church. The difficulty arose because they did not want to compromise either the deity or the humanity of Jesus. The Scriptural witness did not allow the early Church to consider Christ anything less than true God, or anything less that true man. The difficulty in understanding and explaining knowledge derived of the Spirit is that the mystery that defies explanation in a way that one can reasonably understand with their human intellect often reduces it to mere sophistry or logical contradiction. Like so many things of faith it is easier to dismiss understanding of the Spirit for human reason as if there must be some merger of intellect and faith for veracity. As the Scriptures suggest, in matters of faith we must accept with a childlike innocence and reason.

It is interesting to note that the first heresy facing the early Church was not defending His deity but His humanity. St. Tertullian said, “The human blood of our Lord was still smoking on the hills of Judea when there were some among us who said, He is not human.” As time went on it was also necessary to defend the divinity of Jesus against heresies because the Church realized that if the concept of Jesus’ humanity is removed, we do not have divinity left but instead we have nothing. The Christology of the early Church tells us that if we remove the deity of Christ, we do not have humanity left, instead we have nothing left. Therefore, the early Church was uncompromising on accepting any concept that departed from Jesus being fully man and fully God. The Council of Chalcedon in 451AD stated the following: that the distinction of natures is ”in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature (is) preserved …coming together to form one person and subsistence (hypostasis) not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and only begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ.” Between the years 325AD (Nicaea) to 451AD (Chalcedon), the Church after four Ecumenical Councils had settled on four matters of doctrine in regards to the understanding of the person of Christ: His full deity, His full humanity, His unity in person, and the distinction of His two natures.

In Christ
Fr. Joseph