Isaiah 7.14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
The Bible Study Group has been looking at Isaiah this year. We have been thrilled to discover how much of it points to Jesus, even if Isaiah would not have understood this. Sometimes the gospel writers say that scripture was fulfilled when things happened, other times they don’t say so, but it is quite obvious. This week we will look at some quotations from Isaiah which are explicitly quoted in Matthew’s gospel, and next week we will look at some which are not.
The Hebrew word translated virgin in this passage simply means young woman. But in Matthew 1.18-25 we are told in very clear terms how Jesus was born of a virgin (the Greek word means the same as the English one), conceived through the Holy Spirit, before Mary ever slept with Joseph. The rest of the New Testament teaches that Jesus was fully God and yet also fully man. His virgin birth is what made that true. Matthew goes on to explain that the name ‘Immanuel’ means ‘God with us’. He stepped into our world, became one of us, yet he was the Son of God. Why did he do this? – so that he could suffer and die for the sin of the world, for your sin, for my sin, to make us right with God. Wow!
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