“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel” which means, God (Yahweh) with us.” (Matthew 1:23)
Once again we see the Christmas season approaching and it is a time when we can especially focus on the great Biblical truth that the Invisible Yahweh entered into this world in the visible Yahweh being the eternal Word who Himself became flesh and tabernacled among us. (John 1: 1-2, 14) In the Old Testament scriptures the Jewish sages and writers and scholars saw that there were “two powers” in the heavens who were one in their divine attributes with each other but separate. One was the invisible Yahweh and the other the visible Yahweh who appeared as the Angel of the LORD in the Old Testament and also in human form but did not have a human flesh and blood body until His incarnation in the womb of Mary through His supernatural conception by Yahweh the Spirit. (Luke 1:35)
We know from the Bible that no human being can look directly at the face of Yahweh (God) and live. (Exodus 33:20) (John 1:18) Moses we are told saw Yahweh (God) “face to face” but this does not mean he was looking directly at God. It was always through an ‘intermediary’ that God came down to talk face to face with humans. We see this in the case of the burning bush and on Mt Sinai when the cloud of Yahweh’s presence enveloped Moses and when Moses asked to see God in all of His glory but Yahweh (God) only showed Moses his backside. (Exodus 33:18-23)
In the Book of Genesis, Jacob wrestled with God who was in the form of a man; Jacob did not see God face to face but saw Him in the one wrestling with him. After this encounter Jacob declared; “I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” (Genesis 32:30) Samson’s parents were terrified when they realized they had seen God, but they had only seen Him appearing as the Angel of the LORD. There was no doubt that they had seen God. (Judges 13:22) People have seen visions of God, images of God, and appearances of God, but no one has ever seen God face to face in all His fullness (Exodus 33:21)
Only when the Lord Jesus came into this world through ‘the portal’ of Mary’s womb did men see the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in bodily form in the Lord Jesus. (Colossians 2:9) The Lord Jesus was Yahweh (God in the flesh) (John 1:1, 14) The Lord Jesus was “the image of the invisible God and He was one with the Father from all eternity. He and the Father were the one Yahweh so when people saw Him on earth as a fully human being, they were seeing the visible Yahweh in all of His fullness. (Colossians 1:15) (John 1:16-18) This is why the Lord Jesus could make such statements as “I and the Father are One” and again he said “He that has seen Me has seen the Father” and again he said “the works I do are not My works (independently) but it is the Father dwelling in Me doing the works.” This is why the Jewish religious leaders wanted to kill Him because He made Himself equal with God. The Lord Jesus never denied this fact.
When our Lord Jesus was worshipped as Yahweh on earth He received it because He knew He was the visible manifestation of the invisible Yahweh in the heavens, one with His Father from all of eternity yet now fully revealed as a human being. The Lord Jesus knew He was the visible manifestation of the invisible Yahweh who previously had revealed Himself in different ways in the Old Testament to humans but had now taken upon Himself a flesh and blood body.
When we see the world “Immanuel” we see the term “God with us.” We see that Yahweh is with us, and for us and wants to tabernacle in us through Yahweh the Spirit (Matthew 1:23) The Lord Jesus knew he was the ‘second’ Yahweh who had eternally been one with His Father, face to face with the Father and one with Yahweh the Spirit whom we also see in scripture is eternal in nature, having the same divine attributes as Yahweh the Father and Yahweh the Son. The amazing truth is that all three are the one Yahweh according to the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 6:4) They are “Echud,” one, yet “three in one!”
Michael S. Heiser, a Bible believing Christian and an excellent Hebrew scholar and author of the book “The Unseen Realm” said in a video presentation; “Certain passages in the Old Testament sounded to the ear like the God of Israel were “two.” Rabbis took note of this and referred to the idea as “The Two Powers” in Heaven. This belief was acceptable in Judaism until around 100 AD when it was declared a heresy. One reason was because of the Jewish response to Christianity.”
At this time of the year we celebrate the fact that He who was God and was with God and was face to face with God from all of eternity came out from the Father and into this world and was born as a fully human being yet without sin. On earth He was the visible manifestation of the invisible God in the heavens. (Colossians 1:15) Now we know why Yahweh the Son came into the world and that was to redeem men by dying for the sins of the world, the perfect and final Passover lamb sacrificed for sin. (John 1:29) (1 Corinthians 5:7)
Now we know that Yahweh Himself cannot die but coming in the person of Yahweh the eternal Son Yahweh could die as a man to redeem men. So the revelation of “two eternally existing equally divine powers in the heavens” who were the One Yahweh is perfectly consistent with the Old Testament scriptures and up until around 100AD was not a problem for the Jewish scholars who saw this in the Old Testament scriptures. So the doctrine of the Triune nature of God (the Trinity) is not an invention of the Roman Catholic Church or of the Greek notion that there are “three gods” but that from all of eternity Yahweh was “one” yet “two” and in the light of the divine attributes of Yahweh the Spirit, the Yahweh of the Old Testament was in fact “three!”
So at this Christmas season we celebrate the fact that Yahweh the Son stepped out from Yahweh the Father in the heavens and through the supernatural conception by Yahweh the Spirit, came into this world fully human yet fully divine to “save His people from their sins” and “the Lamb of Yahweh who takes away the sin of the world.” Who else but Yahweh could die for sin and He did in the person of Yahweh the Son. This is what Christmas is all about! This then is “the Real Reason for the Season!”
