December 15, 2024

Behold Your God!

Speaker: Dr. John Clayton Series: Advent Scripture: Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 40:9, Isaiah 60:1–3

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (Isa. 7:14). [1]

Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” (Isa. 40:9).

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising (Isa. 60:1-3).

Ahaz became the king of Judah at twenty years old and reigned for sixteen years. It was sixteen years too long. He is remembered as one of the kings who “did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God” (2 kgs. 16:2), which may be an understatement in Ahaz’s case. Captivated by the pagan practices of his nation’s neighbors, there seemed no limits to his syncretic debauchery, even to the point of burning his own son as an idolatrous offering.[2] And as what we believe informs how we behave, Ahaz led his nation into idolatry, beckoning the judgment of the one true God, in the form of a military siege upon the city of Jerusalem.

Judah’s northern neighbor, Israel, had formed an alliance with Syria for the purpose of conquering Judah. Judah’s army was no match for the joint coalition, and surrender was certain death for Ahaz and subjection for Judah. According to the prophet Isaiah, “the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind” (Isa. 7:2). But in the Lord’s faithfulness to his covenant with David and the heritage of his covenant people, God sent Isaiah to Ahaz, speaking words that would comfort a believer: “Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint ...” (Isa. 7:4). The Lord promised to deliver king and country, if they would stand firm in the faith of their faithers.

Perhaps to bolster the country’s confidence in the Lord, Isaiah prophetically revealed, details of the imminent demise of Syria and Israel and how Judah would prevail. But more importantly, he gave a sign: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14). It was a sign of a son to come, born of a virgin, whose name would mean “God with us.” To read the sign given in context renders it seemingly irrelevant in the moment, hardly words of salvation for a nation under siege. Still, you would think the special revelation of God, his prophetic promise, and given sign would have been convincing, even upon the calloused heart of Ahaz, but it wasn’t. A man who does not acknowledge God, God gives up “to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Rom. 1:28).

The pressure upon Ahaz mounted and his faithless heart faltered. He didn’t want God with him; he wanted the safety and security of a big army. And so, Ahaz ignored the sign and instead sent silver and gold to the king of Assyria, desperately pleading, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me” (2 Kgs 16:7). To Ahaz’s delight, he came and crushed the two countries. Judah was delivered.

Having ignored the Lord’s prophet, Word, and sign, and as if proof of pagan protection, Ahaz’s idolatrous heart grew increasingly wicked, leading him to desecrate the temple and turn the worship of the one true God into a synagogue of syncretism. The best day of Ahaz’s sixteen-year reign was the day he died. He left nothing but a legacy of wickedness, leading Judah into a downward spiral of depravity and eventually the judgment of the Babylonian exile. All that is left of Ahaz is his wretched memory, but “the word of our God will stand forever” (Isa. 40:8): “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14).

God with Us (Isa. 7:14)

Isaiah said to Ahaz, “the Lord himself will give you a sign.” Not Syria, Israel, or Assyria; not the pagan religions that had led Ahaz astray, but “the Lord himself.” It will be a sign for “you,” which in the Hebrew is plural, implying not only Ahaz but the people. It was a sign that would require looking forward to its fulfillment, according to the Word of God. It was a sign that would require faith.

It is a human tendency to think of the urgent as most important. Given Ahaz’s situation, I would imagine it would have been hard to think about anything else other than the army at the gate. But is the urgent always the most important? Was Ahaz’s greatest need an Assyrian rescue? As a matter of urgency, perhaps it was. But as a matter of eternity, he might have been rescued from invasion but not damnation. While he did not have eyes to see it, his greatest need was God. How often do we allow the urgent to blind us to the eternal?

The sign describes the conception of a virgin bearing a son. As given, it sounds like a prediction, but it is actually a reiteration of an age-old promise. When Adam and Eve fell in sin, God pronounced his judgment upon them, including his curse upon Satan, in the form of a serpent, which included these words: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). It was a promise that sounded out of place amidst a curse upon the devil, kind of like the sign given to Ahaz. The promise tells of the offspring not of a man and woman but of a woman alone, an impossibility naturally, a supernatural conception: “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” The promise tells of Satan’s strike against her son, and her son’s crushing blow to the serpent. Through Isaiah, we learn her son’s name, Immanuel.

We often think of the meaning of “Immanuel,” God with us, especially at Christmas, in the context of his coming and incarnation. And it is essential to the Christian faith that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman” (Gal. 4:4). But it was not only in his coming but in his doing that we may understand the full meaning of Immanuel. For God to be with us, as we are sinners by nature, we must be made like him. Therefore, according to God’s sovereign plan of redemption, in fulfillment of his promise made and sign given, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Through faith in the fulfilled promise made and sign given, that is Christ, we are justified as righteous and reconciled to God, given his Spirit, and guaranteed eternal life in the literal, physical presence of God, Immanuel. For God to be with us, he had to be made like us that we might be made like him, that we might be with him, forever.

God to Us (Isa. 40:9)

Perhaps Ahaz could not fathom that God desires to be with us. Or, perhaps he didn’t want God to be with him. Or, perhaps the urgency of invasion rendered the truth irrelevant to him. But God’s promise to be with his people came long, long before Ahaz, when God said, “I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people” (Lev. 26:11-12), which God fulfilled by his spiritual presence among his people and his manifest presence in the tabernacle, and then the temple. But the sign God gave Ahaz was pointing to something greater than the temple in Jerusalem, to a temple to come, the temple of God’s beloved Son.

For this reason, at the beginning of his Gospel, the apostle John uses language reminiscent of the tabernacle and temple. The Son of God “dwelt among us,” John writes, “and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Then God the Son became Immanuel, God with us, because God the Father sent him to us: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

This is the gospel that we believe, given to us by God himself to be shared, a broadcast of our beloved to our neighbor and the nations, just as Isaiah prophesied:

            Go on up to a high mountain,

                        O Zion, herald of good news;

            lift up your voice with strength,

                        O Jerusalem, herald of good news;

                        lift it up, fear not;

            say to the cities of Judah,

                        “Behold your God!” (Isaiah 40:9)

Isaiah envisioned heralds of the gospel, the people of God, personified by Zion and Jerusalem, the Old Covenant places of worship. From the high mountain, the gospel will be proclaimed so the cities below might hear. This is no timid telling but a proclamation with strength, without fear, a message for the world to hear. And what is the message? “Behold your God!”

Some may find this an odd summation of the good news to be proclaimed to the world. Afterall, some may think, what does beholding God have to do with the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ? Actually, everything. To behold, as Isaiah uses the word, connotes worship, and as God is the only One worthy of worship, in the essence of his majesty and holiness, to behold God is the height of human happiness. Good news, indeed! Go tell it on the mountain!

And if the promise of Christ’s incarnation is summed up in the name Immanuel, which means God with us, then the good news of his coming is summed up in this exclamation of praise: “Behold your God!” But there is no good news unless God monergistically acts to save sinners. There is no good news unless we are reconciled to the One who made us for himself. There is no good news unless we are enabled and empowered to do the very thing for which we were created. Rightly does The Westminster Shorter Catechism begin with this truth: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”[3] So, the gospel is not good news unless it is the fulfillment of our chief end, to behold our God, today and forever!

God for Us (Isa. 60:1-3)

When Ahaz disregarded the sign God had given, he revealed the darkness of his depravity. He wasn’t alone. From the Fall of man onward, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. ... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:10-11, 23). Isaiah describes such total depravity as universal darkness, saying, “darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples” (Isa. 60:2). Apart from divine light, humanity is shrouded in darkness.

But he has not left us to wallow in darkness but gives the light of his gospel. “Arise, shine,” Isaiah says, “for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you” (Isa. 60:1). Identifying the identity of this light, the apostle John reveals, “In [Christ] was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5). But his shining in the darkness, like his name Immanuel, is more than an identification, but salvation. He is God with us because he was sent to us and for us.

This light has been shining in the darkness of spiritual depravity and blindness since Christ’s coming, advancing according to Christ’s commission. His unstoppable gospel will advance, disciples will be made, his church will assemble, and he shall be praised to the ends of the earth. And then, the end shall come, and the glory of God will be revealed in the second coming of his Son and the redemption of his people. The kingdom of God will conquer all kingdoms in a Word, and “nations shall come to [the] light, and kings to the brightness of [the] rising” (Isa. 60:3). Unbelievers will be judged and condemned to eternal damnation and believers will be found standing only in the righteousness of Christ. The world will be filled with reverence and awe, as a loud voice is heard saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3). And darkness will be no more, only the pure light of God’s radiance, and we will hear what our hearts’ desire: “Behold your God!” And so we shall, forever.


[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).

[2] 2 Kgs. 16:3

[3] “The Shorter Catechism” Q&A 1, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 355.

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