For instance, again, ‘Immanuel’, a TITLE, is not claiming that it’s MEANING of ‘God with us’ is a literal. One can say, ‘I am with you’, yet be miles apart. Jesus says, just before he left the apostles, ‘I am with you always’. He obviously did not mean, ‘in person, in body, in actuality’, but rather, ‘In Spirit’. So, also, Immanuel is ‘God is with us in spirit’. And this follows from God telling us that he WOULD send a Saviour (His SERVANT whom will do his will). Surely you cannot believe that Almighty God sent HIMSELF to do his own will and then claim it was another, indeed, himself as a SERVANT - to whom is Almighty God a Servant?
Personal names (including 'Immanuel')
Many trinitarians will tell you that, since the personal name “Jesus” (probably “Yehoshua” in Hebrew)
means “Jehovah is Salvation” (or “Jehovah Saves”), then Jesus
is Jehovah.
If that were true, then all the other people in the Bible whose names had that same meaning (which includes all those named “Jesus,” “Joshua,” “Jeshuah,” “Isaiah,” etc.) are also Jehovah!
It is very interesting that Joshua was originally named ‘Hoshea’ (“Salvation” - p. 303,
Today’s Dictionary of the Bible, Bethany House Publ.), but Moses began to call him ‘Joshua’
(Yehoshua: ‘
Jehovah is Salvation’ or ‘
Jehovah the Savior’ - p. 358; “[
Jehovah] Saves” -
Young’s Concordance; “
Jehovah Saved” -
Strong’s Concordance) at a certain point. - Numbers 13:8, 16. Obviously Moses meant in no way to imply that Hoshea had
become Jehovah!)
(Notice that the actual name for “Joshua” in the NT Greek (and the Septuagint) is
identical to the name for “Jesus":
Iesous. See Heb. 4:8 and compare Heb. 6:20 in the NT Greek portion of a New Testament Greek-English interlinear Bible. Also see Acts 7:45 and compare Acts 16:7 and Matt. 26:51.)
Not only that, but hundreds of others with names similar to “Elijah” (“God Jehovah”), “Abijah” (“Father Jehovah”), “Eliathah” (“
God is Come” -
Young’s; “God Has Come” -
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, p. 929, Vol. 2, Eerdmans, 1984; and
Today‘s Dictionary of the Bible, Bethany House
, p. 674
), “Jehu” (“Jehovah is He” -
Today’s Dictionary of the Bible; Strong’s Concordance; Young’s Concordance; and Gesenius), etc. are also
obviously not Jehovah Himself!
It is certain that many (if not most) of the personal names of God’s people had meanings which were meant to
honor God, not to glorify the person who bore that personal name. (Remember this when analyzing Isaiah 9:6.)
Immanuel
Should Jesus
really be considered to be God because he was symbolically “named” Immanuel (Is. 7:14; Mt. 1:23) which
means “God [is] with us”? No more so than Gabriel was calling
himself God when he visited Mary and declared: “
The Lord is with thee” - Luke 1:28. Nor did Zacharias mean that John the Baptizer (his new son) was actually God when he was asked, “I wonder what this child [John] will turn out to be?”, and he answered, “Praise the Lord,
the God of Israel, for he has come to visit his people and has redeemed them.” - Luke 1:66-68,
LB.
Gabriel and Zacharias (Zechariah) meant exactly what Israelites have meant throughout thousands of years when saying “God is with us” and similar statements. They meant “God has favored us” or “God is helping us”! - Joshua 1:17; 1 Samuel 10:7; 2 Chron. 15:2-4, 9 (cf., Jer. 1:8; Haggai 1:13).
This understanding is seen throughout the Bible. For example, “But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that
God is really among you.” - 1 Corinthians 14:24-25,
RSV.
Or, in a Psalm many of us apply to ourselves or our friends:
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;
for thou art with me -
ASV.
The widely acclaimed trinitarian Bible dictionary,
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 1986, Vol. 2, pp. 86, 87, states:
“The name Emmanuel [or Immanuel] which occurs in Isa. 7:14 and 8:8 means lit. ‘God [is] with us’ .... In the context of the times of Isaiah and King Ahaz the name is given to a child as yet not conceived with the promise that the danger now threatening Israel from Syria and Samaria will pass ‘before the child knows how to refuse evil and choose the good.’ Thus, the child and its name is a sign of God’s gracious saving presence among his people .... [The name Emmanuel] could be a general statement that the birth and naming of the special child will indicate that the good hand of God is upon us.” - p. 86. And, “The point of the present passage [Matt. 1:23] is to see in the birth of Jesus a saving act of God,
comparable with the birth of the first Emmanuel.
Both births signify God’s
presence with his people through a child.” - p. 87.
Or as noted trinitarian scholar Murray J. Harris tells us:
“Matthew [in Matt. 1:23] is not saying, ‘Someone who
is “God” is now physically with us,’ but ‘God is
acting on our behalf in the person of Jesus.’” - p. 258,
Jesus as God, Baker Book House, 1992.[/QUOTE]
