(443) – EMMANUEL

Jesus said to the disciples: “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him, and have seen him” (John 14:7).

“Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us’” (John 14:8).

“Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, “Show us the Father?” Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works’” (John 14:9-10).

Since God, the Father, is the one who spoke in Christ, and the one who did the works, let us be bold, exchanging the word Jesus Christ for the word Father, instead.

1. The Father said: “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him, and have seen him” (John 14:8). “Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us’” (John 14:8). “Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, “Show us the Father?” Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works’” (John 14:9-10).

2. The Father is so humble that, when he lived among men through the flesh of Christ (John 1:14), chose to be born in a manger, instead of a palace in a golden crib (Luke 2:6-7).

3. The Father is so humble and free of vanity that he walked the streets in carpenter’s clothes and dressed like the pilgrims who visited Jerusalem. “It came to pass, when the days were near that he should be taken up, he intently set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face. They went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, so as to prepare for him. They didn’t receive him, because he was traveling with his face set towards Jerusalem. When his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from the sky, and destroy them, just as Elijah did?’ But he turned and rebuked them, ‘You don’t know of what kind of spirit you are. For the Son of Man didn’t come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them’” (Luke 9:51-56).

4. If God was in Christ, why was Christ disfigured? Isaiah said: “Like as many were astonished at you (his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men)” (Is. 52:14). The explanation is in the flesh. In the gospel of John we read: “The Word became flesh, and lived among us” (John 1:14). The reason is that flesh is sin, and the seed of sin is so strong that it made the law to be weak (Rom. 8:3). The law of Jehovah, weakened by the flesh, works sinful passions on the flesh, which lead to death (Rom. 7:5). Peter says: “The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment; but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries” (2 Pet. 2:9-10). And Peter also says: “Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Pet. 2:11). The flesh is so rotten that the disciples of Jesus hated even the clothing stained by the flesh (Jude 23). The carnal pleasures are so poisonous, that they are able to kill; the only medicine capable of counteracting the poison of the desire of the flesh is the Holy Spirit in daily doses (Rom. 8:13). This is the reason why Paul says: “For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6). And Paul concludes, saying: “Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit the Kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:50).

5. For the word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). The disfigured appearance of Jesus was the radiography of the flesh, which Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, described in Gal. 5:19-21.

6. In the person of Jesus, THE WORD, that is to say, God, became flesh, rather, put on our rotten and contaminated clothing in order to save us, delivering us from the flesh by our new birth (John 3:3-6).

7. Paul said: “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me” (Gal. 2:20). The old Saul, persecutor of the Church, did not exist anymore. He had died on the cross. The one now resurrected was Christ. The word became flesh in Paul. That is why Paul had the revelation of the mysteries hidden in God (Eph. 3:1-5).

Likewise, God was in Christ, for he said to Phillip: “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” (John 14:10). Jesus says in this same verse: “The Father who lives in me does his works”. That is what “EMMANUEL” means, which translated is: “God is with us.”

Paul declared in the first letter to Timothy: “who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and eternal power. Amen” (1 Tim. 6:16). In the same epistle the great apostle said: “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Tim. 1:17). And he further said: “[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15). This is to say that God can only be seen in Jesus Christ, and so he said: “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In Christ, God is EMMANUEL — GOD IS WITH US.

God with us does not refer only to salvation, but to total union. When Christ is with us, God is with us; when Christ dwells in us, God dwells in us; when the love of God is in us, God is in us. When the Holy Spirit of god is in us, God, the Father, is in us (Eph. 2:20-22). John declares: “No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). EMMANUEL!

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

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