"All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the
prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they
will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”"[1]
Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14, a prophesy that led to God calling Isaiah to name
his next son Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, meaning, “quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil” – a poignant prophetic
object lesson of the impending Assyrian invasion. Yet everyone who ponders such
things can know that Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz was an imperfect fulfillment of
Isaiah 7:14, for the Lord had said, "the virgin will be with child"
and Isaiah's wife had already bore him a son - the very son he had with him
when he was given these words. Although the Hebrew could mean "young
girl", such would not be the full meaning of the word. In 1:22-23 of his
Gospel, Matthew is saying that the fulfillment of the prophesy is only now
given, in Jesus Christ. That is a very bold and exceedingly blunt observation,
and it is an observation that is itself pregnant with meaning.
Just what meaning is
gestated in the mind and ultimately given birth to by confession is up to the
reader. For the disbeliever, it simply means Matthew transposed a cherry-picked
prophesy to his own point. But this Gospel is not for the disbeliever, we’ve
already grasped that Matthew wrote it for those who consider themselves the
people of God. For them (the average
Jewish reader in Matthew's day), it would've immediately stirred up hopes of deliverance
from Roman occupation. We can relate to that, because that occupation - which
was understood as punishment for national sin – was an offensive and dangerous
oppression in the minds of most Jews. Just as our secular governments are to
Christians today.
But for the reader with true
faith in God, it means not only that Jesus is the fulfilment of yet another
prophesy (praise the Lord!), it means a disciple of God (in this case Matthew)
can rightly interpret Scripture. That is no small thing - Matthew was not a
learned Jewish scholar, as Saul/Paul was. Matthew was formerly a tax collector
for the occupying Romans. That he – a traitor to his own people, an outcast
that Jesus invited to become a disciple – can pick up the Scripture and see
something even the learned Pharisees and scribes failed to notice – is itself
testimony to the work of God in Matthew.
The Spirit is at work in him – both to see Christ in the prophesies of
Isaiah and to write the Gospel! The same
Spirit who is at work in you, to bring you to complete maturity and full
Christlikeness (Eph 4:13).
· What has God
been saying to you through the Scripture we’ve studied so far?
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