O Immanuel. When Israel got to that point in its history where God brought a son into Israel’s population, by begetting this son, the only son God the Father begat (by the Holy Sprit giving the mother the holy conception of Jesus), it is no surprise that this warrants a name being given in truth ‘God with us’, Immanuel. Only a twister of truth would say it means Jesus is the one true God, but, since the name Immanuel uses ‘EL’ for God it can denote a looser meaning ‘god’ which can be applied to a human. So it could mean ‘a god is with us’. This is accurate because by being begotten of God, Jesus is conferred with a divinity uncommon to other humans, meaning it is accurate to call Jesus a god. ‘El’ on its own (as in the name Immanuel) means a god or a person of very high standing. So in this sense we can understand the name Immanuel to mean “a god is among us”, or “we have a hero, a deliverer among us”. In the case of Jesus, this hero is sent by the One True God and is the only-begotten of the One True God, so the other sense of meaning of the name Immanuel is also true “the One True God is with us”, but this is not necessarily the primary intended meaning of the name. Nevertheless the name conveys the joy of having someone of great standing, sent by God Himself, to champion God’s people’s cause and deliver from trouble and from enemies and from sins. “With Christ in the vessel we can smile at the storm.”
