Written by Samuel D. James |
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
To miss God’s design is to not live as God intended. It’s to sell ourselves short, to make for us lives and identities and destinies that are far, far poorer than what God intends. That’s why Christians talk about this stuff: because the good life really is possible.

Let’s begin with the observable facts of anatomy. Males have different reproductive organs than females. More than that, the reproductive organs of males appear to be designed to fit together with those of females. If you took a class on safe sex in high school, your teacher (or book, or video, or whatever) almost certainly assumed that female reproductive organs had to be treated differently than male ones. Thus, every boy in that class was expected to know how to put on a condom, and every girl in that class was expected to know what the birth control pill does. I doubt there was much confusion in the class over why girls weren’t expected to practice with condoms on themselves or the boys weren’t asking questions about the pill.
Now of course, this doesn’t prove that all the biological males in the class experienced male gender identity, or that the biological girls experienced the opposite. But the point is simply that sex education depends on a meaningful distinction between maleness and femaleness, and that this distinction is a given one, not simply an artifact of culture. No one was brainwashed into thinking they have the physical parts between their legs that they can plainly see. Boys see their boy parts, and girls see their girl parts, and from the moment boys and girls are born other people relate to them not simply as generic humans but as boys or girls, mostly because of these observable human parts.
Christianity begins with the teaching that God created a man and a woman, Adam and Eve. When Adam saw Eve for the first time, he was so excited that he broke out into song. Christians take “Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh” to mean that Eve was like Adam, yet unlike him. She was a human being, but she “completed” him in a very real way. In fact, in Genesis, we are told plainly how this completion was immediately expressed: through sex. “The man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.” Adam and Eve’s natures as like yet unlike demanded sexual union. So in the Christian religion, men and women were created by God with bodies that are like yet unlike, and the expression of this mysterious, complementary creation is sexual union. There is no sex without bodies, and there are no bodies without maleness and femaleness.
Now here is where many critics of Christianity argue that this doctrine simply fails to describe the lived reality of many people. What about the intersex? What about those with gender dysphoria? What about those who say they know they are a different gender than their biological sex?
Two answers are in order here. First, while the existence of intersexed persons and persons with gender dysphoria is often treated like a golden gun against the Christian position, this is a gross oversimplification of what usually happens with these folks. We have research that suggests more than 90% of teens diagnosed with gender dysphoria will eventually grow out of it. Gender dysphoria should be understood as a psychological malady, not as a kind of person.
Second, the Christian position certainly anticipates the possibility of feeling alienated from one’s body. Christians believe that Adam disobeyed God and introduced sin into the world. Sin corrupted the Adam’s relationship with God, with Eve, with the earth, and even with himself. Adam and Eve’s recognition that they were naked and now ashamed is a sign of profound alienation between Adam and Eve and their bodies. Before sin, they accepted themselves and each other and rejoiced without shame. After sin, they cover their bodies and hide their persons from God.
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Jacob had waited seven years to marry Rachel. Now, decades later, she is gone. The pillar he erected over her tomb in her memory (Gen. 35:20) was a witness to the sadness and hope that surrounded his life. Sadness in the loss; hope in the covenant promises that now assured him of a love that will not let him go.

Jacob, the wily one, after ten or fifteen years, finally returns to Bethel. God has been at work in his life, drawing the wayward patriarch to himself. It has been a difficult journey. It invariably is so when our wills are set at variance against the Lord’s. From the perspective of hindsight, Jacob could now speak to his family of a God “who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone” (Gen. 35:3). Jacob had been sheltered within the orbit of God’s covenant faithfulness. Despite half-hearted commitment and questionable decisions made more out of fear than trust, Jacob had known the Lord’s providential goodness. Even now, as he returns, a path is opened up for him to return in safety to the place where God had first met with him. The promise God had made to him, then, must have haunted him through the years. He was to inherit the land and his offspring   were to be as ”the dust of the earth” (Gen. 28:13–15), but he had left with nothing but the clothes he had been wearing! Now, as he returns to Bethel, he brings with him his twelve sons (his twelfth yet unborn in his mother’s womb) and considerable wealth. And Jacob does the only thing possible under such circumstances — the only right thing: he worships! He pours out his heart in gratitude to the Lord for all that he now knew of God’s grace.
As Jacob worships, wonderful things happen: God renews the covenant that he had made (Gen. 35:9–15), reminding Jacob of the significance of the new name he had received at Peniel. Others may call him Jacob, but God has named him “Israel.” Some of the things God says to him must have reminded him of similar words used by his father Isaac so many years before, especially when he heard God say, “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 35:11; see 28:3). But a new promise is made, “kings shall come from your own body” (35:11). Imagine! Jacob’s pitiful attempt to buy a piece of the Promised Land at Shechem (33:19) is answered by God, saying, “I’ll give you and your descendents the whole of it!” Covenant mercies! Covenant grace! Covenant faithfulness!
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Another expression of the Immanuel Principle is our hope of our eternal residence with God in heaven; God himself is our eternal dwelling. Between Eden and the Incarnation, the Immanuel Principle was God’s intent, as evidenced in his appearances to man through OT theophanies. Through these appearances we see Christ Himself, manifested through revelations and visions. The OT theophanies reveal to us the God the promises of the onewho would come and dwell with us.

Introduction:  The Immanuel Principle
If we tend to think of “Immanuel: God with us” mostly at Christmas, a deeper study will show it to be a core concept throughout Scripture. As some have explained: ‘The Immanuel Principle’ is God’s intent to be with us and His creation. Understanding and appreciating the Immanuel Principle is one of the reasons why we celebrate the Christmas season. Even though Christmas observance is not scripturally mandated, we should celebrate God’s intent for us to know that he is with us through Christ’s incarnation. It is the core of our Christian hope.
The Immanuel Principle is first seen right at the beginning of God’s revelation in the Garden of Eden as God walked and fellowshipped with man in the cool of the evening. When man’s sin broke his communion with God, His still intended to be with us. Through the incarnation he would show Himself to man, to resolve and remove the sin that had necessitated the separation. As God told Moses, “No one can see my face and live” ( Ex. 33:20).
In Christ’s incarnation we would look on Christ and live, in the same way as Israel did when many were bitten by deadly serpents in the wilderness; Moses was instructed to place a serpent made of brass on a pole so any who looked at it would be healed and live (Num 21/Jn 3: 14-16). This anticipates the unmistakable divine providence pointing to the cross of Christ.
Another expression of the Immanuel Principle is our hope of our eternal residence with God in heaven; God himself is our eternal dwelling. Between Eden and the Incarnation, the Immanuel Principle was God’s intent, as evidenced in his appearances to man through OT theophanies. Through these appearances we see Christ Himself, manifested through revelations and visions. The OT theophanies reveal to us the God the promises of the onewho would come and dwell with us.
The God Who Sees Finds Hagar (Gen 16)
In the OT world, Hagar was a least of the least position. As an Egyptian slave woman, and surrogate mother for Abraham’s family at Sarah’s insistence, Sarah came to despise Hagar even though she gave Abraham a son.  Sarah chased Hagar out of the house through her hostile treatment. Gen 16:7 tells us, “The angel of the LORD” went and found her by a spring of water in the desert wilderness.
The Angel of the LORD asked her a question: “Where are you coming from, and where are you going?” The Angel also promised, “I’ll  give you offspring unable to be numbered,” beginning with the child she was now carrying.  Only God Himself could make such a promise.
The text reveals no fear in Hagar of this Angel; the conversation with Him appears quite normal to Hagar. He appeared ordinary to Hagar, much as Christ in His incarnation “has no majesty or beauty that He would stand out” (Isa 53).  During his earthly ministry, people spoke with the Christ, the God-man, “as a man speaks with his friend.” The Gen. 16:13 account tells us Hagar called the name of the LORD who spoke to her “El Roy,” that is, “You are a God of seeing,” for she knew, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”
While the omnipresent Father sees and knows all, He wants us to know that He knows and sees. It is the Incarnate Christ who tells us, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). As Hagar said, “I have seen him who sees me.” God sees us as “in Christ.” God cares for us in the Person of Christ, who loved us and gave Himself up for us” ( Eph. 5:2).
Jacob Wrestles with God…and Wins (Gen 32)
If God’s appearance to Abraham (in Gen 18, the promised birth of Isaac to Sarah) reveals a God and Savior who keeps His promises, the appearance of Christ to Jacob even more clearly reveals a Savior who shows us God, not only in His holiness, but in His mercy.
Jacob had run from Esau, his brother, having deceived their father to steal Esau’s birthright.  He had gone to his relative Laban in a far country. Eventually, he wore out his welcome there, too, both men agreeing to set up a pile of stones that neither would by-pass, to harass each other. Jacob was anticipating the reunion with Esau, going so far as to prepare for battle by dividing his family and possessions into two separate caravans.
In this fearful mood, Jacob would encounter the pre-incarnate Christ.  Having sent even his wives away, Jacob spent the night alone. As the Scripture tells us, he wrestled all that night with “a man,” a physical confrontation with an incarnate being, of some sort. The two fought to a draw, eventually the Christ- figure damaging Jacob’s thigh socket to break free from his grip.
Even then, Jacob demanded God’s blessing and received it. Christ changed Jacob’s name to Israel saying, “You have striven with God, and have prevailed.” We too have prevailed with God, through the Person of Christ. Later, Jacob summed up the encounter, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
In addition to Christ’s encounter with Hagar that revealed Him to be the one who cares for us, Jacob’s encounter with Christ reveals Him to be the One who shows us God and yet we live, not just in this lifetime but forever.  As Christ said, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In the person of Christ, we see God, and since Christ paid the penalty for our sin we receive life.
Manoah’s Barren Wife: The Sacrifice for Sin that Saves (Judges 13)
In biblical history, as man’s sin deepens, The Immanuel Principle becomes more essential, and in the case of Manoah’s wife, more detailed. While many OT theophanies can leave out details that render the historic account somewhat ambiguous, perhaps no theophany reveals more about the incarnate Christ than this, to Manoah’s wife. During the time of the Judges, Israel had again fallen into great sin, and God had again sent the Philistines to draw them back to Himself.
Manoah was from the tribe of Dan; his wife was barren. Judges 13: 3 tells us the Angel of the LORD appeared to her alone with a message: “You shall conceive and bear a son.” If this rings familiar, recall Isa 7: 14 and Luke 1:31, both foretelling the virgin birth of Christ. Manoah’s wife was instructed to commit to the Nazarite vow of no alcohol or eating unclean animals, as this son would “begin to save Israel from the Philistines,” to save Israel from the consequences of their sin.
This too would find a greater Immanuel Principle fulfillment. As a virgin, Mary would bear a son, and was told to call His name Jesus, for He would fully “save His people from their sins.” After a while, it occurred to Manoah this Angel of the LORD was God Himself, for he said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen the LORD.”
But her response was insightful, and theologically brilliant. She replied: “If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these” (13: 23). She knew about the purpose of sacrifices, what Isaiah would also tell Israel hundreds of years later, of the Incarnate Christ on the cross, “He shall see the anguish of His soul, and be satisfied.” Christ was the intent and fulfillment of all the OT sacrifices, the one sacrifice that would fully satisfy the Father.
After the construction of the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, the theophanies would largely cease, for God was dwelling among them.  It would take the Incarnation, that greatest of miracle of all, to show us all that God intended us to know about his dwelling with us.
Before the birth of Jesus, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying:
“Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us) (Matt 1: 20).
The incarnation of Christ demonstrates the fullness of God coming to his people to dwell with them. Jesus assures all who believe:
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:27-30).
Today God is dwelling with us by His indwelling Spirit. And one glorious day, Christ will return to earth, to raise the dead with the living, “and so we will always be [dwell] with the Lord” (I Thes 4).
Mark Kozak is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Providence Reformed PCA in Lavalette, WV.
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