The 4th Sunday in Advent
Isaiah 7:10-17; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
There’s a persistent false teaching among Christians (primarily in America) that that believers can shape God’s promises by “naming it and claiming it.” Like many false teachings, this one has enough truth in it to make it seem legitimate. It starts by pointing out that God has made many promises to His people (true) and that when God makes a promise that He will certainly keep it (also true). But then it makes the believer, rather than God, the source of crafting the promise (false) by instructing the believer to “name” the promise and making it specific to what they are seeking from God even if God’s promise is not as specific as what is “named.” At the core of this sinful exploitation is turning the naming of God’s promises upside down and backwards. What we learn from His Word is that God, not we, name His promises.
God’s promises are certain because He makes them, not us. Very rarely does God leave it up to someone to name a promise. King Ahaz is one of those rare examples. God offered Ahaz the opportunity to “ask a sign of the Lord your God” so that God could prove what He was revealing through Isaiah. When Ahaz foolishly refused to name a promise, God made and named one of His own: “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Like all of God’s promises, the promise which He named “Immanuel” (which means “God with us”) was kept in due time. Long after Ahaz and the kings that he feared had passed from the scene, God announced to a virgin named Mary that she would give birth to His Son. It wasn’t something that Mary had asked for, let alone “named” and “claimed,” but she was willing to receive it along with the difficulties that it brought her. Among those difficulties was that of explaining to her betrothed husband how she had become pregnant as a virgin. From our perspective, Joseph acted reasonably and justly when he decided to name Mary on a divorce certificate and end their relationship. But God had other plans for Joseph. He revealed that He had chosen Joseph to play a special role in the life of Immanuel and then revealed the full intent of the promise made to Ahaz, “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
The promise that God named first to Ahaz and then named again more clearly to Joseph is the very promise that we are preparing to celebrate on Christmas: God coming to be with us in order to save us. God named His promise to rescue us from sin, death, and everlasting punishment; and the name of His promise is Jesus.
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