Mat. 1:23 ... "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name IMMANUEL, (which means, GOD WITH US)."
Joseph was an humble carpenter of the village of Galilee called Nazareth and a descendant through David of Abraham. He had pledged himself to marry a village girl named Mary, who was also directly descended from Abraham and David. Mary was betrothed to Joseph, which means that, although they were legally bound to marry, they were not yet enjoying the intimacies of married life, (v. 18). God selected them to be the human parents of His own Son, Jesus Christ, whom He was about to send to earth to accomplish the critical mission of saving mankind from sin and its condemnation, (v.21).
God's plan was to send Christ by a miraculous conception, whereby Mary would conceive by the action of the Holy Spirit without the cooperation of a human male at all, (vss. 18, 20). Had Joseph not learned about this, he would naturally have been affronted when it became known that his select bride was pregnant. In fact, before he was so informed, he was already making plans to divorce her to preserve his own honor, (v. 19). But God intervened, and sent His angel to enlighten Joseph completely on what was happening and to tell him to proceed with his plans to make Mary his wife.
In recounting this history many years later the inspired biographer Matthew made an important observation, that all of this was the fulfillment of ancient prophecy. He pointed out that the virgin birth of Christ had been foretold by Isaiah (Isa. 7:14) some 700 years previously. This was to be the first evidence of Jesus' divinity, for birth by a virgin is unique in the annals of human experience. Although there are many myths about other virgin births, they are unauthenticated and otherwise embellished with the wildest sort of details.
It is nothing more than speculation that Jesus was born on Christmas Day, December 25. The first mention of any celebration of Christmas is in about 325 A.D., and there is no evidence that Christians paid any attention to this date before that time. In fact, there is no agreement today on the calender date of Jesus' birth. Although western Christianity takes it for granted that December 25 is THE day, the Eastern Orthodox Church claims January 6, while the Armenian Church observes January 19.
When the prophet said, "They shall call His name IMMANUEL," he actually meant that this was to be a divine title rather than the Messiah's personal name. That was to be JESUS, a derivative of the Hebrew YESHUA, meaning "savior." In fact, He was probably familiarly called "Jesus bar Joseph," (i.e., Jesus the son of Joseph), for this was the common way in which the Jews referred to a man, (see Luk. 4:22, Jno. 1:45 and 6:42). The title "Immanuel" is very significant, since it means "God with us." The word "incarnation" is also used to express the same concept, for it means "in the flesh." God sent His son into the world of humanity as one of us, clothed in flesh as we are, so that He might experience life as a man and be able to die as the perfect representative Man to atone for the sins of all other men who are by no means perfect.
A second enormous benefit to us in Jesus as Immanuel, God-incarnate, is pointed out in these self-explanatory words, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin," (Heb. 4:15). Because Jesus experienced life in the flesh, He can be sympathetic with our human condition in His role as our Intercessor (Heb. 7:25) and Advocate (I Jno. 2:1) before the Father in heaven. (See also Php. 2:5-9).
