Editorial December 23, 1985 Issue

God is always with us

CAROLYN B. SWAN

Tracing Bible prophecies and their fulfillment helps us understand that God has always been and will always be with His people. Isaiah prophesied of the coming Messiah, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel"^{Isa. 7:14.} (a Hebrew word meaning "God is with us").

God's Son, Christ Jesus—born of the Virgin Mary—fulfilled this prophecy. He proved through redeeming inveterate sinners, healing incurably sick people, and raising the dead, just what it can do for us to understand that God is with us. Jesus' disciple Peter, briefly summarizing his own eyewitnessing of Jesus' works, said, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed ...; for God was with him."^{Acts 10:38.}

Jesus exemplified the Immanuel; but his brief ministry was neither the beginning nor the end of the unfolding proof that God is with us. Centuries earlier, God had fulfilled His promise to Moses, "Certainly I will be with thee." And of the divine revelation that accompanied this promise—"I AM THAT I AM"^{Ex. 3:12, 14.}—Mrs. Eddy wrote centuries after Jesus, "This supreme potential Principle reigns in the realm of the real, and is 'God with us,' the I am."^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 331.}