The Deep Waters Way | Episode 19: Divine Scandal: God with Us, Yahweh Saves

In this final installment of our series What's in a Name?, we explore the ultimate intersection of God’s character, His covenants, and His presence. While the previous names of God have revealed both His high authority and His deep care, they find their absolute fulfillment in Immanuel—God with us. This episode confronts the profound "scandal" of the Gospel: that the transcendent Creator of the universe (El Gibbor) would empty Himself of His divine majesty to arrive as a helpless infant named Yahweh saves (Jesus), only to bring about our ultimate healing through a criminal's death on a wooden cross. Through this divine scandal, Jesus reconstructs our relationship with God, ending our human strivings to make a name for ourselves and offering us a restored nature, a purified temple, and a new name.

Core Takeaways

• The Ultimate Bridge: Jesus, as Immanuel, stands as the perfect bridge between God's transcendence—His absolute authority, holiness, and separateness from creation—and His immanence—His willingness to draw near, walk with us, and involve Himself intimately in our lives.
• The Helpless Warrior: The name El Gibbor (Mighty God) is scandalously manifested in a newborn baby. This subverts all human expectations of a "jackbooted" ruler, revealing that God conquers our greatest oppressor, sin, through vulnerability and sacrificial love rather than tyrannical military might.
• Yahweh Saves: The name Jesus (Yeshua / Yehoshua) translates to "Yahweh saves". This name carries the full prophetic weight of Isaiah 59 and 63, proving that when no human intercessor could be found to save us from the law of sin and death, God chose to bring salvation Himself.
• The Scandal of the Cross: In a complete reversal of pagan religions, where humans must climb mountains to appease a distant deity, Jesus climbs the hill of Golgotha with the wood of the sacrifice on His back. The Son of Promise becomes both the Provider and the perfect substitute provided by God Himself.
• Purifying the New Temple: Through the sacrifice of the cross, Jesus purifies the "temples" of our bodies so that the Holy Spirit can dwell within us. We are adopted as children and sealed with His name, putting an end to our human strivings to build our own towers of security.

Depth of Insight

• Babel and Pentecost: We contrast the high-handed rebellion of Babel—where Noah's descendants built a ziggurat to manipulate God and "make a name for themselves"—with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, where God unifies the scattered languages and nations on His own terms.
• The Commonality of Reassurance: Matthew’s connection of Isaiah 7:14 to the angel's message to Joseph in Matthew 1:20-21 highlights a consistent thematic thread of divine reassurance ("fear not") when God breaks into human history to perform the impossible.
• The Incarnational Principle: Drawing from Gregory of Nazianzus, the episode emphasizes that "that which is not assumed is not healed." Christ had to become fully human in order to redeem and heal every facet of our broken human experience—including our bodies, minds, and spirits.
• Geographic and Typological Convergence: Golgotha, the hill of the crucifixion, sits in the exact same mountain range around Jerusalem as Mount Moriah. This geographically and linguistically links the site of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac to the place where the ultimate Lamb of God was offered.
• The Solitary Victory: The "slain Lamb" of Revelation 5 who alone is worthy to open the scroll mirrors the bloodstained warrior of Isaiah 63 who "trod the winepress alone." Both accounts declare that redemption was won entirely by God’s sole initiative and strength.

Featured Scripture

• Isaiah 7:14: The prophetic sign of the virgin conceiving and bearing a son named Immanuel.
• Matthew 1:18-25: The angel of the Lord appearing to Joseph to announce the birth and naming of Jesus.
• 1 Peter 2:24: Christ bearing our sins in His body on the tree, linking our spiritual healing to His wounds.
• Revelation 21:3: The ultimate consummation of the covenant promise where the dwelling place of God is with man.

Theological Connections

• Genesis 10:8-10 & 11:1-9: The rise of Nimrod and the high-handed manipulation at the Tower of Babel.
• Isaiah 9:6 & 10:21: The prophetic announcement of the child called El Gibbor and the remnant returning to Him.
• Isaiah 59:14-17 & 63:1-6: The Lord putting on the armor of salvation and treading the winepress of redemption alone.
• Ephesians 1:3-6: Believers being chosen in Christ to be holy, blameless, and adopted as children.
• Revelation 2:17 & 3:12: The promise of a white stone with a new name and being sealed with the name of God.

Scholarly Context & Commentary

• Gregory of Nazianzus: Epistola 101 to Cledonius. Exploring the theological necessity of Christ's full humanity for total, holistic salvation.
• Keller, Timothy. Hidden Christmas: The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ. New York: Viking, 2016.
• The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.

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Where the pagan gods would have demanded that we come to them on the mountain to bring a sacrifice, Jesus did something entirely different. Like Isaac before him, he climbs the mountain with wood for the sacrifice on his back.

The Deep Waters Way: Where Scripture, Theology, and Transformation Meet.

What if in all our striving to reach God, he chose to come down to us?

What if in coming to be with us, he became one of us?

And what if the creator brought redemption through recreation?

Over the last several weeks, we've looked at several names of God revealed to us through scripture. Today, we're concluding the series, What's in a Name? by looking at how Jesus, our Immanuel, is the ultimate fulfillment of every Old Testament name of God and the true bridge between God's transcendence and his immanence. Now, those sound like two-dollar words.

And truth be told, they are big and they're generally only used in Christian circles by theologians, but they are important for gaining a better understanding of who God is. Transcendence speaks to God's authority and separateness, that he exists outside of and rules over creation, and is completely other in every conceivable category. In contrast, immanence tells us about God drawing near to us and being actively involved in his creation.

And while those two ideas are held in tension throughout scripture, they are closely linked to one another and actually complementary of each other. God's immanence is enabled and empowered by his transcendence. And that quality of God meets its fullest expression in Jesus who is also known as Immanuel.

Before we get into that though, I'm Ray and this is The Deep Waters Way.

Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the depths of faith. It's my desire that through this podcast, you and I both gain a greater understanding of God, his word, and our relationship with him.

Now, if that sounds like something that interests you and you haven't already done so, let me ask you to hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening so that you never miss an episode. And if this is your first time listening, check out the previous episodes as well.

Now, grab a cup of coffee or hot tea and settle in for the journey. It's time to slip the moorings and head for the deep waters.

We began this series by looking at Genesis 10 and 11. And there we saw Nimrod, who was identified as a mighty hunter before God, which based on the context I think means in defiance of God. We also saw humanity's attempt to make a name for itself by building a ziggurat, a tower to heaven. Of course, the purpose of this tower was to recreate the Garden of Eden and provide a manufactured mountain and stairway for God to descend and dwell upon.

It was an attempt by Noah's descendants to manipulate God into relationship with them and to coerce or control the outcome of that relationship. We saw as well that God did indeed descend, but not in the way the people expected. He scattered the people and their language. And the message was clear. God will not be manipulated nor coerced into aligning his will with ours. Nor are we able to make a name for ourselves.

From there we began to explore several names of God that he has revealed to us. We talked about Yahweh, El Roi, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Rapha, El Shaddai, and finally El Gibbor. That last in particular provided the contrast between God's names for himself and Nimrod, the gibbor, and humanity's attempt to name itself.

Now, each of those names revealed to us a god who is truly transcendent - who is powerful enough to create, who is above all, who is able to see, provide, and heal, who is sufficient for every need and able to fight for his people when no one else can. But each of those names also revealed God's immanence - that while powerful, he draws near to us, responds to our needs, and enters into covenant with us.

Now, this is not an exhaustive list of God's names revealed through scripture. But the pattern remains even for the ones that we didn't look at. God is transcendent and he is immanent. He is beyond us and he draws near to us. And what is ultimately made clear here is he desires to dwell with us, but it will only happen on his terms, not on ours.

At Babel, Yahweh showed humanity that he can't be manipulated. El Shaddai showed Abraham that the promise and blessing aren't achieved through human striving. And El Gibbor showed Isaiah that the God who fights for his people initially comes as a little child.

Across three chapters, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah using the image and reality of the birth of a child to point to his ultimate desire. The first two are the same child and in immediate context point to Isaiah's son, Maher-shalal-hash-baz. The third occurrence moves us beyond the time of Ahaz and prophecy about Aram, Israel, and Assyria. It was this third occurrence that we looked at in the last episode where the child born to us is called El Gibbor, or Mighty God.

And it is also this third prophecy that gives meaning to the first beyond Isaiah and Ahaz's day. In Isaiah 7, Ahaz has decided to make a deal with Assyria to protect Judah from the combined forces of Aram and Israel. God tells Isaiah to go to Ahaz and offer him reassurance. And as proof, Ahaz is instructed to ask God for a sign of his choosing. Ahaz refuses with false humility. And this then is the response: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

Now, there is more to the prophecy given to Ahaz than just that. However, this one verse, Isaiah 7:14, is what Matthew picks up on in his gospel. There, Matthew relates how an angel of Yahweh comes to Joseph to reassure him about Mary and what God is doing. And just as an aside here, notice the commonality of reassurance surrounding this prophecy. This is the kind of thing that stands out to you when you read connected passages side by side.

Matthew then under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit takes what Joseph is told by the angel and in light of all of Isaiah's descriptions of the Messiah applies Ahaz's sign not just to Ahaz's situation but to the Messiah as well. He connects the prophesied Immanuel, God with us, to the child who is El Gibbor, the Mighty God. This connection becomes even more clear when you read Isaiah 10. There Israel is described as trusting in the Lord of hosts and returning to El Gibbor.

So some 750 years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah speaking God's words tells of the mighty God coming to dwell with his people. This is not just God's desire expressed over the centuries through his brief revelations of his name and character. Though this is the fulfillment of everything humanity has desired, a return to the days of Eden when God walked with his people. It is the fulfillment of the picture presented through the tabernacle and of God's covenant promise to dwell or tabernacle with his people.

But Matthew does something else by making this connection. He makes plain what Paul would later call scandalous. It is unheard of for a god to dwell with his people. Gods dwell on mountaintops and only descend when they want something from humanity. To say that God would descend and dwell with his people is quite frankly ridiculous.

But remember, Isaiah made the claim first. And his claim is even more scandalous than Matthew's. Because not only does Isaiah contend that God will dwell with his people, he says God will do so in the form of a baby. El Gibbor, the mighty God who fights for his people, whom the remnant of Jacob will return to, will come as an infant—the most helpless, unmighty way possible.

And just as the baby known as Immanuel in Isaiah's day would have an actual name, so does this baby. The angel who comes to Joseph tells him in Matthew 1:20 and 21:

"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."

Joseph is instructed to call this son to be born to Mary, Jesus. Now, I've mentioned this before in another episode, but just to refresh your memory here, Jesus is the Anglicized form of the Greek name Iesous. And that is just the Greek rendering of the Hebrew name Yeshua, which is the post-exile form of Yehoshua that we translate Joshua. They're all the same name, just different renderings and pronunciations due to differences in language, and they all mean the same thing: Yahweh saves.

And the scandal just keeps getting deeper. Not only is El Gibbor going to literally dwell with his people, he's going to arrive as a baby named Yahweh saves. That name carries all the weight of Isaiah 59 and 63 where God promises to be the one to bring salvation since no one else is able.

There's another parallel there as well that you need to see. In Revelation 5, John sees God holding a scroll and hears him ask, "Who is worthy to open the scroll?" And no one in heaven or earth is found who can open it or look upon it. And John begins to weep. And then an angel tells him, "The Lion of Judah is able to open the scroll." And John looks and sees a Lamb that looks as though it has been slain standing next to the throne taking the scroll.

Now, there's a whole lot to unpack there, but there's one thing here that I want you to see. No one is found who can open the scroll. Just as in Isaiah 63, none is found who is able to help the Lord in his redemptive work. So he chooses to do it himself. Jesus is Yahweh saves, Immanuel, God with us. None could deliver, so he came himself.

And that leads us to another level of scandal because we might imagine if a god is going to come and dwell with his people, he's going to do it in all his divine majesty. And certainly when we look at the Old Testament and the tabernacle and even the temple later with Solomon, that's exactly what we see happening with God—that his divine shekinah glory comes and dwells within the tabernacle and the temple. But that's not what's going to happen here. No, the champion of Israel who is to be Immanuel lays aside the glory of his divinity and takes up human flesh.

And we call this the Incarnation. Tim Keller, the co-founder of the Gospel Coalition, says this about the incarnation: "The key difference for Christianity is the incarnation. No other faith says God became flesh... The incarnation means that God went to infinite lengths to make himself one whom we can know personally." In other words, one of Christianity's defining themes is that the transcendent became truly immanent. He didn't just become like us; he became one of us, and yet at the same time didn't lose a bit of what it means to be God in the process.

And that is absolutely necessary. He had to remain fully God in order to carry out the role of deliverance and salvation, but he had to become fully human in order to make that salvation a reality.

Now, a couple of episodes ago I mentioned Gregory of Nazianzus, and he put it this way: "That which is not assumed is not healed." Which leads us to needing to talk about how Immanuel heals us. The angel told Joseph he will save his people from their sins. In other words, the primary focus of the healing is spiritual. Yet Isaiah also makes it clear that Jesus will also bring physical healing.

And Jesus uses that very issue to inaugurate his ministry at the synagogue when he reads from Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed."

This is Jehovah Rapha in action. The one of whom Peter would say: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed."

And by quoting Isaiah 53 there at the end, Peter invokes what Paul truly calls a scandal because it's not enough that God would choose to dwell with us or even become one of us. No, part of the plan, the way in which Jesus—Yahweh saves—brings salvation, the way he fights for us, isn't as a warrior in armor. It's through a criminal's death on a cross. And this is Jehovah Jireh in action.

Where the pagan gods would have demanded that we come to them on the mountain to bring a sacrifice, Jesus did something entirely different. Like Isaac before him, he climbs the mountain with wood for the sacrifice on his back. But unlike Isaac, this time the son of promise is the lamb for the sacrifice seen to or provided by God himself. And in this event, there are still echoes of Isaiah 63. No one else could possibly do for us what Jesus did on the cross. As I said before, it had to be God himself who didn't just provide the sacrifice but actually became the sacrifice.

And this is ultimately Paul's scandal of the cross. He calls it a stumbling block for Jews. They would be thinking there's no way that the Messiah could possibly die on a cross. After all, cursed is anyone who is hung on a tree. And there's no way the Messiah could be cursed. It's a stumbling block because it just doesn't make sense.

And it's foolishness to the Greeks because gods don't die. It's the height of folly to think a transcendent being far removed from humanity could be killed by human beings. And yet, that is as crucial a moment for the gospel as the incarnation. It is the culmination of what it means to become human. And it fits Gregory's statement earlier because, just as Paul says, death has now been swallowed up in victory.

Oh, by the way, Golgotha, the hill on which Jesus was crucified, it sits just outside of Jerusalem in the same range of hills as the Temple Mount. And if you heard the episode on Jehovah Jireh a few weeks ago, you know that the Temple Mount is in the region of Moriah. Yes, that Moriah where Abraham was told to take Isaac in order to sacrifice him.

There's another aspect of what Jesus does for us as Yahweh's salvation. He makes a way where otherwise there would be no way for God to truly be with us. When God gave the covenant to Moses and Israel, part of the point of that was to make it possible for him to live in their midst. In making the covenant with Israel, God was stipulating the conditions under which he could dwell in their midst just as he had done with Abraham. And in Ezekiel, we see the result of continued breaking of the covenant by the people when Ezekiel sees the glory of God depart from the temple.

In dying on the cross and bringing salvation from our sins, Jesus purifies the new temple so that the glory of God can dwell in us. You see, God with us doesn't just mean God becoming human and living among humans. By Christ's sacrifice, through Yahweh's salvation, the temples of our bodies are remade and purified so that God through the Spirit of Christ can dwell within us and truly become God with us.

But it's even more than that. In Ephesians 1, Paul uses the same covenant language that God used with Abraham in Genesis 17, saying that in Christ, it has been made possible for us to be holy and blameless before him and that the plan all along was not just that he would dwell with us, but that he would adopt us as children. And if we are adopted, that means that instead of striving to make a name for ourselves like Babel, he gives us his name. In fact, Revelation 3:12 says that his name is put on us like a seal. But then we're also told in Revelation 2:17 that we will receive a stone with a new name on it. And that new name signifies the same thing it did for Jacob at Peniel and Abraham when God entered into covenant with him in Genesis 17: a new character.

Throughout scripture, God has revealed himself to us in a number of ways. And he's made it plain that his intended goal is to not just reveal himself, but to dwell with us. But that means radically remaking us, making us part of his family, sealing us with his name, and giving us new names. By bringing salvation to us himself and by becoming God with us, he puts an end to all of our striving to make a name for ourselves.

And Revelation 21:3, right there at the end of the New Testament, caps off a series of verses that begins in the Old Testament and runs from Leviticus to Jeremiah and Ezekiel. And then Paul picks up that same series and quotes it. And there at the very end we read: "And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God."

Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that this lesson has blessed you in some way. If it has, please share it with a friend. That is the absolute best way you can help the show to grow. And if you would like to help support the channel financially, you'll find a link to the donations page down in the show notes below.

Now, it's time to slip the moorings and head for the deep waters.

The Deep Waters Way: Where Scripture, Theology, and Transformation Meet.