O come, O come, Immanuel,
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
From Adam and Eve onward, the hope of God’s people has rested on a coming. We are a waiting people, a yearning people, a people who know we need rescue and know that only “the coming one” can bring it (Hebrews 10:37).
For over a thousand years, the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” has put words to the church’s waiting, especially during Advent (a word that refers to an arrival, a coming). Advent, more than any other season, bids us to long for our coming Rescuer — and “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” perhaps more than any other hymn, provides lyrics for our longing.
This month at Desiring God, our team of teachers (with a few guests) will walk through the hymn with a focus on its seven titles for the Savior who came once and will come again. His name is Wisdom, Lord, Root of Jesse, Key of David, Day-Spring, King of the Gentiles — and here on the first day of Advent, Immanuel.
“Behold,” the prophet said, the angel told, “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (Matthew 1:23). They shall call him God with us.
Land of Lonely Exile
At the heart of the human condition lies a deep and unshakable loneliness. We may find ways to mask the feeling, but however many people or pleasures surround us, we are by nature a lonely people on a lonely planet. For whoever and whatever is with us, we are nevertheless “without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
Without God: like body without soul, tree without sap, family without father or mother, earth without sun. The words flash like the sword at Eden’s eastern gate: though with friends, with money, with job, with marriage, with pleasure, with power, with plenty — this one without ruins all. We are inescapably lonely without God. We are spiritually lost.
The hymn calls it our captivity, our lonely exile in a land “under sin” (Romans 3:9). We are like Israel in Egypt or the people of God “by the waters of Babylon” (Psalm 137:1) — but far worse, for our Pharaoh follows us wherever we go, and the rivers of our banishment run through our very soul. Without God, we are in exile everywhere.
Our home does not lie across a Red Sea or a wilderness but across the infinite chasm carved by human sin. So we live and die in a land of lonely exile, us without God. Unless, somehow, one should come named Immanuel, God with us.
Jesus Our Immanuel
Now, in one sense, Israel knew their God as Immanuel before the angel spoke to Mary. Moses wouldn’t leave Sinai unless God went “with us” (Exodus 33:15–16). In desperate moments, the people remembered that “the Lord of hosts is with us” (Psalm 46:6). The temple in particular stood as a precious sign of God’s presence with his people.
But the temple also stood as a trembling testimony of God’s distance from his people. The altar, the doorway, and the veil triple-locked God’s presence in the Most Holy Place from even the most upright of Israelites. Only one person could enter that Most Holy Place — “and he but once a year” (Hebrews 9:7).
In the deepest sense, then, God’s people were exiles even in Israel; they were lonely even in the promised land. However far west they went, they still lived east of Eden, for the angels embroidered on the temple’s veil still “turned every way to guard” the garden we once knew (Genesis 3:24; Exodus 26:31).
We needed something more. We needed a temple “not made with hands” but having hands (Mark 14:58). We needed a Most Holy Place made human, a sanctuary with skin on, a veil born from a virgin. We needed a temple that John could lay his head upon and that Thomas could touch (John 13:23; 20:27). We needed Immanuel to enter the land of our exile. And we needed him to die like we exiles deserve.
And so he did. Jesus came, God with us, to restore relationship through ransom. He came to be Immanuel on the cross, crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). There Jesus embraced our captivity — and took captivity captive. There he entered our exile — and ended it from the inside.
The Son of God came to be with us so that he might experience all that it means to be without God — and so that, on the other side of that loneliest of exiles, our loneliness might come to an end as we say, “My God, my God, why have you welcomed me?”
Alone, Yet Not Alone
At the heart of the human condition lies a deep and unshakable loneliness. But at the heart of the Christian condition lies a deep and unshakable presence. Our sense of exile may linger, and we may feel, at times, the ache of old loneliness. But if we could read the secret script upon our heart, it would no longer say, “without God,” but rather “the beloved of Immanuel.”
Once, we were alone even when most surrounded; now, we are surrounded even when most alone. As Jesus told his disciples, “You . . . will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone” (John 16:32). Alone, yet not alone. So we are too in Christ, for the parting gift of Immanuel was to put another Immanuel in our hearts, the Spirit who is God with us and even God in us (John 14:17).
So even when we feel alone, we are not alone. Our captivity is over, our lonely exile ended. For Jesus, our Immanuel, has come.
He came into this world of sin,
Made flesh and blood his dearest kin;
He died, that he might take us in,
And keep us till he comes again.
