THAT holy man of Israel, the inspirational prophet Isaiah, whose name in Hebrew signifies "the salvation of the Lord," is without doubt one of the great luminaries of the Scriptures. His sweet songs of certain deliverance from earthly woes, for those who turn from the material to Spirit, have lightened the path of pilgrims in all centuries. More than any other of the major or minor prophets of the Bible does he foresee and foretell the coming of a dispensation wherein mankind is to know a savior, and salvation from error. How welcome must have been his messages of hope and comfort to the Israelites! Whether the problem facing them was an invasion by the Assyrians, or Babylonian captivity, the promise of deliverance was the same for those whose minds were stayed on the Most High.
In the seventh chapter of his book, Isaiah gives possibly his most startling and significant prophecy. We read, "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." To enhance the wonder of this prophecy, let it be understood that Isaiah uttered it more than seven hundred years before the coming of Jesus. It is easy to picture the holy hope and prayer of countless young women of Israel through the succeeding centuries, that one of them might be privileged to become the mother of the promised Messiah. And so, in the fullness of time, a spiritually-minded Jewish maiden, opening her thought to "the deep things of God" and to the angelic messages of His supreme fatherhood, found herself the mother of him whose name was to be called Immanuel—a literal translation of which is "With us is God."
In these days of so-called liberalization of thought, one frequently hears advanced by some Christian advocates the theory that Christ Jesus was really not a virgin's son, but appeared as does the usual mortal. Right here what a service does Mary Baker Eddy render the religion of pure Christianity! What spiritual light does she throw on the Jewish Scriptures, and thus make it possible for the Jew to unite with the Christian in seeing, in the virgin birth of Jesus, the fulfillment of all the Hebraic prophecies!
