In the season of Advent, we speak of a present-day hope that we have in God through the work of the Holy Spirit to create and sustain faith in us through the Word and Sacraments.
Verses like this, when kept in the Law, keep the Bible a closed book of condemnation. Without Christ to unlock the scriptures and to open up the Gospel for us, we cannot be saved.
A sign was given to Ahaz to point him toward the greater sign given in a manger and that Bethlehem’s Messiah is the sign we look forward to seeing in the sky when Jesus, our Emmanuel, comes again.
No one comes to God except through Christ who took the jagged road of Calvary for you and me and opened-up the way previously blocked by death through His glorious resurrection.