This article is part of our Advent series “The Dawning of the King.” We have also created a PDF with hymns and daily Scripture readings to use as a guide, whether individually or with your family or small group.
To us a child is born, to us a son is given . . . and his name shall be called . . . Everlasting Father. (Isaiah 9:6)
When we talk to lost people about their need for Jesus, we often focus on their need for forgiveness. I grew up on a Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23 gospel (a true gospel):
Romans 3:23: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I love that gospel and owe my life to that gospel. Since my teenage conversion, though, I’ve learned that Jesus came, died, and rose for far more than forgiveness. The joy of Christmas is about a debt canceled and a hell removed, yes, but it is also about a blindness healed, a war ended, a life restored, a loneliness cured, an orphan adopted. One verse in Isaiah preaches a fuller, more beautiful Advent sermon:
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
Why turn this long-awaited Diamond four times like this with four different names? Because no one description captures all the needs this Jesus meets in us. Four, of course, don’t capture him either, but four is better and truer than one. And the most puzzling of the four holds as much promise and comfort as any.
Is the Son Also Father?
Everlasting Father. This name probably seems like the strangest. Is Isaiah saying Jesus is the Father? I thought Jesus was the Son. In fact, Isaiah calls him that in the same verse: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” So, why turn, just twenty words later, and call him “Father”? Because the Son, like so many sons, is also a father.
Yes, within the Godhead, he is the Son and not the Father. Even still, Jesus says of himself, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The man Jesus, who came at Christmas, died on Good Friday, and now sits on heaven’s throne, “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). If you see him, you see the Father. But I don’t think that’s the meaning of this name in Isaiah 9:6. No, as this Messiah comes, in love, to the church, he becomes brother, bridegroom, friend, and also father.
In calling him “Everlasting Father,” we learn that the Savior of infinite wisdom (Wonderful Counselor), and infinite strength (Mighty God), and infinite mercy (Prince of Peace) also comes with infinite and eternal devotion. The Son we remember and celebrate each Advent is not a dispassionate deliverer. He is a devoted and adoring father.
What Kind of Father?
In what ways does Jesus come to us as a father? He is our father in the same way the unmarried, childless apostle was a father.
Paul says, “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15). God had used him to grant them spiritual life. And then he says, “For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:11–12). What does Paul mean when he says he treated them “like a father with his children”? He means that he was wholly committed to using his strength to teach, protect, feed, correct, and encourage them as if they were his own children. He treated their souls like any great dad would treat a son.
The all-wise counselor and all-powerful God we meet in Jesus is also a real and exceptional father. This name fills all of his wisdom and power with love. It makes the Wonderful Counselor and Mighty God family. An all-wise, all-powerful Messiah wouldn’t be good news for us if he wasn’t also for us, if he didn’t exercise all of that wisdom and power for our good. Jesus is that kind of Savior. He’s a father to those he came to save.
Charles Spurgeon preaches on this name,
Has he not supplied us with more than heavenly bread as a father gives bread unto his children? Does he not daily protect us, nay, did he not yield up his life that we his little ones might be preserved? Will he not say at the last, “Here am I, and the children that thou hast given me; I have lost none”? Does he not chastise us by hiding himself from us, as a father chasteneth his children? . . . Is he not the head in the household to us on earth, abiding with us, and has he not said, “I will not leave you orphans (that is the Greek word); I will come unto you”?
He did not leave us as orphans, but came to a lowly manger, surrounded by animals and hostility, in the darkness of little Bethlehem. And he has not left us as orphans, but as any good father would when leaving for a night, he made arrangements to see that every child would make it safely home.
An Everlasting Father
Yes, Jesus is a father, and not just any father, but an everlasting Father. I hope this word — everlasting — meets a need for many of you this month. I was talking to someone recently who said December is the hardest month of the year for him because of all he’s lost and suffered in his family. Almost every sunrise is a painful reminder that it’s not like it was. Sinclair Ferguson writes,
We traditionally think of Christmas as a family time. But by no means do all of us have good memories of Christmas at home, or of family life, or of our father. But in Christ, we find a new father, a true father, and what is more, an everlasting father.
We shouldn’t be surprised that Christmas comes with its own wounds and waitings. Advent, after all, is still a season of waiting, because life still isn’t what it should be. When the pain comes, take refuge in your Everlasting Father. The strength and safety of his love will never wane or end. He can get you through December and January, gatherings and anniversaries, every hardship and season, until you’re home. Your Savior is a father, and he’s a really, really good one.
Desiring God