Isaiah 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
This time of year we celebrate the birth of the Savior – Jesus Christ. Isaiah has some portraits about Him and I want to look at them now.;
Wonderful Counselor
Some translations put these two words together – Wonderful Counselor. The Authorized Version makes them two separate names. Either gives us a beautiful picture of Christ.. Wonderful means miracle and this verse speaks of Christ coming in human form in this earth. Christ’s conception was the true miracle but His birth was a natural birth like any other child born – except this Child was the Son of God. He performed many miracles while on earth – you could say He went from one miracle to another.
If you make wonderful an adjective of Counselor you have a miracle counselor. One who gives guidance or resolve to the problems of people He helped. We could truly say Jesus’ counsel was miraculous in nature (Isa 28:29). When His enemies tried to trap Him in His words and works, His response to them could be said to be miraculous because they thought they had a no win situation for Him in their attempt.
The Mighty God
The title tells us that He is not just a son but the very Son of Almighty God – He is Jehovah God in the flesh. John’s gospel was written much later than the other three because many people were beginning to doubt that Jesus was Jehovah God and some were teaching this as well. In the first few verses John tells us three truths about Jesus.
- He was eternally existent – In the beginning was the Word. .
- He had fellowship with God – the Word was with God
- He was God – the Word was God
John also tells us all things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made (Jn 1:3). Paul affirms this in Col 1:16. Jesus is declared not only to be present in the creation but to be the Creator. He is the Mighty God – 1 Tim 1:17
The Everlasting Father
We associate the name Father with the first Person of the trinity. But here it means Author or possessor. So we could render the title as Father of Eternity. It speaks of Christ as the eternal one, the one who holds eternity in His possession (Col 1:17). We record our time in relation to His birth – B.C and A.D. Our eternal destiny is determined by our association with Him.
Prince of Peace
Peace is the most sought after yet the most elusive in this sin-cursed earth. We’ve not only split the atom but we have split personalities. Man has neuroses and psychosis and numerous other problems that take peace from him. People have to take pills to sleep, pills to wake up, they cannot eat, they eat too much, America is the champion “pill-taker” in the world – over a billion pills in a year. The heart of this problem is the problem of the heart and Jesus is the answer – the Prince of Peace. . Do you have Him in your heart?