Focus: The Everlasting Father

Text: Isa.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."

Christ - the everlasting Father! The Trinity is indeed a mystery. It is the mystery of all mysteries. Isaiah is emphatic that Christ is by name the everlasting Father. 

In the Gospel of John, Christ acknowledges God as His Father. He says, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" (Jh.5:17). Then in chapter 10, He says, "I and my Father are one" (Jh.10:30). In one sweep He says God is His Father, and in another He says that He is one with His Father. The Jewish leaders even accused Him, and rightly so, of "making himself equal with God." By calling Him "the everlasting Father" Isaiah makes it clear that the God the Father and God the Son are of one essence, and in reality they are co-equal.

An aspect of this name that is so touching to me is that Christ is called "the EVERLASTING Father." The Fatherhood of God and of the Christ is eternal. His Fatherhood is lasting, not passing. God is our Father, not only for a while, but for all time; not only in time, but also in eternity. I declare with all the authority of God that God is your Father forever, not for a while.

In the Old Testament God adopted Solomon to be His peculiar and personal son. God says, "I will be his father, and he shall be my son: and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee" (1Chron.17:13). He tells David about Solomon, "He shall build an house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever" (1Chron.22:10). David himself tells the people of what God told him, "And he said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build my house and my courts: for I God in his holy habitation" (Ps.68:5). He says again, "He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation… Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him" (Ps.89:26; 103:13). Isaiah says, "But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand" (Isa.64:8).

In Christ we come to know God as our personal Father, not only as our Maker or Creator. We are God's children through spiritual regeneration. We derive our existence and identity from Him, and in Christ we are perfectly defined and wonderfully destined to divine dignity. As our Father, God is our Source, Savior, Supplier, Sustainer, Succour and Security. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the everlasting Father - the eternal Father of all regenerated believers. What an eternity privilege!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter