For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, on David’s throne, and on his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.
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Isaiah 9:6-7 sits inside this longer paragraph.
For the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as in the day of Midian. For all the armor of the armed man in the noisy battle, and the garments rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire. For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, on David’s throne, and on his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.
Parallel Translations
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For a child is born to us. A son is given to us; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, on David’s throne, and on his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.
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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.
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
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(9-5) For a child is born unto us, a son is given unto us; and the government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called Pele-joez-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom;
(9-6) That the government may be increased, and of peace there be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it through justice and through righteousness from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts doth perform this.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Messianic Prophecies (1)
Passages read as foretelling the Messiah, with the fulfillment reading and the counter-reading set side by side.
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (92)
- Luke 2:11 (v6) For there is born to you today, in David’s city, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
- Matthew 28:18 (v6) Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
- Jeremiah 23:5-6 (v6) “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and he will reign as king and deal wisely, and will…
- Isaiah 7:14 (v6) Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
- Matthew 1:23 (v6) “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall give birth to a son. They shall call his name Immanuel;” which is, being interpreted,…
Show all 91 cross-references
- 1 John 5:20 (v6) We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding, that we know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in…
- Revelation 19:16 (v6) He has on his garment and on his thigh a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”
- John 1:1-2 (v6) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
- 1 Timothy 3:16 (v6) Without controversy, the mystery of godliness is great: God was revealed in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached…
- Isaiah 53:5 (v6) But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his…
- Isaiah 28:29 (v6) This also comes out from Yahweh of Armies, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.
- Luke 1:32-33 (v7) He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign…
- Hebrews 2:13-14 (v6) Again, “I will put my trust in him.” Again, “Behold, here I am with the children whom God has given me.” Since then the children have…
- Romans 8:32 (v6) He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?
- Psalms 45:6 (v6) Your throne, God, is forever and ever. A scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom.
- Ephesians 2:14-18 (v6) For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law…
- Isaiah 10:21 (v6) A remnant will return, even the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.
- 1 Corinthians 15:25 (v6) For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
- John 14:27 (v6) Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be…
- Daniel 2:44 (v7) “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, nor will its sovereignty be left to…
- Hebrews 1:8 (vv6–7) But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your Kingdom.
- Judges 13:18 (v6) Yahweh’s angel said to him, “Why do you ask about my name, since it is incomprehensible?”
- John 1:14 (v6) The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
- John 3:16-17 (v6) For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For…
- Isaiah 11:1-2 (v6) A shoot will come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots will bear fruit. Yahweh’s Spirit will rest on him: the spirit of…
- Isaiah 63:16 (v6) For you are our Father, though Abraham doesn’t know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, Yahweh, are our Father. Our Redeemer from…
- Daniel 7:14 (v7) Dominion was given him, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an…
- Zechariah 9:9-10 (v6) Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation;…
- Matthew 11:27 (v6) All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the…
- Luke 1:35 (v6) The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one…
- John 1:16 (v6) From his fullness we all received grace upon grace.
- Psalms 72:7 (v6) In his days, the righteous shall flourish, and abundance of peace, until the moon is no more.
- Acts 10:36 (v6) The word which he sent to the children of Israel, preaching good news of peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all—
- 1 Corinthians 1:30 (v6) Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:
- Titus 2:13 (v6) looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
- Hebrews 13:20 (v6) Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, our Lord…
- Deuteronomy 10:17 (v6) For Yahweh your God, he is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, and the awesome, who doesn’t respect persons or take…
- 2 Samuel 7:16 (v7) Your house and your kingdom will be made sure forever before you. Your throne will be established forever.” ’ ”
- Psalms 45:4-6 (v7) In your majesty ride on victoriously on behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness. Let your right hand display awesome deeds. Your…
- Proverbs 8:23 (v6) I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth existed.
- Acts 20:28 (v6) Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the…
- Ephesians 1:21-22 (v6) far above all rule, authority, power, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. He…
- Colossians 2:3 (v6) in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
- Hebrews 7:2-3 (v6) to whom also Abraham divided a tenth part of all (being first, by interpretation, “king of righteousness”, and then also “king of Salem”,…
- Psalms 2:6-12 (v6) “Yet I have set my King on my holy hill of Zion.” I will tell of the decree: Yahweh said to me, “You are my son. Today I have become your…
- Isaiah 53:10 (v6) Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He…
- Daniel 7:27 (v7) The kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole sky, will be given to the people of the saints of the Most…
- Micah 5:4-5 (v6) He shall stand, and shall shepherd in the strength of Yahweh, in the majesty of the name of Yahweh his God: and they will live, for then he…
- Luke 2:14 (v6) “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men.”
- Colossians 1:20-21 (v6) and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through…
- Isaiah 53:2 (v6) For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no…
- Romans 5:1-10 (v6) Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom we also have our access by faith…
- Daniel 2:35 (v7) Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer…
- Luke 21:15 (v6) for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.
- 2 Corinthians 5:19 (v6) namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the…
- Psalms 72:3 (v6) The mountains shall bring prosperity to the people. The hills bring the fruit of righteousness.
- Daniel 9:24-25 (v6) “Seventy weeks are decreed on your people and on your holy city, to finish disobedience, and to make an end of sins, and to make…
- Zechariah 6:12-13 (v6) and speak to him, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says, “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: and he shall grow up out of his place; and he…
- Psalms 110:1-4 (v6) Yahweh says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool for your feet.” Yahweh will send out the rod of…
- Isaiah 26:12 (v6) Yahweh, you will ordain peace for us, for you have also done all our work for us.
- Psalms 72:17 (v6) His name endures forever. His name continues as long as the sun. Men shall be blessed by him. All nations will call him blessed.
- Psalms 85:10 (v6) Mercy and truth meet together. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
- Isaiah 22:21-22 (v6) and I will clothe him with your robe, and strengthen him with your belt. I will commit your government into his hand; and he will be a…
- Isaiah 26:3 (v6) You will keep whoever’s mind is steadfast in perfect peace, because he trusts in you.
- Isaiah 32:1-2 (v7) Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in justice. A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a…
- Jeremiah 23:5 (v7) “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and he will reign as king and deal wisely, and will…
- Jeremiah 31:22 (v6) How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: a woman will encompass a…
- Jeremiah 33:15-21 (v7) “In those days and at that time, I will cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up to David. He will execute justice and righteousness in…
- Romans 9:5 (v6) of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen.
- 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 (v7) Then the end comes, when he will deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when he will have abolished all rule and all authority and…
- 1 John 4:10-14 (v6) In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God loved…
- Nehemiah 9:32 (v6) Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness, don’t let all the travail seem…
- Psalms 45:3 (v6) Strap your sword on your thigh, mighty one: your splendor and your majesty.
- Isaiah 11:6-9 (v6) The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf…
- Isaiah 16:5 (v7) A throne will be established in loving kindness. One will sit on it in truth, in the tent of David, judging, seeking justice, and swift to…
- Psalms 89:35-37 (v7) Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His offspring will endure forever, his throne like the sun before me. It will be…
- Isaiah 8:18 (v6) Behold, I and the children whom Yahweh has given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from Yahweh of Armies, who dwells in Mount Zion.
- Isaiah 42:3-4 (v7) He won’t break a bruised reed. He won’t quench a dimly burning wick. He will faithfully bring justice. He will not fail nor be discouraged,…
- Isaiah 66:12 (v6) For Yahweh says, “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you will…
- Psalms 50:1 (v6) The Mighty One, God, Yahweh, speaks, and calls the earth from sunrise to sunset.
- Isaiah 37:32 (v7) For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and survivors will escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.’
- Isaiah 45:24-25 (v6) They will say of me, ‘There is righteousness and strength only in Yahweh.’ ” Even to him will men come. All those who raged against him…
- Psalms 2:8 (v7) Ask of me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.
- Psalms 72:1-3 (v7) God, give the king your justice; your righteousness to the royal son. He will judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with…
- Psalms 72:7-11 (v7) In his days, the righteous shall flourish, and abundance of peace, until the moon is no more. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea,…
- Isaiah 59:16-17 (v7) He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore his own arm brought salvation to him; and his…
- Ezekiel 36:21-23 (v7) But I had respect for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they went. “Therefore tell the house of…
- 2 Kings 19:31 (v7) For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and out of Mount Zion those who shall escape. Yahweh’s zeal will perform this.
- Isaiah 63:4-6 (v7) For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come. I looked, and there was no one to help; and I wondered that…
- Isaiah 11:3-5 (v7) His delight will be in the fear of Yahweh. He will not judge by the sight of his eyes, neither decide by the hearing of his ears; but he…
- Revelation 19:11 (v7) I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it is called Faithful and True. In righteousness he judges and makes…
91 distinct cross-references across this passage (92 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv6–7 The author of eternity, and by whom the Church…
The author of eternity, and by whom the Church and every member thereof shall be preserved forever, and have immortal life.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv6–7 Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born,…
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.
Ver. 6. For unto us a child is born.] That child foretold of. {Isa 7:14} Christ shall be born in the fulness of time, as sure as if he were born already. This was "good tidings of great joy to all people." {Luk 2:10} The Hebrew besher, for good tidings, cometh of bashar, for flesh; because, say some critics, there should be a taking of flesh, God manifested in the flesh, which should be the best tidings. Angels first brought it, and were glad of such an errand. Still they pry into this mystery, Trono capite et propenso collo {1Pe 1:12} and can never sufficiently wonder to see that μεγας Yεος should be μικρον Bρεφος, the "great God, a little child"; regens sidera, sugens ubera; that he who ruleth the stars should be sucking at the breast; that the eternal Word should not be able to speak a word; that he that should come in the clouds should appear in clouts {a} {Luk 2:12} in vilibus et veteribus indumentis, saith Ludolphus, in old tattered rags, in such clouts as we cover wounds and beggars’ sores withal, say others. Well might Synesius call Christ viscerum ingentium partum, the birth of huge bowels. For the time of his birth, Christ living just thirty-six years and a half, saith one, and dying at Easter, it must needs follow that he was born about the middle of the month Tisri, which answereth to part of our September, at the Feast of Tabernacles, &c., to which feast the word εσκηνωσεν, in Joh 1:14 probably alludeth.
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Unto us a Son is given.] That "only begotten Son of God." {Joh 3:16} begotten of the substance of his Father before all beginnings, after an unspeakable manner. The Scripture speaketh of it usually by way of circumlocution, {Col 1:15 Rev 19:12} or giveth us only some glimpse by way of similitude. {as Heb 1:3} This eternal Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, assumed our nature. {Heb 2:17} He "overtook" it, as the Greek word signifieth, as the shepherd doth his sheep that has run astray. A shepherd with a sheep upon his shoulder engraved upon the communion cup in the primitive times of the gospel, imported the same notion.
And the government shall be upon his shoulders.] The power and majesty of the kingdom is committed to him by his Father, {Isa 22:22 Mat 28:18} and he hath strength enough to manage it. Princeps est baiulus Reip. The Hebrews call a prince Nassi, because, Atlas-like, he is to bear up the commonwealth, and not to overload his subjects. Christ, both as prince of his Church, and as high priest also, beareth up and beareth out his people, "helping their infirmities." {Rom 8:26} {See Trapp on "Rom 8:26"}
And his name shall be called.] Heb., He shall call his name; (1.) God his Father shall; or, (2.) Every true believer shall call him and count him all this. And sure it is, had we but skill to spell all the letters in this name of Christ, it would be "a strong tower" {Pro 18:10} unto us, better than that of David builded for an armoury, and completely furnished. {Son 4:4} Compare this text with 1Co 1:30, and see all our doubts answered. Are we perplexed? He is our "Wonderful, Counsellor," and "made unto us of God wisdom." Are we in depths of distress? He is "the mighty God," our "redemption." Want we grace and his image? He is the "everlasting Father," our "sanctification." Doth the guilt of sin sting us? He is the "Prince of peace," our "righteousness."
Wonderful.] Heb., A miracle or wonder, {b} viz., in all his counsels and courses, especially for his; glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. {Exo 15:11}
Counsellor.] The Septuagint here calleth him "the Angel of the great Council." He is set forth as clothed with a "garment down to the foot," {Rev 1:13} which is the dress of counsellors at law, who are therehence called gentlemen of the long robe. {Rev 3:17 Pro 8:14 Jer 32:19} But because counsellors are but subjects, it is added in Christ’s style,
The mighty God.] Able to effect his own counsels for the behoof of his subjects. St Paul calleth him "the great God," {Tit 2:13} and "God above all to be blessed for ever." {Rom 9:5} God the potentate, so the Septuagint renders this text: God the giant, so Oecolampadius.
The everlasting Father.] The Father of eternity; "the King eternal, immortal." {1Ti 1:17} Ferdinand the emperor, on his deathbed, would not acknowledge the title Invictissimus, most unconqerable, but commanded his counsellor to call him Ferdinand without more addition. Christ is also the Author of eternity to all his people whom he hath begotten again to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for them. {1Pe 1:3-4}
The Prince of peace.] Pacis omnimodae, of all kinds of peace, outward, inward, or of country and of conscience, temporal and eternal. Of all these he is the Prince, as having full power to bestow them; for he is Son to the "God of peace"; {Rom 16:20} he was brought from heaven with that song of peace; {Luk 2:14} he himself purged our sins, and made our peace; {Heb 1:3 Eph 2:14} returned up to heaven with that farewell of peace; {Joh 14:27} left to the world the gospel of peace; {Eph 2:17} whose ministers are messengers of peace; {Rom 10:15} whose followers are the children of peace. {Luk 10:6-9} Wherefore Christ doth far better deserve than our Henry VII did, to be styled the "Prince of peace." Especially since,
{a} "Swaddling bands," εσπαργανωμενον. Induit sordes nostras, He condescended to our rags.
{b} παραδοξασμος. - Symmach. Ipsa admirabilitas. - A Lap.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv6–7 Having spoken of the glorious light, and joy, and…
Having spoken of the glorious light, and joy, and victory of God’s people, he now proceeds to show the ground of it, and by what person these things are procured.
Unto us; unto us Jews, of whom Christ was born, and to whom he was primarily sent, Mat 15:24, for our use and benefit.
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A Child; the Messiah, by the consent of interpreters, not only Christian, but Jewish; for so the ancient Hebrew doctors understood the place, and particularly the Chaldee paraphrast; although the later Jews, out of opposition to Christ, wrest it to Hezekiah; which extravagant conceit, as it hath no foundation at all in that or any other text of Scripture, and therefore may be rejected without any further reason, so it is fully confuted by the following titles, which are such as cannot without blasphemy and nonsense be ascribed to Hezekiah, nor indeed to any mere mortal man, as we shall see. But all the following particulars do so truly and exactly agree to Christ, that they cannot without great violence be alienated from him, or ascribed to any other.
Is born, for shall be born, as the prophets generally speak.
A Son; so he determines the sex of the child. Or, the Son, to wit, of the virgin, of whom I spake before, Isa 7:14.
Is given; is freely and graciously given to us by God. Other children also are said to be given by God, Ge 30:6; 48:9, but this in a peculiar manner, and therefore he is called the gift of God, Joh 4:10.
The government, to wit, of Israel, or of God’s people, to whom he is given,
shall be upon his shoulder, i.e. upon him, or in his hands. He mentions shoulders, because great burdens are commonly laid upon men’s shoulders; and as all government, if it be rightly managed, so this especially, is a very heavy burden, requiring extraordinary care, and diligence, and self-denial. Possibly here may be also an allusion to the ancient custom of carrying the ensigns of government before the magistrate upon the shoulders of their officers; or to the cross of Christ, which was laid upon his shoulders, Joh 19:17, which also was the way to his kingdom or government, Luk 24:26.
His name shall be called; either,
1. He shall be called; for names are oft put for persons, as Act 1:15; Rev 3:4; 11:13. Or,
2. His name shall be; for to be called in Scripture is off put for to be, as I have noted before on Isa 1:26, and oft elsewhere. But this is not to be taken for a description of his proper name, by which he should be commonly called, but of his glorious nature and qualities. See my notes on Isa 7:14.
Wonderful, Counsellor: these words may be taken either,
1. Severally, as they are in our translation, and by many others. This the Jews apply to Hezekiah, who, as they say, is called wonderful, because of the miracle which God wrought for him, 2Ki 20:2, &c.; and counsellor, because he took counsel with his princes about God’s worship, and the defence of the city, 2Ch 29:4, &c., and gave good counsel to others; which ridiculous account is sufficient to overthrow that exposition. But they agree most eminently to the Lord Christ, who is truly wonderful, in his person, and natures, and words, and works, being made up of wonders, in whom there was nothing which was not wonderful; who also may well be called Counsellor, because he knew the whole counsel of God, and (so far as it was necessary) revealed it to us, and is the great Counsellor of his church and people in all their doubts and difficulties. Or,
2. Jointly,
wonderful Counsellor; which may seem best to agree both with the following titles, each of which is made up of two words, and with Isa 28:29, where God is called wonderful in counsel, and makes the title more full and emphatical. To call Christ simply a Counsellor, may seem too mean a character, being common to many others with him; but to say he is a wonderful Counsellor, is a singular commendation. And so Christ is, because he hath been the Counsellor of his church in all ages, and the author and giver of all those excellent counsels delivered not only by the apostles, but also by the prophets, as is evident from 1Pe 1:10,11, and hath gathered, and enlarged, and preserved his church by admirable counsels and methods of his providence, and, in a word, hath in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Col 2 3.
The mighty God: this title can agree to no man but Christ, who was God as well as man, to whom the title of God or Jehovah is given, both in the Old and New Testament, as Jer 23:6; Joh 1:1; Rom 9:5, and in many other places. And it is a most true observation, that this Hebrew word El is never used in the singular number, of any creature, but only of the Almighty God, as is evident by perusing all the texts where this word is used. And although the title of Elohim, which is of the plural number, be twice or thrice given to some men, yet there is constantly added some diminishing expression to it, as when they are said to be afraid, Job 41:25, and to die, Psa 49:10; whereas here he adds the epithet of mighty, which is ascribed to the great God, Deu 10:17, and elsewhere.
The everlasting Father, Heb. the Father of eternity, Having called him a Child, and a Son in respect of his human nature, lest this should be misinterpreted to his disparagement, he adds that he is a Father also, even the God and Father of all things; the work of creation being common and commonly ascribed to each of the persons of the blessed Trinity, the Maker and Upholder of all creatures, as he is said to be, Joh 1:3; Heb 1:3, and the Father of all believers, who are called his children, Heb 2:13, and the Father of eternity; either,
1. The first author (such persons being called fathers, as Gen 4:20, and elsewhere) of eternal salvation, as he is called, Heb 5:9. Or,
2. As we render it, the everlasting Father, who, though as man he was then unborn, yet was and is from everlasting to everlasting. They who apply this to Hezekiah render it, the father of an age, and expound this of his long life and numerous posterity; which I the rather mention, to show what absurd shifts they are forced to use who interpret this text of any other but Christ. For he did not live very long, nor had he, that we read of, more than one son, Manasseh. And if both these things had been true of him, they were more eminently true of many other men. Besides, this Hebrew word being used of God, as here it is of him who was now called the mighty God, constantly signifies eternity, as Isa 26:4; 57:15, &c.
The Prince of peace: this title doth not fully agree to Hezekiah, whose reign was not free from wars, as we see, 2Ki 18; but it agrees exactly to Christ, who is called our peace, Mic 5:5; Eph 2:14, and is the only purchaser and procurer of peace between God and men, Isa 53:5, and of peace between men and men, Jews and Gentiles, Eph 2:15, and of the peace of our own consciences, and leaves peace as his legacy to his disciples, Joh 14:27; 16:33.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv6–7 For unto us a child is born,.... This is…
For unto us a child is born,.... This is a reason of all that is said in the context; of the great light that shone upon and was seen by those that sat in darkness, and in the land of the shadow of death; of the great joy among the people; of the breaking off of the yoke, rod, and staff of the oppressor; and of the burning of garments rolled in blood, so putting an end to war, and establishing peace; all which is owing to the child here said to be born, by whom we are to understand the Messiah; as the Targum interprets it; and not Hezekiah, as many of the Jewish writers (n) apply it; who could never be represented as a child just born, when he was, at least, ten or eleven years of age when this prophecy was given out, and twenty nine when Sennacherib came up with his army against him, as Aben Ezra observes; to which time he and others refer the context; nor can any reason be assigned why he should be called a "son", in such a peculiar and unusual manner; nor can it be said of him, that he was the great light which shined upon the inhabitants of Galilee; nor was his birth the occasion of so great joy as the birth of this child is said to be; nor can it, with any justness, be said of him, that of the increase of his government and peace there was no end; seeing his government only extended to the two tribes of Benjamin and Judah, and his reign was but twenty nine years, and for the most part attended with affliction, oppression, and war; besides, the many august titles here used cannot be ascribed unto him, nor to any mere creature whatever (o); but everything agrees with Christ; and to him it is applied, even by some ancient and modern writers among the Jews (p) themselves. This clause respects his humanity, his incarnation and birth, which is spoken of in the present tense, though future, because of the certainty of it; that he should really become man, assume a true body, and a reasonable soul, partake of the same flesh and blood with the children, be made flesh, and dwell among us: and this was to us, "for us": for our good, for our profit and advantage; not for angels, but for men; for the saints under the Old Testament, and under the New; for all his people, his brethren, and children; that they might have a sanctified nature; that law and justice might be satisfied in that nature which had sinned, and Satan be ruined by it, which he himself had ruined; and that Christ might be a fit Mediator and Redeemer of his people, and be capable of executing his several offices to our advantage; his priestly office, by satisfying and interceding for us; his prophetic office, by teaching us; and his kingly office, by ruling over us; and that he might answer the relations he stands in of a father, husband, brother, and friend:
unto us a son is given: even he who is the Son of God, his own Son, his only begotten Son, his beloved Son, the dear Son of his love; all which aggravate his love in the gift of him, to be the covenant and head unto us, to be the Saviour of us, and a sacrifice for us; and in delivering him up into the hands of men, justice, and death; this is a free gift of God's love, a very large and comprehensive one, is unparalleled and unspeakable, unchangeable and irreversible.
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And the government shall be upon his shoulder: not only of the world in general, but of the church in particular; this child is born to royal dignity; he is King of saints; his government consists in ruling in the hearts of his people, in enacting laws for them, and causing them to submit unto them, in subduing their enemies, in protecting them, their persons and properties, rights and liberties, and in supplying them with everything necessary; and this government is delegated to him from his Father, is devolved upon him by him, is not of this world, but is spiritual; it is righteously administered, is peaceable, and will continue for ever: and its being said to be "upon his shoulder" is an allusion to magistrates having a key or rod laid on their shoulders, as ensigns of their office, or carried by their officers for them, see Isa 9:4 and it shows that it was laid upon him, or enjoined him by his father, though not against his will; and it denotes a weight of honour and care bore by him, whose shoulders are fit for the same, and equal to it; and that he is the prop and support of his church and people, who are safe under his government and protection:
and his name shall be called Wonderful: not that he should be commonly called among men by this name, nor by any of the following; but that he should appear to be, or to have that in him, or to do what would sufficiently answer to this name, and to the rest: he is wonderful in his person, and in the glory and beauty of it; that he should be God and man in one person, and have two natures, so different from each other, united in him; that he, being truly God, should become man; and that he should be born of a virgin; wonderful in the disposition of his mind, and in the qualities he is possessed of; in his love to his people, and his sympathy with them; in his humility, meekness, and patience; in his wisdom, conduct, courage, and greatness of soul: wonderful in his life; in his private life many wonderful things are recorded of him; as the direction of the wise men to him by a star, and their worshipping of him; the preservation of him from Herod's cruelty; his disputation with the doctors in the temple at twelve years of age; and his living such a mean and obscure life for thirty years together: and his public life was nothing but a continued series of wonders; his baptism in Jordan; his temptations in the wilderness; his doctrines and miracles, and his transfiguration on the mount: wonderful in his death; that he should die at all, who is the Prince of life, the Lord of life and glory; that he should die with his own and his Father's consent, and that for sinners, even the chief of sinners; and by dying procure life for us; abolish death; destroy him that had the power of it, the devil; and obtain eternal salvation and redemption: the circumstances attending his death were marvellous: such as the darkness that was upon the earth; the rending of the vail, and cleaving of the rocks: wonderful in his resurrection from the dead, which was by his own power, before he saw corruption, at the time signified by types and prophecy, and with the same body exceedingly glorious; and which has an influence on our justification, regeneration, and resurrection: wonderful in his ascension to heaven, both in the manner of it, in a cloud, and in the effects of it, receiving gifts for men, and giving them to them; in his entrance into heaven; session at the right hand of God; and intercession for transgressors: wonderful he will be in his second coming to judgment; the signs of it are many and marvellous; the manner of it wonderfully glorious; the different effects of it on men, filling some with joy, and others with terror; and the things that will then be done; as the raising of the dead; placing all nations before him; separating the righteous from the wicked; pronouncing their distinct sentences, and executing them; in a word, Christ is wonderful, in all he is, has, or belong unto him; in his person, offices, and relations; in his people, who are for signs and wonders; in his doctrines and ordinances; and in the manifestations of himself and of his grace to his people, now and hereafter; nay, the word signifies not only "wonderful", but a "miracle" itself, as Christ is in his person (q), see Jdg 13:17,
Counsellor; this some read in conjunction with the former title, thus, "Wonderful Counsellor"; so the Arabic version; and the Septuagint, which calls him, "the Angel of the great council"; and the Targum is,
"who does wonderfully in council;''
and which agrees with Isa 28:29. This title belongs to Christ, as concerned with his Father, and the blessed Spirit, in the works of nature, providence, and grace. God stands in no need of counsel, nor does it properly fall on him, though it is sometimes ascribed to him, speaking after the manner of men. Creatures are not of his council, but Christ is; he was privy to all his thoughts, purposes, and decrees; he was consulted in creation, and in the works of providence, Gen 1:26, Gen 11:7 and in the great affair of redemption and salvation; the council held concerning that is the great council the Septuagint version here makes mention of; and may be called the council of peace, Zac 6:13 in which the scheme of salvation was fixed; the author of it was found, and pitched upon; the way of it agreed on, to be through the assumption of human nature, and by obedience, sufferings, and death; and the time of Christ's incarnation and death settled, as well as all blessings of grace and glory, for the persons who were to share in this salvation. This title also agrees with Christ in respect to his people, to whom he is council, and for whom he is council; he is council to them; he gives them council; so he did in person, when on earth; he advised sinners to repentance; encouraged souls to believe in him; directed the weary to come to him for rest; the hungry and thirsty for food; such as were healed and pardoned, he counselled them to sin no more; and he advised his followers to do to all men as they would men should do to them; to behave in an humble and modest manner; to bear reproaches and persecutions cheerfully; to love one another; and to pray to his Father, in his name, for all things they wanted: and now he gives his people counsel by the ministry of the word, which is the counsel of God, the produce of his wisdom, a transcript of his eternal council and covenant, a declaration of the will of God, and of Christ; and in which Christ counsels the poor in spirit to come to him for riches, the naked for clothing, the ignorant for spiritual light and knowledge, such as are ready to perish for salvation; and he counsels those that believe to abide in him, and by his truths and ordinances; which counsel is wholesome and suitable, hearty, sincere, and faithful; is wise and prudent, and freely given; and which being taken, infallibly succeeds: he is council for them in heaven; he appears there in the presence of God for them; represents their persons, and presents their petitions; answers to all charges exhibited against them; and, as their advocate, pleads their cause; and calls for blessings agreed to be bestowed upon them, which they want; for all which he is abundantly qualified, being the only wise God, the Ancient of days, the Father of his people; and, as Mediator, the Wisdom of God, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are, and on whom the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, and of counsel and might, rests:
the mighty God; or "God the mighty One" (r); as some read the words with a comma; but if read together, the sense is the same; Christ is God, truly and properly so; as appears from his name Jehovah, which is peculiar to the most High; from his nature and perfections, being the same with his Father's: from the works performed by him, as those of creation, providence, miracles, redemption, resurrection from the dead, &c.; and from the worship given him, which only belongs to God; also he is called our God, your God, their God, my God, by which epithets those that are not truly God are never called; he is said to be God manifest in the flesh; God over all, blessed for ever; the great God, the living God, the true God, and eternal life; and he is "the mighty One" as appears by the works he did, previous to his incarnation; as the creation of all things out of nothing; the upholding of all things by the word or his power; the management of all the affairs of providence, there being nothing done but what he was concerned in; as the confusion of languages; the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah; bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt; leading and going before them through the Red Sea and wilderness; and bearing and carrying them all the days of old: and also by the works he did when here on earth; as his miracles, called his mighty works; such as healing all manner of diseases by a word speaking, or by touching the person, or by the person touching him, even his garment, or without seeing the person at all, and always without the use of medicines; dispossessing devils out of the bodies of men; power over the elements, as to change water into wine, rebuke the wind and seas, &c.; raising the dead, and even his own body when dead; and, above all, the great work of redemption, by which he appears to be the mighty One indeed; his Father's call of him to it shows it; his undertaking it confirms it; and his actual performance of it puts it out of all doubt; as well as what was then done by him; such as bearing all the sins of his people; engaging with all their enemies; conquering them, and delivering them out of their hands: likewise by what he does now, partly in the conversion of his people; quickening men dead in trespasses and sins; causing dry bones to live; giving spiritual sight to such as were born blind; plucking out of the hands of Satan, and turning from his power to God; which shows him to be stronger than the strong man armed; beginning, carrying on, and finishing the work of faith with power on them; as well as at first making them willing to submit to his righteousness and to be saved by him; and partly in his care of them afterwards; he having the government of them on his shoulders; supplying all their wants; bearing all their burdens; and supporting them under all their afflictions, temptations, and desertions; protecting them from all their enemies; strengthening them to do his will and work; and keeping them from falling totally and finally, and preserving them safe to his everlasting kingdom and glory: moreover, by what he will do hereafter; binding Satan, and confining him for the space of a thousand years; clearing the world of all his and his people's enemies; raising the dead; and judging the world; and destroying wicked men and devils with an everlasting destruction.
The everlasting Father; which does not design any relation of Christ in the Godhead; and there is but one Father in the Godhead, and that is the first Person; indeed Christ and the Father are one, and the Father is in him, and he is in the Father, and he that has seen the one has seen the other, and yet they are distinct, Christ is not the Father; the Son and Spirit may be considered with the first Person as Father, in creation and regeneration, they being jointly concerned therein, but not in the Trinity: it is easy to make it appear Christ is not the Father, but is distinct from him, since he is said to be with the Father from eternity, to be the Son of the Father in truth and love, his own Son, his only begotten and beloved Son; Christ frequently calls the first Person his Father, prayed to him as such, and is our advocate with him, as well as the way unto him; he is said to be sent by the Father, to come from him, and to go to him; and many things are said of Christ that cannot be said of the Father, as his being made flesh, suffering and dying in the room of his people; and the Father is said to do many things unto him, as to anoint him, to seal him, to show him all he did, to commit all judgment to him, and give him to have life in himself as he had: but Christ is a Father with respect to chosen men, who were given him as his children and offspring in covenant; who are adopted into that family that is named of him, and who are regenerated by his Spirit and grace: and to these he is an "everlasting Father"; he was so from everlasting; for regeneration and faith do not make men children, but make them appear to be so; God's elect are children previous to the Spirit's work upon them, and even to the incarnation and death of Christ; adoption is an act of the will of God in covenant from eternity: and Christ is a Father to these unto everlasting; he will never die, and they shall never be left fatherless; he and they will ever continue in this relation; he as such supplies them with everlasting provisions, he clothes them with everlasting raiment, he gives them an everlasting portion, promotes them to everlasting honour, saves them with an everlasting salvation, bearing an everlasting love to them. Some render the words, "the Father of eternity" (s); the author of eternal life, who has procured it for his people, and gives it to them; or to whom eternity belongs, who inhabits it, and is possessed of it, is the everlasting I AM, was before all persons and things, was set up in an office capacity from everlasting, and had a glory with the Father before the world was, in whom eternal election, and with whom the everlasting covenant, were made. The Septuagint version is, "the Father of the world to come" (t); of the Gospel dispensation; so called, Heb 2:5 the legal dispensation, when in being, was the then present world, at the end of which Christ came; this is now at an end, and a new state of things has taken place, which with respect to the Old Testament saints was the world to come, and of this Christ is the Father or author; as the law came by Moses, and he was the father of the legal dispensation, grace and truth are come by Christ, the Father and author of the Gospel dispensation; the doctrines of it are from him, and the ordinances of it by him; and he is the father of that state or world to come after the resurrection, the New Jerusalem church state, and also of the ultimate glory.
The Prince of peace; Christ is a Prince, often so called, Eze 34:24 he is so by birth, being the King's Son, the Son of God, and by office, power, and authority; he is so a Prince as that he is a King; he is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour; and he is a Prince superior to kings, being the Prince of the kings of the earth, Act 5:31 and he is called the "Prince of peace", because he is the author of peace; just as he is said to be the "Prince of life", Act 3:15 for the same reason: he is the author of peace between Jew and Gentile, by abrogating the ceremonial law, the enmity between them, and by sending the Gospel to both, and making it the power of God to salvation to some of each of them, and by bringing them into the same Gospel church state, and making them partakers of the same privileges and blessings, internal and external, Eph 2:14 and he is the author of peace between God and sinners; he has made it by the blood of the cross, having the chastisement of their peace laid upon him, in consequence of a covenant of peace he made with his Father, who was in him reconciling the world to himself, and he is so called likewise, because he is the giver of peace; of all outward peace and prosperity to his churches, as rest from their enemies, concord among themselves, and additions to them of such as shall be saved; of internal peace through the discoveries of his love, and the application of his righteousness, blood, and sacrifice in a way of believing in him, and in a course of obedience to him; and likewise of eternal peace and rest in the world to come. Moreover, all that concern him as a King or Prince show him to be the Prince of peace: his kingdom lies, among other things, in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; the sceptre of his kingdom is the golden sceptre of grace and mercy; his royal proclamation is the Gospel of peace; the fruit of his Spirit is peace; and his subjects are peaceable ones, both in church and state. With this compare Heb 7:2. It is observable that at his birth there was a general peace, not only in the Roman empire, Luk 2:1 but in all the world; and it is remarkable, that whereas at this time the Chinese empire enjoyed a profound peace, the emperor of it changed his name, and would not be called by his name Ngayus, but Pingus, which signifies "peaceable" (u).
(n) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 98. 2. & 99. 1. Jarchi, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, & Abarbinel, in loc. Nizzachon Vet. p. 87. R. Isaac. Chizzuk Emuna, par. 1. c. 21. p. 195. Lipman. Carmen. p. 115. (o) See my book of the Prophecies of the Messiah, &c. p. 200, 201. (p) Debarim Rabba, sect. 1. fol. 234. 4. Perek Shalom, fol. 20. 2. Maimon. apud Maji Synops. Theolog. Jud. p. 121. Vid. Reuchlin de Arte Cabal. p. 745. (q) "non admirabilis tantum sed" , "miraculum ille est; per se Deus, per unionem hypostaticam", Gusset. Ebr. Comment, p. 675. (r) "Deus, fortis", V. L. Montanus. (s) "Pater aeternitatis", Montanus, Cocceius, &c. (t) , so some copies; with which agrees the Vulgate Latin version, "Pater seculi futuri". (u) Martin, Hist. Sinic. p. 361.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv6–7 For - Having spoken of the glorious light, and…
For - Having spoken of the glorious light, and joy, and victory of God's people, he now proceeds to shew the ground of it. Us - Unto us Jews, of whom Christ was born, and to whom he was primarily sent. A child - The Messiah by the consent of interpreters, not only Christian, but Jewish: for so the ancient Hebrew doctors understood the place, and particularly the Chaldee paraphrast; although the latter Jews, out of opposition to Christ, wrest it to Hezekiah. Which extravagant conceit, as it hath no foundation in this or any other text of scripture, so it is fully confuted by the following titles, which are such as cannot without blasphemy and nonsense be ascribed to Hezekiah, nor indeed to any mere mortal man, as we shall see. Is born - Or, shall be born, as the prophets generally speak. The government - Of God's people, to whom he is given. Shoulders - Upon him, or in his hands. He mentions shoulders, because great burdens are commonly laid upon men's shoulders. His name - This is not to be taken for a description of his name, but of his glorious nature and qualities. Wonderful counsellor - And so Christ is, because he hath been the counsellor of his church in all ages, and the author and giver of all those excellent counsels delivered not only by the apostles, but also by the prophets, and hath gathered and enlarged, and preserved his church, by admirable counsels and methods of his providence, and, in a word, hath in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Colossiansii, 3. Mighty God - This title can agree to no man but Christ, who was God as well as man, to whom the title of God or Jehovah is given, both in the Old and New Testament. And it is a true observation, that this Hebrew word El is never used in the singular number, of any creature, but only of the almighty God. The father - The father of eternity. Who, though as man he was then unborn, yet was and is from everlasting to everlasting.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv6–7 Verse 6. The government shall be upon his shoulder]…
Verse 6. The government shall be upon his shoulder] That is, the ensign of government; the sceptre, the sword, the key, or the like, which was borne upon or hung from the shoulder. See Clarke on Isa 22:22.
And his name shall be called] אל גבור El gibbor, the prevailing or conquering God.
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The everlasting Father - "The Father of the everlasting age"] Or אבי עד Abi ad, the Father of eternity. The Septuagint have μεγαλης βουλης Αγγελος, "the Messenger of the Great Counsel." But instead of אבי עד Abi ad, a MS. of De Rossi has אבעזר Abezer, the helping Father; evidently the corruption of some Jew, who did not like such an evidence in favour of the Christian Messiah.
Prince of Peace] שר שלום sar shalom, the Prince of prosperity, the Giver of all blessings.
A MS. of the thirteenth century in Kennicott's collection has a remarkable addition here. "He shall be a stumbling-block, המכשלה; the government is on his shoulder." This reading is nowhere else acknowledged, as far as I know.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv6–7 Isa 9:6. For, &c. — Having spoken of the…
Isa 9:6. For, &c. — Having spoken of the glorious light, and joy, and victory of God’s people, the prophet now proceeds to show the foundation and cause thereof. And, “though he is everywhere most excellent, he is peculiarly so in this passage, which contains an emphatical description of the person and kingdom of the Son of God; the kingdom of peace; the eternal and universal kingdom, in which the church should have the highest cause for joy; which should bring with it an abolition of the whole yoke of sin, and the ceremonial law, and a destruction of all hostile and adverse powers with respect to the saints.” Who then can wonder at the joy of the church in so great a light, in so excellent a Teacher, Mediator, Saviour, and Governor, King, and Lord? Unto us a child is, or, shall be, born — The prophet, as usual, speaks of a blessing which he foresaw with certainty would be bestowed, as if it were conferred already. That the Messiah is here intended, not only Christian but Jewish interpreters, in general, of any credit or reputation, agree. For so the ancient Hebrew doctors understood the place, and particularly the Chaldee paraphrast; although the later Jews have laboured, out of opposition to the Lord Jesus, to apply it to Hezekiah. Which extravagant notion, as it hath no foundation at all in this or any other text of Scripture, and therefore may be rejected without any further reason; so it is fully confuted by the following titles, which are such as cannot, without blasphemy and nonsense, be ascribed to Hezekiah, nor indeed to any mere man or mere creature, as we shall see. The human nature of the Messiah is here first set forth. He shall be the child born, the Word made flesh, and that for us; not only for us Jews, but for us men, for us sinners, and especially for us believers. Unto us a son is given — Or, the son, namely, of the virgin, spoken of Isa 7:14; the Immanuel, the Son of God, so called, not only on account of his miraculous conception, but because of his eternal generation, the Word, who was in the beginning with God, had glory with the Father before the world was, was loved by him before the foundation of the world, and by whom he made the worlds, and created all things. See Joh 1:1-3; Joh 17:5; Joh 17:24; Heb 1:2; 1Co 8:6; Eph 3:9; Col 1:16. This person, the Father’s own Son, his only-begotten Son, is given, Joh 3:16; sent forth, Gal 4:4; sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, Rom 8:3; though rich, and in the form of God, made in the likeness of men, poor, and of no reputation, Php 2:7; 2Co 8:9; given to be our infallible Teacher, our prevalent Mediator, our almighty Saviour, our righteous Ruler, and our final Judge. Accordingly, The government — Of the church, of the world, yea, of all things, for the church’s benefit, Eph 1:21-22; shall be upon his shoulder — That is, upon him, or in his hands; all power being given to him in heaven and on earth. In mentioning shoulder, he speaks metaphorically; great burdens being commonly laid upon men’s shoulders, and all government, if rightly managed, being a great burden, and this especially being, of all others, the most weighty and important trust. Possibly here may be also an allusion to the ancient custom of carrying the ensigns of government before the magistrates, upon the shoulders of their officers, or, as some think, to the regal robe worn by kings and governors. And his name shall be called — That is, he shall be: for the following particulars are not to be taken for a description of his proper name, but of his glorious nature and qualities; Wonderful — He is wonderful in his person, as God and man, God manifest in the flesh, which union of two such different natures in one individual, intelligent, and self-conscious being, is a great and incomprehensible mystery. Hence we are told, No man knoweth the Son but the Father, Mat 11:27; and he is said to have had a name written, which no man knew but himself; and hence, when appearing to Manoah, he said, Why askest thou after my name, seeing it is secret: Hebrew, פלא, wonderful, the same word here used, Jdg 13:18. He is also wonderful with respect to his birth, life, doctrine, miracles; his love and sufferings; his death, resurrection, and ascension; his humiliation and exaltation; his cross and crown; his grace and glory. Counsellor — He is so called, because he knew the whole counsel of God, and, as far as was necessary, revealed it to us, and is the great counsellor of his church and people in all their doubts and difficulties, in all ages and nations, being made of God unto them wisdom. He also is the author and giver of all those excellent counsels, delivered not only to the apostles, but also by the prophets, (1Pe 1:10-12,) and hath gathered, enlarged, and preserved his church by admirable counsels, and the methods of his providence; and, in a word, hath in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The mighty God — This title can agree to no man but Christ, who was God as well as man, to whom the title of God or Jehovah is given, both in the Old and New Testaments, as Jer 23:6; Joh 1:1; Rom 9:5; and in many other places. And it is a true observation, that this Hebrew word אל, eel, is never used in the singular number of any creature, but only of the Almighty God, as is evident by perusing all the texts where this word occurs. The everlasting Father — Hebrew, אבי עד, The Father of eternity: having called him a child and a son, lest this should be misinterpreted to his disparagement, he adds that he is a Father also, even the Father of eternity, and, of course, of time, and of all creatures made in time. Christ, in union with the Father and the Holy Ghost, is the God and Father of all things, the maker and upholder of all creatures, Joh 1:3; Heb 1:3; and especially the Father of all believers, who are called his children, (Heb 2:13,) and the author of eternal life and salvation to them, Heb 5:9. Or, this title may be given him because he is the father of the new and eternal age, that is, of the economy which is to endure for ever; for Christ is the father of a new generation, to continue through all eternity; the second Adam, father of a new race; the head of a new and everlasting family, in which all the children of God are reckoned. The Prince of peace — This is another title, which certainly does not agree to Hezekiah, whose reign was far from being free from wars, as we see 2 Kings 18., but it agrees exactly to Christ, who is called our peace, Mic 5:5; Eph 2:14; and is the only purchaser and procurer of peace between God and men, Isa 53:5; and between men and men, between Jews and Gentiles, Eph 2:15; and of the peace of our own consciences; and who leaves peace as his legacy to his disciples, Joh 14:27; Joh 16:33.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv6–7 For - This is given as a reason of…
For - This is given as a reason of the victories that were predicted in the previous verses. That it has reference to the Messiah has been almost universally conceded; and indeed it does not seem possible to doubt it. The eye of the prophet seems to have been fixed on this great and glorious event - as attracting all his attention. The scenes of coming times, like a panorama, or picture, passed before him. Most of the picture seems to have been that of battles, conflicts, sieges, dimness, and thick darkness. But in one portion of the passing scene there was light. It was the light that he saw rising in the distant and darkened Galilee. He saw the joy of the people; the armor of war laid aside; the image of peace succeeding; the light expanding and becoming more intense as the darkness retired, until he saw in this region the Prince of Peace - the Sun of Righteousness itself. The eye of the prophet gazed intently on that scene, and was fixed on that portion of the picture: he sees the Messiah in his office, and describes him as already come, and as born unto the nation.
Unto us - For our benefit. The prophet saw in vision the darkness and gloom of the nation, and saw also the son that would be born to remove that darkness, and to enlighten the world.
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A child - (ילד yeled). This word usually denotes a lad, a boy, a youth. It is commonly applied to one in early life; but no particular stress is to be laid on the word. The vision of the prophet is, that the long-expected Messiah is born, and is seen growing up amidst the surrounding darkness of the north of Palestine, Isa 9:1.
Is born - Not that he was born when the prophet spake. But in prophetic vision, as the events of the future passed before his mind, he saw that promised son, and the eye was fixed intently on him; see the Introduction, section 7, and the note at Isa 1:1.
A son - בן bên. This word does not differ materially from the word translated child. In the future scenes, as they passed before the mind of the prophet, he saw the child, the son that was to be born, and described him as he appeared to his view - as a child. Fixing the eye on him, he proceeds at once to designate his character by stating the appropriate names which he would bear.
Is given - The Messiah is often represented as having been given, or sent; or as the rich gift of God; the note at Act 4:12; Joh 3:16; Eph 1:22; Joh 17:4. The Messiah was pre-eminently the gift of the God of love. Man had no claim on him, and God voluntarily gave his Son to be a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
And the government shall be upon his shoulder - The sense of this passage is, that he shall rule, or that the government shall be vested in him. Various interpretations have, however, been given of the phrase ‘upon his shoulder.’ Some have supposed, that it means simply he shall sustain the government, as the shoulder is that by which we uphold any thing. Pliny and Cicero thus use the phrase; see Rosenmuller. Others, that it means that he should wear the royal purple from a child. - Grotius. Lowth supposes that it refers to the ensign of government - the scepter, the sword, the keys, or the like, that were borne upon the shoulder, or suspended from it; see the note at Isa 22:22. It is evident, from this latter place, that some ensign of office was usually borne upon the shoulder. The sense is, that he should be a king, and under this character the Messiah is often predicted.
And his name shall be called - That is, his attributes shall be such as to make all these applications appropriate descriptions of his power and work. To be called, and to be, in the Hebrew, often mean the same thing. The word ויקרא vayı̂qerâ' may possibly mean, Yahweh shall call him; or it may be regarded as taken impersonally. Such a use of a verb is not uncommon in Isaiah. ‘One calls him,’ is, according to the usage in Isaiah, as ranch as to say, he will justly bear this name; or simply, he will be.
Wonderful - פלא pele'. This word is derived from the verb פלא pâlâ', to separate, to distinguish, or to make great. It is applied usually to anything that is great or wonderful, as a miracle; Exo 15:2; Lam 1:9; Dan 12:6. It is applied here to denote the unusual and remarkable assemblage of qualities that distinguished the Messiah. Those are specified more particularly in the other part of the verse; such an assemblage of quailties as to make proper the names Mighty God, etc. ‘The proper idea of the word,’ says Hengstenberg, ‘is miraculous. It imports that the personage here referred to, in his being and in his works, will be exalted above the ordinary course of nature, and that his whole manifestation will be a miracle.’ Yet it seems to me, that the proper idea of the word is not that of miraculous. It is rather that which is separated from the ordinary course of events, and which is suited to excite amazement, wonder, and admiration, whether it be miraculous or not.
This will be apparent if the following places are examined, where the word occurs in various forms. It is rendered marvelous, Psa 118:23; Psa 139:14; Psa 98:1; Job 5:9; wonderful, 2Sa 1:26; Psa 139:14; Pro 30:18; Job 42:3; Psa 72:18; Psa 86:10; hidden, Deu 30:2; things too high, Psa 131:1; miracles, Jdg 6:13; Exo 15:2; Psa 77:14; Psa 88:10; Psa 89:5; the word is translated wonders, in the sense of miracles, in several places; and hard, Deu 17:8; Jer 32:17. From these passages, it is clear that it may denote that which is miraculous, but that this idea is not necessarily connected with it. Anything which is suited to excite wonder and amazement, from any cause, will correspond with the sense of the Hebrew word. It is a word which expresses with surprising accuracy everything in relation to the Redeemer. For the Messiah was wonderful in all things. It was wonderful love by which God gave him, and by which he came; the manner of his birth was wonderful; his humility, his self-denial, his sorrows were wonderful; his mighty works were wonderful; his dying agonies were wonderful; and his resurrection, his ascension, were all suited to excite admiration and wonder.
Counsellor - This word has been sometimes joined with ‘wonderful,’ as if designed to qualify it thus - “wonderful counselor;” but it expresses a distinct attribute, or quality. The name “counselor” here, יועץ yû‛ēts, denotes one of honorable rank; one who is suited to stand near princes and kings as their adviser. It is expressive of great wisdom, and of qualifications to guide and direct the human race. The Septuagint translates this phrase, ‘The angel of the mighty counsel.’ The Chaldee, ‘The God of wonderful counsel.’
The mighty God - Syriac, ‘The mighty God of ages.’ This is one, and but one out of many, of the instances in which the name God is applied to the Messiah; compare Joh 1:1; Rom 9:5; 1Jo 5:20; Joh 20:28; 1Ti 3:16; Heb 1:8. The name ‘mighty God,’ is unquestionably attributed to the true God in Isa 10:21. Much controversy has arisen in relation to this expression; and attempts have been made to show that the word translated “God,” אל 'ĕl, may refer to a hero, a king, a conqueror. Thus Gesenius renders, it ‘Mighty hero;’ and supposes that the name ‘God’ is used here in accordance with the custom of the Orientals, who ascribe divine attributes to kings. In like manner Pluschke (see Hengstenberg) says, ‘In my opinion this name is altogether symbolical. The Messiah shall be called strength of God, or strong God, divine hero, in order by this name to remind the people of the strength of God.’ But after all such controversy, it still remains certain that the natural and obvious meaning of the expression is to denote a divine nature. So it was evidently understood by the ancient versions; and the fact that the name God is so often applied to Christ in the New Testament proves that it is to be understood in its natural and obvious signification.
The everlasting Father - The Chaldee renders this expression, ‘The man abiding forever.’ The Vulgate, ‘The Father of the future age.’ Lowth, ‘The Father of the everlasting age.’ Literally, it is the Father of eternity, עד אבי 'ĕby ‛ad. The word rendered “everlasting,” עד ‛ad, properly denotes “eternity,” and is used to express “forever;” see Psa 9:6, Psa 9:19; Psa 19:10. It is often used in connection with עולם ‛ôlâm, thus, עולם ועד vā‛ed ‛ôlâm, “forever and ever;” Psa 10:16; Psa 21:5; Psa 45:7. The Hebrews used the term father in a great variety of senses - as a literal father, a grandfather, an ancestor, a ruler, an instructor. The phrase may either mean the same as the Eternal Father, and the sense will be, that the Messiah will not, as must be the ease with an earthly king, however excellent, leave his people destitute after a short reign, but will rule over them and bless them forever (Hengstenberg); or it may be used in accordance with a custom usual in Hebrew and in Arabic, where he who possesses a thing is called the father of it.
Thus, the father of strength means strong; the father of knowledge, intelligent; the father of glory, glorious; the father of goodness, good; the father of peace, peaceful. According to this, the meaning of the phrase, the Father of eternity, is properly eternal. The application of the word here is derived from this usage. The term Father is not applied to the Messiah here with any reference to the distinction in the divine nature, for that word is uniformly, in the Scriptures, applied to the first, not to the second person of the Trinity. But it is used in reference to durations, as a Hebraism involving high poetic beauty. lie is not merely represented as everlasting, but he is introduced, by a strong figure, as even the Father of eternity. as if even everlasting duration owed itself to his paternity. There could not be a more emphatic declaration of strict and proper eternity. It may be added, that this attribute is often applied to the Messiah in the New Testament; Joh 8:58; Col 1:17; Rev 1:11, Rev 1:17-18; Heb 1:10-11; Joh 1:1-2.
The Prince of Peace - This is a Hebrew mode of expression denoting that he would be a peaceful prince. The tendency of his administration would be to restore and perpetuate peace. This expression is used to distinguish him from the mass of kings and princes who have delighted in conquest and blood. In contradistinction from all these, the Messiah would seek to promote universal concord, and the tendency of his reign would be to put an end to wars, and to restore harmony and order to the nations; see the tendency of his reign still further described in Isa 11:6-9; the note at Isa 2:4; see also Mic 5:4; Hos 2:18. It is not necessary to insist on the coincidence of this description with the uniform character and instructions of the Lord Jesus. In this respect, he disappointed all the hopes of the Jewish nation, who, in spite of the plain prophecies respecting his peaceful character. expected a magnificent prince, and a conqueror.
The expressions used here imply that he would be more than human. It is impossible to believe that these appellations would be given under the Spirit of inspiration to a mere man. They express a higher nature; and they coincide with the account in the New pressions of a pompous and high-sounding character were commonly assumed by Oriental princes. The following is a single instance of their arrogance, ostentation, and pride. ‘Chosroes, king of kings, lord of lords, ruler of the nations; prince of peace, saviour of men; among the gods, a man good and eternal, but among people, a god most illustrious, glorious; a conqueror rising with the sun and giving vision at night.’ - Theoph. Simocatta Chr., iv. 8, quoted by Gesenius. But it cannot be pretended, that the Spirit of inspiration would use titles in a manner so unmeaning and so pompous as this. Besides, it was one great object of the prophets to vindicate the name and character of the true God, and to show that all such appellations belonged to him alone.
However, such appellations might be used by surrounding nations, and given to kings and princes by the pagan, yet in the Scriptures they are not given to earthy monarchs. That this passage refers to the Messiah has been generally conceded, except by the Jews, and by a few later critics. Jarchi and Kimchi maintain that it refers to Hezekiah. They have been driven to this by the use which Christians have made of the passage against the Jews. But the absurdity of this interpretation has been shown in the notes at Isa 7:14. The ancient Jews incontestably referred it to the Messiah. Thus the Targum of Jonathan renders it, ‘His name shall be called God of wonderful counsel, man abiding forever, the messiah, משׁיח mâshı̂yach, whose peace shall be multiplied upon us in his days.’ Thus rabbi Jose, of Galilee, says, ‘The name of the Messiah is שׁלום shâlôm, as is said in Isa 9:6, “Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace.” ‘Ben Sira (fol. 40, of the Amsterdam Edition, 1679) numbers among the eight names of the Messiah those also taken from this passage, Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace. The later Jews, however, have rejected this interpretation, because the Messiah is here described as God.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv6–7 Child. The Messias, whom the son of Isaias prefigured.…
Child. The Messias, whom the son of Isaias prefigured. --- Shoulder. Where the badges of royalty were worn. (Calmet) --- Christ bore his cross. (Tertullian, &c.) --- Wonderful. In his birth, &c. --- Counsellor. From whom all good advice proceeds. Grotius falsely translates, "the consulter of the strong God," meaning Ezechias. Though he deemed the Socinians unworthy of the Christian name, (Ep. ad Valleum.) he too often sides with them. Johets always means one who "gives counsel," chap. xl. 13. Ezechias was at this time ten years old, and he did not always take advice, nor was his reign peaceful, &c. --- God. The three Greek versions maliciously render El "the strong," though it be uncertain that it ever has that meaning, as it certainly has not when joined with gibbon, "mighty." Why should two terms of the same import be used? The Septuagint copies vary much. Some read only, "he shall be called the angel of the great council, for I will bring peace upon the princes and his health." St. Jerome thinks they were afraid to style the child God. But this reason falls to the ground, as other copies have, (Calmet) after council, "Wonderful, Counsellor, God, the Mighty, the Potent, Greek: exousiaszes, the Prince of Peace, the Father of the world to come, for, &c., (7.) His." Grabe (de Vitiis lxx. p. 29.) asserts that the former is the genuine version, and that the inserted titles are a secondary one; so that there must have been two version before the days of Aquila, as the text is thus quoted at large by Clement and St. Iræneus, the year of the Lord 180; Kennicott adds also by St. Ignatius, the year of the Lord 110. (Haydock) --- The omnipotent God became a little child, and without violence subdued the world, which he still governs. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv6–7 For--the ground of these great expectations,
For--the ground of these great expectations,
unto us--for the benefit of the Jews first, and then the Gentiles (compare "unto you," Luk 2:11).
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son . . . given-- (Psa 2:7). God's gratuitous gift, on which man had no claim (Joh 3:16; Rom 6:23).
government . . . upon . . . shoulder--The ensign of office used to be worn on the shoulder, in token of sustaining the government (Isa 22:22). Here the government on Messiah's shoulder is in marked antithesis to the "yoke and staff" of the oppressor on Israel's "shoulder" (Isa 9:4). He shall receive the kingdom of the earth from the Father, to vindicate it from the misrule of those to whom it was entrusted to hold it for and under the Most High, but who sought to hold it in defiance of His right; the Father asserts His right by the Son, the "Heir of all things," who will hold it for Him (Dan 7:13-14).
name . . . called--His essential characteristics shall be.
Wonderful--(See on Isa 8:18; Jdg 13:18, Margin; Ti1 3:16).
Counsellor-- (Psa 16:7; Rom 11:33-34; Co1 1:24; Col 2:3).
mighty God-- (Isa 10:21; Psa 24:8; Tit 2:13) HORSLEY translates: "God the mighty man." "Unto us . . . God" is equivalent to "Immanuel" (Isa 7:14).
everlasting Father--This marks Him as "Wonderful," that He is "a child," yet the "everlasting Father" (Joh 10:30; Joh 14:9). Earthly kings leave their people after a short reign; He will reign over and bless them for ever [HENGSTENBERG].
Prince of Peace--(See on Isa 9:5; Gen 49:10; Shiloh, "The Tranquillizer"). Finally (Hos 2:18). Even already He is "our peace" (Luk 2:14; Eph 2:14).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv6–7 6. For unto us — Jews first, then all…
6. For unto us — Jews first, then all the world.
A child is born — The antitype of the child of chap. vii; a child of the Davidic house, as asserted in next verse.
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Unto us — Or for us — for our benefit.
A son is given — In chap. vii the child is given as a sign, but here as a gift of grace. He is the anointed Son of God. Psa_2:7. It would seem, according to Heb_2:14, that he is partaker of the same nature with the children of Isa_8:18.
Government shall be upon his shoulder — Princedom unlimited better accords with the original. Unlike Assyrian tributary rule, it is not oppressive to his people. Unlike all earthly potentates, he wears sovereignty as a robe everlastingly befitting him.
His name shall be called — Literally, They shall call, etc. By universal admission he is Wonderful; rather, a Wonder; arresting the whole world’s attention by his incarnation, words, and acts.
Counsellor — A supreme teacher and guide to men, collectively and individually.
Mighty God — אל גבור, (el gibbor.) Gesenius renders this, strong hero; and De Wette adopts the same rendering. But this is a case where a parallel phrase close at hand must settle the meaning. Now in Isa_10:21, the same phrase is applied to deity, and the context will bear no other sense. The remnant of Jacob shall return unto the “mighty God,” — same words in the original. In Isa_10:20-21, (which see,) the parallel to “Holy One of Israel” — which indisputably is the Lord Jehovah — is אל גבור, (el gibbor,) and this, if not to be regarded fully as strong, yea a stronger expression for deity, is violently opposed to the laws of parallelism in Hebrew poetry. It would be nonsense to regard it otherwise.
Everlasting Father — Or, Father of eternity. So the words and order of the Hebrew; and this, in Hebrew rhetoric means eternal, or he is eternal, or the eternal One.
Prince of Peace — Having absolute command of peace, to whom all willing people shall be subject. That all these predicates belong to Messiah has, with little dispute, always been conceded. The earlier Jews and the Targums explained them as referring to Messiah; the later Jews (in order to parry the Christian view) as referring to Hezekiah. Modern rationalists concede them to Messiah, but emasculate them of their strong, divine sense, so as to reduce Messiah to a mere, but exalted, creature. Such shifts in interpretation, in the face of the ancient view of this passage, confirmed by later unprejudiced exegesis, but too plainly show greater partisan-ship for theory than for simple truth.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv6–7 6. unto us] the survivors of the judgment. Cf.…
6. unto us] the survivors of the judgment. Cf. “Immanuel,” “God with us.”
the government] This word is found only here and in Isa_9:7, and is of uncertain interpretation, perhaps “princedom.”
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his name shall be called] The name of the Messiah consists of a series of honorific titles, pertaining to Him in His kingly capacity and expressing mainly the qualities displayed in His government. We may compare, with Guthe and others, the high-sounding titles assumed by Egyptian and Babylonian monarchs in their inscriptions, such as, “Giver of Life in perpetuity,” “Ever Living,” “Lord of Life,” “Lord of Eternity and Infinity” &c.
Wonderful, Counseller] Since each of the other names is compounded of two words, these expressions are also to be taken together as forming a single designation—Wonder-Counseller. The construction is either construct followed by genitive—“a wonder of a Counseller” (cf. Gen_16:12), or acc. governed by participle—“one who counsels wonderful things.” Cf. “wonderful in counsel” (of Jehovah) in ch. Isa_28:29. On counsel as the function of a king, see Mic_4:9.
The mighty God] (’êl Gibbôr) either “God-like Hero” or Hero-God. The second is to be preferred, because the title is applied to Jehovah in ch. Isa_10:21 (cf. Deu_10:17; Jer_32:18). These two titles ascribe to the Messiah the two fundamental virtues of a ruler, wisdom and strength (cf. ch. Isa_11:2), both in superhuman measure. The predicate of divinity (like that of eternity in the next name) is not to be understood in the absolute metaphysical sense; it means that the divine energy works through him and is displayed in his rule (cf. Isa_11:2 ff.; Mi. Isa_5:4; Zec_12:8). In the fulfilment the words receive a larger sense.
The remaining two titles describe the character of the Messiah’s government, as (a) paternal, and (b) peaceful.
The everlasting Father] lit. Father of Eternity. The translation “Father of booty” is grammatically unimpeachable (see ch. Isa_33:23; Gen_49:27), but the ideas of fatherhood and booty form an unnatural association. “Father of Eternity” describes the king, not as “possessor of the attribute of eternity” but as one who continually acts as a father to his people.
Prince of Peace] Cf. ch. Isa_2:2-4, Isa_11:4 ff.; Mic_5:5; Zec_9:10.
6, 7. The last and greatest cause of joy is the birth of the Messiah and his wonderful character and government. When Isaiah expected the event to take place, cannot be gathered from this prophecy. There is no reason for supposing that the reference is to a child already born; the perfect tense is used, as throughout the passage, from the ideal standpoint of the writer, which is within the Messianic age. The birth of the child is most naturally conceived as taking place in the age of miracle which succeeds the overthrow of the Assyrian; hence no part is assigned to him in effecting the national emancipation.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv6–7 (6) For unto us a child is born.—The picture…
(6) For unto us a child is born.—The picture of a kingdom of peace could not be complete without the manifestation of a king. In the description of that king Isaiah is led to use words which cannot find a complete fulfilment in any child of man. The loftiness of thought, rising here as to its highest point, is obviously connected with the words which told that Jehovah had spoken to the prophet “with a strong hand.” His condition was one more ecstatic and therefore more apocalyptic than before, and there flashes on him, as it were, the thought that the future deliverer of Israel must bear a name that should be above every name that men had before honoured. And yet here also there was a law of continuity, and the form of the prediction was developed from the materials supplied by earlier prophets. In Psalms 110 he had found the thought of the king-priest after the order of Melchizedek, whom Jehovah addressed as Adonai. In Psalms 2, though it did not foretell an actual incarnation, the anointed King was addressed by Jehovah as His Son. The throne of that righteous king was as a throne of God (Psa_45:6). Nor had the prophet’s personal experience been less fruitfully suggestive. He had given his own children mysterious names. That of the earthly Immanuel, as the prophet brooded over it, might well lead on to the thought of One who should, in a yet higher sense than as being the pledge of Divine protection, be as “God with us.” Even the earthly surroundings of the prophet’s life may not have been without their share of suggestiveness. The kings of Egypt and Assyria with whom his nation had been brought into contact delighted in long lists of epithetic names (e.g., “the great king, the king unrivalled, the protector of the just, the noble warrior.” Inscription of, Sennacherib in Records of the Past, i. p. 25), describing their greatness and their glory. It was natural that the prophet should see in the king of whom he thought as the future conqueror of all the world-powers that were founded on might and not on right, One who should bear a name formed, it might be, after that fashion, but full of a greater majesty and glory.
His name shall be called Wonderful.—It is noticeable that that which follows is given not as many names, but one. Consisting as it does of eight words, of which the last six obviously fall into three couplets, it is probable that the first two should also be taken together, and that we have four elements of the compound name: (1) Wonderful-Counsellor, (2) God-the-Mighty-One, (3) Father of Eternity, (4) Prince of Peace. Each element of the Name has its special significance. (1) The first embodies the thought of the wisdom of the future Messiah. Men should not simply praise it as they praise their fellows, but should adore and wonder at it as they wonder at the wisdom of God (Jdg_13:18, where the Hebrew for the “secret” of the Authorised version is the same as that for “wonderful;” Exo_15:11; Psa_77:11; Psa_78:11; Isa_28:29; Isa_29:14). The name contains the germ afterwards developed in the picture of the wisdom of the true king in Isa_11:2-4. The LXX. renders the Hebrew as “the angel of great counsel,” and in the Vatican text the description ends there. (2) It is significant that the word for “God” is not Elohim, which may be used in a lower sense for those who are representatives of God, as in Exo_7:1; Exo_22:28, 1Sa_28:13, but El, which is never used by Isaiah, or any other Old Testament writer, in any lower sense than that of absolute Deity, and which, we may note, had been specially brought before the prophet’s thoughts in the name Immanuel. The name appears again as applied directly to Jehovah in Isa_10:21; Deu_10:17; Jer_32:18; Neh_9:32; Psa_24:8; and the adjective in Isa_42:13. (3) In “Father of Eternity,” (LXX. Alex. and Vulg., “Father of the age to come “) we have a name which seems at first to clash with the formalised developments of Christian theology, which teach us, lest we should “confound the persons,” not to deal with the names of the Father and the Son as interchangeable. Those developments, however, were obviously not within Isaiah’s ken, and he uses the name of “Father” because none other expressed so well the true idea of loving and protecting government (Job_29:16, Isa_22:21). And if the kingdom was to be “for ever and ever,” then in some very real sense he would be, in that attribute of Fatherly government, a sharer in the eternity of Jehovah. Another rendering of the name, adopted by some critics, “Father (i.e., Giver) of booty,” has little to recommend it, and is entirely out of harmony with the majesty of the context. (4) “Prince of Peace.” The prophet clings, as all prophets before him had done, to the thought that peace, and not war, belonged to the ideal Kingdom of the Messiah. That hope had been embodied by David in the name of Absalom (“ father of peace “) and Solomon. It had been uttered in the prayer of Psa_72:3, and by Isaiah’s contemporary, Micah (Mic_5:5). Earth-powers, like Assyria and Egypt, might rest in war and conquest as an end, but the true king, though warfare might be needed to subdue his foes (Psa_45:5), was to be a “Prince of Peace” (Zec_9:9-10). It must be noted as remarkable, looking to the grandeur of the prophecy, and its apparently direct testimony to the true nature of the Christ, that it is nowhere cited in the New Testament as fulfilled in Him; and this, though Isa_9:1 is, as we have seen, quoted by St. Matthew and Isa_9:7, finds at least an allusive reference in Luk_1:32-33.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv6–7 Unto us a child is born. (comp. Isa_7:14-16, where…
Unto us a child is born. (comp. Isa_7:14-16, where the promise of "a child," "a son," is first made a child who was, like this Child, to be "God with us The government shall be upon his shoulder. The word translated "government" (misrah) occurs only hero and in ver. 7. It is probably to be connected with sat, "prince," and Israel. Government was regarded as a burden, to be born on the back or shoulders, and was sometimes symbolized by a key laid upon the shoulder. (Isa_22:22) Vizier means "burdened." The Latin writers often speak of the civil power as borne on the shoulders of magistrates (Cic., "Orat. pro Flacc," Plin., "Paneg.," As God, our Lord governed all things from the beginning; as man, he set up a "kingdom" which he still governs upon the earth. His name shall be called. It is perhaps not very important whether we view what follows as one name or several. Isaiah does not really mean that the "Child" should bear as a name, or names, any of the expressions, but only that they should be truly applicable to him. Wonderful, Counselor. It has been proposed to unite these two expressions and translate, "Wondrous Counselor" (compare "wonderful in counsel,". (Isa_28:29) But Dr. Kay is probably right in saying that, if this had been the meaning, it would have been expressed differently. Gesenius, Rosenm Delitzsch, and Vance Smith agree with Dr. Kay in taking the words separately. Wonderful. The Messiah would be "wonderful" in his nature as God-Man; in his teaching, which "astonished" those who heard it; (Mat_7:28) in his doings; (Isa_25:1) in the circumstances of his birth and death; in his resurrection, and in his ascension. "Wonder" would be the first sentiment which his manifestation would provoke, and hence this descriptive epithet is placed first. As the Word, as Wisdom itself, as he who says, "Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am Understanding", (Pro_8:14) he is well named "Counselor." None will ever seek his counsel in vain, much less repent of following it. The mighty God; rather, perhaps, Mighty God; but the difference is not great, since El, God, contains within itself the notion of singularity, which is given to ordinary nouns by the article. The term El, God, had been previously applied to the Messiah only in Psa_45:6. It denotes in Isaiah always (as Mr. Cheyne observes) "divinity in an absolute sense; it is never used hyperbolically or metaphorically." The Everlasting Father; rather, Everlasting or Eternal Father. But here, again, there is a singularity in the idea, which makes the omission of the article unimportant; for how could there be more than one Everlasting Father, one Creator, Preserver, Protector of mankind who was absolutely eternal? If the term "Father," applied to our Lord, grates on our ears, we must remember that the distinction of Persons in the Godhead had not yet been revealed. The Prince of Peace ; literally, Prince of Peace. A "Prince of Peace" had been long shadowed forth, as in Melchizedek, "King of Salem," i.e. "of Peace;" and again in Solomon, "the peaceful one;" and Isaiah himself had already prophesied the peacefulness of the Messiah"s kingdom. (Isa_2:4) Compare the song of the angels at our Lord"s birth. (Luk_2:14) If the peacefulness has not vet very clearly shown itself, the reason would seem to be that our Lord"s kingdom has yet to come into the hearts of most men.
Ver. 6. The significancy of the names of Christ.
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Five names of the Redeemer are here declared by Isaiah, in addition to the name given him in Isaiah 7-8., viz. Immanuel. Names of Christ are always worthy of the deepest and most attentive consideration, for each reveals some portion of his nature, each exhibits some aspect of him, so to speak, which is distinct from other aspects; and it is only by meditating upon all, that we approximate to a full and complete conception of his manifold excellences. Very specially worthy of consideration are the five names here put forth, which may be viewed either separately or in their connection. And first separately
I THE NAME OF "WONDERFUL.
1. Wonderful is the Son in his eternal relation to the Almighty Father, an unchanging relation of mutual love and tenderness, differenced by the fact of derivation, and the sense on the one hand of bestowal, and on the other of acceptance and dependence. Wonderful, wholly transcending our utmost reach of thought, is that eternity of pre-existence which he enjoyed with the Father and the Holy Spirit, not only before the world was, but before it had pleased the Divine Nature to bring into existence any other being besides itself.
2. Wonderful, again, is he in that repeated act of creation, so clearly assigned to him, (Joh_1:31 Heb_1:2) whereby he brought out of nothing (Heb_11:3) the entire existing universe angels and archangels, principalities and powers, cherubim and seraphim; matter arranged and unarranged; sun, moon, stars, planets, satellites, nebulae; man, animals; all of them "the work of his hands," created by him out of non-existence.
3. Even more wonderful is he in his dealings with the children of men in his patience with them, his regard for them, his mediatorial office towards them, his inward revelation of himself to them, his constant presence with them, his sacramental communication of himself to them, all unworthy as they are.
4. Wonderful is he in his life on earth, which even unbelievers cannot but admire; wonderful in his triumph over death and the grave; wonderful in his ascension into heaven in the sight of men; wonderful in his appearances to St. Paul and St. Stephen; wonderful in the might wherewith he still sustains his Church, so that even the very "gates of hell" cannot prevail against it.
II THE NAME OF "COUNSELLOR" As the "Loges," or "Reason," no less than the "Word" of God, the Son was identified by the ancient Fathers with the "Wisdom" of the Book of Proverbs, of whom it is said, "I Wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge.... Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding.... The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was when he appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by him, as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him". (Pro_8:12-30) He was thus, in some sort, the Counselor of the Triune Synod which presided over the world and directed all its affairs. But, further, he was the Counselor of man. The Loges was "the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world". (Joh_1:9) Our natural reason and conscience come from him, for he has implanted them in us, to counsel us aright. All revealed light is also from him, for he is the Word and the Truth. He counsels us from within, by the inward monitor who tells us what is right; he counsels us from without, by his apostles, his evangelists, his Church, his living ministers. Do we lack wisdom generally? let us ask of him, and he will pour light into our souls. Do we need counsel on any special matter? Let us take it to him, and he will show us the wisest and best course.
III THE NAME OF "MIGHTY GOD." The Son of God is himself God, and if God, then certainly "mighty nay, "almighty." What the Messiah was to do, could be done by none less than God. He was to redeem mankind; he was to vanquish death and sin; he was to triumph over Satan; he was to be a meritorious Sacrifice. "God with us" had already been declared to be one of his names. (Isa_7:14) Now he is announced as "God the Mighty One." It is to the last degree uncritical to compare this assignment of so august a name, coming from the mouth of an intense theist, with the ascription of Divine titles to the Egyptian kings by themselves, or by their subjects, when both king and subjects were polytheists. Isaiah could not have intended to call a mere man "God;" he must have recognized, as David had done, (Psa_45:6) that the Messiah would be more than man, would in some way or other be a partaker of the Divine nature. Jeremiah did the same when he announced the Messiah as "Jehovah our Righteousness." The prophets may not have been aware of the doctrine of the Trinity, but they could conceive an incarnation of God. The name of "Mighty God" in Isaiah"s list must be accepted as a distinct announcement of the true Divinity of the Messiah, just as the words "child" and "son," which had been previously applied to him (ver. 6), were announcements of his true humanity.
IV THE NAME OF "EVERLASTING FATHER." When the Messiah is called a "Father," we must understand the word as meaning primarily "Protector." So Job was a "father to the poor", (Job_29:16) and Eliakim a "father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem". (Isa_22:11) The idea of protection, however, implied in "Father" does not exhaust the connotation of the word. It contains also the notions of "Creator" and "Preserver, "of one whom we are bound to love, honor, and obey. "Have we not all one father?" says Malachi. "Hath not one God created us?" "If I be a Father," says Jehovah by his mouth, "where is my honor?" The Messiah was to be "Father" in all these senses. As the Second Person in the Holy Trinity, he created man; as "God with us," he preserves him; as the typical Man, the Head of the redeemed human race, he will ever keep and protect him. The prophet calls him "Everlasting Father," first, to show that he is no mere human protector, like Job or Eliakim; but also, further, to indicate by an additional phrase his Divinity, since God alone is "everlasting," or "eternal." His people are assured by the epithet that he will never cease to be their Protector, will never desert them, or weary of interposing for them. No; "he ever liveth to make intercession for us". (Heb_7:25) He is "Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, the First and the Last". (Rev_1:8) He "will not fail us, nor forsake us". (Deu_31:6)
V THE NAME OF "PRINCE OF PEACE." So long as there is evil, there must be war between good and evil. The Messiah is "Prince of Peace," "especially, because he comes to convert the world;" to "turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God;" to destroy sin, and "bring in everlasting righteousness". (Dan_9:24) When there is universal righteousness, there will be universal peace. Certainly, the time is not yet come. The Prince of a peaceful kingdom, whose servants may not seek to advance his kingdom by violence, has not annihilated evil, has not swept all the wicked from the world. And so the fight goes on; evil men still stir up wars and tumults, and good men are forced to resist them. But the "Prince of Peace" shows his power and justifies his name,
(1) in the peace that he introduces into the hearts that love him;
(2) in the peace found wherever the Spirit of Christ prevails, as in pious households, in brotherhoods and sisterhoods, in assemblies of Christian men like our convocations, etc.;
(3) in the comparative peace that obtains in Christian lands, the growing desire for peace and hatred of war, the readiness to resort to arbitration, and the like.
Taken in connection, the five names would seem to teach
(1) the mysteriousness of Christ"s nature, which lies at the very basis of Christianity, and upon which all else is built;
(2) the wisdom of his teaching, which makes him our only safe "Counselor;
(3) the power which he has, as "Mighty God," to accomplish all his designs in his own good time;
(4) the love which leads him to exert this power continually in the protection of his Church; and
(5) the peaceful condition to which he will in the end bring his Church, when its probation is accomplished and he comes to reign over it as its visible King. The names begin in the past, advance to the present, and end in the far future. They first bespeak our reverence and awe, the foundations of religious feeling. They then call forth our trust, showing Christ to us all-wise, almighty. They end by eliciting our love towards him as a protecting Father," who will at last conduct us to perfect peace.
Ver. 6. Spiritual empire. "And the government shall be upon his shoulder.
I THE ACHIEVEMENT WHICH LAY OUTSIDE THE PURPOSE or THE SON OF GOD. For what end was that wondrous Child born, that holy Son given? He came not to restore a fallen human dynasty. The most ardent and eager hopes of his countrymen were directed to the overthrow of the Roman power and to the re-establishment of the kingdom of David in all, and more than all, its pristine glory. Jesus Christ distinctly disavowed any such purpose as this. His kingdom, he said, was not of this world.
II THE SPIRITUAL EMPIRE WHICH HE CAME TO ESTABLISH. We shall see what and how truly great this was if we consider:
1. In what condition Christ found the world when he came. He found it
(1) with its mind full of fatal error the favored people having sunk into a dreary, withering formalism, and the whole Gentile world into idolatry or unbelief;
(2) with its heart full of pride, selfishness, and hatred;
(3) with its life full of unrighteousness and impurity.
1. What he came to accomplish in regard to it. He came to undo all this; to expel this blighting error; to uproot this pride, cruelty, and selfishness; to abolish this iniquity and enormity; to plant and nourish in the mind and heart and life of man the beautiful and admirable opposites of all this truth, humility, love, righteousness; and so to exercise a beneficent and transcendent power, and so to take the government of the world upon his shoulder.
2. The only way by which he could gain his end. Christ knew that the one way to exert this renovating power, to wield this victorious influence, was by winning the world"s devotion to himself through his own dying love. Therefore he deliberately entered and determinately pursued the path which led to Gethsemane and to Calvary. Lifted up before the eyes of a wondering and believing world, he would draw all men unto himself, and thus to truth, to holiness, to God.
3. The extent to which he has succeeded. In spite of the miserable corruptions which have dishonored and enfeebled his Church, and in spite of the languor and inactivity by which large periods of its history have been marked, we find that
(1) error is dying and truth reviving under every sky; the heathen temple is being closed; the hoary systems of misbelief, pierced and penetrated by modern science and assailed by Christian truth, are shaking to their fall;
(2) pride is being humbled;
(3) philanthropy a pitiful, generous, self-sacrificing regard for the unfortunate and the abandoned is taking the place of hard-hearted indifference;
(4) the Prince of Peace is being honored where the god of war was once worshipped.
(5) Righteousness and purity are returning to human life. Slavery, lust, drunkenness, profanity, are not yet dead, but their death-warrant has been signed and they are doomed to die.
The thought of Jesus Christ is taking possession of the human mind; his principles are reaching and regulating human life; his Spirit is changing the human world; the government is being laid upon his shoulder.
(1) Let us rejoice in the growing power of that Son that was born to our race. The empire of the Caesars, of the Pharaohs, of the Napoleons, is nothing but a memory, a history; the rule of Jesus Christ is a benign, a mighty, a growing power, an abiding, and extending influence. That is a fruitless, sapless stump; this is a tree of life, bearing all manner of fruits, "and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
(2) Let us take care that we are among the subjects of his spiritual realm. His is the future of the world; to be separated from him is to lose the heritage, to forfeit the citizenship which will soon be the one thing worth possessing.
(3) Let us recognize the true wisdom; not to strive after outward grandeur In this attempt we may fall and be bruised or even broken, or we may succeed and be satiated and thirst again. The true wisdom is found in shedding a sweet and sanctifying influence over all whom we can reach and bless. C.
Ver. 6. The wonderful Lord.
"His name shall be called Wonderful." And well may he have been named Wonderful, whose words, whose works, and whose love were such as those of Jesus Christ. We look at
I THE MARVEL OF HIS TEACHING.
1. It struck his contemporaries with awe and with astonishment. (see Mat_5:28, 29 13:54 22:22)
2. It strikes us with wonder still. That a Jew, brought up at Nazareth, receiving a very slight education, having no intercourse with men of other nations, acted upon by the narrowing and stiffening influences which were prevalent and powerful in his land and time, should teach as he taught about
(1) the fatherhood of God;
(2) the spirituality of Divine worship and sacred service;
(3) the openness of the outcast and the abandoned to return to the favor and likeness of God;
(4) the spiritual and universal character of the kingdom of God;
(5) the needfulness of the child-spirit and of humility for entrance into the kingdom of truth and righteousness;
(6) the attainment of life through death, etc.; all this is not only surprising, marvelous; it is positively unaccountable on any other theory than that God dwelt in him and he in God.
II THE WONDER OF HIS POWER.
1. This also excited the astonishment of his contemporaries. (see Mar_1:27 7:37 Luk_5:26, etc.)
2. It calls forth our reverent admiration still. We wonder and adore as we realize that
(1) he compelled the earnest attention of his countrymen;
(2) he has commanded the attention of all the ages and of most of the peoples ever since;
(3) he has been, and is regarded as the Savior, the Lord, the Friend of millions of individual souls, and has brightened, comforted, transformed innumerable human lives;
(4) he has produced a manifest change often amounting to a revolution in the sentiment, the principles, and the institutions of mankind.
III HIS KNOWLEDGE-PASSING LOVE. (See Eph_3:19)
1. On one occasion, at least, the people were powerfully impressed with the fervor of his love. (Joh_11:36; see also Joh_13:1)
2. The love of Christ is far more astonishing to us who can better recognize its greatness. Now that the facts of the Incarnation and the purpose of his sufferings and his death have been illumined by the teaching of the Divine Spirit, we know how surpassingly great, how wonderful, were
(1) his sacrificial love to our race not sparing himself, but delivering himself up for us all, and pursuing that path of sacrifice even to the very end;
(2) his distinguishing love to the individual soul. So that, with Paul, every one may say, "He loved me;" may, indeed, say, "He loves me is seeking my salvation, has borne with my sin and shortcoming, extends to me his pardoning love, is dealing patiently and tenderly with me, is leading me by the right and wise way to the heavenly city. C.
Ver. 6. Chief counsels of Christ.
"His name shall be called Counselor." If we approach Jesus Christ as a Divine Counselor, i.e. as One that has unerring wisdom to impart to us respecting the chief good of human life, the secret of true success, the way to reach the goal and secure the prize, we shall find from him these principal counsels
I THAT IF WE WOULD FIND THE TRUTH WE SEEK WE MUST COME AS A CHILD TO ITS SOURCE. Into the "kingdom of God, "which is the kingdom of truth and joy, he tells us emphatically and repeatedly we must enter as a little child, that has everything to learn, and is willing to be taught by its heavenly Father, by its one great Teacher. (see Mat_18:34 Mar_10:15 Luk_18:14; cf. 1Co_3:18)
II THAT NOT HUMAN HONOR AND WORLDLY WEALTH, BUT THE LIKENESS AND THE FAVOR OF GOD ARE THE TRUE OBJECTS OF PURSUIT. (See Mat_5:45 Mat_6:19, 20 Luk_12:15 Luk_4:4 Joh_5:44 Joh_14:23)
III THAT NOT BY SELF-ASSERTION, BUT BY SELFRENUNCIATION ARE OUR REAL INTERESTS SECURED. (See Mat_10:37-39 Joh_12:25)
IV THAT IN CLOSE AND LIVING UNION WITH HIMSELF WE ATTAIN OUR HIGHEST HERITAGE. The chief counsel of Christ was that, with our sins, our sorrows, our struggles, our aspirations, we should come into intimate union with himself, the Savior, the Friend, the Master, the Leader, of mankind. In clearest, strongest, tenderest tones he says ever to us all, "Come unto me; abide in me; follow me; and ye shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of Life. C.
Ver. 6. Christ in relation to time.
"The Everlasting Father." If we take the words in their literal rendering, "the Father of Eternity," we gain a meaning which is more consonant with the scriptural teaching respecting the Messiah, the Son of man. He is One who has much to do with eternity; he is an (or the) Eternal One. This attribution to Jesus Christ suggests to us
I THE BRIEF SPACE OF TIME WINCH HIS LIFE OCCUPIES AS A MATTER OF HISTORY. Only "a little while" had they the Light of the world with them. Parts of three years, a space of time to be counted by months, this was all the interval between his coming and his going; it was a lightning-flash between the long spaces of darkness.
II ITS LONG BACKWARD LOOK. It looks back
(1) through all human history: for all the lines of national life (Hebrew, Roman, Grecian, etc.) converged and met at his birth; all that had existed had been leading up to, had been preparing for, his advent;
(2) to the remotest ages, even to the beginning. "Before Abraham was, I am;" "He was before all things;" "In the beginning was the Word.
III ITS LONG FORWARD LOOK. The scribes and Pharisees thought, when they saw him die on the cross, that his would be but an ephemeral career; that his influence would quickly die, and his name be soon forgotten. But we know that
(1) he has commanded the attention of the world for eighteen centuries;
(2) he has been by far the greatest Power therein;
(3) he is now recognized and honored by his Church as its living, reigning Lord;
(4) he will appear as its Judge;
(5) he will be forever the Object of our heavenly worship and service. He is the "Father of eternity." Therefore:
1. Let us reverence him while we trust and love him. Our Friend with whom we have such happy fellowship is One in very closest connection with the Divine; he is the Father of eternity, "though manifested in time, and with us for so brief a day.
2. Let us trust him while we work for him. We may be disappointed at the smallness of results, at the apparent distance of the goal; we may be impatient in spirit, and we may be hurried or even unchristian in the methods we adopt, in the weapons we employ. Let us be steadied, calmed, righted, as we remember that he whom we serve is not one who is shut up to a few years or decades, or even a few centuries, in which to work out his mission of love; he is the Father of Eternity;" he is Lord of all future time; he will cause his Word to be fulfilled; we may patiently wait, while we earnestly and faithfully work. C.
Ver. 6. Christian peace.
"The Prince of Peace." Before considering what is the peace which is distinctively Christian, it may be well to remark:
1. That the first, incidental result of the coming of Christ is not peace, but discord. (see Mat_10:34-36) The first consequence of the introduction or the revival of Christian truth is persecution. For this the Christian faith is not responsible; it is due to the fact that error is so blind, bigotry so pitiless, sin so cruel.
2. That everything is not gained for Christ when a superficial smoothness has been secured. It will take much more than a cessation of "war," a dismantling of forts and a disbanding of troops, to arrive at the peace which is of Christ. It is a Christian poet who writes"I love no peace which is not fellowship, And which includes not mercy; I would have, Rather, the raking of the guns across The world.
Better, in Christ"s name and in his cause, the stern and even the sanguinary struggle which seeks to establish righteousness than the hollow peace which is satisfied with slavery, serfdom, or servility.
3. That the peace which the Messiah came to bring was not that of the conquering sword, but the prevailing Spirit; that which is won, not on the battle-field, but in the depths of the human heart first in the heart of the Son of man himself, and then in the souls of all the children of men. Of this spiritual rest which the Prince of Peace imparts, we may say that it includes
I PEACE WITH GOD. Sin separates between us and our Divine Father; it produces condemnation on his part, dread on our part; it ends in an unnatural and deplorable alienation. In Christ is mercy, restoration, peace. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God," etc. (Rom_5:1 Rom_8:1)
II INWARD REST. Sin is the great disturber, the constant troubler of the human heart. It is the source of all disorder, and therefore of all distress. It casts down that which should be uppermost conscience, reason, holy aspiration, etc.; it enthrones that which should be in subjection passion, self, temporal interests, etc. The Prince, of Peace secures to the human soul its right condition; he restores the true order; he redresses, re-establishes, revolutionizes; he "makes all things new" within. And when the spiritual nature is thus reset, all its powers taking their proper place and discharging their rightful functions, there is a "great calm" within; they who repair to the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, have "rest unto their souls". (Mat_11:28-30)
III SOCIAL CONCORD. Christian love, (Joh_13:34, Joh_13:35) Christian magnanimity; (Mat_5:43-48 Rom_12:18-20) Christian reconciliation, (Mat_5:25) Christian generosity, (Eph_5:21 Php_2:3) Christian courtesy, (1Pe_3:8 1Pe_5:5) Christian patience, (1Th_5:14) these are the conditions and the sources of true and abiding peace among men. C.
Ver. 6. The fatherhood of God revealed in Messiah.
The word "Everlasting Father," or "Father of Eternity," is applied to Messiah as the Revealer of God to men. That the passage can only refer to Messiah is agreed by all devout students. God designed to reveal himself at last and fully to his creatures through a mans earthly life. God can only reveal himself to a creature in the lines of that nature which he has given to the creature. When God was dealing with man, he set forth the manhood of his Messiah most prominently; but when man comes to know his gift, he finds he has received his God, and learned the name by which he may be called. Arguing may not always convince of the Deity of Christ. It is rather like trying to prove to a man that it is the spring-time of the year. Spring is in the atmosphere in the balmy breathing of the air, in the quickening power of the sunshine, in the lengthening days, and in the bursting life of leaf and flower everywhere around us. So the very atmosphere of Christ is the atmosphere of God. Everywhere, and in everything, we feel that he is God. Our text is striking in the contrasts it presents contrasts which were realized in the human life of the Messiah. Everywhere in his story we find the blended God and man. He was the outcast babe for whom there was no room in the inn, and yet angels heralded his birth, and Magi offered to him the worship due to a king. He was a simple child of twelve years old, and yet the temple doctors were astonished at his understanding and answers. He submits to John"s baptism of water, and yet the Holy Ghost descends upon him, and the voice of "most exceeding peace" gives testimony to him as the Divine Son. He weeps the tears of human friendship at the grave of Lazarus, and yet he speaks the words which call the dead to life. He dies in agony and shame, as only a man could die; he rises in triumph and glory, as only a God could rise. So in this prophecy of Isaiah. The "coming One" is a child, but the "key of government is upon his shoulder." He is a child, and yet he is "Wonder-Counselor, God-Mighty-One, Prince of Peace." He is the Son, and yet it can be said of him that he is the" Everlasting Father." This last assertion seems to be the most astonishing of them all. "The Son is the Father." Christ sustained this view: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Every man"s work is to find the Father in Christ. No man has truly seen Christ who has not found in him the Father, and learned from him the fatherhood of God.
I MAY WE THINK OF GOD AS FATHER? To show himself to man, God must come into man"s sphere, not as a cherub or as an angel, but as a man. "Verily, he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham." He must also show himself in some particular form of man. Men are kings, or prophets, or judges, or husbands, or fathers, or sons, or brothers, and God must make choice of the form that may most worthily represent him. Some say we must think of God chiefly as a King. But few of us are stirred at heart by the relations of a king. He is a person to be feared, obeyed, and served. If he is to be loved it is only with a patriotic, it is not with a personal, affection. In the pages of history we can scarcely find a king whose character and career help us to a worthy idea of God. Think of the kings of Eastern nations. Think of so-called Christian kings. There rise before the mind scenes of barbarity, Blood-guiltiness, tyranny, debauchery, and cruelty which make us ashamed to set the thought of God and of earthly kings together. On the other hand, there never has been age or nation in which the dearest thoughts and tenderest associations and most reverent feelings did not gather round the word "father." Everywhere, even in benighted heathendom, fathers have been men"s ideals of the pure, the revered, and the good. God comes nearest to men if he can be shown to them as the "Everlasting Father." Love is the supreme glory of fatherhood; but it is only primus inter pares, the equals of "authority," "justice," "holiness." It would not be fair to say of any good earthly father, "He is all love, all indulgence; there is in him no justice, no reverence, no government." We never want to bolster up the authority of our earthly father by deluding ourselves into the notion that he is a king; and we can yield our fullest allegiance to God as our "Everlasting Father." We need not force ourselves to conceive of him as that mysterious thing, a moral Governor, for which we can find no human model. What is God to you when you can fully receive the revelation that he is the Father? Is there any less reverence for him? Is your sense of justice, righteousness, law, or authority weakened when you call him Father?" Let Christ teach us the true God and the eternal life. He shows us a weeping prodigal child pressing his face into a father"s bosom, heart beating to heart, the one in all the anguish of penitence, the other in all the anguish of pitying, fatherly love. The father"s arms are round the restored boy; and who shall say that all highest law is not vindicated when that father wipes away the tears, and calls for music and dancing, the best robe, and the fatted calf? Who ever saw weeping rebels on kings" bosoms? Who ever saw kings shedding tears over returning subjects? We must go deeper, far deeper, into the very heart of the truth about God when we say, "He is our Father.
II MESSIAH SHOWS GOD TO US AS "EVERLASTING FATHER." The Epistle to the Hebrews opens with a very striking statement: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by Son." God had spoken by creation of a Creator, by prophets of a God, by ambassadors of a King, and now by Son of a Father. Messiah is represented as Son, and Son of God, to enable us to conceive of God as Father. The very person of our Lord Jesus Christ is itself a revelation of the Father. The gospels show us that his supreme effort was to make men know and think well of the Father. He was a Jew, and yet his originality is nowhere felt more than in the word which he uses for God. We find very seldom, almost never, any of the recognized Hebrew terms El, Elohim, Shaddai, or Jah; Jehovah or God; his word is always "Father." On every page we find the term recurring. Illustrate from the sermon on mount; address on sending the disciples forth for their trial-mission, etc. Conclude by commending this view of God as the first and foundation-truth of the Messianic revelation. We need not be anxious to set it under limitations and restrictions. Christ never fenced it off. He never limited its applications. He never hesitated to preach it everywhere. He expected to waken a new spirit in men, the child-spirit, by telling them of their Father in heaven. If we simply follow Christ, we shall show men the Father-God everywhere in Messiah"s life and teaching, seen even in Messiah"s death and atonement and sacrifice. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv6–7 For unto us a child is born, unto us…
Isa_9:6-7
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given
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The child Hezekiah--yet someone else
I am unable to form any distinct notion of Isaiah as a man and a Hebrew, and as a prophet of Jehovah in contrast with those muttering wizards he denounces, without supposing that, at this period of his life and ministry, he must have connected the thought of the child with Hezekiah, on whom the name of the Mighty God had been actually named (Hezekiah means Jehovah strengthens), and who (being now a boy nine or ten years old) may already have given promise of the piety which afterwards distinguished him: and that he would not, at this time, have considered that his prediction would be quite inadequately realised if the youthful prince should, on his accession to the throne of David and Solomon, renew the glories of their reigns, in which peace and justice were established at home and abroad, through trust in Jehovah and His covenant:--reigns of which the historical facts must be studied in the light which the Book of Psalms and such passages as 2Ch_9:1-8 throw on them.
I say at this time, because we shall have occasion to inquire what was the effect on Isaiahs mind when he did see a restoration under Hezekiah of such a reign of righteousness and prosperity; and whether his expectation of the Messiah did not eventually assume a very different form from what could have been possible to him at the time we now speak of. There is a method through this whole Book of Isaiahs prophecies which reflects a corresponding progress in the prophets own mind; and this method offers us a clue through difficulties which are otherwise impassable, if we will only hold it fast and follow its guidance fairly. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
A prediction of an ideal king
Such language speaks of an ideal king, even a Divine ruler, and only in a very poor degree found its fulfilment in Hezekiah or any Jewish king. (B. Blake, B. D.)
The way that led to Christ
In the crooked alleys of Venice, there is a thin thread of red stone inlaid in the pavement or wail, which guides through all the devious turnings to the Piazza in the centre, where the great church stands. So in reading the Old Testament we see in the life of many a personage, illustrious or obscure, and in many a far off event, the red line of promise and prophecy which stretches on unbroken until the Son of Man came. (Sunday School Chronicle.)
The Messianic prophesies
Dr. Gordon, of Boston, had a large dissected puzzle map, which he gave to his children, saying, Dont press the parts into their places; you will soon know when they fit. Coming again into the room, very soon after, he was surprised to find the map complete. He felt like saying, as Isaac to Jacob, when the latter returned with the venison, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? Why, father, was the reply, there was a man printed on the back; we saw where the feet, the eyes, the arms, and the rest of the body came, and so it was easy to watch it and fit all in. So, if we know the Bible, we see the Man on the back; we put together the prophecies of the Old Testament by the Man Christ Jesus. (A. T. Pierson, D. D.)
The prophets supernatural prevision
It is not necessary to suppose that the prophet knew the literal meaning of his own words. He is but a poor preacher who knows all that he has said in his sermon. Had the prophet done so, he would be no longer the contemporary of his own epoch. It is the glory of prophecy to feel after. It is the glory of science to say long before the planet is discovered--there is another world there: no telescope has seen it, no message of light has been received from it consciously, but keep your telescope in that direction, there must be a starry pulse just there. The botanist knows that if he finds a certain plant in a given locality there will be another plant of another name not a mile away. He judges from one plant to another; he submits himself to inferential logic: he has not seen that other plant, but he tells you in the morning that because yesternight he found this leaf growing not far from the house in which he resides no will find another leaf of a similar pattern, or a diverse pattern, not far away; and at night he comes home, radiant as the evening star, and says, Behold, I told you this morning what would be the case, and there it is. So with the larger astronomy, and the larger botany: there is another planet somewhere yonder; when it is discovered call it the Morning Star, and inasmuch as there is triacle, treacle, in Gilead--a balm there--there shall be found another plant not far away; whenyou find it call it by some sweet name, such as the Rose of Sharon, or the Lily of the valley. It is the glory of the prophet to see signs which have infinite meanings--to see the harvest in the seed, the noonday in the faintest tint of dawn, the mighty man in the helpless infant, the Socrates in the embryo. This prevision made the prophets seemingly mad. Their knowledge was to them but a prison, so small, so dark, yet now and again almost alive with a glory all but revealed. The horizon was loaded with gloom, yet here and there a rent showed that heaven was immediately behind, and might at any moment make the dark cold earth bright and warm with eternal summer. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The great Deliverer
Look at the Deliverer as seen by the prophet--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--. Now, the English punctuation seems to fritter away the dignity of the appellation The compound name really falls into this classification: first, Wonderful-Counsellor, as one word, as if, indeed, it were but one syllable; second, God-the-Mighty-One, not four words, but hyphened together; third, Father-of-Eternity, also hyphened and consolidated; fourth, Prince-of-Peace, that likewise an instance of the words run into one another, and in this four-fold classification we have the mysterious name of the Deliverer. This is no evidence that Isaiah saw the birth of Christ as we understand that term, but what he did see was that the only deliverer who could accomplish the necessary work must fill out the whole measure of these terms; if he failed to fill out that outline, he was not the predicted Messiah. Let us see.
1. He must fill the imagination--Wonderful. Imagination cannot be safely left out of any religion; it is that wondrous faculty that flies to great heights, and is not afraid of infinite breadths; the faculty, so to say, that lies at the back of all other faculties, sums them up, and then adds an element of its own, using the consolidated mind for the highest purposes of vision and understanding. Is this name given for the first time? Where do we find the word Wonderful in the Scriptures? We may not, perhaps, find it in the English tongue, but it is really to be found in Jdg_13:18 : The angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing, it is secret?--the same Hebrew word that is rendered in the text Wonderful; so we might read, The angel of the Lord said unto him, Why askest thou thus after My name, seeing it is Wonderful?
2. He must satisfy the judgment. His name, therefore, is not only Wonderful, but Counsellor, the fountain of wisdom and understanding, the mind that rules over all things with perfectness of mastery, that attests everything by the eternal meridian, and that looks for righteousness.
3. He must also satisfy the religious instinct, so He is called The Mighty God. It is not enough to describe God without epithetic terms. Sometimes we say, Why utter such words as, Thou infinite, eternal, ever-blessed God? Because we are so constituted in this infantile state of being that we need a ladder of adjectives to get up to our little conception of that which is inconceivable.
4. Not only so, there must be in this man a sense of brotherhood, so He is called The-Prince-of-Peace. He will bring man to man, nation to nation; He will arbitrate amongst the empires of the earth and rule by the Sabbatic spirit. Christianity is peace.
5. He is to be more still. He is to be The Everlasting Father, otherwise translated, The Father of Eternity; otherwise, and better translated, The Father of the age to come. Therein we have misinterpreted Christianity. We have been too anxious to understand the past. The pulpit has had a backward aspect--most careful about what happened in the second century, dying to know what Tertullian thought and what Constantine did. Christ is the Father of the age to come. If He lived now He would handle the question of poverty; He would discuss the great uses of Parliament; He would address Himself to every church, chapel, and sanctuary in the kingdom; He would come into our various sanctuaries and turn us out to a man. Christianity is the prophetic religion. It deals with the science that is to be, with the politics yet to be developed, with the commerce that is yet to be the bread-producing action of civilised life. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The birth of Christ
I. LET US EXPLAIN THE PREDICTION. The grandeur of the titles sufficiently determines the meaning of the prophet; for to whom, except to the Messiah, can these appellations belong This natural sense of the text is supported by the authority of an inspired writer, and what is, if not of any great weight in point of argument, at least very singular as a historical fact, it is supported by the authority of an angel (Mat_4:12, etc.; Luk_1:31, etc.). To remove the present fears of the Jews, God reminds them of the wonders of His love, which He had promised to display in favour of His Church in ages to come: and commands His prophet to say to them: Ye trembling leaves of the wood, shaken with every wind, peace be to you! Ye timorous Jews, cease your fears! let not the greatness of this temporal deliverance, which I now promise you, excite your doubts! God hath favours incomparably greater in store for you, they shall be your guarantees for those which ye are afraid to expect. Ye are in covenant with God. Ye have a right to expect those displays of His love in your favour, which are least credible. Remember the blessed seed, which He promised to your ancestors (Gen_22:18). Behold! a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and call His name Immanuel (Isa_7:14). The spirit of prophecy that animates me, enables me to penetrate through all the ages that separate the present moment from that in which the promise shall be fulfilled. I dare speak of a miracle, which will be wrought eight hundred years hence, as if it had been wrought today, Unto us a Child is born, etc.
II. LET US SHOW ITS ACCOMPLISHMENT. Who is a king? What is a throne? Why have we masters! Why is sovereign power lodged in a few hands? And what determines mankind to lay aside their independence, and to lose their beloved liberty? The whole implies some mortifying truths. We have not knowledge sufficient to guide ourselves, and we need minds wiser than our own to inspect and to direct our conduct. We are indigent, and superior beings must supply our wants. We have enemies, and we must have guardians to protect us. Miserable men! how have you been deceived in your expectations? what disorders could anarchy have produced greater than those which have sometimes proceeded from sovereign authority? You sought guides to direct you: but you have sometimes fallen under the tuition of men who, far from being able to conduct a whole people, knew not how to guide themselves. You sought nursing fathers, to succour you in your indigence: but you have fallen sometimes into the hands of men, who had no other designs than to impoverish their people, to enrich themselves with the substance, and to fatten themselves with the blood of their subjects. You sought guardians to protect you from your enemies: but you have sometimes found executioners, who have used you with greater barbarity than your most bloody enemies would have done. Show me a king who will conduct me to the felicity to which I aspire; such a king! long to obey. Such a king is the King Messiah. You want knowledge: He is the Counsellor. You want reconciliation with God: He is the Prince of Peace. You need support under the calamities of this life: He is the Mighty God. You have need of one to comfort you under the fears of death, by opening the gates of eternal felicity to you: He is the Father of Eternity. (J. Saurin.)
Titles of Christ
I. THE NAMES AND TITLES OF THIS WONDERFUL CHILD.
II. FOR WHOM HE WAS BORN.
III. THE PREROGATIVE, WHICH IS PREDICTED IN OUR TEXT RESPECTING THIS CHILD, namely, that the government shall be upon His shoulder.
1. In the Revelation the Church is figuratively represented under the similitude of a woman, and this woman is represented as bringing forth a man-child, who should rule all nations with a rod of from The same may be said of the Child whose birth is foretold in our text. All power is committed to Him in heaven and on earth; and Gods language respecting Him is, I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion. This kingdom, which is usually styled Christs mediatorial kingdom, includes all beings in heaven and hell, who will all, either willingly or by constraint, finally submit to Christ; for God has sworn by Himself that to Christ every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things in the earth and things under the earth; and that every tongue shall confess Him Lord. He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. Agreeably, our text informs us, that of the increase of His government there will be no end. He will go on conquering and to conquer.
2. But in addition to this mediatorial kingdom of Christ, which is set up in the world, He has another kingdom, the kingdom of His grace, which is set up in the hearts of His people. This kingdom consists in righteousness and peace and holy joy, and of the increase of this kingdom also and of the peace which accompanies it, there shall be no end. This kingdom is compared to leaven hid in meal till the whole be leavened. Even in heaven there shall be no end to the increase of His peoples happiness. Thus of the increase of His government and peace, there shall be no end. (E. Payson, D. D.)
Christ presented to mankind sinners
It is to us, the sons and daughters of Adam; we are His poor relations; and to us as His poor relations on earth, sons of Adams family, whereof He is the top branch, this Child is presented born, for our comfort in our low state.
I. WHAT IS PRESUPPOSED IN THIS PRESENTING OF CHRIST AS A BORN CHILD.
1. His birth was expected and looked for.
2. Christ is now born. He was really born; a little Child, though the Mighty God; an Infant, not one day old, though the Everlasting Father.
3. Some have been employed to present this Child to the friends and relations; and they are still about the work.
(1) The Holy Spirit.
(2) Ministers.
4. This Child is actually presented to us on His birth.
II. TO WHOM IS CHRIST PRESENTED?
1. Not to the fallen angels.
2. To mankind sinners, those of the house of His father Adam.
(1) Embrace Him, with old Simeon, in the arms of faith.
(2) Kiss the Son, receiving Him as your Lord and King and God.
III. HOW IS CHRIST PRESENTED?
1. In the preaching of the Gospel.
2. In the administration of the sacraments.
3. In the internal work of saving illumination.
IV. WHAT IS THE IMPORT OF HIS BEING PRESENTED TO US?
1. Our special concern in His birth--as the birth of a Saviour to us.
2. Our relation to Him. Sinners of mankind have a common relation to Christ.
(1) In respect of the nature He assumed. We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Eph_5:30).
(2) In respect of His office--the Saviour of the world.
3. An owning of our relation to Him. He is not ashamed to call them brethren (Heb_2:11).
4. The comfortableness of His birth to us. Children are presented on their birth to their relations, for their comfort; and so is Christ to sinners of mankind.
V. WHEREFORE IS CHRIST PRESENTED TO US ON HIS BIRTH?
1. That we may see the faithfulness of God in the fulfilling of His promise.
2. That we may rejoice in Him.
3. That we may look on Him, see His glory, and be taken with Him Joh_1:14).
4. That we may acknowledge Him in the character in which He appears as the Saviour of the world and our Saviour. (T. Boston.)
A prophecy of Christ
I. WE SHALL VIEW THESE PROPHETIC APPELLATIONS, IN THEIR APPLICATION TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AS EXPOUNDING TO US HIS NATURE AND WORK, AND RECEIVING THEIR FULLEST REALISATION IN HIM. They are not mere empty names, assumed for the purposes of pomp and impression, but appropriate descriptions of living realities. When it is said, His name shall be called, the meaning is that He shall be such, for in the Hebrew language to be called and to be frequently mean the same thing. Every name He bears is the Divine exponent of a corresponding attribute, or office, or work, and so it is here.
1. He is the Wonderful. The proper idea conveyed by this appellation is something miraculous, and it means that the great Personage to whom it is here applied, in His nature and works, would be distinguished by supernatural qualities and deeds, would be raised above the ordinary course and laws of nature, and would stand out before angels and men as a unique and splendid miracle. In this sense, it applies with great force and accuracy to the Redeemer, and to Him alone.
2. He is the Counsellor.
(1) This appellation points to Christ, not as a Counsellor among others, but as Counsellor, Counsellor in the abstract, the great Counsellor of the vast universe, one of the glorious persons in the Godhead, who was concerned in all the acts and counsels of past eternity. Hence the Septuagint translates it, the Angel of the mighty counsel; and the Chaldee, the God of the wonderful counsel.
(2) As the Counsellor, He directs and instructs His people in all their temporal, spiritual, and eternal concerns; if He did not do so, they would soon be involved in disorder and ruin.
(3) And He is the Counsellor, inasmuch as He is the Advocate of His people, and has carried their cause into the high court of heaven
3. He is the Mighty God; an appellation impressively sublime, which no serious mind can approach without feeling the most profound reverence and awe. It naturally and obviously denotes a person possessing a Divine nature.
4. He is the Everlasting Father, or, the Father of Eternity. The emphasis of this appellation is not on the word father, but on the word eternity. It was customary among those who spoke and wrote the Hebrew language, to call a person who possessed a thing, the father of it: hence, a strong man was called the father of strength; a wise man, the father of wisdom; a wealthy man, the father of riches; and so on. Now, the phrase, the Father of Eternity, seems to be here applied to Christ in a similar way--He possessed eternity, and, therefore, He is called the Father of it. It is a Hebraism of great poetic strength and beauty, employed to express duration--the duration of His being--the essential eternity of His existence past and future--and, perhaps, there could not be a more emphatic declaration of His right to this wonderful attribute of the Deity, strict, proper, and independent eternity of being.
5. He is the Prince of Peace. This appellation seems intended to teach us, that the Messiah would be invested with the prerogatives and honours of royalty, and that His kingdom, in its essential laws and principles, would differ from all the kingdoms of men, past, ,present, and future. While other kings were despots and warriors, He would be peaceable Prince. While other kingdoms were acquired by physical violence and force, and were cemented with human tears and blood, His would consist in righteousness, peace, and joy, and would win its way among men by the inherent power of its own excellence, would gradually terminate war and conflict, and restore love and order to the whole earth. But His reign was to achieve higher ends still, for it was to establish peace between man and his own conscience, between man and all good beings, between man and all the physical and moral laws of the universe, and between man and his insulted and offended Maker. Hence, prophecy foretold that, in His days there should be abundance of peace; that, in His reign, justice and mercy should meet together, righteousness and peace Should embrace each other; that the chastisement of our peace should be on Him; that He should be the peace; and that, of the increase of His peace there should be no end.
II. PRACTICAL LESSONS.
1. Hold fast the divinity of Christ.
2. How great is the sin and how fearful is the condition of those who reject the Saviour. He is the Wonderful--the admired of God, of angels, and of saints; and yet He has no attractions for you. He is the Counsellor; and yet you never wait for His counsel, but follow your own vain imaginations. He is the Mighty God; and yet you trample on His authority, defy His power, and risk His awful displeasure. He is the Father of Eternity; and yet you seek no place in His heavenly family, and are in imminent danger of being forever banished from His presence, and the glory of His power. He is the Prince of Peace; and yet you voluntarily live in a state of hostility to Him and His kingdom, and refuse to be reconciled by the blood of His Cross.
3. How secure and happy is the state of believers. (W. Gregory.)
The nurses and titles of the Messiah
I. The first description that is here given of the Redeemer is in these words--UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN. This may denote either the infancy of His state, when He appeared in our world, or the reality of His human nature.
1. With regard to the infancy of His state, the apostle says, it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren.
2. With regard to the reality of His human nature, the Scripture assures us, that it was of the same kind with ours, consisting of a human body and a human soul.
II. The next description of our Redeemer is in these words--UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN. is spoken of His Divine nature. He is often called in Scripture the Son of God, His own Son, His only-begotten and well-beloved Son, and as such is said to be given to us. A son always means one, not of an inferior, but of the same nature as his father.
III. It is added, THE GOVERNMENT SHALL BE UPON HIS SHOULDER. Taken in its most extensive sense, the government of our Lord extends over all The whole universe is under His dominion. But what we are chiefly to understand here is the kingdom of grace, the administration of mercy, the government of which in a peculiar manner is intrusted to Him. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven were phrases familiar to the Jews, by which they always understood the Messiahs kingdom. The immediate design of erecting this kingdom on earth is the salvation of believers, of the guilty race of men. All parts of the universe are concerned in this glorious design. The angels of heaven rejoice in it, and are ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation. The powers of darkness unite their force to disappoint the hopes of the heirs of this kingdom, but in vain; the King of Zion has bound them in chains of darkness, and will turn their malicious designs to their greater condemnation. All men do not indeed submit to the laws of this government, but all are nevertheless the lawful subjects of it. But the Redeemer has also many voluntary subjects. The right of Jesus to His mediatorial kingdom is founded upon promise, conquest, and purchase, even the price of His own precious blood; and we have the utmost assurances in His Word, which cannot fail, that He will one day take to Himself His great power and reign in a more illustrious and extensive manner than He has yet done.
IV. The next thing asserted of the Redeemer is, HIS NAME SHALL BE CALLED WONDERFUL. And the Redeemer is indeed Wonderful.
1. In the constitution of His person, as Immanuel, God in our nature.
2. The preparations for His birth, and the manner and circumstances of it, were also wonderful.
3. Jesus was also wonderful in His life.
4. And in His death.
5. And in His rising from the grave, and in His ascension to heaven.
V. The next title which the Redeemer has, is that of COUNSELLOR. He is fully instructed in the counsels of God the Father, for He lay in His bosom from eternity; and as the execution of the plans of the Divine administration is committed to Him, He cannot but be well acquainted with them. Besides, our Lord, by His office and appointment, is the great Counsellor or Prophet of the Church.
VI. He is also THE MIGHTY God. The same expression is used in chap.
10:21 concerning Jehovah, the God of Israel. All the perfections of theMighty God are ascribed to the Redeemer in Scripture. And worship, which only belongs to the Mighty God, is given to Christ.
VII. The next thing asserted of our Redeemer is, that He is THE EVERLASTING FATHER. The LXX renders these words, the Father of the world to come, or final dispensation of mercy and grace, as the Gospel is often called. And Christ may be called so--
1. As He has chosen His people, in His eternal purpose, that they might be sharers in His bliss and glory.
2. Christ is the Father of all true believers, in a spiritual sense. They are all His spiritual seed. The great outlines of His features are drawn upon them, and when they arrive at heaven, they shall attain to the likeness of Jesus in an eminent degree.
VIII. The last thing asserted of the Redeemer is, that He is THE PRINCE OF PEACE. Melchisedec was an eminent type of the Son of God, in this respect. He was King of Salem, which is by interpretation, King of Peace. And peace is the disposition for which the Saviour was renowned; the blessing which He died to purchase, and lives to bestow. Conclusion:
1. What an honour did the great and mighty God, our Saviour, put upon our nature by taking it into a personal union with His own Divine nature!
2. We may see from hence, how well the Redeemer was qualified for His office. What arm so powerful to save as that of the Mighty God?
3. What a fund of consolation does this passage of Scripture exhibit!
4. This subject speaks terror to the wicked.
5. We ought to entertain adoring and admiring thoughts of the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. (J. Ross, D. D.)
The Incarnation
I. We are led to inquire, HOW OUR SAVIOUR BECAME INCARNATE AND TOOK OUR MORTAL NATURE UPON HIM. Before Christ could become incarnate, He would have to lay aside His glory--the glory, Christ took a human soul, took our humanity upon Him, together with our form, and was made in the likeness of man. Nevertheless, Christ is not, and was not, two persons, but one.
II. We have now to inquire WHY CHRIST BECAME INCARNATE. To say that Christ died to save sinners is true enough, but it is not the whole truth. The question we have to answer is this: Why Christ became a man? He came to nave, but why not in another form?
1. To take away the consequences of the fall, to raise man to a higher estate even than he originally possessed, to save him from eternal ruin, and vindicate the love and wisdom which made man originally righteous, but not immaculate or impeccable, it was necessary for the Son of God to become the Son of Man, and to acknowledge a human parent; to bear our griefs and carry our sorrows (Heb_2:9-18). For only as a man could He undo the evil which man had brought upon himself; only as one of those He came to save, could Christ perform what man had left undone.
2. Moreover, Christ came to fulfil Gods law, and that for us, though not to supersede our obedience. That law was designed for man, and alone in the form of man could Christ obey it. And having fulfilled His own broken law on their behalf to whom He had given it, He is enabled to help them to observe and do it. By His perfect obedience He has become our Pattern, and has procured and purchased for us the strength to enable us to walk in the steps of His most holy life.
3. In the next place, by assuming our nature, Christ is enabled to sympathise with us.
4. Again, it was necessary for Christ to become man in order to reveal His Father to us. Men, untaught by the Spirit of God, are apt to think that God is altogether such as themselves. Such we find was the case with the heathen philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome; if they taught otherwise, they taught in vain.
5. Christ also became man to make us love God, for to know Him is to love Him.
6. Christ became man to unite man to God. (G. E. Watkins.)
The Child born: the Son given
I. THE PROMISED SAVIOUR IS DESCRIBED IN HIS HUMAN NATURE. Unto us a Child is born. Having respect to the connection of the passage, and to the object for which the announcement is made, we feel that it is impossible to look on at the birth of this Child that was predicted, without seeing that a greater than one born of woman is there.
1. Still the main object of the first clause of the verse is, undoubtedly, to show forth that human nature in which He was to be manifested in order that He might do the work of salvation for His people. To be born is as truly the evidence and characteristic of humanity as to die. Not less in the simple but impressive fact of His birth of a human mother, than in the fact of His dying a human death, do we recognise the proof of our oneness with the Son of God in the same nature.
2. And why was it necessary for the hope and consolation of those whom He came to redeem, that they should be taught by the prophet that the Redeemer must be one with them in their very nature; and that the Eternal Son of God should be born of a woman?
(1) It was necessary that the Son of God should be made man, because otherwise He could not have stood in mans place and dealt with God on mans behalf, nor suffered and died, as it was needful to suffer and die, in order to offer a true atonement for human guilt.
(2) It was necessary that the Son of God should become man in order that He might be qualified to enter into our human feelings and fears, and to furnish us with a pledge of His sympathy in all our infirmities and temptations.
II. We find the prophet in the second clause making reference to THE DIVINE NATURE OF CHRIST. Unto us a Son is given. And this view of the Person of Christ, as the Son of God as well as the Son of man, is not less necessary than the truth of His proper humanity to furnish a ground of hope and consolation to the Church of God in coming to Hun as a suitable and all-sufficient Redeemer.
III. But passing from the description of Christs Person, the prophet next proceeds to give an account of the OFFICE WHICH BELONGS TO HIM, and which He executes as the Saviour. The government shall be upon His shoulder. Borrowing its language from ancient customs, it is quite plain that the statement of the prophet contains in substance a declaration that the predicted Deliverer, whose advent was to shed light and blessedness on those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, was to exercise a supreme and unlimited authority, and to employ this authority for accomplishing the great purpose for which He was born as a Child and given as a Son.
1. In the case of believers--i.e., of those who are already subjects of Christs kingdom--it is a blessed privilege for them to be assured that He reigns, alone and supreme, in the world and the Church.
2. On the other hand, in the case of mere nominal professors, such a truth, if in any degree realised, is fitted to fill them with anxiety and dispeace. (J. Bannerman, D. D.)
The predicted names of Christ
In interpreting the peculiar language employed, it is impossible to enter into its true significance without remembering that in ancient times, and more especially in the practice of the Jews, names had oftentimes, when applied to individuals, a significance which they have not when given, as among ourselves, upon no principle except family custom or personal preference. Among the Jews especially, they were often selected and given on the ground of some peculiarity in the circumstances or character of the person named; so that they ceased to be empty and arbitrary signs of the parties thus designated, and became truly descriptive of something in their history or condition. It is in this way that the name of God Himself is used as a synonym for the character of God Exo_23:21; Exo_34:5-7; Pro_18:10). And it is in this way, undoubtedly, that we are to understand the language of the prophet when he tells us, in refer once to the coming Deliverer, that His name shall be called, Wonderful, etc. (J. Bannerman, D. D.)
The great Deliverer
I. THE DIGNITY OF CHRISTS PERSON. He is the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God.
II. THE DEPTH OF HIS LOVE. He is born unto us a Child--given unto us a Son.
III. THE SUCCESS OF HIS UNDERTAKING. He is become the Father of the everlasting age--the Prince of Peace.
IV. HIS TITLE TO OUR OBEDIENCE. The government is on His shoulder. (G. Innes.)
The nativity of Christ
I. THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF MESSIAHS BIRTH by the prophet.
1. The Person announced.
2. The terms of the announcement. Not for angel, nor for archangel, was the mighty scheme devised; it is for the human race--for man though rebel of his God; for man ruined and desolated by sin.
3. The confidence with which this announcement is made, as immediately taking place. To us a Child is born; to us a Son is given. Faith pierces the vista of time, and beholds events, anticipated hundreds of years before, the birth of that glorious Redeemer who was slain from the foundation of the world; which had been promised by the word and oath of Jehovah Himself; and who, therefore, in the fulness of time should assuredly be granted.
II. THE OFFICE AND THE TITLES WHICH THE SAVIOUR SHOULD ASSUME. (D. Wilson, M. A.)
The child Jesus
I. HIS INCARNATION.
II. HIS EMPIRE.
III. HIS NAMES. (W. Jay.)
The message of hope
To us, as we begin to wonder whether the entire movement of human life is not by some evil inspiration gone after a false scent, taken some terrible misdirection, shut itself up in a blind path that arrives at no goal and has no out way; to us, so heavily laden and so entangled, so fondly hoping; to us, as we walk on still in darkness and seem entering the very shadow of death; to us this Child is born, to us a Son is given,--a Child who shall be the issue, the justification, the consummation of all the long and weary story; a Son who is Himself the goal of our pilgrimage, the fulfilment of our imperfections, the crown of our endurance, the honour of our service, the glory of our building. There, in this Son of God, is an offer made by God, by which He will justify all suffering, retrieve all failure, redeem all fault; He gives us, in Him, an end for which to live. Here is His mind; here is His plan for us--for us, not only in our simple individual troubles and worries, but for us in the mass, as a race, as a society, as a civilisation. God has a scheme, an issue prepared for which He worketh hitherto, and that issue is His Son. In Him all will be gathered in and fulfilled, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, of His kingdom there shall he no end, His name shall be called Wonderful, the Mighty Counsellor, the Prince of Peace. And in the power of this message we are told not to faint or fail. (Canon H. Scott-Holland.)
A Christmas question
The principal object is to bring out the force of those two little words, unto us.
I. IS IT SO?
1. If this Child is born to you, then you are born again. But, saith one, how am I to know whether I am born again or not?
(1) Has there been a change effected by Divine grace within you?
(2) Has there been a change in you in the exterior?
(3) The very root and principle of thy life must become totally new.
2. If this Child is born to you, you are a child; and the question arises, are you so? Man grows from childhood up to manhood naturally; in grace men grow from manhood down to childhood, and the nearer we come to true childhood, the nearer we come to the image of Christ.
3. If this Son is given to you, you are a son yourself.
4. If unto us a Son is given, then we are given to the Son. Are you given up to Christ?
II. IF IT IS SO, WHAT THEN? If it is so, why am I doubtful today? Why are we sad! Why are our hearts so cold?
III. IF IT IS NOT SO, WHAT THEN?
1. Confess thy sins.
2. Renounce thyself.
3. Go to the place where Jesus died in agony. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ the Revealer of God and the Asserter of man
I. Christ took to Himself human flesh to furnish us with AN EXHIBITION OF THE MORAL CHARACTER OF GOD.
II. The incarnation of Jesus is also A STUPENDOUS DISCOVERY OF WHAT MAN IS IN HIS HEAVENLY IDEAL AND HIS MORAL DESTINY. (A. Maclennan, M. A.)
Unto us
As if Heaven would underline the words to catch the eye, as if it were the keynote of its love, and should be the keynote of our song of praise, the words are twice repeated--Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given. (A. Maclennan, M. A.)
The nativity
I. THE SUBJECT OR MATTER OF THE BLESSING. A Child, a Son.
II. THE MANNER OF ITS CONVEYANCE. Born, given.
III. OUR INTEREST IN IT. Unto us, in our behalf all this, and to our benefit and advantage. (A. Littleton, D. D.)
Redemption from within humanity
This promise of a Deliverer has lit up the march of all human generations; it has been the fountain of the fairest gleams which have crossed the darkness of the heathen world. And it is out of the bosom of Humanity that the Redeemer must be born--the Christ must be the human Child. The essential point lies here--redemption is not a process wrought by the right hand of power, so to speak, from without; the act of a Being of almighty power, who, seeing man in desperate extremity through sin and frustrating utterly the purposes and preparations of Heaven, stooped to lay hold on him, to lift him out of the abyss in which he was sinking, sad to place him by a sovereign act on a foundation where he might rest in safety, and work and grow. It is from within the bosom of humanity that the redemption is to be wrought which is to save humanity. It is by the outward sad upward pressure of a life which is truly and fully human, which has buried its Divine force in the very hearts core of our nature, and is bone of our bones, and flesh of our flesh, that man is to be lifted to the levels which are above the sphere of tears and death forever. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Christs birthday
Christs birthday has been a day through all ages so solemn and sacred, that Justin Martyr, a father and saint of the second century, calls it ἡ βασίλισσα ἡμερα, the Queen day in the calendar. We do not owe this solemnity then to the rubric of the Roman Church. (A. Littleton, D. D.)
The need for the incarnation
Man can suffer, but he cannot satisfy; God can satisfy, but He cannot suffer; but Christ, being both God and man, can both suffer and satisfy too; and so is perfectly fit both to suffer for man and to make satisfaction unto God--to reconcile God to man, and man to God. (Bishop Beveridge.)
Human redemption by the Divine man
The humanisation of God is the divinisation of man. (Novalis.)
The preparation of the world for Christ
A few generations before the Advent the word would have been meaningless. Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian, freeman and slave, were terms full of meaning; but man, what could that mean? Even Aristotle found it hard to discover a common term which would cover the life of the freeman and the slave. But as the hour of the Advent, the fulness of the time, approached, through a very wonderful chain of agencies and influences, in the linking together of which the Hand which guided the culture of the Jewish people to the fulfilment of the primal promise is very palpably manifest, the idea of a common human nature, with common attributes, common sympathies, needs, and interests, and capable of a common life, the life of the universal human society, began to haunt the minds of men. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
The world into which Christ was born
Here are two very distinct features of human development during the ages which preceded the Advent of the Lord. Men were feeling after the ground and the conditions of a universal human society; and they were searching for the bask and the law of personal conduct, as beings endowed with moral and intellectual faculties which might be a rich blessing or a terrible curse to them and to man kind. To this point humanity had progressed, moved from within, led from on High. Was the higher progress possible to heathen society! Was there power in heathenism to lift man into this sphere of universal brotherhood, and, to expound the mystery of his being and destiny! None, absolutely none. Heathen society, with all its brilliant civilisation, was utterly, hopelessly exhausted. The Lord was born into a world of wreck. But for Christ all must have perished. The world which the Lord came to save was groaning beneath the wrecks of most of the most hopeful political, philosophical, and religious efforts and achievements of mankind. And yet there had been splendid progress. Mans life was enlarged in every direction but the highest. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Christ the Revealer of God
Seek fellowship with Zeus, cried Epictetus, in a last, eager, desperate appeal Alas! it was the Zeus that was wanting; and to find Him Epictetus must pass on his disciples to a higher school. There was a yearning for God, for personal fellowship with God, for personal likeness to God, unknown to the older ages; marking a grand advance in the aspiration and effort of the noblest and most far-seeing spirits. But who is the Zeus, the god of whom you talk, that may believe on Him, was the cry which grew more hopeless and agonising generation by generation; to which tradition had no answer, to which philosophy had no answer, to which religion had no answer; to which no answer was possible until One stood on the earth and said, No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him, Then man began to look up and live. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Christ the new life of humanity
When that Child was born to humanity, when that Son took His place by its hearth fire, a new life entered into the world. That age of the Advent is very manifestly the age in which some transcendently stimulating, quickening influence penetrated the life of men, and began to make all things new; than the old civilisation decayed, the new power reorganised and restored. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Important births
Now and then a birth occurs of such momentous portent to man, that men are constrained by the influences which proceed from it to fix it in memory, and give to its anniversary fitting commemoration. There are births which are like the introduction of new forces and energies into human society, which pour the current of their power down through the ages with ever-widening and deepening volume. When Confucius was born, half of the human race had a father and a teacher given them. When Moses was born, not only a few millions of slaves found a deliverer, but the great underlying, eternal principles of morality and piety found a spokesman. With Socrates, Greece had given to her the opportunity of goodness. With Caesar came into human history the embodiment of ambition. The birth of Wilberforce was the beginning of a philanthropic education to Christendom. Howard demonstrated that the extremest feelings of a kindly humanity were practical and serviceable to society. With Washington came to mankind the ideal of unselfish patriotism; while Lincoln embodied the first century of the American Republic. These were noted men, extraordinary beings; and the names of these are all memorable. Their names have passed into history, and remain as certainly fixed as the stars beaming in the sky; and, like the stars, their glory is abundant to attract unto them the observation of men. When the date of their birth, or the supposed date of their birth, is reached, as with the movement of time we swing round the circuit of the year, men instinctively pause; thought is quickened; the depths of gratitude are stirred with benign remembrance; and thanksgiving naturally ascends unto God, who has given unto men, unto them and theirs, such a beneficent gift. (W. H. Murray.)
Christmas celebrates a personality
Wherever you find love, you find a personal being connected with it as its object, We do not love motherhood, we love mother. We do not love family government, we love the persons who compose the family. We do not love theology, we love God of whom it treats. We commemorate today, therefore--not the birth of a system, but the birth of a man. It is a sweet and innocent babe, and not a collection of doctrines, in praise of whom our songs are sung today, and unto whom our hearts are lifted in holy gladness. (W. H. Murray.)
Jesus had universal connections
We celebrate the birth of a man with universal connections; you and I were born connected with but a few. A little group absorbed us, and a little spot bounded us within its limits. Other men, of larger mould than we, were born with larger connections. The chief is connected with his tribe at his birth; the king with his kingdom; the patriot and leader with his country or party; the priest with his Church. Around all these walls are builded, over which they never pass until death lifts them above the local, and multiplies their associations. But Christ was born with universal connections. His little family did not absorb Him. He was not the son of Mary and Joseph, He was the son of humanity; He was the Son of Man the world over. (W. H. Murray.)
Jesus meets universal wants
The reason that Christ had these universal connections was because He came to assist men in reference to those conditions of want that are universal. In Him the perfect constitution had organisation. In feeling, in thinking, in suffering and gladness, in mourning and joy, in every capacity which men have, in every condition in which men stand, He was akin to them. From every bosom a sympathetic chord ran up into His, and He could, therefore, sense the needs of every bosom. He sympathised with every phase of humanity, because His humanity was perfect enough in its sensitiveness to be intelligent with every phase. (W. H. Murray.)
An infants birth a great event
The birth of any infant is a far greater event than the production of the sun. The sun is only a lump of senseless matter: it sees not its own light; it feels not its own heat; and, with all its grandeur, it will cease to be: but that infant beginning only to breathe yesterday, is possessed of reason--claims a principle infinitely superior to all matter--and will live through the ages of eternity! (W. Jay.)
A Christmas day sketch
I. GOD CAME TO US IN THAT CHILD. His parents were instructed to call Him Immanuel--God with us. Such a fact is big with meaning; pregnant with vital, jubilant truth. Why did God come to us thus in a babe? He must have had some wise and loving purpose that He wished to secure thereby. What For ages men had been taught to fear God, their thoughts of Him filled them with dismay; hence the gods of the heathen nations. The large body of the Jewish nation was not much in advance of the heathen. This dread of God was universal. To correct all such ideas, and remove all such feelings from the minds and hearts of men forever, God came to us as a child. Are you afraid of a babe?
II. GOD CAN COME TO US IN THE SMALLEST THINGS. We generally look for God in the great, vast, mighty, terrible. We expect something to strike the eye, etc. Will you remember that God came to us in that quiet, loving, unpretending babe, that lay in that, manager and nestled in His mothers bosom? And so God comes to us in the little, simple, humble, noiseless, common things of life, if we only look for Him. Especially He comes to us in our children. They bring love with them, and love is of God, etc. We might in a far higher sense than we think for call every child Immanuel. In our child God comes to us, God is with us. Do we believe this? If so, should we not oftener look for and educate the God in them? We should do far better with them if from the beginning we sought to bring out, nourish, educate, develop the good, the God that is in them, instead of making it our chief concern to correct the wrong, to restrain the evil.
III. THE WHOLE OF LIFE IS SACRED AND SHOULD BE CONSECRATED TO GOD. God came to us in that Child. The whole of life is sacred, open for the operations, possession, enjoyment of God. God was in that Child notwithstanding all its infantile wants, weaknesses, complaints. And so God was in that boy, notwithstanding all His playfulness and vivacity. Indeed, that was the boyish, outward manifestation of God; the boyish way of declaring Gods glory If God was in that Child, God manifest in the flesh, His whole life, from His birth to His death, was God life.
IV. GREAT ENDINGS HAVE LITTLE BEGINNINGS. Who shall measure the magnitude, height, depth, length, breadth of the work which Christ accomplished as Saviour of the world? Yet it has all to be traced back to the birth of that Child. Gods method is evolution from the small to the great. (B. Preece.)
The Child Divine
Pure Christianity owes its power to the fact that it comes to us as a little child, beautiful in innocence and simplicity. The pure spirit of Christianity is the essence of kindness. Christianity owes its power to its spirit of gentleness. Christianity is forgiving like a little child. Christianity, however, like a little child, is often misunderstood. Alas! that Christianity should be hated, by some people. Not only did Herod seek its life eighteen hundred years ago, but there are men today who, Herod-like, seek to strangle the infant Christ. (W. Birch.)
Unto us a Son is given
Christ, the Son of God, gifted to sinners
I. THE GIFT ITSELF. Many precious gifts have come from heaven to earth, yea, all we have is Heavens gift (Jam_1:17). But this is the great gift.
1. What this gift is.
(1) A Person. Persons are more excellent than things. A soul is more precious than a world. So this gift is more precious than the whole world.
(2) A Divine Person.
(3) The Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Wherein this gift appears and comes to us. Those who send precious gifts to others, wrap them up in something that is less precious. And a treasure sent in earthen vessels is the method of conveyance of the best gifts from heaven to earth. The Son of God, being the gift, was sent veiled and wrapped up in our nature. This veil laid over the gift sent to poor sinners was
(1) less precious than the gift itself. The human nature of Christ was a crested thing, His Divine nature uncreated.
(2) However, it was a cleanly thing. The human nature of Christ, though infinitely below the dignity of His Divine nature, yet was a holy thing Luk_1:35). This gift appeared and was sent to us in the veil of the human nature--
(a) that it might be capable of the treatment it behoved to undergo for our relief--to suffer and die;
(b) that it might be suited to the weakness of the capacity of the receivers. The Son of God in His unveiled glory would have no more been an object for our eyes to have looked on, than the shining sun to the eyes of an owl. A few rays of His glory, breaking out from under me veil, made His enemies fall to the ground.
3. What a gift this is. Singular for
(1) the worth of it. If it were laid in the balance with ten thousand worlds, they would be lighter than vanity in comparison of it; nay, balanced with the gift of created graces, and the created heavens, it would down weigh them; as the bridegrooms person is more worth than his jewels and palace.
(2) The suitableness of it (Act_4:12; Heb_7:25; 1Jn_5:12).
(3) The seasonableness of it.
(4) The comprehensiveness of it (Rom_8:32; Col_2:9-10; 1Jn_5:11).
(5) The unrestricted freeness of it. What is freer than a gift? The joint stock of the whole world could not have purchased this gift.
(a) Beware of slighting this gift.
(b) Take heed ye miss not to perceive this gift. Most men see no further into the mystery of Christ than the outward appearance it makes in the world, as administered in the Word, sacraments, etc.; and they despise it.
(c) Admire the wisdom of God, and His infinite condescension, in the manner of the conveyance of this gift.
(d) See here how you may be enriched for time and eternity.
II. THE GIVER.
1. Who is the Giver? God. And to exalt the Givers free love and grace herein, observe from the Word three things there marked about it.
(1) It was His own Son that He gave.
(2) It was His beloved Son.
(3) It was His only-begotten Son.
2. What has He given sinners, gifting His Son to them? The tongues of men and angels cannot fully express this.
(1) He has given them Himself.
(2) Eternal life. Here is legal life, moral life, a life of comfort; and all eternal.
(3) All things (Rom_8:32; 1Co_3:21; Rom_8:17; Rev_21:7).
III. THE PARTY TO WHOM HE IS GIVEN.
1. To whom He is given. To mankind sinners indefinitely.
2. In what respects Christ is given to them.
(1) In respect of allowance to take Him.
(2) In respect of legal destination (1Jn_4:14). If ye had an act of parliament appointing a thing for you, ye would not question its being given you; here ye have more.
(3) In respect of real offer.
(4) In respect of the freeness of the offer.
(5) In respect of exhibition. This gift is held forth as with the hand, God saying, He, sinners, here is My Son, take Him. And God doth not stay the exhibiting of His Son to sinners till they say they will take Him.
3. In what character Christ is given to sinners, A Saviour; a surety; a physician; a light; an atoning sacrifice; a crowned King, mighty to destroy the kingdom of Satan and to rescue mankind sinners, his captives and prisoners.
IV. APPLICATION.
1. Believe that to us poor sinners the Son of God in mans nature is given.
2. Receive the gift of Christ, at His Fathers hand.
(1) Consider ye have an absolute need of this gift.
(2) Them are some who have as much need as you, to whom yet He is not given, namely, the fallen angels.
(3) Ye must either receive or refuse.
(4) Consider the worth of the gift
(5) Consider the Hand it comes from.
(6) Consider that others before you have received it, and have been made up by it forever.
(7) Consider that this gift will not always be for the taking as it is now.
(8) Your not receiving will be very heinously taken, as a deepest slight put upon both the Giver and the gift
(9) It will set you at greater distance from God than ever. (T. Boston.)
The Son given
I. WHO IS THE SON GIVEN AND WHAT IS HIS PURPOSE? It is our Lord Jesus Christ. The verse begins with His humanity; and, mounting upwards, it rises to the height of His Divinity. The prophet conducts us to Bethlehem and its stable, to the desert and its hunger, to the well and its thirst, to the workshop and its daily toil, to the sea and its midnight storm, to Gethsemane and its bloody sweat, to Calvary and its ignominious death, and all along that thorny path that stretched from the manger to the Cross; for in announcing the birth and coming of this Son and Child, he included in that announcement the noble purposes for which He was horn--His work, His sufferings, His life, His death, all the grand ends for which the Son was given and the Child was born.
II. BY WHOM WAS THIS SON GIVEN? By His Father. Man has his remedies, but they are always behindhand. The disease antedates the cure. But before the occasion came God was ready. Redemption was planned in the councils of eternity, and Satans defeat secured before his first victory was won. The Son gave Himself, but the Father gave Him; and there is no greater mistake than to regard God as looking on at redemption as a mere spectator, to approve the sacrifice and applaud the actor. Gods love was the root, Christs death the fruit.
III. TO WHOM WAS HE GIVEN? He was given to us. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The advent of Jesus joy producing
A poor little street girl was taken sick one Christmas and carried to a hospital. While there she heard the story of Jesus coming into the world to save us. It was all new to her, but very precious. She could appreciate such a wonderful Saviour, and the knowledge made her very happy as she lay upon her little cot. One day the nurse came around at the usual hour, and Little Broomstick (that was her street name) held her by the hand, and whispered: Im having real good times here--ever such good times! Spose I shall have to go away from here just as soon as I get well; but Ill take the good time along--some of it, anyhow. Did you know bout Jesus bein born! Yes, replied the nurse, I know. Sh-sh-sh! Dont talk any more. You did? I thought you looked as if you didnt and I was goin to tell you. Why, how did I look? asked the nurse, forgetting her own orders in curiosity. Oh, just like most o folks--kind o glum. I shouldnt think youd ever look gloomy if you knowed bout Jesus bein born. (Faithful Witness.)
The joyful quarter
Part of the city of Florence was called The Joyful Quarter. It was through a picture painted by Cimbrie of Jesus as a baby seated on His mothers knee. When finished, the grand old painter did not make a charge for people to see it, but had it carried into the poor quarters, and through the streets slowly, in the sight of all the people. Before this, they had thought of Jesus as far too grand for them to love. In this picture He looked so sweet and good that people broke into surprised thankfulness and joy. (Sunday Magazine.)
A son and a brother
A respectable family becomes very reduced in its circumstances; the mother finds it difficult to make the meagre provision suffice for her hungry little ones; their clothes get more ragged; the fathers threadbare coat makes it less and less possible for him to obtain the situation which his qualifications deserve. But a child is born into that home, quite unlike the rest of the children--beautiful in feature, quick in intelligence, winsome, gifted, spirituelle. As he grows up, he manifests unusual powers; rapidly distances his compeers; passes from the elementary school to the college, and thence to the university. Presently tidings begin to come back of his success, his growing fame, his prizes, the assured certainty of his becoming a great man; and as they arrive in letter, and rumour, and newspaper, the mothers eye gets brighter; the father no longer evades the associates of earlier days; the home becomes better furnished and the table better spread; the other children are better clothed and educated and put forward in life; and the one glad explanation of it all is found in the words, Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And as the years go on, whilst money pours in as a golden tide to the successful student, it will find its way increasingly to the family in the old home; and each member of it will reap the benefit of association with its child and son, all that is needed being to prove a distinct need, and to put in an appropriate claim. What a mine of wealth would be opened up in the counsel, strength, resources, influence, and position, of that beloved and trusted son and brother! This will illustrate the prophets thought. As the oppressed Jews, groaning in their brick kilns, were glad for Moses, given to lead them forth from the house of bondage; as England, travailing under the cruel exactions of the Danes, was glad for our great Alfred; as the Netherlands were glad when William the Silent arose to arrest the bloodthirsty rule of Alva; as Italy was glad when her Victor Emmanuel overthrew the dark misrule of the Papacy--so may we be glad because God has given Himself to us in Jesus. Why should living men complain? Granted that Adam was our father, the second Adam is the Son of Man. If tears and toil and pain and death have come by one, glory and honour and immortality are ours by the other. If we are sons, and therefore younger brothers of the Son; if we have the right to call His Father our Father, we gain from our association with Him more than enough to compensate us for our association with the gardener who stole his Masters fruit in the garden of Paradise. Christian people do not enough appreciate this connection, or avail themselves of its benefits. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
And the government shall be upon His shoulder
Christ the universal Governor
I. JESUS CHRIST HAS THE GOVERNMENT OF HEAVEN. After He had triumphantly risen from the dead, and the time of His glorious ascension to heaven was at hand, He said unto His disciples, All power is given unto Me in heaven, meaning, that to Him, as the gracious and glorious Mediator between us sinners and God our heavenly Sovereign, all power in heaven was given. And hence the following great and gracious truths--
1. Jesus Christ is the only person who, principally and above all others, has power with God for us. There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.
2. He is the only person by whom we can hope to obtain an entrance into heaven.
3. He has power in heaven to exclude, as well as to admit, whom He will.
4. He has power in heaven to provide mansions for His friends.
5. He has power in heaven over all the angels; He is their Lord, whom they worship and obey; He is exalted above all principalities and powers: the angels are His ministering spirits, whom He sends forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation (Heb_1:6-14).
II. JESUS CHRIST HAS THE GOVERNMENT OF EARTH (Mat_28:18).
1. He has power on earth to form and establish a Church to the glory and praise of God.
2. He has power on earth to keep His Church, through faith, unto final and full salvation.
3. He has power on earth over the wicked.
III. JESUS CHRIST HAS THE GOVERNMENT OF HELL. Satan, therefore, and the whole host of evil spirits, are under His command; and therefore their malice, their subtilty, and power, shall never prevail to the ruin of the weakest of His flock. Conclusion--
1. And first, we infer--What a glorious person is Jesus Christ! In defiance of all His enemies, He it is of whom the Father declares, Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion (Psa_2:6).
2. How dignified, and secure, and happy, must they be who have Jesus Christ as their Governor, to whom they willingly yield themselves in all humble and affectionate submission and obedience.
3. The tremendous case of those who are strangers to Jesus Christ, and without God in the world. (E. Phillips.)
The government on Christs shoulder
As a people whose affairs are ruined have great need of an active and expert governor; so the government of such a people is a great burden Such a people are lost sinners, and with respect to them these words speak, two things--
1. The burden and weight of taking the management of their affairs.
2. Jesus Christ the person on whom this burden was laid. This is part of the glad tidings of the Gospel. (T. Boston.)
The government on Christs shoulder
I. THE OCCASION OF SETTING UP THIS PRINCE AND GOVERNOR. It was sinners absolute need.
1. Their first prince was gone, to manage their affairs no more. Adam their natural head mismanaged the government quite.
2. They were left in confusion, in the hand of the enemy Satan.
3. Their affairs were desperate. When the whole earth could not afford one, heaven gave sinners a Prince, of shoulders sufficient for the burden.
II. THE IMPORT OF THIS PRINCIPALITY AND GOVERNMENT LAID ON JESUS CHRIST FOR THE BENEFIT OF MANKIND-SINNERS. It speaks--
1. His near relation to them.
2. His eminency among them.
3. His honourable office over them.
4. His sovereign power and authority over them.
5. The burden of the care and duty belonging to the office and station.
III. THE HONOUR, POWER, AND AUTHORITY BELONGING TO THIS PRINCIPALITY AND GOVERNMENT OF JESUS CHRIST.
1. The legislative power belongs to Him solely.
2. The supreme executive power is lodged with Him (Joh_5:22-23).
3. The power of granting remissions, receiving into peace with Heaven, pardoning and indemnifying criminals and rebels (Act_5:31).
4. A large and vast dominion, reaching to earth, heaven, and hell, and the passage between the two worlds, namely, death (Mat_28:18; Rev_1:18). In His hand is--
(1) The kingdom of grace. And gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church.
(2) The kingdom of glory (Luk_22:29-30).
(3) The kingdom of providence. And hath put all things under His feet.
IV. THE BURDEN OF THIS PRINCIPALITY AND GOVERNMENT LAID ON CHRIST JESUS. It is seven fold.
1. The burden of the purchase of it.
2. The burden of a war with the devil for the recovering of it.
3. The burden of subduing sinners.
4. The burden of their reconciliation with Heave.
5. The burden of their defence and protection.
6. The burden of their provision in all things necessary for life and godliness.
7. The burden of the whole management and conduct of them through the wilderness, till they come to the heavenly Canaan.
V. IMPROVE THE DOCTRINE.
1. Information.
(1) Jesus Christ is the alone Head of His Church and supreme
Governor thereof.
(2) The interests of the Church and of every particular believer will certainly be seen to.
(3) Believers have all reason to be quietly resigned to the Divine disposal and to live in confidence of a blessed issue, whatever be the difficulties they have to grapple with, either in respect of the case of the Church or of their own private ease.
2. Exhortation.
(1) Receive Him as your Prince and Governor.
(a) Let His Spirit be your Guide and Leader.
(b) Let His Word be your rule.
(c) Let His will be the determining point to you.
And receive Him as Governor--
(a) Of your hearts and spirits. Let the proud heart be made to stoop to Him, let the covetous heart be purged by Him, and the vain foolish heart be made to find the weight of His awful authority. While Christ has not the government of thy heart, thou hast not given Him the throne.
(b) Of your tongues.
(c) Of your practice.
(2) Receive Him as the Prince and Governor of your lot and condition in the world, resigning the same to His disposal.
(a) Be content with the lot carved out for you.
(b) Never go out of Gods way to mend your condition.
(c) In all changes of your lot, acknowledge Him for direction and guidance. Take Him for your only Governor; your absolute Governor; your perpetual Governor. Take Him without delay; take Him heartily and willingly.
3. Motives.
(1) Consider what an excellent Prince and Governor He is. Perfectly just in His administration; infinitely wise; most vigilant and careful; most tender of His subjects and of all their interests.
(2) While ye are not under His government, ye are under the government of Satan.
(3) Jesus Christ is your rightful Prince and Governor.
(4) If ye submit not to Him, He will treat you as rebels, who have broken your faith and allegiance to Him, and cast off the yoke of His government. (T. Boston.)
The hope of Israel
I. THE HOPE OF THE CHOSEN PEOPLE CONCERNING THEMSELVES AND THEIR RACE CENTERED IN A CHILD. As a general fact, how many of the worlds hopes and expectations have in all ages focussed in cradles. The children represent the hope of all generations.
II. Now the paradox of Jewish faith consisted in this--THAT IT FOCUSSED AT ONCE IN A CRADLE AND A THRONE; a Child and a King. Hence the birth in which that ancient hope found fulfilment was the birth of a King. The question of the wise men was grandly expressive. It centred alike in a Child and a King. Where is He that is born King?
1. At the very centre of the Jewish religion was the belief in kingship--a Divine kingdom or a theocracy. This great spiritual fact was symbolised by the outward visible sign of human kingship. But all human symbols are imperfect. Their kings died like other men. But their true King did not die. They sought to make the outward symbol of government as complete as possible; hence they adopted hereditary kingship. The human, and in this case, the Jewish heart is impatient of an interregnum. There is a feeling in man that the throne should at no period be empty. This feeling ever tends toward hereditary rule. The prophet points to a King to the increase of whose government and peace there shall be no end. It is a kingdom which knows of no interregnum. In contrast to all other kings and royal personages, who soon die and pass away, He ever lives.
2. It is such a king that the Jewish people yearned and looked for. Hence, when the wise men came with the question, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? it not only moved Herod, but all Jerusalem with him. The Jews looked eagerly for a king who should bear upon his shoulder the burden of perpetual government. This yearning for a king is one of the deepest in the heart of nations.
3. Alas! that when He came men did not recognise Him in the humble garb He wore. They placed a Cross upon the shoulder that was to bear the ensign of rule, and a crown of thorns upon His royal brow. Yet, all was well, for what could be a better ensign of His kingship than the Cross, since His is the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, and He is a Prince and a Saviour.
4. His sacred brow, too, bore the only crown which man could place there and He accept--a crown of thorns, symbol alike of our sin and misery and of His royalty who has overcome us by the might of His compassion, and become our King by the shedding of His blood. What becomes the brow of the Man of Sorrows and King of sorrowing humanity like crown of thorns? Our Lord exclaimed some time before His hour had come, I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again. He based His Kingly claim upon that two-fold power. It is from His Cross that He sways His sceptre over us.
5. The cradle predicts the Cross. Once God has condescended to touch the manger and the crib, we are prepared to see Him even touch the Cross and bearing it. There is no depth of condescension which He will not fathom, no height of self-sacrifice which He will not reach. The story of Divine love is harmonious throughout. We are not surprised that the great God who submitted himself to the humblest conditions of human birth should also, in the same spirit, endure the Cross, despising the shame.
6. This cradle, too, is prophetic of the Gospel, in which so much that is weak and human is linked to so much that is strong and Divine, namely, mans voice uttering Gods message, earthly forms and ordinances conveying heavenly energies, human swaddling clothes enveloping a Divine life. (D. Davies.)
The government upon Christs shoulder
I. I would offer a few thoughts concerning THE CHURCH OR KINGDOM OF CHRIST IN THE WORLD.
1. By the Church I understand that remnant of Adams family who, being determined to break their covenant with hell, and their agreement with death, join themselves to Christ, as their Prophet, Priest, and King, either in reality, or by a visible and credible profession of their faith in Him.
2. The Church or kingdom of Christ, during the Old Testament dispensation, was peculiarly confined to the posterity of Abraham, to the nation of the Jews, excepting a few Gentile proselytes; but now, since the coming of Christ in the flesh and His resurrection from the dead, is extended also to the Gentile nations.
3. All the subjects of Christs kingdom and government, are originally brought out of the territories of hell, being children of wrath, even as others.
4. The great engine whereby Christ rears up a kingdom to Himself in the world, is the preaching of the everlasting Gospel, accompanied with the power and efficacy of His Spirit.
5. The Church and kingdom of Christ being founded and governed by Him, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid, cannot miss of being one of the best regulated societies in the world as under His management, whatever irregularities may be found in her through the corruptions of men intermingling with the concerns of the kingdom. Everything necessary to render any kingdom or society regular is to be found in the Church or kingdom of Christ.
(1) A kingdom well constituted hath its laws and so hath the Church of Christ. And the laws given by her King are all holy, just, and good; and all the true subjects of the kingdom delight in the laws of their King, as being the transcript of infinite wisdom and equity.
(2) A kingdom hath its offices under its king; and so hath the Church of Christ (Eph_4:11-13).
(3) A kingdom hath its courts, where the subjects attend to receive the will of the king, and the benefits of his administration; and so hath the Church.
(4) A kingdom hath its seal. So in the kingdom of Christ, He hath appended two public seals unto the charter of His covenant of grace, namely, baptism and the Lords Supper.
(5) A. kingdom commonly hath its enemies to grapple with, both foreign and intestine; and so hath the kingdom of Christ.
(6) A kingdom hath its armies and auxiliaries; and so hath the Church of Christ, being in a confederacy with the Lord of hosts. The armies of heaven are ready to fight her quarrel.
(7) A kingdom hath its fortifications and strongholds; and so hath the Church of Christ.
II. I would speak a little of THE GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE KINGDOM.
1. Christ Himself is the great and glorious Governor.
2. All things in heaven, earth, and hell are put under the power of Christ, for the more advantageous government of His Church (Eph_1:22, Php_2:9-11).
3. Christ the King of Zion is wonderfully fitted by, His Father for the government and administration (Isa_11:2-4).
4. Christs government and administration are very wonderful. The name of the Governor is Wonderful.
5. Christs government and administration in and about His Church and people are exceeding wise. So much is imported in His being called the Counsellor.
6. Also irresistible. The Governor is The Mighty God, who will go through with His designs.
7. He is exceeding tender and compassionate; for His name is The Everlasting Father from whom compassions flow.
8. Christs government and administration of His Church are very peaceable; for His name is The Prince of Peace, and of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end.
9. This government is everlasting.
III. Inquire HOW THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH IS COMMITTED TO CHRIST. The government is laid upon Christs shoulder with a three-fold solemnity.
1. The solemnity of an unalterable decree (Psa_2:6-8).
2. The solemnity of a covenant transacted betwixt Him and His Eternal Father, when the council of peace was between them both.
3. The solemnity of an oath, ratifying the determination of the council of peace in this matter (Psa_89:3-4; Psa_89:35).
IV. GIVE THE REASONS OF THE DOCTRINE. Why is the government laid upon His shoulder?
1. Because His shoulder alone was able to bear the weight of the administration and government of the Church.
2. That He might be in better capacity for accomplishing the salvation of His people, and bringing many sons and daughters unto glory. Hence we find His kingdom and salvation frequently joined; Thou art my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth; and Zec_9:9.
3. That He may still the enemy and the avenger, that He may resent His Fathers quarrel against Satan, and entirely bruise his head, for his defacing and striking at His and His Fathers image in our first parents, and disturbing His government, which He had established in innocence.
4. Because He hath a just title to it.
(1) By birth.
(2) By purchase.
(3) By His Fathers promise and charter, granted to Him upon the footing of His death and satisfaction (Isa_53:12).
(4) By conquest.
V. APPLICATION.
1. Information.
(1) The wonderful love of God which He bears to His Church in providing such a Ruler and Governor for them.
(2) What a happy government and administration believers are under, namely, the government of the Child born, the Son given to us, whose, name is Wonderful, etc.
(3) The misery of a wicked, unbelieving world who will not have Him to rule over them.
(4) The nullity of all acts, laws, and constitutions that do not bear the stamp of Christ, and are not consistent with the laws and orders He has left for the government of His Church.
(5) They run a very serious risk who do injury to His servants
(6) They have a hard task to manage who attempt to jostle Him out of His government and take it upon, their own shoulders.
(7) All odds will be even, and Christ will render tribulation to those that trouble, vex, and harass His poor people in their spiritual rights and privileges.
2. Consolation to the poor people of God; particularly to those who are spoiled of their liberties and privileges as Christians,
(1) Your God does not stand as an unconcerned spectator.
(2) God hath founded Zion.
(3) He who hath the government upon His shoulder rules in the midst of His enemies, and has so much of the act of government that He both can and will bring good out of evil.
(4) The most dark dispensations towards the Church and people of God are in the event found to have been pregnant with love and mercy.
(5) He on whose shoulders the government is laid hath power to provide you with honest ministers. (E. Erskine.)
Christ the Kinsman of the race
The King must be the Son of Man. The real root of king and queen is kin. The king is not the able man but the kinsman of the race. All our fundamental, social, and political ideas have their root in the patriarchal home, as the researches of Sir H. Maine and other able scholars have established; and in the king the whole kindred is represented Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given. The King who rules in righteousness, mighty to save, is the Son of Man, the Divine Kinsman of our race. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Jesus Christ the King of all creation
I. CHRIST THE KING OF ALL THINGS GREAT. There is nothing so great as to be above the government of Jesus. Things great belong to each of the two great provinces into which the universe is divided, namely, the province of matter and the province of mind; yet, Christ is King of all.
1. Greatness in the physical creation. The earth is very great, as we count greatness. The sun is greater than the earth, and many a star which appears only as a glittering point of diamond, is greater than the sun: yet, Jesus makes the earth bring forth, commands the sun to shine, and moves the stars in silent harmony. Jesus can rule the sea. Its billows rise and fall according to His will; and when they leap along, then, amid the roar of tempest and the cries of men for aid, the gentle voice of Jesus speaks Peace be still, and winds and waves obey Him, for there is a great calm. The government is upon His shoulder.
2. The greatness of death. Of all the forces of nature, none is feared more than death. Even death is in the hand of Jesus; it never comes without asking His permission, and in every case He could forbid its coming, and no doubt He would forbid it, if that were for the best, for He has the keys of death and of Hades.
3. Greatness in the spirit world. Material forces, however, form but an insignificant part of the forces of creation. There is a world of spirit within, as well as above and beyond the world of matter, and yet, of this nearest world of matter we know but little. The spirit world is under the rule of Jesus; He is its only King; His word its only law; His presence its only bliss. He reveals to the eye of faith the home of heaven. He brings life and immortality to light.
4. Greatness in moral government. God has promised for us--and thereby has guaranteed--results which can never be effected by any mere force, though that force should be even infinite. The difficulty in the Saviours government of moral beings lies here,--that He has guaranteed and foretold the final issues of that government; that He has foreseen the course of life pursued by every moral agent, though that life is in many points independent of all external forces Neither Scripture nor reason may explain the difficulty, but it is pleasing to think of my text,--The government shall he upon His shoulder,--for Jesus is Kings of kings, and Lord of lords.
II. CHRIST THE KING OF ALL THINGS SMALL. There is nothing so small as to escape the notice of Jesus. When on earth He observed the poor as well as the rich, and commended each according to his fidelity. Think not that you are forgotten by the Saviour, or that your work or suffering is overlooked because you are poor, obscure, and feeble, and therefore, forgotten and overlooked by men. What men despise through ignorance may be most highly prized in another form. Filthy soot and the brilliant diamond are formed of the same material. The Saviour sees, not merely what we are, but what we may become, and as fidelity is the highest element of moral worth, He estimates the value of men, not by what they do, but by their fidelity--by the proportion which exists between their power and their performance. The lisping prayer of a little child may thus be of greater value in Gods estimation, than the highest song which ever rose from an angels heart.
III. CHRIST THE KING OF ALL THINGS GOOD. There is nothing so good that it can exist apart from the rule of Jesus. The day is no more dependent on the sun, the rain upon the clouds, the stream upon the fountain, than happiness is dependent upon Christ.
IV. CHRIST THE KING CONTROLLING EVIL. There is nothing so bad but Jesus can make it the means of good. In all we suffer, as well as in all we enjoy; in the dark and dreary night of trouble, as well as in the bright day of prosperous life, it is equally true that Jesus Christ is King of all. (Evan Lewis, B. A.)
Christ our lifes Ruler
Fifteen miles from Sandy Hook the pilot comes on board the English steamer to navigate it into New York harbour. I remember his climbing on board, on the last occasion that I made the passage. The great steamer slowed, and as we looked down from the deck into the dark night we could see a lantern on the surface of the ocean, where his boat was lying. Presently he emerged from the pitchy darkness and reached the deck. From that moment the anxieties of the captain were at an end, and he might refresh himself in deep, long slumbers. So when Christ is on board our life, the government is upon His shoulders, and of the increase of His government and of our peace there is no end. (F. B.Meyer, B. A.)
And His name shall be called Wonderful
Messiahs name
As Jacob conferred the birthright and blessing of his race upon the sons of Joseph by saying, Let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac (Gen_43:16); or as the children of Israel in the wilderness were warned to obey the angel who went before them, because the name of Jehovah was in him; so the name of God, wonderful in counsel, mighty in work, the Father of their fathers and of their children for a thousand generations, the Eternal Upholder of their race and their nation and of its prosperity and peace, shall be named upon, shall be in, this anointed Saviour, on whose shoulder the government shall rest. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
The Prince of the four names
Wonderful Counsellor; God-Hero; Father-Everlasting; Prince-of-Peace. (Prof. G. A. Smith, D. D.)
Christs name above every name
I. WHO CALLS HIM BY THIS NAME?
1. His Father (Php_2:9).
2. All His people, flying to Him, in their first believing, as such an one, and depending on Him all along their course of life as such an one.
II. WHAT DOES HIS BEING CALLED BY THIS NAME IMPORT?
1. That He really is what this name bears.
2. What He is called He is found to be in the experience of saints.
III. APPLICATION. Study the name of Christ, as represented in the Word, so that your souls may be enamoured of Him. (T. Boston.)
Gods namings
Gods namings always mean character. They are always revelations. They tell us what the person is or what he does. (Mrs. H. W. Smith.)
Ah! thats the name!
Some Hindus who had read Christian tracts travelled a long way to hear more about Jesus from a missionary. As soon as he mentioned the name of Jesus, they all exclaimed, Ah! thats the name! (Gates of Imagery.)
Christs name Wonderful
Our Lord Christ is beyond the creatures comprehension. So that this is fitly made the first syllable of His name, that men may know that whatever they know of His excellencies, there is still more behind; and though they may apprehend, they cannot comprehend what He is. I shall inquire--
I. UNDER WHAT NOTION CHRIST IS HELD FORTH AS A MIRACLE, a miraculous person.
1. Not in respect of His being a miracle worker. It is Himself, and not His work, that is here called a miracle.
2. Nor in respect of His Divine nature simply.
3. Nor in respect of His human nature simply.
4. Christ is held forth as a miraculous personage as God-man in one person.
II. WHAT IS THE IMPORT OF CHRIST AS GOD-MAN BEING AND APPEARING TO BE A MIRACULOUS, MOST WONDERFUL ONE?
1. The excellency of His person as God-man.
2. The fulness of excellencies in Him, our incarnate Redeemer. Some excel in one thing, some in another., but none but Christ in all (Col_1:19).
3. The uncommonness and singularity of His excellencies. Every excellency in Christ is beyond that excellency in another.
4. The absolute matchlessness of His person, for excellency and glory.
5. The shining forth of His excellencies, fit to draw all eyes upon Him.
(1) His Fathers eyes are fixed on Him, as the object of His good pleasure (Mat_3:17).
(2) The eyes of the angels are drawn after Him, as a most wonderful sight (1Pe_1:12).
(3) The eyes of all the saints are drawn after Him, as the object of their admiration and affection.
6. The incomprehensibleness of Him to any creature.
III. IN WHAT RESPECTS IS OUR INCARNATE REDEEMER A MIRACULOUS ONE? He is wonderful--
1. In His person and natures.
2. In His perfections and qualifications.
3. All along His duration. Some are wonderful in one part of their life, some in another; but He is miracle all over His duration.
(1) In His eternal generation of the Father.
(2) In His birth.
(3) In His life; a wonderful infant; a wonderful child; a wonderful youth, etc.
(4) In His death; betrayed by one of His own; forsaken by them all, acquitted by His judge as innocent, yet condemned to a most cruel death. Astonishing wonder! God dying in mans nature; the beloved Son of God hanging on a cross.
(5) In His burial. The Lord of life lying dead in a grave; the spotless Jesus making His grave with the wicked; the great Deliverer from death carried prisoner to its dark regions--is a wonder that may hold us in admiration forever!
(6) In His resurrection.
(7) In His ascension into heaven.
(8) In His sitting at Gods right hand.
(9) In His coming again to judge the world.
(10) In His continuing forever to be the eternal baud of union and means of communion, between God and the saints (Rev_7:17; Rev_21:23).
4. In His offices.
(1) Prophetical. The Spirit came at times on the prophets, but He rested on Him. They had their foreknowledge of future events at secondhand; but it is His privilege to look with His own eyes into the sealed book.
(2) Priestly. He is Priest, Altar, and Sacrifice all in one. All the sacrifices before His were but as handwritings to own the debt of sin, but could pay none. His sacrifice was truly expiatory.
(3) Kingly. Zions King is most wonderful in His victories, rescuing men from the power of the devil, subduing their hearts to Him, and conquering their wills; in His defence of His subjects from the devil, the world, lusts, frowns, and flatteries of the world; in ruining His enemies totally, and completing the happiness of His friends. Christs kingdom is the most ancient kingdom; the most extensive kingdom, embracing both heaven and earth. Never a kingdom had so many enemies and so potent; yet has it stood through all ages, and will stand forever and ever, without end.
5. In His relations.
(1) He is nearly related to the house of heaven, and so has the highest possible relation. The angels are the servants of the house of heaven; but Christ is the Son of that house (Heb_1:5).
(2) He is nearly related to the house of Adam. He is the top branch of it Luk_3:38). He has a common relation to them all--the Saviour of the world. He has a nearer relation to believers--Brother, Head, etc.
(3) He is the centre of union to the two (Joh_17:23). The Son of God married our nature to Himself, and so brings together the two houses, making peace through the body of His flesh.
6. In His love (Eph_3:19). Consider--
(1) The subject of it--the party loving us. That ever there should have been an eye of love cast from heaven on us, not from among the courtiers, but from the throne, the King Himself, is wonderful.
(2) The objects of it. Sinful men.
(3) The effect, force, and energy of this love. It is absolutely matchless.
(4) The qualities of it. Free; sovereign; preventing; tender; unchangeable; everlasting.
IV. APPLICATION.
1. Information.
(1) The greatness of the Fathers love in giving to us such a wonderful One for our Prince.
(2) The reasonableness of the believers superlative love to Christ.
(3) The reasonableness of the Gospel demand of all to receive and submit to Christ as their Prince and Governor. His transcendent excellency entitles Him to the principality and government over the sons of men. His merit requires our absolute resignation to Him. He is the Fathers choice, and in making that choice He has acted like Himself, having chosen for us this most wonderful personage.
(4) The dreadful sin and danger of slighting Christ. The more wonderful and excellent He is, the deeper will be the guilt of refusing Him; the deeper the guilt, the more fearful will be the vengeance for rejecting Him Heb_2:3).
2. Exhortation.
(1) Make Him the choice of your soul.
(2) Part with all for Him--your lust and idols; renounce the devil, the world, and the flesh, resting on Christ for all, for time and eternity.
(3) Dwell in the contemplation of His matchless excellencies. Let it be the substance of your religion to love Him, to admire Him, to be swallowed up in His love. (T. Boston.)
Who was Jesus Christ?
That is a question to which no man dares to be indifferent save at the peril of his soul. The great Unitarian minister, W.E. Channing, said, Love to Jesus Christ depends very little on our conception of His rank in the scale of being. I believe that remark to he profoundly wrong. On our views of the Person of Christ depend not only our love to Christ, but also our conception of Christianity. Christ is Christianity, and without clear views of His character and person our religious and moral he must be vague, unstable, like a house that is built upon the sand. Consider--
I. HIS WISDOM AS A TEACHER.
1. His originality. He never went to college. He had no learned tutors to instruct Him. Yet at the early age of thirty He taught the world the sublimest truths that man has ever heard. He belonged to none of the sects of His day. He had no great intellectual friends from whom He might gain flashes of suggestive thought. From the depths of mental and social obscurity, He went forth to proclaim a worldwide kingdom, and today, in the most cultivated nations, Christ ranks first of all the world. He did not teach by human methods. All others have had to prove the words they spoke. Christ simply and directly uttered truths, and His hearers saw that there was no contradicting Him. He did not speculate about God. He simply revealed the Father, and men felt that His words were true. Others had taught virtue before Christ. But how different was their teaching! Note especially Christs dealings with the poor. Christ was the first poor mans philosopher. And now, after eighteen centuries of weary strife and struggle, we are just beginning to see the transcendent wisdom of such a course of action.
2. His boldness in teaching. His mission was worldwide. Having never seen a map of this earth, He comes forth from the carpenters shop to inaugurate a kingdom more extensive than the sway of Alexander, more lasting than the firmament itself. And history is showing its success. He was the greatest reformer that ever lived. But He never started wild theories for facts to make sad havoc with. He laid down those principles of love, of doing to others as we would have them do to us, of righteousness, purity, truth, and justice, the same for rich and poor, those principles which alone can heal the wounds of society in the future as alone they have healed them in the past. Observe, too, the calmness of Jesus, under all circumstances. He was always calm, because He knew that in the long run He would succeed.
3. The consistency of His life with His doctrine. To preach a low standard of morality and live up to it is easy. But Christs standard is the very highest. Yet He lived up to it. All other teachers confess their shortcomings. Christ never does. Observe, too, the harmony of His character. All virtues unite in Him, and none in excess. Is not His name wonderful?
II. HIS INNOCENCE AND SINFULNESS. Most marvellous is His character in this respect. All our goodness begins with repentance. Not so His. He puts before us the highest form of morality, Be ye therefore perfect. But He never hints that He has need of penitence for shortcomings. Further, Jesus claims to be sinless, though He is full of sincerity and meekness. Now, no man could sham perfect holiness. No faulty man could claim to be faultless without soon displaying faults that would cover him with derision. Piety without an ounce of repentance, without any confession of sin, without one tear! Let any man try that sort of piety, and see how soon his assumed righteousness will appear most impudent conceit. When we think of His sinlessness, we must say, His name is Wonderful.
III. HIS INFLUENCE OVER OTHER MEN.
1. His influence as a Teacher is wonderful. We see in ethics far more than Socrates did. We see further in theology than Luther. Mathematicians have gone far beyond Euclid. Our children will see further than we do. But eighteen centuries have passed since the sun of humanity rose to its zenith in Jesus Christ; and what man, or what body of men, has mastered His thought and come up to His teachings, far less gone in advance of Him?
2. Observe the total change in the moral life of those who have accepted this Teacher. And His influence came from Himself. He was not supported by the authority of the Rabbis. He was in opposition to all the religious prejudices of His day. From a most sectarian nation, He was most unsectarian, proposing to found a universal kingdom embracing all nations, a religion for all the earth.
3. The influence of His Church. Villainous misdeeds have been done in the name of His Church. But the true Church never did these things, and her influence has been most beautiful. The world has never been the same since the holy steps of Jesus trod the soil of Palestine, and His sacred tears bedewed Mount Olivet. The hospital is an invention of Christian philanthropy. The degradation of woman, of which the pagan world was full, has been exchanged for a position of peculiar honour. The sensualism which paganism mistook for love has been put under the ban of true Christian feeling, and the chivalrous respect which all good men have for pure women, and the poetry of holy love, have come from the teachings of Jesus and His apostles. The old and universal sentiment of bitter hostility between races and nations is denounced in the severest terms, and has been largely toned down by Christianity. Look again at the enthusiasm which this wonderful Teacher instilled into the early Christians. Jesus Christ Himself is a greater miracle than the raising of Lazarus from the dead. We have not yet assumed the truth of His miracles. Yet is it not idle to deny these? How can we separate Christ from His miracles? And this Divine Jesus, whose name is Wonderful, who has been the support of our fathers in the days of old, is with us still. We need this marvellous Being in the strife of Christian duty. (F. W. Aveling, M. A. , B. Sc.)
Christ wonderful in His victories
1. Over the forces of nature.
(1) The sea is a crystal sepulchre. It swallowed the Central America, the President, and the Spanish Armada, as easily as any fly that ever floated on it. The inland lakes are fully as terrible in their wrath. Recent travellers tell us that Galilee, when aroused in a storm, is overwhelming. And yet that sea crouched in His presence and licked His feet. He knew all the waves and the wind. When He beckoned, they came. When He frowned, they fled. The heel of His foot made no indentation on the solidified water.
(2) Medical science has wrought great changes in rheumatic limbs and diseased blood; but when the muscles are entirely withered, no human power can restore them; and when a limb is once dead, it is dead. But here is a paralytic--his hand lifeless. Christ says to him, Stretch forth thy hand; and he stretches it forth. In the eye infirmary, how many diseases of that delicate organ have been cured! But Jesus says to one born blind, Be open! and the light of heaven rushes through gates that have never before been opened,
(3) The frost or an axe may kill a tree: but Jesus smites one dead with a word.
(4) Chemistry can do many wonderful things; but what chemist, at a wedding when the refreshment gave out, could change a pail of water into a cask of wine?
(5) What human voice could command a school of fish? Yet here is a voice that marshals the scaly tribes, until, in the place where they had let down the net and pulled it up with no fish in it, they let it down again, and the disciples lay hold and begin to pull, when, by reason of the multitude of fish, the net brake.
2. Behold His victory over the grave. Here comes the Conqueror of death. He enters that realm, and says, Daughter of Jairus, sit up! and she sat up. To Lazarus, Come forth! and he came forth. To the widows son He said, Get up from that bier! and he goes home with his mother. Then Jesus snatched up the keys of death, and hung them to His girdle, and cried, until all the graveyards of the earth heard Him: O death, I will be thy plagues! O grave, I will be thy destruction!
3. But Christs victories have only just begun. The world is His, and He must have it. (T. De W. Talmage, D. D.)
The wonderful name
I. JESUS CHRIST IS THE MOST WONDERFUL BEING THIS WORLD EVER SAW.
1. Because of the number and character of the prophecies announcing His advent and mission.
2. Because of what He said of Himself. He distinctly declared that He existed before He was born. Before Abraham was I am. Now, in the matter of natural birth, man is utterly without choice or control, nor is he consulted as to his coming, whether it shall be now or in the future, this place or that. But Jesus Christ declared that He had perfect control in all these matters,--control in coming, and control in going,--No man taketh away My life. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. He actually said He was God. He invited all to come to Him for pardon and eternal life, and declared that, if they did not so come, they should all die in their sins. He said He had power to call to His aid twelve legions of angels, who would gladly tender Him celestial protection, if required.
3. Because of what He did. His life was filled with deeds of sympathy and self-sacrificing benevolence. He assumed and exerted perfect control, both in the physical and moral world.
4. Because of what He was. Great is the mystery of godliness; God manifest in the flesh. Omnipotence clothed in frailty.
II. JESUS CHRIST IS THE MOST WONDERFUL BEING IN HEAVEN. Not that He is an intruder, or a newcomer. He was at home in heaven, and dwelt amid the underived glory of His Godhead before man or angel was created. He is the most wonderful Being in heaven because of--
1. His history. He has a history of honour and glory in heaven, and a history of unspeakable sorrow and suffering on earth.
2. His relationship. He appears in heaven in the unique relationship of Brother and Redeemer of our race, and Son of God.
3. His work. Through the glorified human lips of Jesus Christ the Divine mandates for the control of the universe are now uttered. The feet once spiked to the Cross now rest upon the throne. Through the Person and work of this wonderful Being, redeemed humanity is elevated to the very Person and throne of the Deity. (T. Kelly.)
Christ wonderful in the magnetism of His person
After the battle of Antietam, when a general rode along the lines, although the soldiers were lying down exhausted, they rose with great enthusiasm and huzzaed. As Napoleon returned from his captivity, his first step on the wharf shook all the kingdoms, and two hundred and fifty thousand men joined his standard. It took three thousand troops to watch him in his exile. So there have been men of wonderful magnetism of person. But hear me while I tell you of a poor young man who came up from Nazareth to produce a thrill such as has never been excited by any other. (T. De W. Talmage, D. D.)
The birth of the Wonderful
Christmas marks the birth time of the matchless Christ. In what respect was He wonderful!
I. WONDERFUL IN CHARACTER.
II. WONDERFUL IN HIS TEACHING.
III. WONDERFUL AS TO HIS MISSION. (B. P. Grenoble.)
No extravagance in Christ
No one can at all appreciate the wonder fulness of Christ who does not consider its freedom from the merely marvellous. Has not the element of wonder in human history always had as its drawback and bane the tendency to extravagance? It cannot keep within bounds. Its disease is unnaturalness, exaggeration, grotesqueness. It piles marvel on marvel, outraging all sense of proportion. It defies every feeling of the ludicrous. It delights in trampling on the understanding, and finds a merit and satisfaction in receiving the monstrous and contradictory. Is not this the characteristic of all mythologies, and not least of the history of Buddha, whom some have ventured to mention along with Christ? The wonderfulness of Christ is not marvellous. It is not something to astonish. It has a meaning and a purpose prior to that and above it. His is not the marvellousness of the aurora borealis, but of the eastern aurora, the dawn It is not the marvellousness of an architectural monument meant to exhibit the resources of art and wealth, but the architecture of a temple for God and man to dwell in. His is not the marvellousness of a gigantic tree, but of the tree of life producing medicine and food; not the splendour of a vast orb of fire, but of the sun that rays out life to the worlds. There is no part of Christs wonderfulness which does not serve a great end and occupy a distinct and necessary place. (J. Leckie, D. D.)
His name--Wonderful
I. Christ shall be called Wonderful FOR WHAT HE WAS IN THE PAST.
1. Consider His eternal existence, begotten of His Father from before all worlds, being of the same substance with His Father; begotten, not made, co-equal, co-eternal, in every attribute, very God of very God.
2. Consider, again, the incarnation of Christ, and you will rightly say that His name deserveth to be called Wonderful.
3. Trace the Saviours course, and all the way He is wonderful.
4. Christ is surpassingly wonderful.
5. He is not a nine days wonder. He is and ever shall be wonderful. He is altogether wonderful.
6. He is universally wondered at.
II. He is Wonderful FOR WHAT HE IS IN THE PRESENT.
III. His name shall be called Wonderful IN THE FUTURE. As the Judge. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Counsellor
Christ the Counsellor
This syllable of His name refers to His singular capacity for management of matters. Other princes must have their counsellors, by whose advice they may act: but He Himself is, and shows Himself to be, Counsellor, an oracle of government, a Prince in whose own breast is the oracle for right management of all things relating to His dominion.
I. IN WHAT RESPECTS IS CHRIST THE COUNSELLOR?
1. He is of the secret council of heaven (Zec_6:13). He is a member of the cabinet council of heaven, to which the most favourite angel is not admitted. There is nothing transacted there, nor has been from eternity, but what He is acquainted with (Joh_5:20). With His Father and the Spirit He is of the council.
2. He is the oracle of counsel for the earth (Joh_1:18; Mat_11:27).
(1) He is the Counsellor of the world of men.
(a) In respect of office.
(b) Of capacity (Col_2:3).
(2) He is the Counsellor of the visible Church.
(a) He consults her interest, for her protection and preservation in the world.
(b) He is still actively counselling her by His Word.
(3) He is the Counsellor of the invisible Church, and of every particular believer in it.
II. WHAT IS THE IMPORT OF THIS PART OF CHRISTS NAME?
1. He is of singular wisdom for the conduct and management of affairs Isa_11:2-3). The fulness of the Spirit of wisdom is lodged in Him. He is wisdom itself, the eternal wisdom of the Father (Pro_8:1-36). And His children are wisdoms children (Mat_11:19).
2. He is a Prince of great and noble designs and projects, requiring counsel and wisdom (1Ti_2:5-6; Psa_49:7-8; 1Pe_1:18-19; Joh_17:24).
3. He can manage all by Himself and needs no counsel of men. The name of the wisest on earth may be Consulter (Pro_11:14). But He is so far a Counsellor that He is a consulter of none (Rom_11:34).
(1) His understanding is infinite.
(2) His counsels were all concerted before we had a being.
(3) The execution of them was begun entirely without us.
(4) How often have we seen that our counsels, had they been mixed with those of the great Counsellor, would have marred all?
4. His manner of conduct and method of management are deep and uncommon (Mat_14:25, etc.).
5. He does nothing without a becoming reason
6. He manages all with a depth of wisdom.
7. He is the best Counsellor--there is none like Him.
III. IMPROVEMENT.
1. Take Him for your Counsellor, renouncing all other.
(1) Renounce your own wisdom.
(2) Renounce the counsel of the world.
(3) Take Christ for your Counsellor, instead of all other (Isa_55:4).
2. Follow the counsel that He is giving you. He is counselling you in the Gospel--
(1) To believe in Himself.
(2) To be holy.
3. Make use of Christ as a Counsellor, by consulting Him daily. (T. Boston.)
Christ the best Counsellor
I. CONFIRM THE TRUTH OF THIS ASSERTION.
1. He is of the Fathers choice and nomination for a Counsellor to us--made of God unto us wisdom.
2. He is the saints choice in all ages for a Counsellor.
3. He never misses the point in His counselling.
II. WHEREIN DOTH CHRIST COUNSEL SINNERS!
1. In their greatest concerns, their concerns for eternity.
2. In their lesser concerns, the things of time.
III. HOW DOTH CHRIST GIVE HIS COUNSEL?
1. He proposes His counsel in and by His Word.
2. He clears and opens and confirms it by His providence.
3. He makes it effectual by His Holy Spirit. (T. Boston.)
Christ the Counsellor
Christ is our Counsellor upon a threefold account--
1. As He hath rectified our notions of the Deity and turned us from the worship of dumb idols, to serve the living and true God.
2. As He hath taught us the truths of the moral law, and the real difference between good and evil.
3. As He hath instructed us in the means whereby we may obtain everlasting salvation. (W. Reading, M. A.)
Messiah the Counsellor
The word is employed in the Bible frequently of those who assisted in the councils of kings. Jonathan, the uncle of David, was called a wise counsellor to his prince; Ahithophel, the wisest man of his day, was termed the kings counsellor, the kings adviser. And thus it is constantly employed of a person giving sound and wise advice. The name, then, evidently implies these three things respecting Him--
I. THAT HE SHOULD POSSESS ADEQUATE WISDOM.
1. When He came into the world He descended from the bosom of God.
2. As He was acquainted with God, He was acquainted with man. He searches the reins and the hearts. He therefore has wisdom enough to guide His people through time to eternity, and to be their most effectual and safest Counsellor.
II. THAT HE SHOULD COMMUNICATE THIS WISDOM BY POSITIVE INSTRUCTION. And this includes the fulfilment of an earlier promise, made by Moses to the Church of God, The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, like unto me. Jesus came, then, to be this Prophet, to speak with authority from God, and thus to communicate that instruction to mankind, and especially to believers, which was needful for their welfare, He came, according to the Divine appointment, to reveal the character of God, which He knew; to communicate to mankind that amount of knowledge respecting God which they were capable of receiving. He could therefore say repeatedly, when He was upon earth, that He had manifested the name of God (that is, His character) to His disciples, who received His instruction.
III. THAT HE SHOULD URGE AND PERSUADE MEN TO RECEIVE THAT INSTRUCTION. The Lord Jesus Christ still communicates His Spirit to men, in order to open their understandings and their hearts; just as He did when at the outpouring of His Spirit on the day of Pentecost three thousand were subdued at once by the Gospel, and disregarding all the differences in their circumstances, and putting away from them all considerations of worldly ease or comfort altogether, at once embraced the Gospel of Christ,--just as much does Jesus Christ now communicate His Spirit, to subdue men to Himself, and is thus their effectual Counsellor. He has given instruction by His Word, but He makes that instruction effectual by His Spirit. (B. W. Noel, M. A.)
His name--the Counsellor
It was by a counsellor that this world was ruined. Did not Satan mask himself in the serpent, and counsel the woman, with exceeding craftiness, that she should take unto herself of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in the hope that thereby she should be as God? It was meet that the world should have a Counsellor to restore it, if it had a counsellor to destroy it. But mark the difficulties that surrounded such a Counsellor. Tis easy to counsel mischief; but how hard to counsel wisely!
I. Christ may well be called Counsellor, for He is a COUNSELLOR WITH GOD. It hath been revealed to us that before the world was, when as yet God had not made the stars, the Almighty did hold a solemn conclave with Himself; Father, Son, and Spirit held a mystic council with each other, as to what they were about to do.
II. Christ is a Counsellor in the sense which the LXX translation appends to this term. He is said to be THE ANGEL OF THE GREAT COUNCIL. Do you and I want to know what was said and done in the great council of eternity? There is only one glass through which we can look back to the dim darkness of the shrouded past and read the counsels of God, and that glass is the Person of Jesus Christ. You may find out whether you are among His chosen ones. Christ is the Angel of the covenant, and you can find it out by looking to Him.
III. CHRIST IS A COUNSELLOR TO US. A man without a counsellor, I think, must of necessity go wrong. Woe unto the man that hath got a bad counsellor.
1. Christ is a necessary Counsellor.
2. Christs counsel is faithful counsel. How often do our friends counsel us craftily!
3. Christs counsel is hearty counsel.
4. Christ has special counsels for each of us. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The mighty God
Christ the mighty God
I. CHRIST IS THE TRUE GOD.
1. The Scripture expressly calls Him so (Joh_1:1; Ac Rom_9:5; 1Jn_5:20).
2. The attributes of God, distinguishing Him from all created beings, are ascribed to Him.
3. The works peculiar to God alone are done by Him and ascribed to Him.
4. Divine worship, which must be given to God alone, is due to Him.
5. He is equal with the Father.
II. THE MAN CHRIST IS THE MIGHTY ONE.
1. He does and has done works that no other could do.
2. He has all at His command in heaven and earth, whether created persons or things.
3. Being God as wall as man His power is infinite.
III. APPLICATION.
1. This serves to refute the heresy of those who impugn the supreme Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2. It speaks terror to all the enemies of Christ.
3. It speaks comfort to the Church and every believer in their low estate.
4. It serves to exhort all to take Him for their Prince. (T. Boston.)
His name--the almighty God
Other translations of this Divine title have been proposed by several very eminent and able scholars. Not that they have any of them been prepared to deny that this translation is after all most accurate; but rather that whilst there are various words in the original, which we render by the common appellation of God, it might be possible so to interpret this as to show more exactly its definite meaning. One writer, for example, thinks the term might be translated The Irradiator,--He who gives light to men. Some think it bears the meaning of TheIllustrious,--the bright and the shining One. Still there are very few, if any, who are prepared to dispute the fact that our translation is the most faithful that could possibly be given. the mighty God.
I. THE FOLLY OF THOSE WHO PROFESS TO BE THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, YET DO NOT, AND WILL NOT, CALL HIM GOD. It is His being verily God, that frees Him from the charge of blasphemy. It is the fact that He is God, and that His Godhead is not to be denied, that makes His death an unrighteous decide at the hand of apostate man, and renders it, as before God, an acceptable sacrifice for the sins of the people.
II. HOW DO WE CALL CHRIST, THE MIGHTY GOD? It is Our delight and our privilege to attribute to Him the attributes of Deity.
1. In hours of devout contemplation how often do we look up to Him as being the eternal Son. In doing so we have virtually called Him the mighty God; because none but God could have been from everlasting to everlasting. How frequently do we repeat over to ourselves that precious verse, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Do you not see that you have in fact called Him God, because none but God is immutable!
3. Is it not also our joy to believe that wherever two or three are gathered together in Christs name, there is He in the midst of them? Have we not ascribed to Christ omnipresence, and who can be omnipresent but God! How is it possible for us to dream of Him as being in the bosom of His
Father, with the angels, and in the hearts of the contrite all at the same time, if He be not God?
4. We call Him the mighty God in many of His offices.
(1) Mediator between God and man. There is no mediatorship unless the hand in put on both, and who could put his hand on God but God!
(2) Saviour. I could not put my trust in any being that was merely created.
III. HOW CHRIST HAS PROVED HIMSELF TO US TO BE THE MIGHTY GOD. This Child born, this Son given, came into the world to enter the lists against sin. For thirty years and upwards He had to struggle against temptations more numerous and terrible than man had ever known before. And yet, without sin or taint of sin, more than conqueror He stood. We know also that Christ proved Himself to be the mighty God from the fact that at last all the sins of all His people were gathered upon His shoulders, and He bare them in His own body on the tree. But He did more than this--when He led captivity captive, add crushed death and ground his iron limbs to powder, He proved Himself then the mighty God. Oh, my soul, thou canst say that He has proved Himself in thy heart to be a mighty God. I beg and beseech of you all, come add put your trust in Jesus Christ; He is the mighty God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Jesus the mighty God
I. HE OF WHOM THE PROPHET SPEAKS IS THE MIGHTY GOD.
II. IN WHAT SENSE THE CHILD BORN MAY BE CALLED THE MIGHTY GOD. Not that the humanity is deified, or the Deity humanised. Humanity is still humanity, Deity is still Deity. But so united in one person that that which is peculiar to one nature is often ascribed to the other (Act_20:28; Joh_3:13).
III. THE GREATNESS OF HIS ACTS IN REGARD TO THAT CHURCH TO WHOM HE IS GIVEN.
1. He bare her sins. And had He not been the mighty God, as well as man, He never could.
2. Besides this, He wrought out a perfect righteousness for His Church. He conquered all her enemies, sin, Satan, and the world, those three strong ones.
3. He converts the hardest heart, working mightily by His own gracious Almighty Spirit.
4. He supports the feeblest grace, carries on the work which He has begun. What mighty effects He accomplishes by the simplest means! He bears up the most timid and desponding spirit, binds up with His own hand, by His own Spirit, with His own blood.
5. And what shall we say of that mighty God, in all His mighty doings, when He shall raise the dead, judge the world, destroy sin, and in the new heavens and the new earth give His saints the eternal possession of Himself, and of God in Himself? (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
Jesus the mighty God
The surrounding nations, Egypt and Assyria, gave great names to their gods. Look upon the inscriptions on the pillars in the time of Sargon. One Assyrian king was called The great king, the king unrivalled; the protector of the just; the noble warrior. If Isaiah wrote in a time of great names he, by this conception of an appellation, threw all other cognomens into contempt. The mighty God. The word is not Elohim, a word under which a species of subdivinity could be classified: Said I not unto you, Ye are gods? That word is El, a word which is never applied but to Jehovah, and which is never used but as connoting the innermost essence of ineffable Deity. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The everlasting Father
The everlasting Father
The tender, faithful, and wise trainer, guardian, and provider of His own in eternity (Isa_22:21). (F. Delitzsch.)
The everlasting Father
Abiding in protection, as the Father of His people. (B. Blake, B. D.)
Christ the everlasting Father
I. IN WHAT RESPECTS CHRIST IS THE EVERLASTING FATHER.
II. WHAT A FATHER HE IS.
III. IMPROVE THE SUBJECT. (T. Boston.)
Christians bear Christs image
1. Conformity to Christ in His holiness.
2. Conformity to Christ in His sufferings. (T. Boston.)
Jesus the everlasting Father
I. CHRIST IS CALLED FATHER.
1. Not in respect to the eternal Three. He is the Son in this point of view.
2. But as one with Him, and the Eternal Spirit, in the unity of the same Godhead.
3. He is the Father of His people. He shall see His seed (Isa_53:10).
4. He is their spiritual life (Gal_2:20).
II. HE IS CALLED THE EVERLASTING FATHER. He ever lives. He is Life. He ever loves. His blessings are everlasting. (J. H. Evans, M. A.)
The everlasting Father
To be the Father of eternity is to have eternity, and to rule in eternity--to be the Lord of eternity. That is the meaning of it; and so Christ Jesus, who hath the government upon His shoulders, hath it on His shoulders forever and forever. But the eternity spoken of here is not the eternity that is bygone; it is the ongoing and unending duration that lies before us, and Christ Jesus is Lord and Ruler of all. No doubt He who can hold the future eternity in His hand, and who can rule all its affairs, must have been Himself the Unbeginning and Eternal One; and the Scriptures leave no doubt about that being the attribute of the Lord Jesus Christ. But that august tribute of being from everlasting to everlasting is not what is strictly before: us here. It is the duration from the time that Christ became human onwards.
I. Jesus Christ is the Father of the eternity that lies before and goes on, because He Himself lives forever. He is POSSESSOR; He has it (Psa_102:25-27, and Heb_1:10-12). The fact that the Lord Jesus Christ in humanity is to live forever is a stupendous expectation and belief. Sometimes it has seemed to me as if it were more wonderful than the mere incarnation. That this is an important thought appears from two considerations.
1. It is a part of the Divine promise of the Father to the Lord Jesus Christ Isa_53:10).
2. It is a thing for which Christ Himself prayed as part of His Fathers promise (Psa_21:4). And so the Lord Jesus Christ thus in human nature lives forever and ever. But that implies that His work was finished to the Fathers satisfaction; to live forever was a proof that God the Father regarded Christs work as finished--this same title, Father of eternity, hath in germ within it the great facts of Christs resurrection and ascension and session in glory. And so when John, in Apocalyptic vision, beheld Him as the Son of man, he heard Him thus speak: Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, amen; and have the keys of Hades and of death. Application--
1. To Gods people. What a Saviour they have! They need never fear that they will be without His care. They could not find a world in all the universe where He is not with them, and they cannot live on to any age when He shall cease to be their light and King.
2. The same thing brings comfort to every sinner; for is it not written, He is able to save to the uttermost, them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for the? Mark, it does not say seeing He died--if that is all that could have been said, it would not have ever availed for the comfort and salvation of sinners--but seeing that, having died, He ever liveth to make intercession for them.
II. The Lord Jesus Christ is ORIGINATOR of this age that is spoken of. He made this forever, and gave it its grand characteristic; and all Gospel privilege that belongs to time, and all celestial enjoyment that belongs to eternity, we owe to Him.
III. Jesus Christ is CONTROLLER in this eternal age; the administration of its whole affairs is in His hands. The Author of our faith is the Ruler of its progress, and that not on earth alone, but in heaven. Can you doubt it, that when the Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, went back to the glory that He had with the Father before the world began, went back in human nature, and appeared among the saints in heaven--can you doubt that from that hour heaven was another thing even to the glorified, because the Lord that brought them there by His blood was amongst them? And so, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we read that we are come to the spirits of just men made perfect, which means to the Old Testament Church, perfected now in privilege; for at the 13 th verse of the eleventh chapter it is expressly said, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off. God willed that He should provide some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect,--that heaven itself should not, in privilege and glory, even to the saints that had gone home, be perfect until Christ Himself had introduced a new age, and gone Himself to heaven. (J. Edmond, D. D.)
His name--the everlasting Father
How complex is the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ! Almost in the same breath the prophet calls Him a Child, and a Counsellor, a Son, and the everlasting Father. This is no contradiction, and to us scarcely a paradox, but it is a mighty marvel. How forcibly this should remind us of the necessity of carefully studying and rightly understanding the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ! We must not suppose that we shall understand Him at a glance. A look will save the soul, but patient meditation alone can fill the mind with the knowledge of the Saviour. The light of the text divides itself into three rays--Jesus is everlasting; He is a Father; He is the everlasting Father.
I. Jesus Christ is EVERLASTING. Of Him we may sing, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A theme for great rejoicing on our part.
1. Jesus always was.
2. So also He is for evermore the same. Jesus is not dead; He ever liveth to make intercession for us.
3. Jesus, our Lord, ever shall be. The connection of the word Father with the word everlasting allows us very fairly to remark that our Lord is as everlasting as the Father, since He Himself is called the everlasting Father; for whatever antiquity paternity may imply is here ascribed to Christ. It is the manner of the Easterns to call a man the father of a quality for which he is remarkable. To this day, among the Arabs, a wise man is called the father of wisdom; a very foolish man the father of folly. The predominant quality in the man is ascribed to him as though it were his child, and he the father of it. Now, the Messiah is here called in the Hebrew the Father of eternity, by which is meant that He is preeminently the possessor of eternity as an attribute.
II. We come to the difficult part of the subject, namely, Christ being called FATHER. In what sense is Jesus a Father? Answer
1. He is federally a Father, representing those who are in Him, as the head of a tribe represents his descendants. The grand question for us is this, Are we still under the old covenant of works? If so, we have Adam to our father, and under that Adam we died. But are we under the covenant of grace? If so, we have Christ to our Father, and in Christ shall we be made alive. In this sense, then, Christ is called Father; and inasmuch as the covenant of grace is older than the covenant of works, Christ is, while Adam is not, the everlasting Father; and inasmuch as the covenant of works as far as we are concerned passes away, being fulfilled in Him, and the covenant of grace never passes but abideth forever, Christ, as the Head of the new covenant, the federal representative of the great economy of grace, is the everlasting Father.
2. Christ is a Father in the sense of a Founder. The Hebrews are in the habit of calling a man a father of a thing which he invents. For instance, in the fourth chapter of Genesis Jubal is called the father of such as handle the harp and organ; Jabal was the father of such as dwell in tents, and have cattle; not that these were literally the fathers of such persons, but the inventors of their occupations. The Lord Jesus Christ is, in this sense, the Father of a wonderful system--a great doctrinal system; a great practical system; a system of salvation.
3. Now there is a third meaning. The prophet may not so have understood it, but we so receive it, that Jesus is a Father in the great sense of a Lifegiver. That is the main sense of father to the common mind. Everything in us calls Christ Father. He is the Author and Finisher of our faith. If we love Him, it is because He first loved us. If we patiently endure, it is by considering Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself. He it is who waters and sustains all our graces. We may say of Him, All my fresh springs are in Thee. The Spirit brings us the water from this well of Bethlehem, but Jesus is the well itself.
4. The term implies that Jesus Christ is to be in the future, the patriarch of an age. So Pope in his famous poem of the Messiah understands it, and calls Him, the promised. Father of the future age
5. Christ may be called a Father in the loving and tender sense of a fathers office. God is called the Father of the fatherless, and Job says of himself, that he became a father to the poor. Now, albeit that the Spirit of adoption teaches us to call God our Father, yet it is not straining truth to say that our Lord Jesus Christ exercises to all His people a Fathers part. According to the old Jewish custom the elder brother was the father of the family in the absence of the father; the firstborn took precedence of all, and took upon him the fathers position; so the Lord Jesus, the firstborn among many brethren, exercises to us a fathers office. Is it not so? Has He not succoured us in all time of our need as a father succours his child? 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? 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; I will come unto you? As if His coming was the coming of a Father. If He be a Father, will we not give Him honour? If He be the head of the household, will we not give Him obedience?
III. We weigh the words, EVERLASTING FATHER. Christ is called the everlasting Father because He does not Himself, as a Father, die or vacate His once. He is still the federal Head and Father of His people; still the Founder of Gospel truth and of the Christian system; not allowing popes to be His vicars and to take His place. He is still the true Life giver, from whose wounds and by whose death we are quickened; He reigns even now as the patriarchal King; He is still the loving family Head; and so, in every sense, He lives as a Father. But here is a sweet thought. He neither Himself dies, nor becomes childless. He does not lose His children. He is the Author of an eternal system. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Prince of Peace
The Prince of Peace
How peaceful was the scene when the first Sabbath shone upon this world! How reversed was the scene of mans Sabbatism when sin entered to revolutionise it! It is a work of magnitude to which the Redeemer stands appointed when He is presented in the character of a pacificator to bring this strife to a happy conclusion for man.
I. WHAT ARE THE QUALIFICATIONS OF CHRIST FOR ACTING AS THE PRINCE OF PEACE?
1. His original personal excellence as the Only-begotten of the Father.
2. His Fathers ordination of Him to the office.
3. The meritoriousness of His work when substituted in the room of sinners.
4. The station to which He has been exalted and the executive power which has been lodged in His hand.
5. The fervency with which His heart is dedicated to the attainment of His object. Assemble, then, together these various items of qualification, and howsoever dreadful be the war in which man is naturally so unequally engaged, here we have a Prince all-sufficient to reduce it to peace in behalf of those who may accept His aid. That aid He offers to all.
II. THE PRINCIPAL ARTICLES OF THAT PEACE OF WHICH CHRIST IS, OR SHALL YET BE, THE MINISTERING PRINCE TO ALL THAT BELIEVE ON HIM.
1. The fundamental article of this great pacification is that He hath reconciled God to them. The principal idea conveyed in the text we maintain to be that God has in Christ devised a scheme whereby He may consistently leave off His anger, and not impute to mankind their trespasses.
2. In Christ we cease to war against ourselves. The sinners follies, his passions, his evil conscience, destroy him. By the gifts of the Spirit which He has secured for His people, He restrains, subdues, and controls their passions and appetites, through the lawlessness of which men so frequently bring ruin on their persons, their characters, and their fortunes; and altogether, so does He incline them to their duty that their conscience ceases to torment them with its upbraidings and shall even invigorate and gladden them with the smiles of its complacency.
3. Our Prince hath reconciled to us the angels. When the human race rebelled, zealous as they are for God, they participated in the wrath of their King, disowned man as their brother, and became the willing executors of His wrath. But when God becomes the Friend of the believer, the angels hasten to salute him as a recovered fellow subject and brother, and resume their emulousness of the honour to be made the ministering spirits of his salvation.
4. By the Prince of Peace reconciliation is effected between Jew and Gentile.
5. The fifth article of pacification is the general reconcilement of man to man, the destruction of selfishness, and the diffusion of benevolence. (W. Anderson, LL. D.)
Christ the Prince of Peace
I. PEACEFUL OF DISPOSITION.
1. He bears long with His enemies.
2. He bears much at the hands of His friends.
3. He is easy of access for poor sinners.
4. He is ready to forgive.
5. He is very familiar with His true subjects.
6. The afflicting of His people is, as it were, against the grain with Lam_3:33; 1Pe_1:6; Heb_12:10; Isa_63:9).
7. He bore His own sufferings with the utmost peaceableness, meekness, and patience.
II. PEACEFUL IN ACTION. Consider--
1. What peace is effected by this Prince of Peace?
(1) Peace with God.
(2) Peace among men.
(3) Peace within men, peace of conscience.
2. What is His work about that threefold peace?
(1) He purchased it by His precious blood.
(2) He makes the peace of His own efficacy. The covenant of grace is the covenant of peace, and He is the Mediator of it. He does, by His Spirit, bring the sinner into the covenant of peace, and by His intercession obtains peace with God for him. He, by the same Spirit, unites men to Himself by faith, and to one another in love.
(3) He maintains the peace made.
(4) He restores the peace when at any time it is disturbed Isa_57:18).
(5) He perfects the peace.
III. PEACEFUL IN RESPECT OF THE STATE OF HIS KINGDOM. He is the true Solomon (Peaceful); and no king of Israel had such a peaceable and prosperous reign as Solomon.
1. Every one of His subjects is, by His wise management, put in a state of Joh_16:33).
2. The peace of His kingdom is the fruit of war and victory in that war. What made Solomons reign so peaceable was Davids wars and victories. Our Lord Christ was a man of war; He fought and overcame sin, death, and the devil; and the peace of His kingdom now is the fruit of that.
3. Hence in His kingdom is the greatest wealth and abundance.
4. The good of His kingdom is advanced from all quarters, and there is nothing but is turned to the profit thereof, by the infinite wisdom of the Prince (Rom_8:28).
5. In the end the peace of His kingdom will be absolute. Solomons reign was more peaceable in the beginning than toward the end. But Christs kingdom is contrariwise; though, indeed, it will never end. But, at last, all occasion of disturbance, from without or from within, will be utterly cut off. (T. Boston.)
Christ the Prince of Peace
1. We learn from the Roman historians, that at the time of our Lords nativity, the temple of Janus at Rome was shut up, in token of a profound peace all over the world; for the Romans, being then lords of the world, had power to make peace or war as they pleased. But there was a special providence of God in it, that His blessed Son, the Prince of Peace, should be brought into the world in such a season of tranquillity. Accordingly we hear the angels proclaiming at His nativity. Peace on earth, and goodwill towards men.
2. When He came to preach the Gospel, He began His sermon, with Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers; bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. He calls upon His disciples to learn of Him to be meek and lowly in heart, that they might find rest for their souls. When He was apprehended and brought to His trial, He practised His own doctrine of meekness and patience. And when St. Peter drew his sword in His defence, He commanded him to put it up again, for, says He, all they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword.
3. When He took His leave of His disciples, He bequeathed peace to them, as the best legacy which He could leave them. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you. At His various appearances among them after His resurrection, He commonly saluted them with the blessing of peace.
4. One great end of our Lords coming into the world was, to break down the partition walls between all nations, and take away all party distinctions from among men.
5. The most signal act which entitles our Lord to the character of the Prince of Peace, is this, that He has reconciled us to God, and made an atonement for the sins of the whole world. (W. Reading, M. A.)
Christ the Prince of Peace
I. HE IS THE PEACE BRINGER, as He is the revealer of His Fathers peaceful designs towards His sinful creatures.
1. Point out the situation in which man stood in relation to God.
2. The office of Christ as the bringer of peace reminds us how God might have acted in relation to man.
3. But His love prompted Him to a design of rich and sovereign mercy.
4. He has developed this design through the medium of His Son, who, therefore, takes His title from His work--the Prince of Peace.
II. HE IS THE PEACEMAKER; the efficient means of procuring, and establishing peace between God and man.
1. His atonement made reconciliation for the sin of man.
2. By His mediatorial office He secures peace for us individually.
III. HE IS A PRINCELY GIVER OF PEACE.
I. It is a knowledge of His sacrifice which gives peace to the troubled conscience.
2. By Him we receive the grace of the Holy Spirit which gives peace from the power of sin.
3. He brings us into a state of communion with God, so that we enjoy peace.
4. The peace which Jesus gives endures through all troubles and in spite of all enemies.
5. He gives eternal peace and rest in heaven.
IV. THE FOUNDATION AND SUPPORT OF HIS KINGDOM ON EARTH IS PEACE.
1. It Was founded without the intervention of violence or carnal weapons.
2. Its very essence consists in the influence of peaceful doctrines.
3. In the promotion of His kingdom He employs none but peaceable means. (The Evangelist.)
The Prince of Peace
I. HE POSSESSES PEACE. He possesses it as none other does, in greater measure, the abundance of it. It is all at His command. He is the Prince or Monarch of it.
1. He is in a world where the noise of our strife and tumult never reaches. Discord is never known there, change is never experienced.
2. And then we must try to get into His mysterious soul, and see the eternal calm which reigns there day after day, year after year, age after age, unbroken. All is as quiet within as around Him. And it is not the quiet of inaction or indifference, of a clod of earth or a stone; His mind is ever working and ever feeling, and with an energy which to us is inconceivable; but yet His mind is never ruffled.
II. HE EXERCISES PEACE.
1. Look at Him as He trod our earth. The meek and quiet lamb was an image of Him.
2. He bears long with His enemies.
3. He bears much, too, with His friends.
4. There must, then, be a mighty inclination to peace where things are thus.
III. HE BESTOWS OR DISPENSES PEACE. God is often called in Scripture the God of that which He communicates. In this way may our Lord be called the Prince of Peace.
1. Our peace with God flows from Him.
2. And peace, too, among men.
3. Peace of conscience and peace of mind are His gifts.
IV. HE DELIGHTS IN PEACE. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
Messiah, the Prince of Peace
Christ, our blessed Lord, does evidently by establishing peace in each bosom of His people, peace in each family of His disciples, peace in each congregation of His saints, and peace in all His Churches, lead directly to the establishment of international peace throughout the world. (B. W. Noel, M. A.)
Apparent contradictions
When we receive this prediction of our Lord, and reflect upon it, we are met with some contradictions to it, which are both apparent and most effectual. Our Lord, when He was upon earth, declared on the contrary--I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword. Accordingly, He further told His disciples that they must expect to be hated of all men, and to be hated of all nations. He warned them, that the feuds that should arise through His doctrine, would poison the peace of families; the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child. He warned them, that there should be public persecution as well as private, and that they should be dragged before governors and kings for His sake, and scourged in public. Universal war, then, rather than peace, seemed to be predicted as the result of the doctrine of Christ. And have not facts, up to this day, answered to these predictions? Ten imperial persecutions, extended over the most civilised parts of the world, threatened through three centuries the extermination of the Church of Christ: in which every atrocity was committed, and the barbarous ingenuity of man taxed to the utmost extent to devise new torments to make the servants of Jesus Christ suffer, And when heathenism was subdued by the power of the Gospel, and ceased to reign, it was only that this other prediction might be accomplished fearfully in the earth; so that the saints of Jesus Christ became His martyrs throughout Europe. Papal Rome succeeded to the enmity of pagan Rome: in the valleys of Piedmont, and along the plains of France, and throughout the Low Countries, and in England also, as well as, in the time of the Reformation, throughout Italy and Spain, everywhere accomplishing what Christ by His apostle had predicted, and bringing myriads of the saints of Jesus to public martyrdom; massacring without mercy the feeblest and the strongest, young and old, and threatening the extermination of the Church of Christ. And this led to still more extensive offerings to the sanguinary dispositions of man; great and long protracted wars following these massacres. Witness the wars of the Hussites in Bohemia, the wars of the Huguenots in France, to mention no other civil commotions, to which the doctrine of Christ has seemed to lead. And then, when the sword was sheathed, and nation was not imbruing its hands in the blood of other nations for the sake of theology, even then the different Churches of Christ raged in enmity one towards the other: factions that have not ceased to this day, so that the governments of the world find questions of theology and ecclesiastical rivalry still mingling with the counsels of senates, and embarrassing all their decisions. Is this the peace which Christ came to produce? In what sense is He the Prince of Peace? (B. W. Noel, M. A.)
The Prince of Peace not responsible for strife and violence
These evils that have arisen from the doctrine of Christ, and which, perhaps, have made that doctrine occasion more bloodshed than any single cause that has afflicted mankind, do not in the least degree detract from the glory of this great Monarch, this adorable Saviour, who after all establishes beyond all question at once, to the minds of all who believe on Him, His claim to be the Prince of Peace, throughout the universe. If the servants of Jesus Christ were sent forth by Him as sheep among wolves, and the wolves have torn the sheep in every land, it is not the fault of the sheep that these raging persecutions have taken place. If He has sent forth His disciples to love one another, and to love all mankind, it is not the fault of Him, nor His doctrine, nor His people, if apostates from His faith have chosen to carry His abused name upon their foreheads, and under that name to persecute with a violence which would have stamped infamy even upon heathenism, those who loved Him and served Him the best in the earth. And, if those who have even followed Him with honesty of purpose, have yet been so ill instructed in His declared will, or have sinfully given way to the weakness of their tempers, so that those have quarrelled for ages, who by His express authority ought to have been one in Him, it is not to be ascribed to His doctrine, but to their faults. And all this evil, great as it unquestionably is, and though it has fed the mirth of the infidel age after age, is transitory still, preparatory still; and still does the strong and stead fast faith of His people carry forward their thought to that day when transient evil will only end in lasting good, and when, after all impediments have been swept, away: He will still reign everywhere and always as the Prince of Peace. (B. W. Noel, M. A.)
All creation at war with the sinner
When God wars against the sinner, all creation must war. The earth wars against him in its barrenness, its poisons, its inundations, its earthquakes and volcanoes. The atmosphere wars against him in its storms and thunders, and winds breathing pestilence. The beasts war against him, thirsting for his blood, and pursuing him as their prey. His neighbour wars against him, slandering him, robbing him, oppressing him, and murdering him. The angels war against him, executing the judgments of their insulted King. He wars against himself, his own passions enslaving and destroying him, and his conscience stinging him with deadly remorse. The grave and hell have marked him for their victim. Oh, how beautiful, then, upon the mountains are the feet of Him that publisheth peace. (W. Anderson, LL. D.)
The good time coming
What a day that will be when museums shall be erected to preserve as curiosities the implements and accoutrements of war, that the children of the new age may study the old barbaric times which shall have passed away as a bad dream! (P. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The Prince of Peace
It would be ridiculous to depict the Lord Jesus with a rifle over His shoulder. (Josiah Mee.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv6–7 Isa_9:6. For unto us a Child is born, &c.
THE TITLES AND GOVERNMENT OF CHRIST
Isa_9:6. For unto us a Child is born, &c.
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I. The Incarnation and Government of Jesus Christ. Let us contemplate Him,
1. As the Incarnate One. “Unto us a child is born” (H. E. I. 846–853).
2. As a gift of Heaven to a fallen world. “Unto us a Son is given.”
3. As advanced to supreme rule and authority. “The government shall be upon His shoulder.
II. The names and characters by which He is distinguished. “His name,” &c.
III. The adaptation of these Qualities to the purposes of His spiritual reign.
1. We need wisdom, and He is the “Counsellor.”
2. We need reconciliation to God, and He is our “Peace.”
3. We need support under the calamities of life, and this He gives us, for He is the “Mighty God.”
4. We need comfort under the fears of death, and this He gives as “The Father of the Everlasting Age.”—George Smith, D.D.
THE GOVERNMENT OF CHRIST
Isa_9:6. The government shall be on His shoulder, &c.
Let me caution you against mistaking this government for that essential dominion which belongeth to our blessed Lord as God. To suppose that this had been given to our Lord would be to deny His essential Godhead. The government here spoken of is one that He receives: a delegated government as the Mediator of the covenant: that which we are told (1Co_15:24-28) He will hereafter deliver up to the Father. Three particulars we may point out, in which He exercises this dominion. I. He rules for His Church, as “The Lamb in the midst of the throne.” II. He rules in His Church, being its alone King and Lawgiver. The Church is never for one moment to assume the power of legislation; it belongs not to her, but to Him: she has the executive—nothing more—to obey His laws, to carry them out according to the mind of Him who framed them. III. There is a third power—that which He exercises in the souls of His true subjects, ruling in and over them by the power of His own blessed Spirit.—J. H. Evans, M.A.: Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vii. p. 337.
In this verse we have a constellation of titles, all of which illustrate the essential dignity and mediatorial claims of Jesus, and tend to awaken the confidence of the Church. The very first declaration, His “name shall be called Wonderful,” fitly prepares us for all that is to follow, teaching us to expect something beyond the ordinary works of God. He is “wonderful” in His incarnation, in His government, in the counsels He originates, in the divinity of His nature, in the eternity of His existence, in the results of His mediatorial rule, for He is “the Prince of Peace,” swaying the sceptre of mercy over an apostate and disordered world. There is a beautiful consistency in all this; for if the government of earth and heaven, the sovereignty of the Church and of the world, is to be exercised by the Redeemer, it is necessary that He should be possessed of attributes equal to its immense responsibilities. But these attributes are His, and hence the command, “Rejoice, for the Lord reigneth!”
I. It is a cause of peculiar rejoicing to all good men that the government of the world is in the hands of Christ. Their interest and joy in this fact arise—
1. From the near and sacred relation in which Jesus stands to them.
2. From the glorious perfectness of His character, which guarantees the wisdom and blessedness of His sway.
3. From the changelessness, perpetuity, and destined universality of His rule.
II. The sovereignty of Christ affords great relief in contemplating the abject condition of the heathen world. The heathen have been given to Him for His inheritance, and He will certainly deliver them from the superstitions and miseries by which they are oppressed.
III. This fact gives us a deep interest in beholding the vast extent of the universe of God. Every part of it is but a province in Christ’s boundless empire.—Samuel Thodey.
HIS NAME … WONDERFUL
Isa_9:6. His name shall be called Wonderful, &c.
I. Christ is wonderful in His nature. He is wonderful,
1. in respect of His essential Godhead.
2. In respect of His perfect manhood. All excellences were combined in him as a man, unlike even His most eminent servants, who are distinguished for the possession of special graces, which too often are clouded by some opposite defect.
3. In respect of the union in Him of Deity and humanity (1Ti_3:16).
II. Christ is wonderful in His offices, at once Prophet, Priest, and King.
1. As a Prophet, what wonderful disclosures He has made to us of the Divine nature and will, and of human duty and destiny; with what wonderful authority He spoke; with what wonderful completeness and beauty He fulfilled all His own commandments!
2. As a Priest, how wonderfully He was at once sacrifice and offerer: how wonderfully He still carries on the work of reconciliation (Rom_8:34).
3. As a King, how wonderfully He rules, with omnipotent power, yet with lamblike gentleness.
III. Christ is wonderful in His relation to His people.
1. In the care He exercises over them (Eze_34:11-16).
2. In the abundance of the grace which He ministers to them (2Co_12:9; Joh_1:16; H. E. I. 936).
3. In His condescending thoughtfulness for each one of them (Joh_10:3; Joh_10:14-15) [905]
4. In the perfectness of His sympathy with them. He identifies Himself so entirely with His people, that they have not a single care, trial, or temptation of any sort, but it is as much His as it is theirs (H. E. I. 952–961).—J. H. Evans, M.A.: Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vii. pp. 336–348.
[905] Oh, how “wonderful” must He be, that suits Himself to the cares of all, as if He had but one! cares for each as much as He cares for all, and cares for each as if he were all! We are lost in this deep. I sometimes get some light from this thought:—Why, the sun can shine into the attic as well as into the Queen’s palace; it occasions no difficulty to the sun. Blessed Jesus! there is no difficulty for Thee to supply all our minutest wants; in Thee there is the abundance of power, and quite as great an abundance of love.—J. H. Evans, M.A.
We are continually struck with one marked contrast between the greatness that is human and the greatness that is Divine: human greatness the more it is examined the less wonderful it appears, but Divine productions, the more closely they are investigated the more brightly they shine. We shall see that Christ is wonderful, if we consider—I. The excellences that compose His mediatorial character. God and man! Nor is this a wonder to men only (1Pe_1:12). II. The stupendous blessings He bestows on His friends. III. The reserves of glory which He waits to exhibit in now unseen and future worlds.
Behold Him, and
1. Never hesitate to acknowledge Him as your Saviour and Lord.
2. Yield a ready obedience to His authority.
3. Anticipate His coming in glory.—Samuel Thodey.
CHRIST OUR COUNSELLOR
Isa_9:6. His name shall be called … Counsellor, &c.
I. How Christ may be our Counsellor. Immediate, close, and confidential intercourse is involved in our idea of taking counsel. When we are in perplexity, we lay the whole matter before a friend in whose wisdom we trust. So we may spread our difficulties before Christ in prayer. Thus far, all is clear. But how can we receive from Christ the answer and guidance we seek? How does an earthly friend help us in such a case? By producing a certain impression on our mind. He may do it by spoken words, by letter, or even by a gesture. The manner is unimportant. So Christ guides us by producing impression on our mind; how, we know not, nor does it matter greatly. The well-instructed Christian seeks counsel from Christ in all things. He prays for daily guidance. Special difficulties he makes matter of special prayer. Then, upon the mind previously made calm and willing, there comes a sense of rectitude, and a feeling of resolution. One course, generally that which involves most self-denial and manifests least self-dependence, comes prominently forth in strong relief, as most to be preferred. Its advantages each moment look clearer and brighter; its consistency with his religious profession, conformity to the will of God, and true wisdom, are more and more strongly impressed upon his mind. He doubts no more. He has arrived at a decision. Christ’s counsel has prevailed. It is our privilege thus to be directed at every stage and in every vicissitude of life.
II. Why we should take Christ for our Counsellor. Because in Him are all the qualities that would cause us to value and seek the counsel of an earthly friend—tenderness, wisdom, and power. He can help us to carry out His counsels.
III. What will be the effects of making Christ the Man of our counsel?”
1. A general consistency of Christian conduct. Inconsistency arises from listening to contradictory advisers; sometimes going to Christ, and sometimes taking counsel with flesh and blood.
2. A conformity and likeness to Christ. You will learn to love what He loves, and to desire what He promises. In the man who constantly makes Christ his counsellor, there is begotten a spirituality of mind, a deadness to the world, a fixedness of purpose, a cheerfulness of temper, a self-possession and patience, which are scarcely conceivable and quite invaluable. A man is powerfully influenced by the company he keeps—whether it be refined and moral, or coarse and profligate.
What, then, must be the effect of habitual intercourse with the Lord of light and grace and glory?
3. A preparedness for Christ’s presence in heaven? What is the bliss of heaven? It is the vision of the Almighty; unclouded and uninterrupted intercourse with the Saviour and Lord of all. The more we have cultivated this here, the more fitted we shall be for it hereafter.—Josiah Bateman, M.A.: Sermons, pp. 1–18.
THE MIGHTY GOD
Isa_9:6. His name shall be called … The Mighty God.
Various devices to escape from the force of this declaration have been tried [908] But after a discussion prolonged through centuries, it is now conceded by the foremost Hebrew scholars of our time, that, whether we accept or reject it, Isaiah’s declaration is that the Person concerning whom he wrote should be called “The mighty God;” which is merely the Scriptural way of asserting that He should be “The mighty God,” for names divinely given represent realities. That the Person concerning whom this declaration was made is our Lord Jesus Christ is the conviction of the whole Christian Church. He is the “Child,” the “Son,” the “Mighty God,” concerning whom Isaiah wrote. Let us do more than give our assent to this statement: let us think about it.
[908] The following translations have been given by sceptical scholars, but have all been conclusively rejected by sound scholarship:—
“Mighty Hero.”—Gesenius.
“Counsellor of the Mighty God.”—Grotius.
“Counseller of God, Mighty.”—Carpenter.
“And He who is Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, calls His name the Prince of peace.”—Jarchi and Kimchi.
I. It is essential to soundness of creed, and to any full realisation of the Christian life, to hold firmly to the doctrine of the perfect humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was a man in the same sense that this is true of any man here; whatever was essential to perfectness of manhood existed in Him. Unless we grasp this great truth intelligently and firmly,
1. His example can be of no considerable help to us (H. E. I. 898). The example of an angel, though it might excite our admiration, would also smite us with despair.
2. His sympathy with men, because of His identity with them in their experience, can never be to us, what it has been to millions, one of the most comforting and strengthening of all thoughts (Heb_2:17-18; Heb_4:15; H. E. I. 872, 954). II. It is equally necessary that we should hold firmly the doctrine of His Deity. That He is “the mighty God” is the testimony,
1. Of His works (Mat_14:32-33, &c.).
2. Of His words (Joh_6:48; Joh_7:37; Joh_8:12, &c.; H. E. I. 836, 840–842). This doctrine pervades the New Testament (H. E. I. 835, 838.) The sum of its teaching concerning Him is, that in Him God was manifest, that He is the true God (1Ti_3:16; 1Jn_5:20). It is not only one of the profoundest of all doctrines, it is the most practical. Let me doubt it, and how can Christ be to me a Saviour? How can He be more to me than any other eminently holy and wise man who died centuries ago, or yesterday?
1. What comfort can I derive from the declaration that He died for me? Could a man atone for the sins of the whole world, for my sins?
2. What comfort can I derive from the declaration that He now lives and is in heaven? If so, as a man, doubtless, He will sympathise with me, but how can I be assured that He hears the cries for help which in times of distress and danger I raise? or that, if He hears me, He is able to help?
1. This complex Christian life of ours can be sustained only by the complex and unfathomably mysterious doctrine of the Divine-human nature of Christ, just as our physical life can be sustained only by the compound yet simple atmosphere we breathe. To simplify the atmosphere by taking away, if it were possible, either of its main constituents would transform the earth into a sepulchre; and to “simplify” Christian doctrine by taking away the doctrine either of our Lord’s humanity or of His Deity is the destruction of spiritual life.
2. Let us, then, accept in all their fulness the declarations of Scripture concerning the Person of our Lord. Those declarations transcend our reason, but they do not contradict it (H. E. I. 851, 4809–4814), and they should be joyfully accepted by our faith.
3. Let us think much of Christ as the Son of man, that by His example we may be incited to strive after a noble manhood, and that by the assurance of His sympathy we may be sustained amid all the struggles and sorrows of life.
4. Let us think much of Him as “the mighty God,” that our faith may rejoice in His ability to accomplish for us a complete redemption; that our reason and conscience may be led to bow to the authority which must therefore belong to all His utterances; that our love for Him, while it is tender and ardent, may be also reverent; and that our soul may feel itself free to give expression to the feelings of adoration that rise up within us when we contemplate His perfections, His purposes, and the work which it is declared He has accomplished on our behalf.
THE EVERLASTING FATHER
Isa_9:6. The Everlasting Father.
We usually associate the name of father with the first “Person” of the adorable Godhead. But there is no manner of doubt that the title here belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ—to the very same Person who, in human nature, was a Child born, and a Son given up for the salvation of men. But there is this difference: the title given to the Son born is not merely “the Father,” but “the everlasting Father. The title is not “Father,” but the entire phrase. Read more exactly in accordance with the original words, the phrase is this: “the father of perpetuity, the father of eternity, the father of the for ever.” “Father” means here simply possessor or author. To be the father of eternity” is to have eternity, and to rule in eternity—to be the Lord of eternity. Christ Jesus, who hath the government upon His shoulders, hath it on His shoulders for ever; He is King of kings and Lord of lords throughout eternity. The eternity here spoken of is not the eternity that is bygone—if we may so speak of eternity; it is the ongoing and unending duration that lies before us, and Christ Jesus is Lord and Ruler of it all. No doubt He who can hold the future eternity in His hand, and who can rule all its affairs, must have been Himself the Unbeginning and Eternal One; and the Scriptures leave no doubts about that being the attribute of our Lord Jesus Christ (Joh_8:58; Col_1:17; Joh_1:3). But it is that for ever which lies before us which Christ is here said to be the Father of. He is so as its Possessor—He has it; as its Originator—He makes it what it is; as its Controller—He rules in it.
I. Jesus Christ is the father of the eternity that lies before us, the father of the for ever, because He Himself lives for ever. He has it. Observe, this is true of the Second Person of the Godhead in human nature. The connection of the text will not permit us to forget that. It is the Child born and the Son given who is said to live for ever. That is a great thought; the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ in humanity is to live for ever is a stupendous expectation and belief. Sometimes it has seemed to me as it were more wonderful even than the Incarnation. It seems as if it would have been less strange for the Son of God, for some great purpose, to have clothed Himself with a creature’s nature, and then, having accomplished that purpose, to have laid down that nature as a thing too far down from the Infinite to be worn for ever. But now the wonder is, that having made Himself our kinsman, He is to be our Head for ever, and is never to cease to wear the human nature in which He died on Calvary. That this is an important thought appears from two considerations.
1. It is part of the Divine promise of the Father to our Lord, and it is a thing for which our Lord prayed as part of His Father’s promise (compare Isa_53:10, Psa_72:15; Psa_21:4).
2. It implies that His work was finished to His Father’s satisfaction. It is clearly spoken of as a reward for work well done. Hence this title “Father of eternity”—hath in germ within it the great facts of Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension, and session in glory (comp. Rev_1:18). From this fact two inferences can be drawn, both of a most consolatory and joyful character.
1. To God’s people. What a Saviour they have! They need never fear that they will be without His care. They could not find a world in all the universe where He is not with them, and they cannot live on to any age when He shall cease to be their light and King
2. The same thing brings comfort to every sinner (Heb_7:25). Do not lose yourselves in a great general thought of Christ living for ever; rather narrow the broad and grand conception, and fasten it down upon the present fleeting moment. Christ lives now, and lives here—lives here and now to save the sinner and bless the saint. Apply to Him, and rejoice in Him that liveth now and for ever and ever.
II. He originated this age that is spoken of. As by His death He secured His own immortality on the basis of the faithful covenant, and received life for ever because He had done the Father’s will; so by the same completion of His mediatorial work on earth He purchased this immortality for His people. All that is valuable in the prospect of unending existence to any human being he owes to our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the father of the eternal age; it could not have been without Him.
III. As Jesus Christ, personally and in humanity, lives through this eternal age, and as He introduced it and gave it its grand characteristics, so the administration of its whole affairs is in His hands. The Author of our Faith is the ruler of its progress, and that not on earth alone, but in heaven (Mat_28:18). What follows from that?
1. What a terrible and what a hopeless thing it must be to resist Christ! To resist Him effectually, we would require to be able to do one or other of two things: We should need either to go beyond infinite distance and get away from Him that way, or live longer than for ever, which is equally impossible. The only question is this, “Am I in Christ’s hands to be slain by Him, or to be saved by Him?” and that turns on my submission to His will. “Am I to sit on the throne beside Him? or take the other alternative and be made His footstool?”
2. What a good thought it is for the Christian, that he can never go away from Christ’s care, that He can never be for a moment without his Friend watching over him, and never in any place in which he does not hear the music of those precious words, “Lo, I am with you alway!”—J. Edmond, D.D.: Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix. pp. 145–148.
THE PRINCE OF PEACE
Isa_9:6. The Prince of Peace.
How peaceful was the scene when the first Sabbath shone upon this world! How reversed was the scene when sin entered to revolutionise it! Think of the widespread and woful war which sin has entailed on this world, and see the need of such a Prince as our text reveals to restore the primitive peace. See, too, the magnitude of the work to which the Redeemer stands appointed when He is presented in the character of a pacificator who is to bring this strife to a happy conclusion for man.
I. THE QUALIFICATIONS OF CHRIST FOR ACTING AS “THE PRINCE OF PEACE.” We find these,
1. In His original personal excellence as the only begotten of the Father.
2. In His Father’s ordination of Him to the office.
3. In the meritoriousness of the work He accomplished as the substitute for sinners.
4. In the station to which He has been exalted, and the executive power which has been lodged in His hands. First of all, He has been appointed Intercessor, to plead the cause of His people on the foundation of the work He has done for them; and, secondly, He has been anointed a King with all the influence and energy of the Almighty Spirit placed at His disposal to carry into execution all the favourable purposes of the Divine government on behalf of those whose cause He has won by His intercession.
5. In the fervency with which His heart is dedicated to the attainment of His object.
II. THE PRINCIPAL ARTICLES OF THAT PEACE OF WHICH CHRIST IS, OR SHALL YET BE, THE MINISTERING PRINCE TO ALL WHO BELIEVE ON HIM.
1. He hath effected reconciliation between God and man.
2. In Christ we cease to war against ourselves.
3. Our Prince hath reconciled us to the angels.
4. Reconciliation is effected between Jew and Gentile (Eph_2:14-16).
5. The general reconciliation of man to man, the destruction of selfishness, and the diffusion of benevolence. Christ came, by His dying for all, to teach that all were as brethren, and ought to regard one another with fraternal affection. How much the world required this lesson! How imperfectly it has been learned! H. E. I., 884).—William Anderson, L.L.D.: Christian World Pulpit, vol. x. pp. 392–394.
I. The character of Christ: “the Prince of Peace.” How wonderful and glorious is this character when viewed in connection with this title! Infinite wisdom and almighty power employed not for purposes of war, but of peace! (Isa_55:8-9).
1. He procures peace.
2. He proclaims peace.
3. He imparts peace.
4. He maintains peace.
5. He perfects peace.
II. The character of His religion. It is a religion of peace. True, at its first introduction, it leads to conflicts (Mat_10:34); but in the end it secures a permanent peace (Jas_3:17). It will give peace, but only on its terms.
III. Character of the followers of Christ. They are the sons of peace.
1. They seek peace with God through the mediation of Christ.
2. They exemplify a spirit like His own, and thus help to heal the wounds of a bleeding world.
3. They extend through the world the gospel of peace.
4. They anticipate in heaven the reign of unbroken peace.—Samuel Thodey.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v7 throne of David
throne of David
The "throne of David" is a phrase as definite, historic, historically, as "throne of the Caesars," and as little admits of "spiritualizing." Luk 1:32; Luk 1:33. See "Kingdom (O.T.). (See Scofield "Zec 12:8"). "Davidic Covenant," See Scofield "2Sa 7:16", Act 15:14-16.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v6 General Information:
General Information:
Isaiah continues to describe the time when God will save the people of Israel (Isaiah 9:1-2). Although these events will happen in Isaiah's future, he describes them as if they have already happened. This emphasizes that they certainly will happen. (See: Predictive Past)
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For to us a child has been born, to us a son has been given
These two phrases mean basically the same thing. The word "us" refers to both the speaker and the hearer and so is inclusive. This can be stated in active form. AT: "For the Lord will give to us a child" (See: Parallelism and Inclusive "We" and Active or Passive)
the rule will be on his shoulder
His authority to rule is spoken of as if it were the robe that is a symbol of his authority. AT: "he will wear his royal robe on his shoulder" or "he will have authority to rule as king." (See: Metaphor)
Counselor
one who advises kings
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end
"As time passes he will rule over more and more people and enable them to live more and more peacefully"
rules on the throne of David
Sitting on the "throne of David" is a metonym for having the right to rule; only David's descendants could be king over Israel. AT: "has the right to rule as David's descendant" (See: Metonymy)
his kingdom, to establish it and sustain it with justice and with righteousness
This can be translated as a new sentence. AT: "his kingdom. He will establish and protect his kingdom, and he will do what is fair and just"
Yahweh of hosts
See how you translated this in Isaiah 1:9.
translationWords
children
son
rule
advice
might
God
eternity
God the Father
prince
peace
throne
David
kingdom
just
righteous
eternity
zeal
Yahweh of hosts
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv6–7 9:6 a child is born to us, a son…
9:6 a child is born to us, a son is given to us: This child, the Messiah, would be David’s descendant (11:1). • he will be called: These names can be read as four throne names, signifying the nature of the child’s rule: (1) The Wonderful Counselor conforms to God’s wisdom (11:1; 25:1; 28:29; 40:13), unlike the counselors of Judah (1:26; 3:3). (2) Mighty God is an affirmation of the Messiah’s divine nature. (3) He cares for his children as the Everlasting Father, the father whose care continues forever (cp. 22:21; 63:16). (4) The Prince of Peace is a leader who brings peace. • Alternatively, the four names could be collapsed into two: (1) “A Wonderful Counselor [is] the Mighty God”; and (2) “the Everlasting Father [is] a Prince of Peace” (on his nature, see 11:1-9). • Jesus Christ, the Son of David (Matt 1:1; Luke 1:32; see also Isa 7:14; 8:3, 18), will bring in the kingdom of his peace (Rev 19).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.