And His Name Will be Called

It's so good to see so many of you here tonight, especially to have the opportunity to think again on this wonderful prophecy from Isaiah, inspired by the Holy Spirit concerning the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. I ask you to continue the prayers that have already been prayed, and that God, by His Holy Spirit, will help me and help you. to come to a fuller and a better understanding of the wonderful truth that is conveyed in verse 6 of Isaiah chapter 9. But we read again from verse 1. Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed as when at first he lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali and afterward more heavily oppressed her by way of the sea beyond the Jordan in Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. You have multiplied the nation and increased its joy. They rejoice before You according to the joy of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For You have broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. for every warrior's sandal or boot from the noisy battle and garments rolled in blood will be used for burning and fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. God bless to us both the reading and the exposition of his word tonight. It's a fact of history that the church celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but not his birth. Indeed, Christmas was not given any official kind of recognition by the church until the middle of the 5th century. Moreover, because so many of our Christian customs have their roots in pagan origins, some Christians today do not observe Christmas as a religious holiday. And, you know, it was for this reason that the Puritans who came here in the 1620s rejected Christmas celebrations altogether. The vast majority of Christians today, however, believe that it is right to take advantage of this particular time of the year to commemorate our Saviour's birth. And I quote from Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, probably the greatest preacher the 20th century produced. He said, whether December 25th is the exact historical time of His incarnation or not is really quite irrelevant. What is important, he goes on, is that at some given point the Son of God came into this world and it is good that we should mark that historical event year by year. So this evening I am very happy and grateful to Keith to be able to have the opportunity to go back to this glorious verse in Isaiah chapter 9 that we were looking at this morning, because it is impossible really to deal with it in any kind of meaningfulness without at least two separate sessions. Our focus this morning was on the prophet's introductory announcement, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder. But if the first part of verse 6 emphasizes the infancy of Jesus Christ, the rest of the verse surely majors on his deity. The child to be born, is going to be the son of God. That's the supreme emphasis. The word born, as I said this morning, emphasizes that his human origin is going to be natural. He will be born like any other human baby is born as far as the birth process is concerned. But the word given emphasizes his divine origin. He is no son of ours. He is given by God the Father, and He existed eternally from before His birth with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, co-equal, co-eternal with the other members of the Godhead. To quote Paul in Philippians 2, have Christ's mind in you, who being in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped because it was his, but emptied himself being born in the likeness of men. So he was the divine son of God, but never forget, he was born a human being. He took our flesh in order that he may take our sin. and bear its curse upon the cross and set us free forever. And this is now what Isaiah goes on to tell us in the second part of verse six. It's the greatest statement in the Old Testament regarding the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who He is and what He means to His people. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Now, of course, Isaiah does not mean that Jesus is actually going to be called by these names, because he wasn't. Isaiah is simply saying that this is what the child to be born, the son to be given, is going to be to his people. Indeed, the whole New Testament is one great, marvellous exposition of this perfect description of Jesus so succinctly, so concisely and plainly stated here by Isaiah 700 years before His actual birth. And all I want to do this evening is to hold them up, these descriptions up before you, to think upon afresh Because one can't really add to them, can you? But we do need to elaborate a bit on them every time we come to them. Otherwise we are just going to recite them without any meaning, as some kind of ritual. And then there would be no value to that at all. So, let's take up the first description of Jesus. His name will be called Wonderful. Now, most modern conversions, most modern versions combine the word Wonderful and Counselor so that it makes the verse comprise of four very neat couplets. Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. But I believe the King James Version correctly separates wonderful and counsellor with a comma. Because the adjective wonderful was often applied to our Lord Jesus Christ on the earth. To begin with, Jesus in the Gospels is seen to be wonderful in his person. The angels, the shepherds, the wise men were filled with wonder at his birth. It was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened in the history of the world. Paul says of it, great beyond question is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh. And Charles Wesley says in his lovely Carol, veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Hail the incarnate deity. Try to analyze that, the Apostle Paul is saying. Try to understand it. You can't. It's a mystery. It's a great, inscrutable mystery. It eludes all human understanding because it's supernatural. It's miraculous. We can't, with our puny minds, understand how the infinite God can also be a finite man. There is only one thing to do with that which is wonderful, And that is to adore it. Again, it's Charles Wesley who puts it so well. Who can explore his strange design? In vain the firstborn seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine. Tis mystery all. Let earth adore. Let angel minds inquire no more. Because the Apostle Peter tells us that this is something that the angels desire to look into. But Wesley is saying it's even too wonderful for angels to comprehend. Imagine how amazed they were to see the Son of God whom they had worshipped throughout all eternity past, here lying as a baby, in a cattle feeding trough. Glory to God in the highest was their response. And then again, when the people saw the miracles of Jesus, they marveled at His power. Isn't He wonderful, they said, as He walked, His disciples said, as He walked on the Sea of Galilee and calmed the storm. Who can this be? For He commands even the wind and water, and they obey Him. Wonder, I say, greeted every miracle that Jesus performed. Luke says, they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, We have seen strange things today. Matthew says, when the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe, with wonderment. And they glorified God who had given such power to men. Well, I don't need to keep you with this. Just try to imagine what it was like to live in Palestine and see the miracles that Jesus performed. I know you and I too would have been filled with wonder. But even more wonderful, of course, was His passion. All of us can say with Isaac Watts, when I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride. Or listen to this children's hymn. Some of my favorite hymns. or children's hymns like there is a green hill far away, but just another favorite. It is a thing most wonderful, almost too wonderful to be, that God's own Son should come from heaven and die to save a child like me. I cannot tell how he could love a child so weak and full of sin. His love must be most wonderful. If He could die, my love to win. Our hymn books also are full of such expressions. Here's another. What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse for my soul. God forbid that you and I should ever lose our wonder at the person and the power and the passion of the Son of God who came to this world to be our Savior. His name will be called Wonderful. Next, Isaiah says that His name will be called Counselor. And this name in particular makes it very clear that the adjectives that Isaiah is supplying here are descriptions, not actual names. And they are descriptions of what the Babe of Bethlehem is going to be to His people to whom He has been given. And here, Isaiah is saying that it is for us He is going to come as a Counselor. As the Son of God, He is not the Counselor of the Father or of the Spirit. After all, the Father and the Spirit do not need a counsellor. They are co-equal, co-eternal in the mystery of the Trinity. Rather, Isaiah is saying, God, in His infinite grace, sent His only Son to be our counsellor. What does it mean? Well, it means that because He has the absolute wisdom and truth of God Himself, He is able to guide us and advise us in all our confusion in this life. Indeed, this is the very thing that our Lord claimed for Himself when He was here on the earth. He didn't hesitate to say, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Or again, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. Do we want to know what God the Father is like? and how sinners like ourselves can be reconciled to Him and enjoy fellowship with Him. Jesus is the only one who can advise us and help us. John puts it perfectly when he says in the opening chapter of his gospel, no one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made the Father known. So this is important and it is very important because so many people waste years and years of their life in a futile endeavor to discover the truth, to discover reality in life here on the earth. and living in an academic community here in Charlottesville, you are very well aware of this. And how so many of the most educated people eventually find themselves involved in mystic religions of the East, in yoga, and in transcendental meditation, and in the end they come up with nothing. Because it's Christ alone who is the human counsellor, or the counsellor of human beings. Read again the Gospels and see how wonderfully Christ is demonstrated as our counsellor. He always knew what to say, no matter how difficult, how devious, how tricky the questions that were put to Him. The testimony of those who heard him was, no man ever spoke like this man. And I love the words of the Apostle Paul in Colossians 2, where Christ is called, Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. My friends, I long that you and I should know Christ more. as our heavenly counsellor? Do we seek his advice and his wisdom recorded for us in the Holy Scriptures? He is the only answer to all our human confusion, and God knows we are a confused race. And then the next designation is Mighty God. The third name given to describe the child that is to be born explains why he is so wonderful and how he can be our infallible counselor. He is divine. He is mighty God. That was the conclusion that even his contemporaries came to. When they saw everything about him, and everything he did, and saw that he was wonderful, they worshipped him as God. When Jesus in the Old Testament appeared to Manoah as the angel of the Lord to tell him of the coming birth of Samson, Manoah asks him, well, what is your name? And the angel said to him, Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful? And when Manoah heard that, the scripture says that he offered a sacrifice to the Lord, who alone works wonders. He knew who was talking to him. And when the angel ascended in that flame, Manoah and his wife fell on their faces to the ground, and Manoah said to her, Surely we will die, for we have seen God, the God who is called Wonderful. This is the only logical conclusion we can come to, because how could the sun work wonders if he was not mighty God. In the song that Miriam and Moses sung after the crossing of the Red Sea, they said, Who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, doing wonders? And the psalmist says the same thing. He says, Give thanks to the Lord of lords, to him who alone does great wonders. So I say, the wonders that Jesus performed were evidence that he was not just a human being, but that he was God, mighty God, manifested in the flesh. It's the only explanation of his incomparable teaching as well. the religious leaders of his day couldn't understand how this man who had had no official training except from the little school in the synagogue that all the children went to could have such understanding of the things of God. How could this Jesus, this ordinary person who was born in poverty and worked as a humble carpenter, how could he speak of divine things with such authority and understanding? What's the explanation? Well, here's the answer. He's more than a man. He's mighty God. He's more than the child of Mary. He is the Son of God. That's the only explanation. And of course, Jesus had to be God, not just the Son of God, but the Son of God who was very God of very God. The world had fallen into sin and come under the power of the devil. Only God could deliver the world out of the hands of the devil. The creation of another man, even a perfect man, would never solve the problem. What human beings needed was a perfect man who was going to be stronger than the devil. And herein we see the wisdom and the power of God. He sent His only begotten Son, who was very God of very God, to destroy the works of the devil, says the scripture. And His name will be called Mighty God. All men in the past had miserably failed. Adam, who had been created perfect, failed. Abraham failed. David failed. All of them failed. The devil is stronger than the very best fallen human being. But 2,000 years ago God sent His Son who was both man and mighty God. And Hebrews 2 verse 14 puts it, Inasmuch then as the children God had given to Jesus have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, even the devil. and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. So this is what makes Jesus Christ greater than any human counselor. A human counselor can only go so far. They can try and tell you what to do, but they cannot help you to do it. A human counselor has no ability to empower us to do what is right. But Jesus Christ, the mighty God, not only provides us with the best advice, He also gives us power to carry it out to the glory of God. As Paul says again in Philippians 2, He gives us both the desire and the ability to do the good pleasure of God. But Jesus Christ, the mighty God, not only supplies us with good advice, but he also has died to make us perfect human beings, to bring us to that state where indeed all our imperfections are at last put aside and we are made perfect as God is perfect. And so the child born unto us is the mighty God who died on the cross for our sins and rose again the third day for our justification, the one who ascended to the Father's right hand and prays for us constantly, incessantly, that we might be delivered from evil and one day presented before the Father's throne without blemish. and perfect. But I must hurry on to the fourth term which has been misunderstood by so many. His name will be called Everlasting Father. Now the critics rightly say, if verse 6 is a description of Jesus who is the Son of God, how can he be Everlasting Father? How are we to understand this designation? Basically, there are two explanations of this description which go hand in hand. Take the first term, Father, and focus upon that. We are not to confuse this title with the Father who is the first person in the Trinity. Verse 6 is simply saying that the government that is going to be placed upon Christ's shoulders is going to be modelled on the care and the compassion of a good father. As earthly subjects, you and I do not enjoy a personal, intimate relationship with our ruler. We are only citizens in His kingdom. He may be a good king, a good president, but we are only citizens and subjects. Christ's government, however, is going to be different. He will rule over every one of His people as a father. To God the Father, Christ is always going to be the everlasting Son. But to us, He is going to be like an everlasting Father. But, He is more than father-like. Literally, the Hebrew reads, Father of Eternity, Father of Everlasting. And when we place the emphasis upon the word everlasting or eternity, the prophecy is simply saying this, that unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given who is the father of everlasting life, the source, the origin of eternal life. And the word father in the Bible often stands for the origin, and the author of begetting something. And that's how John Calvin understood this phrase. Jesus is the one who gives us everlasting life and his fatherly rule over his people will also be everlasting. And of course, that's the interpretation that fits the context here in Isaiah chapter 9, where we are told that the government will be upon his shoulder and that the increase of his government will know no end. His rule and his gift of eternal life will go on forever. Moreover, when Jesus gave the reason why he came to earth, what did he say? He said, I am come that they may have life and that they might have it more abundantly. And as Jesus himself says in John 3 verse 16, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. So that's why he came. He is the father, the giver of eternal life. What a wonderful description of Jesus this is, isn't it? The life he gives is not a temporary life, however good it may be, but an everlasting life to be enjoyed in a kingdom that knows no end. Even when our frail body dies and rots in the grave, we cannot lose this life. Our spirit will go to be with Him in heaven, but when He returns to reign on the earth in perfect peace, He is going to reunite our body with our spirit. So he's the father of eternity, the giver of eternal life, who will take us through that valley of the shadow of death, that valley of the deep darkness of death, and bring us out of that valley complete and glorified on the last day. And then just a brief word on the very last term, which is the easiest of them all. His name will be called Prince of Peace. Now, peace is the well-being that comes from being freed of anxiety. And in this kingdom that Christ is going to bring, there is going to be no more death. No more pain and no more sorrow. The life we are going to enjoy in it will not only be everlasting, but it will be perfect and harmonious. Jesus is the Prince who brings peace to everyone under his rule. Little wonder, then, that when the angels witnessed the fulfillment of this prophecy in Bethlehem, they sang, Glory to God in the highest, and on the earth peace to men of good will? No. Peace to men on whom his good will rests, or peace on men or peace to men on whom his favor rests. That's the proper translation. We were never meant to live in a world of sin and suffering and death and strife. God in the beginning made a perfect world where perfect peace prevailed before Adam and Eve plunged everything into sin. And friends, the honor of God demands that the perfect condition of the earth be restored. So He sent His Son to the earth to restore peace with God, peace with men, and peace with nature, with everyone who will submit to His rule and His authority. So unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name will be called Prince of Peace. And of the increase of his government, Isaiah goes on to say, and of his peace, there will be no end. In other words, His perfect government and His perfect peace is going to keep on increasing for us, His people, here on earth, until He returns and establishes perfect peace. That's the marvelous prospect that the Bible holds out to us, a growing experience of peace, until finally it is perfected. In Isaiah chapter 48, it is described as peace like a river. And these two ideas inspired Francis Ridley Habergel to write a beautiful hymn. Perhaps you remember the words. Like a river glorious is God's perfect peace, over all victorious in its bright increase. Perfect! yet it floweth fuller every day, perfect, yet it groweth deeper all the way. Unto us a child is born. Who is the us? Is it everyone? No. Isaiah is speaking here only to those who are under Christ's government, under His authority, under His control, those who have been brought into the light and delivered from the power of sin. There's no wonderment There's no counsel, there's no mighty power, there is no eternal life, no inner peace for anyone who does not personally know this child of Mary and the Son of God who is Jesus. But friends, to those of us who embrace Him by faith, we are ushered into His kingdom where His fatherly care and His perfect peace will know no end. It just gets better and better. And my prayer tonight is for you and for me that we will submit to His government, that the government of your life and mine will be upon His shoulders, And He will be all of these things to us because we have handed over the responsibility of governing and controlling our lives to Him. Shall we pray? Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, again we want to thank you for this wonderful inspired prophecy you gave to Isaiah 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. And we thank you that now, 2700 years later, it still comes to us with the freshness of an announcement that has just been made. And Father, it is glorious It thrills our souls, but at the same time it humbles us. For who are we to be given such a Savior? Fully human, but also fully divine, and able to do all of these things for us. And our Father, we pray that as we enter into the Christmas season, to us who believe, who believe all the things we have heard this morning and tonight and many more besides, that to us who believe, He will become even more precious than He has been in the past. Pray that you will bless Pastor Keith as he preaches next Sunday and again the following Sunday. We pray that you will give to him and to Lisa and to their little one a wonderful Christmas and that you will use them both to be your instruments of blessing to this congregation. We thank you, our Father, for your gift of this brother and sister, and we thank you for the gifts that you have given to him and the love that they both have for this congregation. And our Father, we ask that this will just be the beginning of many increasingly wonderful things that Jesus will do among his people at Jefferson Park through the ministry of Keith and Lisa, and of course also of Asher, of all of the deacons, the Sunday School teachers and the leaders in this church. We ask it all, Lord, in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.