2021 Christmas Advent Day 7: The Everlasting Father

• Main Passage: Isaiah 9:6
  • For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
• Again, The Lord graciously grants us a look into the mysteries of Jesus’ birth. The child that would be born, Isaiah boldly proclaims, even ridiculously proclaims, will be The Everlasting Father Himself, who is “The Father of the fatherless;” [Psalms 68:5] “The Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;” [2 Corinthians 1:3] “The Father of glory;” [Ephesians 1:17] “The Father of spirits;” [Hebrews 12:9] “The Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning” who gives “every good gift and every perfect gift;” [James 1:17] “[who] is blessed evermore,” [2 Corinthians 11:31] and “who is above all, and through all,” and “of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen.” [Ephesians 4:6, Romans 11:36] This is The Everlasting Father: the one who “change[s] not” [Malachi 3:6], of whom the entire universe revolves around and depends on, from whose glorious and profound mind every beautiful and good and precious and lovely thing has been imagined and created; from whom every wise and sagacious and excellent and true thought has originated and come. This Everlasting Father, Isaiah announces, will come to us as a gift, will come to earth as a child.
• The Father has perpetually existed as King and Lord of all before time even began. “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.” [Psalms 90:2] Before the great mountains came jutting out of the crust of the earth; before those deep and massive and looming oceans covered the earth; before the unfathomable depths of space were breathed out into existence; The Father was. “Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But Thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.” [Psalms 102:25-27]
• The Father is King and Lord: His “throne is established of old: [He is] from everlasting.” [Psalms 93:2] He is God alone; He tells us, “I am the First, and I am the Last; and beside Me there is no God.” [Isaiah 44:6] He alone is eternal, He alone has life in Himself, and it is He who has given His Glorious, Blessed Son Jesus “to have life in Himself [also],” who is “The blessed and only Ruler, The King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” [John 5:26, 1 Timothy 6:15-16]
• All of these qualities The Everlasting Father possesses will be the very essence and nature of this child. The Son which is given. Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, possess the very excellence and character of The Father in full. He is “the fulness of the Godhead in bodily form” [Colossians 2:9] and He is “the brightness of [The Father’s] glory, and the express image of His person, and uphold[s] all things by the word of His power.” [Hebrews 1:3] The Holy Spirit says regarding The Son, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom…And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.” [Hebrews 1:8-12]
• In John Jesus tells Philip, who had asked Him to “shew us The Father,” “Have I been so long time with you, and yet. Hast thou not known me, Phillip?” [John 14:8-9] Philip had not perceived; His heart had not yet been opened to see the glory of The Father in the face of Jesus Christ. He was staring The Eternal God, who dwelleth between the Cherubim within inapproachable light, in the very face. Through the life of Jesus, The Father is perfectly shown. In every single atom of Jesus’ human body, the utterly complete and incomprehensible God was fully, perfectly, immaculately displayed. Not one particle of Jesus’ body ever, not in one nanosecond of His thirty-three years of existence, ever once departed one trillionth of one hair length from displaying the excellencies and beauties and perfections of God Almighty’s heart and life. Jesus goes on speaking to Philip: “He that hath seen Me hath seen The Father; and how sayest thou then, shew us The Father? Believest thou not that I am in The Father, and The Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” [John 14:9-10] Jesus says also, “if ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also: and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.” [John 14:7] And again, “He that seeth Me seeth Him that sent Me.” [John 12:45] Truly we see that “God was manifest in the flesh;” in the flesh of Jesus Christ [1 Timothy 3:16]

Questions for Day 7

1. The Father is “clothed with majesty” and “with strength, wherewith He hath girded Himself.” [Psalms 93:1] He is of “great power: [and] His understanding is infinite.” [Psalms 147:5] Again it is written, The LORD is “clothed with honour and majesty.” In Job we see that God has decked Himself with “majesty and excellency” and arrayed Himself “with glory and beauty.” [Job 40:10] The LORD is He that “coverest [Himself] with light as with a garment.” [Psalms 104:2] He is awesome and to be feared, great above all others. Who else could clothe themselves with strength and glory and majesty, or who can even tell what that means? Truly God is great. And Jesus, The Son of God, The Child born to us, is equally great: for He is the Everlasting Father. As Jesus says Himself, “I and My Father are One.” [John 10:30] For many thousands of years, the question that God demanded of Job, “where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding,” has been left unanswered. Every single man who has read that passage in Job has come away the same: humbled and low, just as Job, who confessed, “Behold, I am vile.” [Job 40:4] Or as Isaiah, who seeing God’s glory cried, “Woe is me! For I am destroyed.” [Isaiah 6:5] That is, until Jesus. Jesus may well have answered that terrifying question in Job as the Proverb: “I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” [Proverbs 8:23] And at the sight of The Father’s glory, well, Jesus prays to The Father in John: “O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” [John 17:5] Make no mistake: Jesus proclaims Himself to be, and proves to be, The Fathers equal. John testifies of this, saying, “No man hath seen God at any time; the Only Begotten Son, which is in the bosom of The Father, He hath declared Him.” [John 1:18] And Jesus Himself says, “verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I AM.” [John 8:58] No question for day 7
   • Reflect: We are held in the arms of Jesus, the Bishop and Shepherd of our souls. We are under the loving care of our shepherd and Groom. He is the one who holds all authority both now and forever, both in the physical and the spiritual. There is nothing too hard for Him. Take comfort in the fact that Jesus reveals to us The Everlasting Father in His very person, and we find that person to be gracious and merciful; abundant in goodness and truth; longsuffering; forgiving; righteous; just; and full of beautiful, holy love (as well as anger). We should be careful not to let a day go by without thinking about these things. The Everlasting Father was manifested to us in the flesh that we might have life and that He might be gloried thereby.