"His Name - The Everlasting Father"

Isaiah 9:6

Isaiah is not here declaring the doctrine of the Trinity, confusing the Persons of the Godhead. They are three distinct Persons,the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,in one glorious Being,God.But Isaiah is declaring the Mediatorial character of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God, the second Person of the Godhead. In his mediatorial character Christ is "the Everlasting Father." What does that mean? It means that...

CHRIST IS THE FATHER OF AN ELECT RACE. God's elect were given to Christ as his children and offspring in the covenant of grace from everlasting, and adopted into that family that bears his name. In time each elect child is born again by his regenerating grace through the power of his Spirit. Regeneration and faith do not make men and women the children of God, but reveal that they are the children of God from everlasting.And Christ is a Father to God's adopted children unto everlasting eternity. Because he can never die, we will never be left fatherless. He will be a Father, and we will be his sons and daughters forever. As our father, he supplies us with everlasting provisions of grace, clothes us with an everlasting garment of righteousness, gives us an everlasting inheritance, will promote us to everlasting honor, and will save us with an everlasting salvation.

CHRIST IS THE FATHER OF ETERNITY. He is the Author of eternal life. He purchased it for his elect and gives it to them. And he is the One to whom eternity belongs. He inhabits and possesses eternity.Christ is the eternal I AM, who is before all things, by whom all things consist. He was set up as our Mediatorial Everlasting Father from eternity, having glory with the Father before the world was, in whom eternal election was made, and with whom the everlasting covenant was established.

AND CHRIST IS THE FATHER OF THE WORLD TO COME. The law came by Moses, and he was the father of the legal dispensation. But grace and truth came by Christ, and he is the Father of this gospel dispensation. He is the One who makes all things new. All the doctrines and ordinances of the gospel dispensation were given in and by him. And when this gospel age has ended, Christ will come again to raise his children from the dead to inhabit a new heavens and a new earth, an eternal world of righteousness, peace, and joy. Of that eternal world which is yet to come, Christ is the Everlasting Father.

Don Fortner