{"id":107,"date":"2010-12-16T18:35:12","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T23:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/father-of-eternity"},"modified":"2010-12-16T18:35:12","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T23:35:12","slug":"father-of-eternity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2010\/12\/father-of-eternity.html","title":{"rendered":"Everlasting Father and the Last Adam"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nativity1\" “For to us a child is born,\u00a0to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.\u00a0And he will be called \u00a0Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,\u00a0Everlasting Father<\/strong>, Prince of Peace”<\/em> (Isaiah 9:6 NIV).<\/p>\n

“The Scriptures tell us, \u201cThe first man, Adam, became a living person.”\u00a0But the last Adam<\/strong>\u2014that is, Christ\u2014is a life-giving Spirit”<\/em> (1 Corinthians 15:45).<\/p>\n

“So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man.\u00a0Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life” <\/em>(1 Corinthians 15:21-22).<\/p>\n

Studying the four titles of Christ found in the book of Isaiah 9:6 deepens our knowledge and appreciation of our Savior. That He is a “Wonderful Counselor” and a “Mighty God” is at once accessible and beneficial to us. But the third title seems both out of place and hard to understand.<\/p>\n

How can the Son of God be the “Everlasting Father?” Is the Son the Father? No. This is the mystery of the Trinity. The Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Son (as the Son is not the Spirit and so on), but they are together One God. As it regards the Godhead, Jesus is not the Father.<\/p>\n

However, a son can also be a father. Jesus is the Son of God and He is also the Father of Eternity. The word “father” could also be translated as source, originator, or founder. In this sense, Jesus is the Originator of our salvation, the Founder of our faith, and the Source of our eternal life. And He is the only way to know the Father.<\/p>\n

The Bible says that Adam is the father of all human flesh and of those who will die because of sin. But Jesus, as the “Last Adam,” is the Father of all those who are born again of the Spirit and have received everlasting life through faith in Him. When we receive Jesus, He gives us the right to become children of God (John 1:12).<\/p>\n

As Charles Spurgeon once said when speaking of this Messianic title,<\/p>\n

“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 that he who was an infant should at the same time be infinite,\u00a0he who was the Man of Sorrows should also be God over all, blessed for ever; and that he who is in the Divine Trinity always called the Son, should nevertheless be correctly called the ‘everlasting Father.'”<\/p>\n

This Christmas, may we grow in our love and knowledge of Jesus, as we contemplate this Infant who is also infinite, this Son who is also the Everlasting Father.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“For to us a child is born,\u00a0to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.\u00a0And he will be called \u00a0Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,\u00a0Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6 NIV). “The Scriptures tell us, \u201cThe first man, Adam, became a living person.”\u00a0But the last Adam\u2014that is, Christ\u2014is a life-giving Spirit”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060,2061,1,2062],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-religion","category-uncategorized","category-weblogs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}