Rediscovering ChristmasSýnishorn

Everlasting Father

Matthew’s Gospel, and thus the New Testament, begins with Jesus’ family tree. Starting with Abraham and winding on down through the patriarchs to the monarchy, into the exile and beyond, every father has a son. At the end of this grand genealogy is the ultimate Son: Jesus. He’s the Son of God, fully human and fully divine. He’s the one who walked in obedience to the Father’s will (see Hebrews 5:8), the one who saw what his Father was doing and followed exactly (see John 5:19). And yet centuries before Matthew picked up his stylus to record his account of the life of Christ, the prophet Isaiah emphasized not the Sonship of the Messiah but his Fatherhood.

The title Eternal Father is filled to the brim with meaning, and those of us who love Jesus instantly see a preview of the New Testament. We know Jesus is eternal; “he was with God in the beginning” (John 1:2). And we remember that Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (10:30), and also, “The one who has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9). We can do the math: Jesus is the Eternal Father.

When one of Isaiah’s contemporaries heard the term, however, their minds would have gone to another place. Kings were treated as the “fathers” of the nations they ruled. It was their job to defend and protect the people, just as a father would in a family. And like a father, it was the king’s responsibility to provide for the nation. King Jesus, then, is the ultimate provider and protector. He loves the children of the kingdom, like a wonderful father.

This was the expectation in the minds of the Jewish people down through the ages. But there is a double-edge to this prophecy. What people understood as metaphor would also be quite literal. In the Old Testament, Yahweh was the Father of Israel. In the book of Hosea, he says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (11:1). And one of the profound mysteries revealed in the New Testament is that Jesus is Yahweh. For example, check out Jude 5, where we read that “Jesus saved a people out of Egypt and later destroyed those who did not believe.” There, in the middle of all that exodus action was Yahweh, but Jude reveals to his readers that it was, at the same time, Jesus.

For his part, Jesus shocked a group of Jewish religious leaders by announcing, “Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). That wasn’t simply a statement of the Son’s eternal nature; it was a claim to be Yahweh, for “I Am” is the name God revealed to Moses at the burning bush (see Exodus 3:14). The Jews understood exactly what Jesus was saying. That’s why “they picked up stones to throw at him” (John 8:59).

There is no hard break between the Old Testament and the New, no disagreement between Father and Son. Though each is a unique person fulfilling a distinct role within the Godhead, they are one. When we come to Jesus in faith, we also come to the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is why Jesus could say, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23, emphasis added). Jesus is the Eternal Father, for when we look to Jesus, we get a perfect view of God the Father. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3)