Unto us a child is born

Isaiah 9:6

Isaiah 9:6 ESV

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

This prophetic promise of the messiah from the book of Isaiah was written some 700 years before the birth of Jesus.

The prophetic birth pangs of the birth of Christ started a long time before Mary went into labour that night in Bethlehem. There are literally hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament that speak with extraordinary accuracy about the coming of our Lord, His life, His ministry, His death and resurrection

If we only had the Old Testament to go on, we could still know that:

His Hands and Feet Would be Pierced & Lots Cast for His Garment

Gospel Accounts: John 20:25-27, Luke 23:34

“Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.”

Psalm 22:16-18 NIV (Circa 1000 BC)

He Would be Born in Bethlehem

Gospel Accounts: Luke 2:4-6

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”

Micah 5:2 NKJV (700 BC)

He Would be Born of a Virgin

Gospel Accounts: Luke 1:26-31

"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel."

Isaiah 7:14 NKJV (680 BC)

That any one person could be shown to have fulfilled just these three prophetic scriptures would indeed be remarkable. One scholar J. Barton Payne believed he could find 574 prophecies in the Old Testament which Jesus fulfilled. Conservatively speaking it’s widely believed that Jesus actually fulfilled at least 300 Old Testament prophecies.

Critics will point to some of the prophecies such as Zechariah 9:9 "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, you King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey" as fulfilled in Luke 19:35 and suggest that Jesus knowingly sought to fulfil them. This is true, and certainly Jesus was aware of these prophecies and wanted the Jews to see Him in light of these verses of scripture. Take, for example his reading of Isaiah 61 at the synagogue in Nazareth captured in Luke 4:16-21. After reading this portion of scripture Jesus sat down and boldly declared, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Jesus wilfully fulfilled some of the prophecies, rather than weakening the prophetic case for Jesus as Messiah it strengthens it. Jesus understood Himself to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God come to take away the sins of the world and He wanted the world to understand it too.

There are, however some prophecies that were clearly beyond His control such as where He would be born and the nature of His death and burial.

In the book Science Speaks, Peter Stoner and Robert Newman work out the probability of one person fulfilling just eight of these messianic prophecies. The chances of this happening are something in the order of 1 in 100 million billion. Yes. Just eight.

Christian apologist and author of The Case for Christ Lee Strobel brings these numbers into comprehension with this illustration:

Imagine if I were to tile all the land on earth with 1.5inch x 1.5inch square tiles and then hide a penny under one of them. Then I instruct you to go and find the penny. The chances of one person fulfilling just eight of the messianic prophecies Jesus fulfilled are the same as if you found that penny under the very first tile you picked up.

Strobel worked out the chances of someone fulfilling 44 of the clearest Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, something like one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion! Get your head around that!

Suffice to say, it is as near as makes no difference mathematically impossible for any one person to have fulfilled all of these Old Testament prophecies by chance.

WONDERFUL

And so this brings us back to the text today, there are four names, or five depending on which translation you are reading, which are given to this coming child; Wonderful or Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

This first name; Wonderful, or פֶּ֠לֶא in Hebrew can also mean Miraculous. What other name could you give the one who is able to fulfil all of those prophecies?

His birth was miraculous

His ministry miraculous

His death was miraculous, the skies dark for 3 hours in the middle of the day

His resurrection

His work of salvation

COUNSELOR

Isaiah 28:29 ESV

29 This also comes from the Lord of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.

Isaiah 11:2 ESV

2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

What is counsel? It is advice, words of instruction which are given after a consultation and wise counsel ought to help you make good decisions when faced with a dilemma or a challenge.

You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny. - Psalms 73:24

Jesus came to be our wonderful counsellor! And how much do we need him as our counselor! After all, all of our worldly problems stem from Adam and Eve having taken counsel from Satan. There are many voices attempting to counsel us, guide us, advise us through our lives, but only one counselor never fails, only one counselor is able to lead us into a glorious destiny, Jesus!

What is His counsel? It’s Him, His gospel, His life, His word.

Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. - Col 3-16

Good cousel requires wisdom - When we are counselled by Christ we are being counselled by Wisdom Himself.

MIGHTY GOD

Christ is called אֵ֣ל גִּבֹּ֔ור - a Divine name, God the Mighty One, the warrior God. This is a name that no mere human can take to themselves. No created being can be called Mighty God, no angel is called by this name, but only one who shares the divine nature.

This is what makes the nativity such a miraculous and in a sense, a scandalous story. That The Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity took on flesh and was born to the virgin Mary in a humble abode, lying in a manger, not in a palace, not in a mansion, not surrounded by the great and the good, but by shepherds and ordinary folk.

And what’s cool is that these names speak of who the Messiah is to and for us, perhaps more than they do just of His nature. He is a wonderful counselor TO US, He is Mighty God FOR US, He is OUR Everlasting Father and OUR prince of peace.

So Christ is not just Mighty in and of Himself, but He is Mighty for you, mighty to save you, mighty to deliver you from trouble, mighty to crush all of His enemies, to put your enemies under His feet.

EVERLASTING FATHER

How is it that Christ is the Father? Surely He’s the Son, not the Father. We know that the Son is God, and that the Father is God, but the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. So what does this mean?

There are several interpretations but perhaps the one that seems most fitting is this - That just as Adam is the Father of all, we all have our natural descent from Him, Christ, the second Adam becomes in a sense the Father of all those who believe in Him. In Romans 5 Paul talks about these two Adams, the first and the second. From the first Adam we inherited sin and death, from the second we inherit righteousness and eternal life. Christ is a Father to the Church, since every Christian receives an inheritance from Him that can never be taken away.

Second, this names speaks of His eternity, that He lasts forever, that He has no end and no beginning. So all who put their hope in Christ never need to fear; He will never pass away, never fade, never change.

PRINCE OF PEACE

Lexham Theological Wordbook שָׁלוֹם

. peace, wholeness. A state of well-being or health.

The term šālôm in the OT expresses profound wholeness and well-being. The term can be used in many ways, but it especially designates a state of prosperity or good health. This is commonly seen in questions about one’s current welfare

Christ came to give us what we lack in this world - peace, wholness, well being, prosperity. If we have Christ it doesn’t matter what we lack, if we have Him we have all we need.

Pray