His Name–The Everlasting Father
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 9, 1866,
BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"The Everlasting Father." Isaiah 9:6.
How complex is the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ! Almost in the same
breath the Prophet calls Him a "Child," and a "Counselor," 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–He who was the Man of Sorrows should also
be God over all, blessed forever–and that He who is in the Divine
Trinity always called the Son, should nevertheless be correctly called
"the Everlasting Father."
How forcibly this should remind us of the necessity of carefully
studying and rightly understanding the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ!
We must not suppose that we shall understand Him at a glance. A look
will save the soul, but patient meditation alone can fill the mind with
the knowledge of the Savior. Glorious mysteries are hidden in His
Person. He speaks to us in plain language, and He manifests Himself
openly in our midst, but yet in His Person itself there is a height and
depth which human intellect fails to measure.
When he has looked long and steadily, the devout observer perceives in
his Well-Beloved beauties so rare and ravishing that he is lost in
wonder! Continued contemplation conducts the soul, by the power of the
Holy Spirit, into an elevation of delighted admiration which the less
thoughtful know nothing of. So deep is the mystery of the Person of our
Lord that He must reveal Himself to us or we shall never know Him! He
is not discovered by research nor discerned by reason. "Blessed are
you, Simon Barjona," said Christ to Peter, "for flesh and blood have
not revealed this unto you." "When it pleased God," says the Apostle,
"to reveal His Son in me."
Another Apostle asked the question, "How is it that You manifest
Yourself unto us?" There is no seeing Jesus except by His own light. He
is the Door, but no man opens that Door but Jesus Himself, for "He
opens, and no man shuts. He shuts, and no man opens." He is the lesson,
but He is also the schoolmaster. He is both key and lock, answer and
riddle, way and guide. He is that which is to be seen, for we are to
look unto Him, but it is by Him that we are enabled to see, for He
gives sight to the blind!
Let us then, dear Friends, if we really desire to understand that most
excellent of all sciences–the science of Christ Crucified–entreat the
Lord Himself to be our Rabbi, and beg to be allowed to sit with Mary at
the Master's feet. Be this our prayer, that "we may know Him," and be
this our desire, that "we may grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." For "to know Him is life eternal," and
to be taught of Him is to be "wise unto salvation."
The title before us is a somewhat difficult one. Some years ago I
preached to you from "His Name–Wonderful" [Sermon #214, Volume 4.] I
felt I could expatiate upon that with ease. We advanced as far as
"Counselor," and then we halted a while. After a time we were led to
preach upon "The Mighty God." But we have been somewhat diffident of
our ability to open up this particular title, for there is a depth in
it which we are not able to fathom. This morning I cannot pretend to
dive into the profound depths of the Word, but can only skim the
surface as the swallow skims the sea. Silver of deep learning and gold
of profound thought I have none–but such as I have I give you. If my
basket contains nothing more than a barley loaf and a few small fishes,
may the Master of the feast multiply the food in the breaking, that
there may be food convenient for His people.
It is necessary at the outset to observe that the Messiah is not here
called "Father," by way of any confusion with Him who is pre-eminently
called "THE FATHER." Our Lord's proper name, so far as the Godhead is
concerned, is not the Father, but the Son. Let us beware of confusion.
The Son is not the Father, neither is the Father the Son. And though
they are one God, essentially and eternally, being forever One and
indivisible, yet still the distinction of Persons is to be carefully
believed and observed. For the mere word "Persons" we do not
contend–it is but a make-shift word, although we know not what better
term to use.
But the fact is all-important that the Father is not the Son, and the
Son is not the Father. Our text has no bearing upon the position and
titles of the three Persons with regard to each other. It does not
indicate the relation of Deity to itself, but the relation of Jesus
Christ to us. He is to us "the Everlasting Father." The light of the
text divides itself into three rays–Jesus is Everlasting." He is a
"Father." He is the "Everlasting Father."
I. First, Jesus Christ is EVERLASTING. Of Him we may sing with David,
"Your throne, O God, is forever and ever." A theme for great rejoicing
on our part! Rejoice, Believer, in Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
today, and forever! Jesus always was. The Babe born in Bethlehem was
united to the Word which was in the beginning, by whom all things were
made. The title by which Jesus Christ revealed Himself to John in
Patmos was, "Him which is, and which was, and which is to come."
"His head and His hair were white like wool, as white as snow," to
betoken that He is the Ancient of Days. "Before sin was born, or Satan
fell, He led the host of morning stars. (Your generation who can tell,
or count the number of Your years)?" In His priesthood, Jesus, like
unto Melchisedek, "has neither beginning of days nor end of life." His
pedigree is thus declared by Solomon: "When there were no depths, I was
brought forth. When there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled, before the hills were I was brought
forth. While as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the
highest part of the dust of the world.
"When He prepared the heavens, I was there. When He set a compass upon
the face of the depth: when He established the clouds above: when He
strengthened the fountains of the deep: when He gave to the sea His
decree that the waters should not pass His commandment: when He
appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by Him, as one
brought up with Him: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always
before Him; rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and My
delights were with the sons of men."
Think not that the Son of God ever commenced to be–
"Ere the blue heavens were stretched abroad, From everlasting was the
Word; With God He was; the Word was God, And must divinely be adored."
If He were not God from everlasting, we could not so devoutly love Him.
We could not feel that He had any share in the eternal love which is
the fountain of all Covenant blessings. He must be eternal who has a
part in the eternal purpose! Since our Redeemer was from all eternity
with the Father, we trace the stream of Divine love to Himself equally
with His Father and the blessed Spirit. We were chosen in Him from
before the foundation of the world, and thus in our eternal election He
shines forth gloriously.
We bless and praise, and magnify Him that the name, "Son," does not at
all import any time of birth or generation, or of beginning. We know
that He is as eternally the Son as the Father is eternally the Father,
and must be looked upon as God from everlasting. He is "the image of
the invisible God, the first-born of every creature: for by Him were
all things created that are in Heaven, and that are in earth, visible
and invisible, whether they are thrones, or dominions, or
principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and for Him:
and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist."
As our Lord always was, so also He is for evermore the same. Jesus is
not dead! He ever lives to make intercession for us. He has not ceased
to be. He has gone out of sight, but He sits at the right hand of the
Father. Of Him we read, "And, You, Lord, in the beginning have laid the
foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of Your hands:
they shall perish, but You remain. And they all shall wax old as does a
garment, and as a vesture shall You fold them up, and they shall be
changed: but You are the same, and Your years shall not fail." Jesus is
as truly the I AM, as that Jehovah who spoke out of the burning bush to
Moses, at Horeb!
He lives! He lives! This is the foundation of your comfort, "Because He
lives you shall live also." "Seeing, then, that we have a great High
Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us
hold fast our profession. For we have not an High Priest which cannot
be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find Grace to
help in time of need."
Resort to Him in all your times of need, for He is waiting to bless you
still! He is made higher than the heavens, but He still receives
sinners and effectually puts away their sins. And since "He ever lives
to make intercession for them, He is able to save unto the uttermost
them that come unto God by Him." Jesus, our Lord, ever shall be! He
could not be called "Everlasting" if it were supposable that He must
one day cease to exist! No, Believer, if God shall spare your life to
fulfill your full day of threescore years and ten, you shall find that
His cleansing fountain is still opened and His precious blood has not
lost its power! You shall find that the Priest who filled the healing
fount with His own blood still lives to purge you from all iniquity!
When only your last battle remains to be fought you shall find that the
hand of your conquering Captain has not grown feeble, nor His arm waxed
short. The living Savior shall cheer the living saint! Nor is this all,
for when death has taken you away as with a flood, and all the men of
your generation have fallen like grass beneath the mower's scythe,
Jesus shall live, and you, caught up to Heaven, shall find Him there
bearing the dew of His youth! And when the sun's burning eye shall be
dim with age, and the lamps of Heaven shall be paled into eternal
midnight–when all this world shall melt as melts the winter's ice at
the approach of spring–then shall you find the Lord Jesus still
remains the perennial spring of joy, and life, and glory to His people!
Living waters you may draw from this sacred well! Jesus always was, He
always is, He always shall be! He is eternal in all His attributes, in
all His offices, in all His might, and power, and willingness to bless,
comfort, guard and crown His chosen people. The connection of the word,
"Father," with the word, "Everlasting," allows us very fairly to remark
that our Lord is as everlasting as the Father, since He Himself is
called "the Everlasting Father," and whatever antiquity paternity may
imply is here ascribed to Christ.
According to our common notions, of course, the Father must be before
the Son, but we must understand that the terms used in Scripture to
represent Deity to us are not intended to be literally understood, and
rendered in their exact terrestrial sense. They are only so far
descriptive as they may be but do not compass the whole Truth of God,
for human language utterly fails to convey the very essence and
fullness of celestial things. When God condescends to speak to men, who
are but as infants before Him, He adopts their childish speech and
brings down His loftiness of thought to the littleness of their
capacities.
Babes have no words for the thoughts of senators and philosophers, and
such matters must be stated in childish language if babes are to know
them–and then the statement must inevitably fall far short of the
great fact. The relation between the Father and the Son is a case in
point. It is not precisely the same as the relation between a father
and a son on earth, but that happens to be the nearest approach to it
among men. We must beware of stretching and straining the Word in its
letter, especially in points where it would make us err from the spirit
of the Truth. Christ Jesus is as eternal as the Father or He would
never have been called "the Everlasting Father."
It is the manner of the Easterns to call a man the father of a quality
for which he is remarkable. To this day, among the Arabs, a wise man is
called "the father of wisdom." A very foolish man is called, "the
father of folly." The predominant quality in the man is ascribed to him
as though it were his child, and he the father of it. Now, the Messiah
is here called in the Hebrew "the Father of Eternity," by which is
meant that He is pre-eminently the possessor of eternity as an
attribute. Just as the idiom, "the father of wisdom," implies that a
man is pre-eminently wise, so the term, "Father of Eternity," implies
that Jesus is preeminently eternal–that to Him, beyond and above all
others–eternity may be ascribed.
No language can more forcibly convey to our minds the eternity of our
Lord Jesus. No, without straining the language, I may say that not only
is eternity ascribed to Christ, but He is here declared to be the
parent of it. Imagination cannot grasp this, for eternity is a thing
beyond us! Yet if eternity should seem to be a thing which can have no
parent, be it remembered that Jesus is so surely and essentially
eternal that He is here pictured as the Source and Father of eternity.
Jesus is not the child of eternity, but the Father of it! Eternity did
not bring Him forth from its mighty deep, but He brought forth
eternity!
Independent, self-sustained, uncreated, eternal existence is with Jesus
our Lord and God. In the highest possible sense, then, Jesus Christ is
"the Everlasting Father." I will only pause one minute to draw a
practical inference from this doctrine. If our Immanuel is, indeed,
eternal and ever-living, let us never think of Him as One dead, whom we
have lost, who has ceased to be! What could be a greater sorrow than
the thought of a dead Christ? He lives, and lives to care for us.
He lives in all the attributes which adorned Him upon earth, as gentle
and kind and gracious now as He was then. Come to Him, Christian, rest
upon Him now, just as if He were visible in this place, and you can
whisper into His ear your troubles, and confess your sins at His feet.
He is here spiritually. Your eyes cannot see Him, but faith will be
better evidence to you than eyesight. Trust Him now with your cares!
Rest upon Him in your present difficulties!
And you, poor Sinner, if Christ were on this platform would you not
come and touch the hem of His garment and cry, "Jesus, let Your pitying
eyes look on me and change my heart"? Well, dear Friend, Jesus lives!
He is the same today as He was in the streets of Jerusalem. And though
your feet cannot bear you to Him, yet your desires shall serve you
instead of feet! And though your finger cannot touch Him, your
confidence shall be a hand to you. Trust Him now! He whose love made
Him die lives on! His precious blood can never lose its power. Come
now, humbly come, and confide in "the Everlasting Father."
II. We come, in the second place, to the difficult part of the subject,
namely, Christ being called FATHER. In what sense is Jesus a Father?
Answer, first. He is federally a Father representing those who are in
Him, as the head of a tribe represents his descendants. The Apostle
Paul comes to our help here, for in the memorable chapter in
Corinthians he speaks of those who are in Adam, and then he talks of a
second Adam.
Adam is the father of all living. He federally stood for us in the
garden, and federally fell and ruined us all. He was the representative
man by whose obedience we should have been blessed, but through whose
disobedience we have been made sinners. The curse of the Fall comes
upon us because Adam stood in a relation towards us in which none of us
stand towards our fellows. He was the representative head for us–and
what a fall was there when he fell–every one of us in his loins fell
in him. "In Adam all die."
Since his day there has been but one other here to the human race
federally. It is true, Noah was the father of the present race of men,
for we have all sprung from him, but there was no covenant with Noah in
which he represented his posterity. There was no condition of obedience
by which he might have obtained a reward for us, and no condition of
disobedience for the breach of which we are called to smart. The only
other man who is a representative man before God is the second Adam,
the man Christ Jesus, the Lord from Heaven! Brothers and Sisters, we
mournfully call Adam father, for we are cast out of Eden by him–and we
till the ground with the sweat of our face–in sorrow did our mothers
bring us forth, and to the grave in sorrow must we go.
But we who have believed in Jesus call another man Father, namely, the
Lord Jesus! And we speak this not sorrowfully but joyfully, for He has
opened the gates of a better Paradise. He has taken away the sweat of
toil from our faces spiritually, for we who have believed do "enter
into rest." He has borne Himself the pangs which were brought upon us
by sin. He took our sicknesses and bore our sorrows, while death
itself, the heaviest affliction, He has overcome, so that he that lives
and believe in Him shall never die, but pass out of this world into the
life celestial!
The grand question for us is this, Are we still under the Old Covenant
of works? If so, we have Adam as our father, and under that Adam we
died. But are we under the Covenant of Grace? If so, we have Christ as
our Father, and in Christ shall we be made alive! Generation makes us
the sons of Adam. Regeneration acknowledges us as the sons of Christ.
In our first birth we come under the fatherhood of the fallen one. In
our second birth we enter into the fatherhood of the innocent and
perfect One. In our first fatherhood we wear the image of the earthy.
In the second we receive the image of the heavenly.
Through our relation to Adam we become corrupt and weak, and the body
is put into the grave in dishonor, in corruption, in weakness, in
shame. But when we come under the dominion of the second Adam we
receive strength, and quickening, and inward spiritual life–and
therefore our body rises again like seed sown which rises to a glorious
harvest in the image of the heavenly–with honor, and power, and
happiness, and eternal life! In this sense, then, Christ is called
Father, and inasmuch as the Covenant of Grace is older than the
Covenant of Works, Christ is, while Adam is not, "the Everlasting
Father." And inasmuch as the Covenant of Works, as far as we are
concerned, passes away, being fulfilled in Jesus, and the Covenant of
Grace never passes but abides forever, Christ, as the Head of the New
Covenant, the federal representative of the great economy of Grace, is
"the Everlasting Father."
Secondly, Christ is a Father in the sense of a Founder. You know,
perhaps, or at least you readily remember when I remind you, that the
Hebrews are in the habit of calling a man a father of a thing which he
invents. For instance, in the fourth chapter of Genesis, Jubal is
called the father of such as handle the harp and organ. Jabal was the
father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle–not that these were
literally the fathers of such persons–but the inventors of their
occupations. Jabal first took upon himself a nomadic tent life and set
the example of wandering about with flocks and herds. Jubal first put
his fingers to musical strings, and his lips to pipes from which the
wind is breathed melodiously.
The Lord Jesus Christ is in this sense the Father of a wonderful
system. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ, who brought life and immortality to
light, and introduced a new phase of worship to this world is, in that
respect, a Father. He is the Father of all Christians–the Father of
Christianity–the Father of the entire system under which Divine Grace
reigns through righteousness. Jesus is the Father of a great doctrinal
system. All the great Truths of God which we are in the habit of
delivering in your hearing as the precious Truths sent down from
Heaven, fell first, clearly and powerfully, from the lips of Jesus.
These things were dimly hinted at in the ceremonies of the Law, but
Christ first of all put them into plain letter so that he who runs may
read them. Practically it is Jesus who teaches us the doctrine of
electing love. It is Christ who reveals to us redemption by blood. It
is Christ that reveals regeneration by the work of the Spirit, saying
plainly, "You must be born-again." It is Christ that reveals the
perseverance of the saints. In fact, there is no doctrine of the
Christian system which is not so clearly set in the light of His own
glorious Spirit by His teaching that we may not fairly call Him the
Father of it.
Our great Master is also the Father of a great practical system. If
there are any in the world who "love their neighbors as themselves,"
the Man of Nazareth is their Father, for, albeit that the Law signified
all that, yet men had not discovered it, but had misread the Law. "Eye
for eye and tooth for tooth" was their version of Law. But Christ comes
and says, "I say unto you, Resist not evil. If any man smite you on the
one cheek, turn to him the other also." If any man can suffer with
patience and can return good for evil, heaping coals of fire upon the
head of his foes, this man is a child of Christ!
If men worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh.
If they know no holy place but recognize every place as holy where a
holy man is found, such are the true children of Christ, for He said,
"They that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth." He is
the Father of spiritual worship. It has been common to call Socrates
the "father of philosophy." Jesus is Father of the philosophy of
salvation! Galen may be the "father of medicine," Jesus is Father of
the medicine of souls! Herodotus is credited as the "father of
history," but Jesus is the Father of Heaven on earth! He is the Father
of disinterested living, of true love to men! He is the Father of
forgiving one's enemies, the Father, in fact, of the Divine system of
Christian life!
The system of salvation claims Christ to be its Father. Whoever said,
"By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God"? Who but the Apostle of this Man, Christ Jesus? Who
told men that it was not by works of righteousness which they had done,
but by the merit of His passion and His life that they were saved? Who
revealed the way of faith to men but Christ, the great doctrine of,
"Believe and live"? And those who receive it may claim Christ as
Father. He is the Father of the Christian faith–a faith, my Brothers
and Sisters, which has done much already for the world.
For in old Rome it put down the fights in the Coliseum, threw down the
bestial gods of heathendom, and albeit that it is doing much for the
world even now, and helping to purge the vast Augean stable of
humanity, it is to do more still! It is to cast out war. It is to
destroy error. It is to regenerate the human race. The Father of this
purifying system which is doctrinal and practical, and which has
already worked the best results for men, is the Lord Jesus! And since
it was devised of old, and will be prolonged as long as the world
stands, He is called "the Everlasting Father."
Now, there is a third meaning. The Prophet may not so have understood
it, but we so receive it, that Jesus is, in the third place, a Father
in the great sense of a Life-Giver. That is the main sense of "father"
to the common mind. Through our fathers we are called into this world.
Now it is by Christ that there is a communication of Divine energy to
the soul. It is through Him, through His teaching–through the Spirit
that He has given, through the blood that He has shed–that life is
given to those who were dead in trespasses and sins. He that sits upon
the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." "If any man is in
Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away, behold, all
things have become new."
"This is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this
life is in His Son." "For as the Father raises up the dead, and
quickens them, even so the Son quickens whom He will. Verily, verily, I
say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear
the voice of the Son of God. And they that hear shall live. For as the
Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to have life in
Himself." We know that through Jesus Christ the Divine life is given to
us. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." He gives the
living water, and then it is in us "a well of water springing up into
everlasting life."
He is that living grain of wheat which was cast into the ground to die,
that it might not abide alone, but become a root that brings forth
fruit, which fruit we now are, receiving life from Him as the stem
receives life from the seed from which it sprang. Jesus is our Father
in that sense. It is the Spirit of God who operatively quickens the
soul and makes us live, but Jesus Christ's Gospel is the channel
through which the Spirit works, and Jesus Christ is the true life to
us. Receiving Christ we receive life, and without Him we cannot have
life. "He that has the Son has life. He that has not the Son shall not
see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."
As through the energy of Adam this vast world is peopled till hill and
dale are covered with a teeming population, so through the life-energy
of our Lord Jesus Christ the plains of Heaven and the celestial hills
shall be peopled with a throng that no man can number. Out of every
realm, a people, speaking every language–having been bronzed by the
heats of the torrid zone, or frozen amidst the frosts of the frigid
north–Christ shall find a people into whom His quickening shall come,
and they shall live through the energy of His Spirit, and He shall be
their everlasting Father. It is in this sense, because that life is
everlasting and can never die out, that Jesus Christ is called "the
Everlasting Father."
Everything in us calls Christ, "Father." He is the Author and Finisher
of our faith. If we love Him, it is because He first loved us. If we
patiently endure, it is by considering "Him who endured such
contradiction of sinners against Himself." He it is who waters and
sustains all our graces. We may say of Him, "All my fresh springs are
in You." The Spirit brings us the water from this well of Bethlehem,
but Jesus is the Well itself. Spring up, O Well! Spring up, O Well!
Divine Father, blessed Jesus, prove Your Fatherhood by re-quickening
our souls this morning according to Your Word!
Fourthly, I do not think that we have yet come to the bottom of this
title of "Everlasting Father." The term implies that Jesus Christ is to
be in the future, the Patriarch of an age. Many translators render the
passage, "the Father of the future age." So Pope in his famous Poem of
the Messiah understands it, and calls Him, "The promised Father of the
future age." It has been the custom with men to speak of ages as "the
age of brass or iron," and "the age of gold."
This age of gold we are always looking for! The world's face is
constantly turned to it–so much so that quacks play upon the
simplicity of men and tell them when this golden age is coming and
fleece them of their pence–and sometimes of their pounds under the
notion that they can tell them somewhat about the good times which are
coming. They know nothing about it whatever. They are blind leaders of
the blind. But this one thing is clear to everyone who cares to see it,
namely, that such an age of gold shall come–that a period far brighter
than fancy paints will dawn upon this poor, darkened, enslaved world.
I am always jealous with a godly jealousy lest you should forget this
doctrine, or throw it up in disgust because of the shameful way in
which it is made merchandize of by others. Brethren, calculate no
dates! Sit down to devise no charts, but in your heart be satisfied
with this–that there will be a kingdom and a reign–and that in that
kingdom there shall be no strife to vex the nations. There shall be no
affliction to grieve the people. In that kingdom, Jesus, the King,
shall be conspicuous and His refulgent glory shall be the light of all
the inhabitants. It shall be a New Jerusalem coming down from Heaven,
prepared by God, as a bride is prepared for her husband, worthy of her
Lord and a meet recompense for the crown of thorns, for the
flagellation of His shoulders, for the shame, the spitting, and the
Cross!
Lift high the Cross, my Brothers and Sisters, for it shall be lifted
high! Speak not of Christ with bated breath, for He comes to be a King.
You Christians, think not yourselves, though despised and rejected of
men, to be men of a mean birth, for "it does not yet appear what you
shall be. But we know that when He shall appear you shall be like He,
for you shall see Him as He is." Joyfully drink the cup of bitterness,
for you shall soon drink the wines on the lees well refined! Cheerfully
pass through the darkness, for the morning breaks, and the day dawns,
and the shadows flee away. Be content to have the offscouring of all
things, for one day, when kings shall bow down before Him, and all
nations shall call Him blessed, you shall partake in His honor, and
shall be as princes upon the throne with Him!
Yes, He is to be the Father of a future age. Men have called certain
great patriots the fathers of their country. Today let us call Christ
the Father of our world. O Jesus, You have given to earth far better
than a creation. You have formed it from chaos into order and then
brought it from darkness into light! You have brought it from death
into warm life and beauty! You have recovered it from worse than
pristine chaos and saved it from a darkness worse than the primeval
gloom. You have saved if from a death more horrible than the primeval
shades.
You have descended into the depths into which this pearl, the world,
was cast! Like a mighty diver all the waves and billows have gone over
You. But You have come up again bringing this pearl with You, and it
shall glisten in Your crown forever when You shall be admired of angels
and adored of all created spirits. This shall be the sweetest part of
their admiration and their adoration–You were slain and have redeemed
us unto God by Your blood, and therefore unto You be glory forever and
ever. He shall be in this sense, then, the Father of an everlasting
age.
Once more–for the text is very prolific–Christ may be called a Father
in the loving and tender sense of a Father's office. Here is a text to
show what I mean. God is called the Father of the fatherless, and Job,
I think, says of himself that he became a father to the poor. You know
what it means, of course, at once. It means that he exercised a
father's part. Now, albeit that the Spirit of adoption teaches us to
call God our Father, yet it is not straining truth to say that our Lord
Jesus Christ exercises to all His people a Father's part.
According to the old Jewish custom the elder brother was the father of
the family in the absence of the father. The firstborn took precedence
of all, and took upon him the father's position. So the Lord Jesus, the
First-Born among many Brethren, exercises to us a Father's office. Is
it not so? Has He not succored us in all time of our need as a father
succors his child? Has He not supplied us with more than heavenly bread
as a father gives bread unto his children? Does He not daily protect
us? No, did He not yield up His life that we, His little ones, might be
preserved? Will He not say at the last, "Here am I, and the children
that You have given Me. I have lost none"?
Does He not chastise us by hiding Himself from us, as a father chastens
his children? Do we not find Him instructing us by His Spirit and
leading us into all Truth? Has He not told us to call no man father
upon earth in the sense that He is to be our true Guide and Instructor?
And are we not to sit at His feet and make Him our Rabbi and our
authoritative Teacher? Is He not the Head in the household to us on
earth, abiding with us, and has He not said, "I will not leave you
orphans (that is the Greek word), I will come unto you"?
As if His coming were the coming of a Father, if He is a Father, will
we not give Him honor? If He is the Head of the household, will we not
give Him obedience, and say in our hearts, "Other lords have had
dominion over us, but from now on, Everlasting Father, we will give You
reverence"? If He is, in all these senses, "the Everlasting Father"–
"Then let us adore and give Him His right, All glory and power, and
wisdom and might, All honor and blessing, with angels above, And thanks
never-ceasing, for infinite love."
III. Lastly, we weigh the words, "EVERLASTING FATHER." I have already
explained what this means. Christ is called, "the Everlasting Father"
because He does not, Himself, as a Father, die or vacate His office. He
is still the Federal Head and Father of His people. He is still the
Founder of Gospel Truth and of the Christian system–not allowing
archbishops and popes to be His vicars and to take His place. He is
still the true Life-Giver from whose wounds and by whose death we are
quickened. He reigns, even now, as the patriarchal King. He is still
the loving family Head. And so, in every sense, He lives as Father.
But here is a sweet thought. He neither Himself dies, nor becomes
childless! He does not lose His children! If His Church could perish He
would not be a Father. A Father without a son? And this is the best of
all, that He is "an Everlasting Father" to all those to whom He is a
Father at all. If you have entered into this relationship so as to be
in union with Christ, and to be covered with the hem of His garment,
you are His child and you shall forever be! There is no unfathering
Christ, and there is no unchilding us! He is everlastingly a Father to
those who trust in Him, and He never does, at any one moment, cease to
be Father to any one of these.
This morning you may have come here in trouble, but Christ is still
your Father. This day you may be much depressed in spirit and full of
doubts and fears. A true father never ceases, if he is a father, to
exercise his kindness to a child. Nor does Jesus cease to love and pity
you. He will help you. Go to Him, and you shall find that loving Friend
to be as tender as in the days of His flesh. He is the Author of an
eternal system. As I glanced at the words ,"Everlasting Father," and
thought of Him as the Founder of an ever-living system, I said to
myself, "Ah then, the Christian religion will never die out!" It is not
possible that the Truth as it is in Jesus should ever be put away if He
is "the Everlasting Father"!
I feel as if I should quote again Master Hugh Latimer, when, standing
back to back with Ridley–"Courage, Master Ridley," he said, "we shall
this day light such a candle in England as shall never be put out."
Look yonder at Christ on the Cross! He did that day light such a candle
as never can be put out! He is "the Everlasting Father." He set rolling
that day, as it were, a snowflake of Truth as He died upon the Cross.
And you know what the snowflake does upon the high Alps–a bird's wing,
perhaps, sets it rolling, and it gathers another and another and
another, till, as it descends, it becomes a mass of snow! And
by-and-by, as it leaps from crag to crag, it grows larger and larger
and larger until ponderous masses of ice and snow cohere together. And
at the last, with an awful thundering crash, the avalanche rolls down,
fills the valley and sweeps all before it! Even so this Everlasting
Father on the Cross set in motion a mighty force which has gone on
swelling and increasing, gathering to be a ponderous mass of mighty
teaching! And the day shall come when, like an irresistible avalanche,
it shall fall upon the palaces of the Vatican and upon the towers of
Rome! There shall come a day when the mosques of Mohammed and the
temples of the gods shall be crushed beneath its stupendous weight–and
the Everlasting Father shall have done the deed!
"The Everlasting Father," last of all, because He is the Father, in all
His people, of eternal life. Adam, you are a father, but where are your
sons? If you could return to earth, O Mother Eve, where would you find
your children? I think I see her as she paces round the earth and finds
nothing but little grassy mounds, heaps of turf, and sometimes a valley
sodden blood-red where her children have been slain in battle. I hear
her weeping for her children. She will not be comforted because they
are not!
But hush, Mother Eve, what life did you give them? What life was that
which Father Adam conferred upon your sons and daughters? Why, only
life terrestrial, a bubble life that melted and disappeared! But Jesus,
as He comes again, will find none of His children dead! None of His
sons and daughters lost! Because He lives, they live also, for He is
the Everlasting Father and makes those to have everlasting life who
live and breathe through Him. Thrice happy they who have an interest in
the truth of our text!
Now, dear Hearers, may I ask you whether Christ is Everlasting Father
to you? There are other fathers. The Jew said, "We have Abraham as our
father," and to this day certain divines teach that we have covenant
rights because of our earthly fathers. They believe in the Abrahamic
Covenant much after the manner of the Jews. "We have Abraham as our
father"– therefore we have a right to baptism. Therefore we are church
members–"born into the church." Yes, I have heard it said, "born into
the church."
Let no man deceive you! This is not Christ's teaching! "You must be
born-again." If not, though your mother were a saint in Heaven, and
your father an undoubted Apostle of God, you should derive no advantage
but a world of solemn responsibility from the fact–unless you are
yourself born-again! Do not, then, say unto yourself, "we have Abraham
as our father," for God is able of the very stones to raise up children
unto Abraham! We had a very remarkable instance not very long ago in
this Tabernacle of how God does sometimes bless the outcasts and leaves
some of you, the children of godly parents, in the hardness of your
heart to perish.
There was a man known in the village where he lives by the name of
Satan because of his being so thoroughly depraved. He was a sailor, and
as another sailor in that town had been the means of the conversion of
all the sailors in a vessel that left the town, this man desired to
sail with him to try and beat his religion out of him. He did his best,
but he signally failed, and as they happened to be coming to London,
his friend asked him whether he would come to the Tabernacle. He did
not mind coming to hear me, for, as it happened, I was brought up near
the place where he lived.
This Satan came here on the Lord's Day morning, when the text was upon
soul murder, [Sermon #713, Volume 12] and he sat (some of you noticed
him that day), and sobbed and cried under the sermon at such a
broken-hearted rate that he could only say, "People are noticing me, I
had better go out." But his companion would not let him go out, and
that man from that day forth was begotten by the Everlasting Father and
is living and walking in the Truth of God, an earnest Believer, doing
all that he can for the spread of the kingdom, and singularly clear in
his doctrinal knowledge!
Here is a man who had been everything that was possible in the way of
evil, yet God met with him! And some of you who have Abraham as your
father, and are related to godly people, are just all the more hardened
for all the preaching you have heard! May God have pity upon you and
save you yet! Do not be content with fleshly fatherhood! Get the
spiritual fatherhood which comes from Christ. Others of you are this
day perhaps saying, "Well, we can trust in our good works." Well, then,
Adam is your father, and you know what will come of you!
Adam was driven out of Paradise, and you will never be admitted there!
Adam lost all his hopes and you will lose yours. On the ground of the
Law shall no flesh living be justified! Alas, I fear that many here
have another father. How does Christ put it? "You are of your father,
the devil," says He, "for his works you do." Not works merely of open
sin in the form of adultery, uncleanness, theft, and such like, but
opposition to Christ is peculiarly a work of the devil! And unbelief in
Christ is the devil's masterpiece! If you do not, then, trust the Lord
Jesus, do not say tonight when you kneel at the bedside, "Our Father,
which are in Heaven," for your father is not in Heaven–your father is
in Hell!
Go to the blood of Jesus and ask that you may be cleansed from all
iniquity, and then may you say through the Everlasting Father, "O God,
You have made me Your child, and I love and bless Your name." May God
be pleased to give you all His blessing for Jesus' sake. Amen.