I love Christmas. Even though it has been secularized and commercialized, beneath all the misplaced cultural debris, there is still a promise that calls out to the hearts of men. I believe it is the promise of peace, which is the secret longing of every person I know. I’m not talking primarily here about world peace, but rather about the peace in a man’s heart.
The prophet Isaiah spoke to this promise hundreds of years before Christ when Israel was in great turmoil and the future for that little nation seemed dark and foreboding. In the midst of that darkness he declared, “ Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this” (Isa.9:5-7).
On the night of Christ’s birth, the angels echoed this prophecy when they declared, “Peace on earth, good will towards men.” This little verse in Isaiah contains amazing revelations of God’s heart towards his people and a promised world to come. The revelations are much more easily seen this side of Christmas and the cross than they were then, but even then they were full of hope.
Of course, from the days of David, God had promised that an heir of King David would sit on David’s throne and rule the nation in righteousness. The promise had a condition. God would establish the throne of David as long as his descendant was faithful to the Lord by keeping all of his commandments. Many kings in Judah came to the throne, but one by one they failed to finish out their reigns in righteousness. As the years passed, the Jews began to long for the Messiah – an anointed one of God who would be the one promised. He would have to be a descendant of David from the tribe of Judah but he would be the chosen and righteous one about whom the prophets spoke. They, of course, saw him as the deliverer – another Moses who would deliver them from centuries of oppression by foreign nations. Because so many “promising” kings had failed to live up to the standards of the prophecy, some Rabbi’s began to suspect that a man of flesh and blood would never fit the bill so that a Son of God himself might have to enter the world and take his place on David’s throne.
This little section from Isaiah speaks of that Messiah. Interestingly, he would not descend from heaven in power and glory to take his throne – at least, not at his first coming. Instead, he would do the incomprehensible. He would become a child and enter the world through a Jewish virgin’s birth canal who grew up in the backwater province of Galilee. “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isa.7:14). Immanuel means “God with us.” Again, we see these prophecies from this side of the manger, but for the Jews these bits and pieces of Messianic prophecies it must have been incredibly puzzling and hard to piece together much like the end-times prophecies we struggle to make sense of.
But here is what we do know. “To us a child is born. To us a son is given.” This child was a gift to men. Jesus did not come for his benefit, but only for ours. Jesus was not commanded nor compelled but came as a gift. John spoke of this when he said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” (Jn.3:16). The world was a dirty place then – full of sin, violence, idolatry, witchcraft, sexual perversions, wars, and power grabs. It was a world like today, only without the Internet. Yet, in spite of all that, God still gave us a son.
We are told immediately that God sent his son into the world to govern. Man had been given authority to govern the earth in the beginning but had quickly forfeited that rule to Satan. But now, God was promising to take back the rule of planet earth. The government would rest on this child who was also “God with us.” He would establish it, direct it, and sustain it by his power and righteousness.
This son given to us would eventually be known by many descriptive titles: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. For the Jews, trying to connect the dots between a child born of a woman being called Mighty God and Everlasting Father was problematic. They did not have the revelation of a triune God that we have and, even with that revelation we still struggle to get our minds around that concept. But the truth is that no man born in bondage to sin could fulfill that role. Jesus was born capable of sin but not in bondage to it because he was a product of the Holy Spirit rather than a sinful father. The everlasting descriptor gives us what the Jews of Isaiah’s day never had – the assurance that once this righteous king ascended the throne, he would never die and vacate his position to an ungodly predecessor who would call down God’s judgments on the nation once again.
A significant revelation is found in the nature of the kingdom. Notice that he was not described as a king who would come to crush the opposition and establish his throne with the blood of men. He came to establish his throne with his own blood and to love his enemies rather than annihilate them. His throne would be established by wise and wonderful council and, instead of being known as Jesus the Terrible, he would be known as the Prince of Peace. His goal was not to be war and conquest, but peace on earth. He came first to reconcile men to God and then to one another.
Christmas reminds us of that promise that is yet to come in its fullness. As we sense the best about Christmas – love, generosity, joy, reconciled relationships, surprises, etc. – we sense the character of the world to come when Christ will sit on David’s throne and rule with justice and righteousness forever. Think of a world without conflict, without natural disasters, without divorce, without death, without corruption, without cancer, without war, without slavery, and without shame. Think of a world where no hospitals are needed and where terrorism isn’t a word in the dictionary. That is the world to come and those peaceful, quiet, loving, and unselfish moments you sense or glimpse or hope for at Christmas time is the promise of things to come. The angels announced God’s intent – Peace on earth, good will towards men.
That promise still stands and God will fulfill that promise because he declared, “The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this!” Take the best of Christmas and it’s deepest ideas and know that those qualities are God’s ultimate desire for you and for all those who love him. It is just a taste of the good things to come.
