(Isaiah 9:6-7) “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.”
When we see the phrase “the Reason for the Season” it points to the birth of the Son of God. Some others refer to Christmas as “the silly season.” The phrase “silly season” can refer to the Christmas and New Year festive period, especially in countries like Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It describes the often hectic and frivolous activities associated with this time of year.
Frivolity and wining and dining and the giving of gifts and the frantic rush to buy gifts and the huge amount of retail goods that are sold without a recognition of what Christmas really means are all marks this silly season.
Silliness has to do not only with frivolity, but also to do with a lack of serious reflection, but rather abandonment to giving licence to the desires of the flesh, eating, drinking, joviality, and a rather care-free attitude in all of these pursuits without understanding the real reason for the season.
Of course there is nothing wrong with eating and drinking (in moderation) and even celebrating at this time of the year, but what is being celebrated?
Many are caught up with singing Christmas carols, exchanging gifts, visiting relatives and friends, feeling somehow emotional at this time of the year, and many will even darken the doors of their local church yet without having the supernatural revelation why Christmas is so important.
Undoubtedly, many unsaved people know intellectually that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of God’s Son yet have no spiritual revelation that the reason He was sent into this world was to destroy the works of the devil, to redeem and to save them from their sin, from its power, and from its eternal consequences in the lake of Fire, and that through repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus to save them, be reconciled to God for eternity (1 John 3:8) (Acts 20:21) (Ephesians 1:7) (John 3:16-18) (Revelation 21:8).
Those who have been spiritually reborn from above know the real reason for celebrating Christmas even though the Messiah our Lord Jesus was not born in December, neither did the early Body of Messiah celebrate Christmas.
Around 2,600 years ago Isaiah the prophet foretold the coming of the Messiah our Lord Jesus. In this Messianic prophecy the emphasis is not on His first coming but on His Second Coming and the Messianic Kingdom He will inaugurate after having destroyed all opposition to the establishment of His Millennial reign on earth, a truth for the most part overlooked at the Christmas season.
With these things in view let’s briefly look at our text…
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders.
Here we see a reference to the fact that even though His kingdom has been established in the hearts of New Covenant believers; it also implies that the Kingdom will be visibly manifested when He co-reigns on earth with His redeemed people in His Messianic Kingdom, where together, they will reign with a Rod (sceptre) of iron over the nations that have survived His Second Coming (Psalm 2:7-9) (Revelation 2:27; 5:9-10; 12:5). And then we read…
“And He will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
These are collectively all titles of divinity. In this we see the Tri-Unity of God. The Holy Spirit is the Wonderful Counsellor, The Lord Jesus is also Mighty God and equal with God in all of his eternal and divine attributes. He is also the Prince of Peace which will spread over the earth in the regeneration of all things. He also said to His disciples in anticipation of the Messianic age to come, “In the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:29).
What a wonderful blessing we have as His blood redeemed, blood justified, and blood washed, blood sanctified children. We have God dwelling in us in the person of the blessed Holy Spirit as our counsellor, friend and guide. We have our Mighty God and Father who is the strength of his people and gives them His peace (Psalm 29:11). We have the Prince of Peace who through His Holy Spirit imparts to us that peace of God which transcends all human comprehension and garrisons our hearts and minds in Him (Philippians 4:7). And then we read…
“Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.”
Here we are told that His government will be one of peace, firstly in the hearts of His followers, and after this in the age to come when this age comes to a close. As Isaiah also prophesies; “And many peoples will come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths.” For the law (the Torah) will go forth from Zion, and the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem. Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war” (Isaiah 2:3-4).
We are also told that He will reign on David’s throne. While He is already reining in heaven and at work in the world through His Holy Spirit, we as His blood redeemed people are co-reigning with Him in the heavenly realms. As we read; “God raised us up with Him (the Lord Jesus), and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in the Messiah Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in the Messiah Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6-7).
Having said this in the Jewish Messianic context He will physically reign on David’s throne at Jerusalem where He will receive the worship of the nations. The foundation of His reign will be justice and righteousness in the coming age for 1,000 year and after that continue into the final and eternal realm where there will be a new heaven (heavens) and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth will have passed away and where there will be no more nations divided by the sea of divisiveness.
At this time the New Jerusalem, the redeemed bride of the Messiah will come down out of heaven in that eternal city. God will dwell on earth and in heaven as one eternal and incorruptible realm of existence.
The loud voice will be shouted from heaven that the dwelling of God is with men and He will be living with them in the new united heaven and earth. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away (Revelation 21:1-5).
All of us even as New Covenant believers in Messiah have memories of bad circumstances afflictions and tests, unresolved inner conflicts of one sort or another, grieving over broken relationships and or over family members yet unsaved. Many of us are experiencing the first Christmas without a spouse or a child due to their passing.
Many of us may well be facing next year with uncertainty as we contemplate what will happen as we see conditions in the world rapidly deteriorating with the breakdown of society. We also see the rapid increase in frequency and intensity of the “birth pains” of nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, famines, earthquakes in various places and diseases.
However, when these ‘birth pains” are coming one upon another what do we know? The birth of the Messianic Kingdom is near even at the very gates of the city of this fallen world!
After the 1,000 year Messianic Age has finished and Satan has been cast forever into the lake of Fire, in the New Jerusalem and the new heavens and earth all tears will have been wiped away, all bad memories gone forever! As born again blood redeemed children of God, we individually, along with all of the redeemed nations, will walk in the pure untainted light of the glory of God, all whose names have been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life even before the foundation of this universe. Indeed it will be an absolute certainty because of the Zeal of the LORD which has accomplished this!
