THE EVERLASTING FATHER

There is always sadness to see a home where there are fatherless children. Sometimes due to death and sometimes due to other sad circumstances, a mother has to bring up a family alone.

Turning from the titles which have proclaimed the glory and might of the coming One, Isaiah now declares that those who trust in their God will never be without a Father. The One to whom the prophet looks is the everlasting Father. This seems to bring Him nearer and closer to us, speaking of a relationship with us that even eternity will not affect. It does not, however, affect the relationship of the persons in the Godhead as it does not detract from God the Father. He who is revealed as the everlasting Father is God the Son, as the title refers to his relationship to eternity and to all His own who will inhabit it.

That a father pities his children is known to us, Psalm 103.13. He is able to guide them with His wisdom and shelter them with His love. He cares for them and has compassion on them just as the everlasting Father cares for and has compassion on us. This, then, is the outlook we have for the endless ages, to have a Father whose care we can anticipate with joy, and whose love for us will never diminish.

But one way of reading this title adds more to its significance. Some read it as ‘the Father of Eternity’, e.g. JND. If we have briefly considered His compassion, we see now His power and authority. In the realm of eternity, He reigns supreme. As ‘the Father of Eternity’, He is the cause of it, the One who brought it into being, the One who initiated it. Eternity owes its existence to Him and it is His power that sustains it. Keil and Delitzsch state that, ‘The title Eternal Father designates Him, however, not only as the possessor of eternity … but as the tender, faithful, and wise trainer, guardian, and provider for His people even in eternity’.

Events around us can cause us fear. The storms of life, which come closer, can grip us with anxiety. The uncertainty with which we are beset may cloud our horizons. But He who died on calvary is the everlasting Father with endless, timeless compassion and control. With that prospect, fear not!