- Jesus was never called the everlasting Father. Jesus was styled as the Son.
You must remember that with the language being used, all of these names can be applied to Jesus Christ. Let me explain.
6 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.
This can either be accepted (as it is by Christians) as applying to Jesus, or it can be applied to Hezekiah, son of Ahaz. Either way, your belief that it is negated because it says “Everlasting Father” is refuted by both Jews and Christians.
So Christians often accept this as only applying to Jesus, and Jews accept this as only applying to Hezekiah, but it can also be believed to be about both. Look at what the rest of the Prophecy says:
7 Of the greatness 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.
The rest of this Prophecy here does not apply to Hezekiah because if it did, then the Prophecy was not fulfilled. As you can see Hezekiah’s never ending peace and his forever lasting justice and righteousness has expired. Christ’s however has not.
So one must accept one of the following three scenarios:
- This is only about Jesus
- This is about Hezekiah and a prelude to Jesus
- God was wrong, the Prophecy never was fulfilled
- Do the Jews see this as a prophecy of Jesus?
An important question. Because while Christians can argue that Prophet Muhammad does not fit within the worldview of the Christians, so to can it be argue that Jesus does not fit in the worldview of the Jews.
If you argue that Jews don’t understand their text properly, so too can I argue Christian do not understand their text properly. Basically whatever you say about the Jews and their understanding of the Old Testament, I’m at liberty to say about you and your understanding of Gospel.
Well, let’s look for historical proof of our earliest evidence of this being understood in a certain way. There is no historical proof that the Jews ever denied Isaiah 53 as being about a person prior to Jesus Christ, but let’s look at the proof we do have!
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the
Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”***
(Stop here to explain that this is straight from Isaiah 53… Moving on.)
34 The eunuch asked Philip,
“Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” [37] 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
Notice how back then this was recognized as a Prophecy about
a person!
You must admit, the Bible is pretty incredible.*
