gians of the centuries, have tried to reason about this reality of history which is by far more greatly attested to than any other fact. God so loved the world that He sent His only be gotten Son to die on the cross for sinners, those who hated God, those who were His enemies. God didn’t have to do it. We certainly didn’t de serve it. It was in His great infinite love that no finite mind can even begin to understand, much less ex plain to another, that caused Him to give Himself to redeem us to Him self. His name shall be called Won derful. The man who has never come to know the Saviour cannot under stand Him and His divine plan for every human life. I’m glad that the Holy Spirit of God placed this name first for it pre pares us more adequately for all the others that follow in this portion of Scripture. There is an ancient prov erb which states, “A wonder of earth grows gray-headed in nine days.” This means that men soon are able to fathom the facts behind that which at first seemed to be wonderful. But oh, the depths of the riches of Christ are unfathomable; they are truly “wonderful.” This word can also be translated, “marvelous.” By defini tion, marvelous simply means “sepa rated one; belonging by itself.” How well this fits the picture we would verbally draw of the Saviour. He is all by Himself; He does not have any others like Him; He belongs to no other class. No wonder Peter de clared, “Lord, to whom shall We go, for Thou alone hast the words of eternal life?” He is the only One to whom we can go for peace, joy and assurance of our soul’s eternal des tiny. He is the only One to whom we can go with our problems, and He is the only One to whom we need to go
with our prayers and supplications, asking for divine forgiveness. This we know by the words of Paul, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men: the man Christ Jesus.” His name shall be called “Marvelous.” We have some friends who just had a lovely new little baby girl come into their household. I think it took them one entire week before they could make up their minds what the child’s name should be. Maybe you were expecting a boy and got a girl, or vice versa, and you were caught without a name for the wee one, and faced a similar problem. But here the name of the Lord was not a last- minute decision, but was given 750 years before His birth in Bethlehem’s manger. That’s one of the reasons why we are assured of the accuracy of the Bible and the reality of the incarnation. When we find the term “angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament, it refers to none other than to the Lord Jesus Christ. In Judges 13:17, 18 we read, “And Manoah said unto the angel of the Lord, What is thy name, that, when thy sayings come to pass, we may do thee honor? And the angel of the Lord said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?” Now that word secret means by in te r p r e ta tio n , “Wonderful.” Here, even before the writings of Isaiah, the Lord’s name is given, further proof of the accur acy and inerrancy of the Scriptures. But for a moment, let’s ask our selves, How was Christ wonderful? You think of some of the things in volved in this regard. First of all, He was wonderful in His birth. He could have come to this earth as a prince, a great ruler, an outstanding king — anything He wished. The Bible tells us, “He humbled Himself and took upon Him the form of a servant.” He who was the philoso pher’s wisdom was willing to take the lowest position and station in life
Christians like camels unload their burdens by kneeling.
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