Advent Reflections 2020: Isaiah's Titles for Jesus - 1: Wonderful Counsellor

 

For our Advent reflections this year we're going to look at the titles Jesus is given in Isaiah's prophecy in Isaiah 9:6 “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 Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

The first title that Isaiah foretells for Jesus is 'Wonderful Counsellor'. Jesus is wonderful in the sense that he arouses in us a sense of wonder and awe and marvel. Unfortunately, we are so familiar with the events of Jesus' life that they lose something of that sense of wonder, but as we read the gospels we are constantly told how the reaction of the crowds to Jesus was one of amazement, not just at his miracles, but also at his teaching (e.g. Mark 1:27). It is the same as we approach Christmas; familiarity blind us to the amazing events surrounding Jesus' birth, like the angels, the star and the virgin birth itself. Similarly, we need to recover our wonder at the very coming of Jesus, how “...within a manger lies / he who built the starry skies” “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8). The most wonderful thing about Jesus is that he came to earth from his glory in heaven so that he could die to redeem us from our sins.

The title 'Counsellor' helps us to see in greater detail what Jesus does. It firstly reminds us of Jesus' place in the Trinity: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a communion of Persons in perfect unity. The idea of them taking counsel together is a really difficult one to comprehend because we humans take counsel in order to fill in gaps in our knowledge, but God has no such lack of knowledge. The Divine 'consultation' (which we see for example in Genesis 1:26) is more a reminder that each Person of the Trinity acts freely to fulfil the Divine will. So in the Philippians quote we saw that Jesus was obedient to the Father, and in John 16:13 Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit “will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears [from the Father and the Son]” - in both cases there is the inference that the Son and the Spirit choose to act in that way. This contradicts the argument of atheists like Richard Dawkins who say that the Father commits child-abuse by sending Jesus to die for our sins. The crucifixion was the eternal plan of the Trinity for the atonement of human sin – Jesus went to his death willingly because it was his plan from before Creation! This is reflected in another way the phrase 'Wonderful Counsellor' can be translated: “Wonder-working Planner”.

Jesus' rôle as Counsellor also tells us about his relationship to us – he imparts wisdom and truth to us. But he is not just one more voice among many, he is not someone whose teachings have the same value as any other speaker – only he has the words of eternal life (John 6:68), because only he is Wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:24) and Truth (John 14:6). Despite this, Jesus' words do not come to us as a divine diktat, but as an invitation to life in all its fullness and a sign that he is concerned with our welfare – whoever obeys his words will never see death (John 8:51). In these uncertain and frightening times, who better to turn to than our Wonderful Counsellor?

Cross words

Here's my magazine article for March:

Would you wear a piece of jewellery in the shape of an electric chair? Or perhaps a noose and gallows? Unless you have a particularly macabre fashion taste, I suspect the answer would be no. After all why would you wear a symbol of torture and execution? But that is precisely what many people do by wearing a cross. Crucifixion was the cruel Roman method of execution that they reserved for the very worst criminals, yet the cross quickly became the symbol of the underground movement that made up the early church.

We have an unusual situation this year with Good Friday being in a different month to Easter Sunday, so we have the opportunity to focus on Jesus' death this month before thinking about his resurrection next month.

We're so used to seeing crosses around that we've lost the shock of what it represents. The early church chose not to celebrate Jesus' amazing miracles nor even his wise teachings but his death, and it wasn't a heroic or serene death but a shameful, criminal's death. If the early church wanted to commend their new faith to the world dominated by the Romans, emphasising Jesus' crucifixion is not the best way to start. But that is what they did. Why?

Well the simple answer is because the crucifixion is the centre of the Christian faith; it is the literal and metaphorical crux of Christianity.  Paul wrote that he “resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).  He knew that this would be a shocking message, writing “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23).  The Jews were expecting a Messiah who would kick the Romans out of Israel, not one who was killed by them! And the Gentiles (non-Jews) wanted a highly intellectual philosophy not the story of a man who rejected by his own people!  Those who saw the cross as a stumbling-block and foolishness agreed with the Jewish religious leaders who mocked the dying Jesus: “‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him’” (Matthew 27:42-43).

But the deeper reason why people then and now reject the message of Christ crucified is because it reminds us of a very uncomfortable truth: that we are sinners who need saving.  Paul reminds us that all of us have sinned and fallen short of God's standard (Romans 3:23) (and if we are honest we fall short of our own standards too) and the punishment for sin is death (Romans 6:23), eternal separation from God.  And because of our sin we are helpless to save ourselves.  But the good news is that “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith” (Romans 3:25), that's what it means to say that Christ died for our sins.

Christ crucified means that we cannot be saved by our own moral or religious efforts, but only because Jesus died in our place. The pathetic-looking figure on the cross is the solution to the world's problems, but only when we recognise our own pathetic-ness, let go of our pretensions to goodness and rejoice that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).