Devotions this week are based on Week 3 of “He Shall Be Called: Everlasting Father” (CLICK HERE)
Simon Sinek in his book The Infinite Game relates the difference in playing a finite versus infinite game. A finite game is defined by a set of rules, a set time frame and a clear winner and loser at the end of the game. Modern sports are finite games. Football, basketball, baseball and more have a set of rules that need to be followed when playing the game. At the end of the four quarters or nine innings the team with the most points in the winner, the other the loser.
Standing in contrast to the finite game is the “infinite game.” The goal of this activity is to live to play or compete another day. There are not always clear rules and boundaries and the outcome is not defined by points or quantifiable measure. The winner of the infinite game is the one who continues to play the game and eventually turn over the game to another who will continue the quest.
In Isaiah 9:6, Isaiah speaks of Jesus as the Everlasting Father. Many commentators will identify this name for Jesus in a similar way as Alexander Graham Bell is the Father of the Telephone or Robert Goddard is the Father of Modern Rocketry. Charles Spurgeon put it this way in his sermon on the same phrase:
It is the manner of the Easterns to call a man the father of a quality for which he is remarkable. To this day, among the Arabs, a wise man is called “the father of wisdom;” a very foolish man “the father of folly.” The predominant quality in the man is ascribed to him as though it were his child, and he the father of it. Now, the Messiah is here called in the Hebrew “the Father of eternity,” by which is meant that he is pre-eminently the possessor of eternity as an attribute. (Charles Spurgeon – 1866)
Eternity is a predominant and key attribute of the Lord Jesus.
This reality is difficult to fully grasp as we are just about to celebrate his birth at a moment in time in a finite space. The fullness of the Infinite would dwell in finite form.
But here’s the amazing reality. Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem was another step in the “infinite game” of salvation which God has been working before he created time at the beginning. While Jesus took on human flesh, he was still defined by his eternal nature. As the Spirit revealed to John in the vision of Revelation:
Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
What is amazing about the eternal nature of Jesus is that his work, while done in time, is not limited in impact to time. What he did in his life, death and resurrection still has importance and impact for me today. What also is equally wonderful, is the working of his eternal power has included you in me in his “infinite game of salvation.” God has continued to work his plan through centuries and millennia. While the work is defined by the Gospel of God’s grace, the impact never ends. As it has touched the hearts of people for years in the past, it will continue to do so into the future.
It’s what the Gospel does because Jesus is the Father of Eternity. The reign of the Gospel will continue past when we are done on this earth, because the Gospel is at the heart of God’s infinite game!
Apply: How would you define or describe eternity? What impact does it have to be reminded that Jesus is eternal, characterized by eternity?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, Everlasting Father, thank you for being God, yet being willing to enter the finiteness of time and space to include me in the eternal impact of your Gospel message. AMEN.