Isaiah 9:6; Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 63:16; Habakkuk 1:12; Proverbs 8:23; John 8:58
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.
Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One?
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Our Lord here, in the strongest terms, asserts His Divinity, declaring Himself to be what John more largely expresses, the “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, who is, and who was, and who is to come; the Almighty,” Revelation 1:8.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): It is therefore undoubtedly to be understood of Christ’s eternal existence.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): God is eternal, from everlasting to everlasting; the “Ancient of days,” Daniel 7:9,13,22―before all things, and all time; which is, and was, and is to come: the same is true of Christ, who is the everlasting Father, or Father of eternity, the true God, and eternal life; as appears from His nature, having the whole fullness, all the perfections of deity in Him; from His office, as Mediator, in which He was set up from everlasting; from His concern in eternal election, in the everlasting covenant, and in the creation of all things out of nothing.
STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): As He is the “mighty God,” so He is “the everlasting Father.” Can such a title be ascribed to any whose being depends upon the will of another, and may be dashed out at the pleasure of a superior? As the eternity of God is the ground of all religion, so the eternity of Christ is the ground of the Christian religion.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): “The everlasting Father.” This has puzzled many. It need not.
JOHN GILL: The “everlasting Father” does not design any relation of Christ in the Godhead. There is but one Father in the Godhead, and that is the first Person; indeed Christ and the Father are one, and the Father is in Him, and He is in the Father, and He that has seen the one has seen the other. And yet they are distinct.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): This title respects not His relation to the Deity―for with respect to that, He is the Son and not the Father―but rather His relation to His spiritual seed, whom He has begotten by His Word and Spirit.
STEPHEN CHARNOCK: He is particularly called the “everlasting,” or “eternal Father;” not the Father in the Trinity, but a Father to us.
JOHN GILL: Some render the words, “the Father of eternity”―the Author of eternal life, Who has procured it for His people, and gives it to them; or to Whom eternity belongs, Who inhabits it, and is possessed of it, Who is the everlasting I AM, and was before all persons and things, was set up in an office capacity from everlasting, and had a glory with the Father before the world was, in Whom is eternal election, and with Whom the everlasting covenant, were made.
CHARLES SIMEON: But perhaps the words should rather have been translated, “The Father of the everlasting age.” The Jewish dispensation was intended to continue but for a limited time; but the Christian dispensation was never to be succeeded by any other: hence it is called “the last times;” and may be considered as “the everlasting age.” Of this Christ is the Author; it owes its existence to Him as its parent; it is preserved by His guardian care; and the whole family in heaven and earth who participate its blessings, both bear His image, and inherit His glory.
A. W. PINK: Christ is the “everlasting Father” because from everlasting He had “children!”
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): And of all these it must be said, that every individual of Christ’s seed was in Christ from all eternity, for they were chosen in Christ “before the foundation of the world,” Ephesians 1:3,4.
THOMAS COKE: As Adam was the first man that God created, so he was the first father and progenitor of all other men, who are every one born in his image as they come into the world of nature, and breathe the vital air. Just so, from Jesus Christ, the everlasting Father, all who come into the world of grace derive their spiritual being; His image they bear, 1 Corinthians 15:49, and from Him “the whole family in heaven and earth is named,” Ephesians 3:15…So all the saints are descendants from Jesus Christ, their everlasting Father.
JOHN GILL: These bear His name, are called “Christians” from Him.
MATTHEW HENRY: (1662-1714): It was from everlasting in the counsels of it; and will be, to everlasting, in the consequences of it.
JOHN GILL: His seed and offspring shall endure forever.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Think for a little.
MATTHEW HENRY: The everlasting Father became a child of time―the Ancient of days became an infant of a span long.
C. H. SPURGEON: Remember that He who became an infant of a span long was no less than the King of Ages, the “everlasting Father” Who was from eternity, and is to be to all eternity…He is the mighty God! He that made the heavens and stretched them out like a tent to dwell in—He Who speaks and it is done—the everlasting Father—is anything too hard for Him?
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Want we grace and His image to be renewed and increased in us? He is “the everlasting Father”―a father to beget His likeness in us, and everlasting to maintain it ever, when it is begun once: He is made “sanctification” to us, 1 Corinthians 1:30. Want we wisdom to guide us? He is the ‘Counsellor,’ and is made wisdom to us. All we want He hath; even as all He hath, we want.
RALPH ERSKINE (1685-1752): Do you need his fatherly pity? His name is the everlasting Father; “As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him,” Psalm 103:13. Plead His pity, for His name’s sake.
ROBERT HAWKER: Surely Jesus is the everlasting Father of His people.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting”―from eternity, and on to eternity― “and let all the people say, Amen,” Psalm 106:48.
