Why is Christ called “The Everlasting Father” in Isaiah 9:6?

The Hebrew term translated “father” is ab, which means father, ancestor, source, or inventor. The reference to Christ as “everlasting Father” is rich in meaning. He is a Father in the sense that He is Creator—that is, He was the active Agent through whom God created all things (John 1:1,2; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2). He is also a Father in the sense that He is the Source of salvation, the Head of the new creation (Ephesians 1:21,22; Colossians 1:18). As the first Adam was the father of “those who are made of dust,” the second Adam (Christ) is the Father of “those who are heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15:47,48). This does not mean that Christ and God the Father are one and the same; it simply means that Christ is a Father in the sense that He is the Beginning, the Origin, of God’s spiritual creation. The patriarchs of Israel—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the sons of Jacob, and the heads of the tribes that descended from them—are repeatedly referred to as “the fathers” in Scripture. (The term patriarch means “father.”) Christ, as the singular Seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16), is the everlasting Patriarch of Abraham’s spiritual seed. Paul wrote, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed [regardless of physical lineage], and heirs according to the promise [the promise given to Abraham]” (Galatians 3:29). The title of Father belongs to God the Father in a unique way, but Scripture reveals that the term has different senses of meaning and appropriately applies to many. Since the first Adam is the father of humankind; since Abraham is the “father of the faithful”; since he, along with Isaac, Jacob, Jacob’s sons, and the heads of the tribes of Israel are called “fathers”; and since the apostle Paul refers to himself as a “father” to the Christians at Corinth (1 Corinthians 4:15), it is not surprising that Christ—the divine Agent in creation; the second Adam; the Origin, Beginning, Source, and Head of God’s spiritual creation—is called “everlasting Father” in Isaiah 9:6.