For to us a child is born, to us a son is given... And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
“Mighty God” = El Gibbor (Hebrew):
• El = God
• Gibbor = strong, powerful, mighty, champion, hero
The soldiers of Israel are described as “mighty [gibbor] men of valor” (Joshua 1:14; 6:2; 8:3 NKJV). The giant Goliath is called a “champion [gibbor]” (1 Samuel 17:51). King David’s top soldiers were known as his “mighty [gibbor] men” (2 Samuel 23:8). The Lord is described as being “mighty [gibbor] in battle” (Psalm 24:8).
As “Mighty God,” Jesus is a powerful warrior.
1. Jesus is the PROMISED warrior.
So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this.... I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers [her seed KJV]; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:14-15).
a. He would be the seed of the woman: a prophecy of the VIRGIN birth.
“But when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman...” (Galatians 4:4). When an angel told Mary she would “give birth to a son” (Luke 1:31), Mary asked, “How will this be since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34). The angel told her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35).
Matthew’s Gospel tells us, “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18). Joseph naturally assumed that Mary had been unfaithful to him, but an angel appeared to him in a dream and told him, “What is conceived in [Mary] is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20).
Jesus had only one human parent (Mary). He was a “miracle baby.” He was miraculously conceived in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit. As the angel said to Mary, “Nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).
b. The serpent would strike his heel: a prophecy of the CROSS.
c. He would crush the serpent’s head: a prophecy of Satan’s DEFEAT.
“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8).
2. Jesus is the DIVINE warrior.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us” (Matthew 1:22-23; see Isaiah 7:14).
Jesus is GOD who became a MAN.
“In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14).
The angel told Mary, “The holy one to be born will be called the Son of God’” (Luke 1:35). The virgin birth made possible the uniting of full deity and full humanity in one person.
How can Jesus be both God and the Son of God? God is triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is only one God, but there are three persons who are God. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father. But the Father is God, and the Son is God. Confusing? Yes. A contradiction? No. A mystery? Yes.
The apostle Paul writes that Jesus, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:6-7).
Max Lucado writes in his book God Came Near: Chronicles of the Christ (26):
Angels watched as Mary changed God’s diaper. The universe watched with wonder as The Almighty learned to walk.
For thirty-three years he would feel everything you and I have ever felt. He felt weak. He grew weary. He got colds, burped, and had body odor. His feet got tired. And his head ached.
To think of Jesus in such light is—well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it? It’s not something we like to do; it’s uncomfortable. It is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. Clean the manure from around the manger. Wipe the sweat out of his eyes. Pretend he never snored or blew his nose or hit his thumb with a hammer.
The little baby born in Bethlehem and placed in a manger was the “Mighty God.”
3. Jesus is the WOUNDED warrior.
He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).
The tiny hands of baby Jesus were made to take two great nails. His little feet were made to walk to a place called “the Skull” and be nailed to a cross. His delicate head was made to wear a crown of thorns. His tender body wrapped in swaddling clothes was made to be pierced by a spear.
Jesus was born to DIE: to us a child is born (incarnation); to us a son is given (crucifixion).
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son...” (John 3:16).
4. Jesus is the VICTORIOUS warrior.
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).
Jesus defeated the devil not by escaping death, but by experiencing death. Remember what God said to the serpent (the devil): “He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15).
The Greek word for “destroy” (katargeo) means “to render inoperative or ineffective.” When Jesus died, He robbed Satan’s of his most powerful weapon: death. (How does Satan hold the power of death? Satan brought death into the world through his temptation of Eve. And he seeks to promote unbelief in Christ so that people suffer sin’s penalty: death.
There are three kinds of death:
• Physical death: separation of the spirit from the body.
“You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17).
“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19).
• Spiritual death: separation of the spirit from God.
“We were dead in transgressions” (Ephesians 2:5).
• Eternal death: separation of the body and spirit from God forever in hell (conscious suffering, not annihilation).
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).
“The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death” (Revelation 20:13-14).
b. Jesus died to destroy the POWER of death.
By dying, Jesus was able to conquer death by His resurrection. “‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).
c. Jesus died to free you from the FEAR of death.
American filmmaker Woody Allen summed up humanity’s uneasiness with death when he said, “It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
The fear of death is expressed well in “Appointment in Samarra,” an old tale about a servant who had gone to the market in Baghdad and come back to his master shaken over an encounter there.
“Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd, and when I turned I saw that it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Now lend me your horse and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.” The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it...and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. When the merchant went down to the marketplace he saw Death standing in the crowd and he came to Death and said, “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?” “That was not a threatening gesture,” Death said. “It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”
We have not been delivered from death itself, but from slavery to the fear of death. Job described death as “the king of terrors” (Job 18:14). But Paul said, “To die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Without Christ there is a hopeless end; with Christ there is an endless hope.
Jesus is a mighty warrior who came to earth to save us from the power and fear of death.
