“Mighty God” was to be one of the titles borne by the virgin’s son who, centuries after Isaiah’s day, was to be the manifestation of God in Israel—Immanuel, God with us. In the ocean of controversy and strife that rolls round his name, according to his express prophecy, we are safe only in holding fast by his own exposition of the things of God. The root of it all is his doctrine of the Unity and Supremacy of the Father: “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” (Mark 12:29). Mosaic, prophetic and Messianic teaching all agree in this first principle of all things; and the Scriptures can never be successfully accommodated to a Trinitarian exegesis that utterly rejects it.
The words of Jesus, above quoted, are from Moses: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Speaking prophetically of Jesus, the “mighty God” of Isaiah 9:6, Moses said: “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee like unto me.” And, quoting the word of the Eternal concerning that prophet: “I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I command him. And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him” (Deuteronomy 18:15). Here then “the Lord thy God” raises up, inspires and commands “the mighty God” of subsequent prophetic allusion. This is in harmony with the teaching of Jesus as we shall see; but is quite irreconcilable with Trinitarian “incomprehensibilities” of coequality and co-eternity.
The prophets, by whom God spoke by His spirit as He did by Moses, agree with Moses in the proclamation of the unity and unapproachable majesty of God. “I am Yahweh; that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another” (Isaiah 42:8). “I, even I, am Yahweh, and beside me there is no Saviour” (43:11). “Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no rock (power), I know not any” (44:8). “I am Yahweh, and there is none else, there is no God beside me” (45:5). These are some examples of the way in which the unity and supremacy of the Eternal Father were enforced on Israel by the prophets, in protest against their apostacy and idolatry. Many others could be given. The apostles, after Jesus, taught the same things concerning the Father and the Son. “There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). “The Blessed and only Potentate” (1 Timothy 6:16). “To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him: and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him” (1 Corinthians 8:6). Our interpretation of the names and titles of Christ must harmonize with these clear and unmistakable exhibitions of the truth concerning God.
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Author: R. Roberts & C. C. Walker
Keywords: Mighty God, El Gibbor, El Gibor, Gibor, Gibbor, Shaddai, Adonai, Kyrios, Kurious, Kurios, Kyrious, Lord God
Bible reference(s): Isa. 9:6, Isa 10:21, Jeremiah 32:18
Source: R. Roberts & C. C. Walker, Ministry of the Prophets (Birmingham, UK: 1899).
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