Wonderful

“His name shall be called Wonderful” (Isaiah 9:6).

Here is a name that is an adjective, so we may use it not only as a name by itself, but also as descriptive of all His other names. The more we know Him and love Him, the more we shall delight in this.

If we know Jesus as our Savior at all, we shall be quite sure that He is a Wonderful Savior. And as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we shall find more and more, year by year, and even day by day, what a Wonderful Friend, and Wonderful Gift, and Wonderful High Priest, and Wonderful everything else He is.

When you see a wonderful sight, don’t you want others to see it, too? And if you cannot bring them to see it, don’t you want to tell them about it, to try to give them an idea of it? So I think one proof that we have really found Jesus is that we shall want others to come and see what a Wonderful Savior we have found.

Jesus is Wonderful in what He is. Even the angels must have wondered to see the Son of God, whom they all worship, lying in a manger as a little baby. But I think they must have wondered more still when they saw Him “taken, and by wicked hands … crucified and slain” (Acts 2:23). They must have marveled indeed then at the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, yet He was not dying for them but for you, so you may say, “Thy love to me was wonderful” (2 Samuel 1:26).

Everything that He did was wonderful. Isaiah said that many would be astonished at Him (Isaiah 52:14). To see how this was fulfilled, look in the Gospel of Mark, where it is recorded fourteen times that the people were astonished or amazed at Jesus. (Mark 1:22,27; 2:12; 5:42; 6:2,51; 7:37; 9:15; 10:24,26;32; 11:18; 14:33; 16:8). Their testimony was: “He hath done all things well.”

And His words were not less wonderful. Look in the 4th chapter of Luke, and you will see how even those who did not love Him “wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth” and were “astonished at His doctrine” and “amazed” at His powerful words (Luke 4:22,32,36). If we wonder at His gracious words to us now, how much more shall we wonder when we see Him on the throne of His glory, and hear His own voice.

—Adapted from Opened Treasures by Frances Ridley Havergal.