We’ll all probably heard the prophecy about Jesus from Isaiah 9 this Christmas season. It is predicted there that Jesus will be born, he’ll be king, he’ll be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” and he’ll reign on the throne of David, with righteousness and peace, forevermore (Isaiah 9:6-7).
But have you ever noticed the strange wording of one of the lines? Notice specifically what of Jesus’s rule will have no end…
“Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7)
Isaiah does not merely say that Jesus’s reign will have no end (although that’s true). His prophecy is more specific: It’s the increase of his government and of peace that will have no end.
The increase never ends.
What does this mean? Well, it isn’t complicated to grasp grammatically: Isaiah simply says that Jesus’s government and peace will continue to increase—to grow, to expand, to enlarge (you choose your word)—forever (“no end”).
So here’s the question: How is that possible? How can it be that Jesus’s reign and peace continues to increase?
The answer isn’t so simple. For we believe that there will be day when Jesus will return, at which point “The kingdom of the world [will] become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). On that day, we believe, he will completely reign everywhere. There will be no more areas on this earth for his government to increase; there will be no more regions of turmoil awaiting his peace. Rather, his government will be over the entire earth; his peace will reign everywhere.
So again: How can his government and peace increase after that? How can the increase of his government and of peace have no end?
Randy Alcorn, in his book Heaven, addresses this same issue and answers it in a fascinating way. To begin, notice how Alcorn identifies the same problem in Isaiah 9:7:
“God says of the reigning Messiah, ‘Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end’ (Isaiah 9:7). What does this mean? If it was simply that the Messiah’s reign will never cease, it would more likely say, ‘His government shall never end.’ That’s true, of course, but it’s not the point of the text…The key word in Isaiah 9:7 is increase…In other words, Christ’s government of the New Earth and the new universe will be ever-expanding. How could that be?” (Randy Alcorn, Heaven, 224)
How can this be? Here’s Alcorn’s answer:
“So what can it mean? There are two ways in which a government can increase: (1) by expanding into previously ungoverned territories; or (2) by creating new territories (an option not available to use as humans).
It may be that Christ’s government will always increase because he will continually create new worlds to govern (and, perhaps, new creatures to inhabit those new worlds).” (224)
Perhaps God will create new worlds. Alcorn then continues to show that this not only makes sense out of Isaiah 9:7, but also when we consider who our Creator God is:
“Mankind’s fall may have initiated a divine moratorium on creation. By analogy, imagine a skilled artist who encounters difficulties with one great painting, his magnum opus. For the time being, he sets aside everything else to focus on this one work to bring it to completion. He’s still a creator, still an artist. A hundred other dream projects await him. Once his consuming central creation is finally done, he will return to his practiced habit of creating new works of art…
The proper question is not, Why would God create new worlds? That’s obvious. God is by nature a creator and ruler. He is glorified by what he creates and rules…’Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end.’
Is there anything in Scripture—anything we know about God—that would preclude him from expanding his creation and delegating authority to his children to rule over it? I can’t think of anything. Can you?” (224-225)
Might it be that “a hundred other dream projects await” our creator God? Why wouldn’t God create new worlds? Yes, he loves this one—so much that he sent his one and only Son to redeem it. But, as Alcorn says, “God is [still] by nature a creator and ruler. He is glorified by what he creates and rules.”
Thinking this way, it makes sense that the prophecy about Jesus isn’t only that his reign and peace will have no end in time (that is, forever), but also that his reign and peace will continue to increase in space as well (that is, in new God-created worlds).
The baby Jesus born in that manger was not only the Redeemer to rule this world forevermore, but the Creator God and King to rule more worlds to come. Let us wonder: “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.”
