The Governance of Christ: Isaiah 9:6-7
📖 Scripture:
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over His kingdom, to establish and uphold it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.”
– Isaiah 9:6–7
🔎 Examination:
Isaiah’s prophecy doesn’t whisper sentimentality; it announces Christ’s inherent sovereignty. The incarnation isn’t merely God drawing near—it is God laying claim. The Child born in Bethlehem arrives carrying government, authority, rule, and dominion. Scripture doesn’t say the government advises Him, negotiates with Him, or seeks His permission. It rests squarely upon His shoulders. This is the opening offense of the Gospel against every generation intoxicated with autonomy.
From Genesis onward, God reveals Himself as a God of order, distinction, hierarchy, and delegated authority. Creation itself is structured governance. God separates light from darkness, waters above from waters below, land from sea (Gen 1:6–10). He appoints lights to rule/govern the day and the night (Gen 1:18). Dominion/governance is given to man not as self-rule, but as stewarded authority under God’s reign. Authority/governance isn’t a post-fall invention; rebellion against authority is.
Liberal democratic ideology—particularly in its modern progressive form—doesn’t merely reject God’s authority. It rejects the very concept of authority as a moral good. Like the French Jacobins before them, it seeks to dethrone every external standard: king, church, family, law, biology, history, and ultimately God Himself. What remains is the self—autonomous, self-defining, self-legislating. This isn’t freedom. It is the ancient lie of Eden with a new paint job... it’s lipstick on the pig of that is human depravity.
“You will be like God” (Gen 3:5) has always been Satan’s primary sales pitch.
Isaiah 9 exposes the insanity of that claim. Peace doesn’t emerge from decentralization of authority, but from its perfect concentration in the Son of God. Scripture is explicit: peace increases as His government increases. The modern assumption is the opposite—that peace expands as authority contracts. Yet history, Scripture, and observable reality testify with one voice: when everyone becomes their own god, chaos reigns. That’s why John the Baptist prayed, He must increase; I must diminish.
The book of Judges is God’s case study on autonomy. The repeated refrain is chilling: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg 21:25). That sentence doesn’t describe peace, prosperity, liberty, creativity, or progress. It introduces rape, murder, civil war, idolatry, and moral collapse. Autonomy didn’t liberate Israel; it devoured her. God didn’t call this season enlightened—He called it evil.
Contrast this with God’s design for kingship. Jacob prophesied that “the scepter will not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes...” (Gen 49:10). Authority was always moving somewhere—toward David, and ultimately toward David’s greatest Son. David’s reign, though imperfect, illustrates ordered governance under submission to God. When David sinned, he repented. When confronted, he bowed. The kings who followed—especially Solomon and those after him—demonstrated the opposite: autonomy, syncretism, and self-rule disguised as wisdom. The result was division, exile, and judgment.
God’s verdict is consistent: rebellion against His order produces death.
Romans 8 explains why. The carnal mind is hostile toward God; it doesn’t submit to God’s law, nor can it (Rom 8:7). Hostility toward divine authority is not an intellectual posture; it is a spiritual condition. Fallen humanity doesn’t merely misunderstand God’s governance—it despises it. This is why modern uprisings clothe themselves in virtue-signaling and moral language while producing violence, riots, looting, and chaos. Sin always masquerades as humanitarian while destroying humans... in the womb, in the streets, and in the image of God.
Romans 13 presses the blade deeper. All governing authority is established by God. To rebel against lawful God-ordained authority is to rebel against God’s ordinance. This isn’t the sanctification of tyranny, but it does annihilate the myth that rebellion is inherently virtuous. Scripture never calls insurrection “progress.” The only righteous rebellion in Scripture is submission to God against unlawful commands—not the anarchy-inducing rejection of authority altogether.
Modern progressive ideology has no category for that distinction. It doesn’t seek righteous order; it seeks perpetual revolution. Every structure must be dismantled because every structure limits self-expression. Family becomes oppressive. Gender becomes fluid. Law becomes negotiable. Borders become immoral. Biology becomes violence. Language becomes a weapon. Truth and reality must submit to the autonomous will.
This isn’t accidental. It’s theological.
Isaiah names the antidote: the Prince of Peace. Peace isn’t the absence of restraint; it is the presence of righteous rule. Christ doesn’t bring peace by affirming carnal human desires, but by crucifying them. His kingdom isn’t built on personal autonomy, but on resurrection union. Saints don’t rule themselves; we are ruled by Christ from the inside out through the Holy Spirit.
The tragedy is that many self-identifying Christians have adopted the world’s definition of peace while rejecting Christ’s. They want the benefits of His kingdom without His throne. But Scripture doesn’t permit that delusional fantasy. Christ isn’t elected. He is enthroned. His reign isn’t validated by votes, protests, or social movements. “The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.”
This is why violence dressed up as justice is so demonic. It rejects the very One who alone can establish justice. “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jer 17:9). A way that seems right—to topple, burn, and overthrow—ends in death (Prov 14:12). Every revolution that denies Christ invariably devours its own children, because it is animated by the same rebellion that crucified the Son of God.
Isaiah 9 does’t call the Church to panic or to nostalgia. It calls the saints to allegiance. The government already rests on Christ’s shoulders. The question is whether His people will live as if that is true—refusing the counterfeit gospel of autonomy, rejecting performative outrage, and bearing witness to a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Peace will not come through self-righteous, progressive chaos. It only comes through submission to the King whose rule is righteous, whose authority is good, and whose reign will never end.
🤺 Action:
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Test your allegiance – “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.” (2 Cor 13:5) Where have you subtly baptized cultural rebellion instead of submitting to Christ’s rule?
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Examine your assumptions – “Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD.” (Lam 3:40) Have you equated compassion with the rejection of God’s order?
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Submit your reasoning – “Search me, O God…see if there is any offensive way in me.” (Ps 139:23–24) Are your political instincts shaped more by Scripture or by outrage cycles?
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Reject counterfeit peace – “Test all things; hold fast to what is good.” (1 Thess 5:21) Have you confused the absence of conflict with the presence of righteousness?
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Walk in resurrection obedience – “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.” (Jas 1:22) Are your daily decisions reflecting union with Christ or autonomy from Him?
🧠Reflection:
The world is loud because it is lost. It shouts autonomy because it has no king. But the saints know better. The child was born in Bethlehem. The Son has been given. The government is already resting where it belongs. Christ isn’t scrambling for control—He is reigning now.
Don’t be seduced by the lie that chaos is courage or that rebellion is righteousness. The Prince of Peace is building a kingdom marked by justice, order, repentance, and life. As ambassadors of Christ, our calling isn’t to mirror the madness, but to embody the calm confidence of those who know the throne is occupied.
Live submitted. Speak clearly. Stand unashamed. The increase of His government has no end—and neither does His peace.
Blessings & love,
Kevin M. Kelley
Pastor
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