Is there not a lack of a due knowledge of the Father in most saved souls?-a lack of the knowledge of their relationship as sons?-a want of filial affection and of communion with the name, and grace, and love of our heavenly Father? Surely there is, and a consequent loss of the blessing proper to that holy relationship, and a want of understanding of that wondrous word of the Lord Jesus, " I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loveth you." (John 16:2727For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. (John 16:27).) I make bold to say that the gracious Lord, in teaching His poor disciples, sought to lead their minds and hearts to a knowledge of the Father's love, more than to aught else. He could tell them of His love-" as the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you" (John 15)-of washing the feet of His own, of heavenly mansions, and of His return for them, with other precious truths which fell from His lips as they flowed from His heart of love; yet, as it seems to me, nothing does He insist upon so much as that they (and we) should understand the love and care of the Father. He who of Himself could say, " He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father" came to reveal the Father, and marvelous it is, that while in His dependence as the humbled man on earth, He cried, " Abba Father." (Mark 14, '26.) The Holy Ghost puts the same cry into the mouth of the sons: "Ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba Father." (Rom. 8:1515For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. (Romans 8:15).) Again, that remarkable passage in Gal. 4:6: " And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father." It must be confessed that many believers are yet without solid peace with God, and this because, not having judged themselves as totally ruined and helpless, they are not thrown over (if I may use the expression) on Christ Himself for righteousness divine before God. They do not get a perfect conscience in His presence and cannot enjoy a fixed, settled peace, founded on Christ's efficacious work and glorious person. Other saints again, from careless walk, alas! from sin and self, grieve the Holy Spirit of God, the sacred guest of the child of God, whose body is His temple. How can such have peace? A grieved Spirit, because He is the Holy Spirit, cannot be the spring of peace and joy to such, or of access to the Father. These all will be, according to their need, looking rather to a Savior and a knowledge of redemption than entering into the joy of " access by one Spirit unto the Father"-to the blessed acquaintance of " truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ."
But oh! as the loved apostle could witness, " Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" The Father's heart of love was the spring, the living source of all our blessings and mercies. All flowed from Him according to His own grace and mercy, which is " from everlasting to everlasting." He would not spare, but gave freely " the Son who was in the bosom of the Father;" and the Son could say of His own, " Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me." I would again refer to Scripture, and that affords its plentiful witness to us and a various and affecting testimony, meeting the children of God as it were on every side, whether as to the love of the Father or that which should mold their walk and draw out the affections of their souls to Him. In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke we find the gracious Lord telling them that " Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him," that " the very hairs of their heads were all numbered." It was " the Father's good pleasure to give them the kingdom"-that they were to be " perfect as their Father in heaven was perfect." And how sweet that word, " If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give good things to them that ask him." Therefore, " Ask, and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find."
Dear reader, I would inquire plainly of you, whether you possess that confidence in your Father's love, that sense of relationship, and your full title to say, Abba Father, the strongest cord, as another has said, round man's heart-that you can be without fear before Him in worship, in making known all your requests with thanksgiving and have liberty to confess everything to Him? What a place it is! The sweet sense that a Father's heart rests in its love over you-His eye ever upon you-His ear open to every cry, yea groan (see Rom. 8:26, 2726Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26‑27))-His power (Almighty) causing " all things to work together for good." In John's Gospel, where the Lord Jesus is not revealed as Messiah, but in His full divine glory as Son of God and Son of the Father, what blessed unfoldings we have as to the Father. " The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him" (iv. 23); " that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you;" " if a man love me, be will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him." And, to conclude these citations, allowed to speak for themselves in their surpassing sweetness, that most blessed word of Jesus in His prayer (17), " I have declared unto them thy name and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." I appeal again, reader, to you as I would to my own soul and conscience, do you enter into this, tasting of the love of God your Father, and of such character of love? Happy he who does so in any measure and walks in the power of an ungrieved Spirit " the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father."
To continue a little: and the reading of the precious Scriptures that bring the Father before us in the riches of His grace and glory, I feel to be most blessed. What a testimony does the Epistle to the Ephesians afford us. " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." This founded, I doubt not on the Lord's own declaration after His resurrection, " Go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your. Father, and to my God and your God" (John 20), unfolding our standing in the same position with Himself, with His Father in redemption, and our blessed relationship. And the reader will observe how this pervades the epistle. Chapter 1:4, it is as God, " He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." It is as Father we are " predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself." (Ver. 5.) Wondrous revelation of grace and love. He would have children to Himself. Sons near Himself f Further, as most know, the prayer of chapter 1 is addressed " to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory." That in chapter 3 I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is as to communion, the former as to power. John tells us in his first epistle of " fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ:" the blood of Jesus Christ having cleansed us from all sin, so that we can " walk in the light, as he is in the light." And in a passage before quoted, he does not try to explain or define it, but calls our attention to the love "the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God," the blessed relationship flowing from His heart of love, and securing His children by such a word, " If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." However hateful sin is, yet provision is thus made, because " grace reigns through righteousness," and there is the advocacy of Christ. If I have quoted at some length from Scripture, dear reader, it was to bring out what the Holy Ghost reveals to us as to the Father and our deep heavenly blessing, heavenly sonship. And now I would say, let us seek to know more of the place of sons-the filial affection. Let us in more simplicity have confidence in our Father; more waiting on Him as dear children. it is not that it is to lessen our knowledge of, dependence and obedience to, our Lord Jesus; nay, but to increase it. The Father's eye and heart are ever on Him, and it is in communion with the Father that we really see the dignity of Christ's person. His beauty and glory as the Son of man who is in heaven. God has revealed Himself in the person of His dear Son, and in Him we find our all. Our life, righteousness, motive, strength, and wisdom. The true knowledge of the glory of Christ's person opens to us the counsels of God; and in Him, indeed, we know the Father. Let us by the eternal Spirit's power who dwelleth in us, and who down here is the spring of all our knowledge of the Father and the Son-for even the new man in us cannot " take of the things of Christ and show them" to itself-we arc absolutely dependent on the Holy Ghost -let us, I would humbly say, in the hand of that blessed Spirit, ungrieved and unhindered, seek to have more fully " our fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." Amen.