The secret of Christ's rejection breaks through the clouds. The Jews refused Him as Messiah, because He was infinitely more. Had He been but Messiah according to their thoughts and desires, they were willing to make Him their King. (John 6) But He was Immanuel, God with us He was Jehovah the Savior; for He shall save His people from their sins. Tabernacling among us, and veiled in flesh, the glory of His Person could not be quite hid. There was adequate testimony Who He was as well as what; and the growing unbelief only forced out the proof. How solemn it was here that He bears witness to John the Baptist instead of receiving witness from him! The cross was not yet; but morally all was over. The kingdom of heaven was imminent in a new form, and the least in it greater than John, and faith all instead of sight, and the energy that breaks through difficulties. Men were increasingly manifesting their opposition to God; but wisdom is justified by her children. And the most guilty and obnoxious to His judgment were those who repented not after the mightiest displays of His power and goodness in their midst.
At that season it was that Jesus answered such unbelieving ingratitude by unfaltering submission to His Father. “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding and didst reveal them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in Thy sight. All things have been delivered to Me of My Father: and no one knoweth the Son save the Father; neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son may choose to reveal [Him].” The Lord thus in the hour of Jewish rejection accepts all humbly and implicitly as the good, holy, and wise will of God, and realizes the glorious counsels of universal administration as the Son and the Heir of all things, far transcending the Messianic Kingdom. Not to know Him at all (γινώσκειν) was to be void of eternal life; but to know Him thoroughly; (ἐπιγινώσκειν) was only possible to God the Father. Christ's person was the more inscrutable, because the Infinite was there, yet in a finite form. He was the eternal God equally with the Father; none the less was He made man, the Word become flesh. We cannot fathom, but most surely believe. It is our deep joy that the Father only fully knows the Son, though we know Him enough to have eternal life in Him. Yet the Son not only knows the Father thoroughly, but reveals Him to whomsoever He may choose (John 1:1818No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (John 1:18)).
All our blessing therefore turns on the rejected Christ, the Son. He is the truth, the test for all, the center of blessing for any. Hence the amazing force of “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The moment was not yet arrived for publishing the glad tidings to every creature: His rejection must take its course up to death, yea, death of the cross, wherein sin was to be borne and God glorified about it. But the Lord anticipatively opens the way to every weary and burdened soul, to Gentiles as freely as to Jews. To the rejected Messiah all things were delivered by His Father. And if He thus had universal title (to be enforced in the day of glory), He would use it now in indiscriminate grace. Jesus alone could reveal the Father; Jesus would reveal Him to any, the most wretched and troubled: if they were weary of sin and self, so much the better; if heavy laden, He only could and would give rest. He was come not merely to help, sympathize, or teach, but to save the lost, to give rest where rest was unknown and could not else be. He does not here say how, but declares emphatically that He would give rest, after inviting the most needy to come, and all of them. It could not be without all cost to Himself, or without revealing the Father to them. But He was come to die for their sins and to make known the God of love. He would thus give them rest from toil and burden.
But He does more. He says, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden light.” To us, coming as we are, “He gives” rest: He undertakes all, and gives rest of His own grace: all we have to do is to come to Him. But when come, He calls us thenceforward to take on us that yoke to which He Himself bowed with unswerving meekness and humility before His Father. To this He calls us now. Thus only do we “find rest” for our souls in His righteous government. Obedience and submission in the path of Christ is the sole way of rest for the Christian's heart, whatever His grace to the troubled sinner, and it is sovereign.