God Our Father: March 2006
Table of Contents
Abba, Father
Oh, our God, how full of blessing
Are the names Thou lov’st to bear!
Oh, how rich, Thyself possessing,
All Thy happy children are!
First, and chiefest, and the nearest,
“Father of our Lord” Thou art;
In this name, to Him the dearest,
We with Him by grace have part!
“Abba, Father!” in the garden
With strong tears we hear Him cry:
His, the death that bought our pardon;
His, the soul’s deep agony.
“Abba, Father!” ere ascending
To the glorious throne above,
Was the word we hear Him sending
To the children of Thy love.
Now with cloudless peace abounding,
We with rapture search Thy Word;
All Thy names, this name surrounding,
Deeper, richer joys afford.
J. G. Deck
“By grace are ye saved through faith; and th
God Our Father
God is the father of all created things in that He is the source of all things that exist. But from Adam’s creation until Christ rose from the dead, He did not reveal Himself as Father. Until that time, only the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, could speak of Him in the personal relationship of Father. But from eternity past it was His purpose to have a family of children brought into relationship with Himself as sons.
On the morning of His resurrection, our Lord Jesus expressed the joy of His heart and the Father’s heart when He said to Mary, “Go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God” (John 20:17).
Now we enjoy this relationship of knowing God as our Father. The Spirit in us witnesses to our spirit, for we “have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15).
As another has said, God is so pleased with His Son that He would have a whole family in heaven around Himself that are just like Him.
The Son of God became the Son of Man that we, the sons of men, might become the sons of God.
“Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:2).
The Father
“I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it” (John 17:26). These words were spoken to the Father by Christ respecting the saints. They tell us that the great business of the Lord was to acquaint saints with the Father, that such had already been His business, and that He purposed that this should be His business still.
This is full of blessing. To think that the Son would nourish and enlarge in us the sense and understanding of the Father’s love, and that He would use His diligence to give our hearts that joy! We are often slow to learn, and Christ has to put forth energy to teach us such a lesson. But so it is. Our slow learning of this only magnifies His grace, for He is still teaching us the same lesson.
The Father Made Known
Chapters 1416 of John show us Christ declaring the Father. He has opened His own house to us, having made it a many-mansioned home for our reception. He then tells the disciples that through Him the Father had already been revealing Himself to them. There was unbelief in the disciples, but the Lord goes on with His lesson in spite of this. He tells them that while He was away, He purposed to glorify the Father in their works and their experience. He tells them that the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, would come as the Spirit of the Father. The keeping of His Word would secure to their souls the presence and fellowship of the Father.
In all these truly blessed ways, He declares the Father to us and uses Himself only as the witness or servant of such a revelation. His own personal glory is implied in such a service, but that is not His object—the declaration of the Father is. The friendship he introduces them to with Himself has respect to the Father, because it was the Father’s secrets He was communicating to them in the confidence of friendship. Finally, at the close of chapter 15, He presents the world simply in the character of having hated the Father.
He does all this to make good the word, “I have declared unto them Thy name!” Further, He anticipates the Holy Spirit’s coming down, but in constant mention of the Father. When the Spirit came down, they should ask the Father and receive from Him, that their joy as children, knowing a Father’s love and blessing, might be full. Beyond all this, He tells them that His prayers for them were not to be understood as though they and the Father were somewhat distant from each other, but that rather they must assure themselves that the Father’s love rested immediately on them.
In chapter 17, through the prayer of the Lord Jesus we see the return message from us to the Father, that we have by faith received these tidings of love and grace. The Son has brought a message of love to us from the Father, and if He now reports to the Father that we have received the message, this will be the most welcome answer to Him. More than this, the receiving of this message will be the surest separation from the world, for the world has refused to know the Father.
Communion With the Father
Thus we see that in John, chapters 1417, the Lord purposes to put us into communion with the Father. He fills our souls with thoughts of the Father — past recollections, present exercises of spirit, and prospects—all are connected with the Father. The Father’s house will receive us by and by. They would do greater works because He was going to the Father, and their fruitfulness would arise from the Father’s being the husbandman. The Comforter would be sent to them from the Father, but the world would hate them because it knew not the Father. The Father Himself loved them, and they would enter into and enjoy that relationship.
In chapter 13 the Lord’s purpose is to put our souls in communion with Himself in heaven. He shows Himself in heaven, as the very home of love and glory, because He was to be restored to the Father there and to have all things put into His hand by God there. Thus He seeks to put us into communion with Himself as He is now in heaven, while in chapters 1417 He seeks to put us, as we have observed, into communion with the Father. May the blessed sense of our relationship with the Father and the Son fill and satisfy our souls.
J. G. Bellett, adapted from
The Bible Treasury, Vol. 7, p. 65
My Father and Your Father
In John 20:17 the Lord Jesus after His resurrection tells Mary Magdalene to go to His brethren and say to them, “I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God.” The majesty of these words is almost beyond our understanding. Even natural writings may have a charm that appeals to cultivated intelligence, but how uniquely sublime are the utterances of the Word of God! The words of our Lord on this occasion echo over the sad tumult of the centuries that have rolled by since, and they are as sweet and clear today as when they were uttered.
The work of our Lord on the cross must occupy the central place in our thoughts, for without it we would be still in our sins. But all this was followed by resurrection and ascension, and we do well to dwell on these a little. God allowed forty days between the two in order to demonstrate clearly to man the blessed truth of the resurrection, but the ascension was the crowning act of God in vindicating His beloved Son. It is also true that Christ ascended by His own act, for He says here, “I ascend.” Here we have the divine majesty and sublimity of the passage.
The Tender Relation Comes First
We do not dwell on the incident surrounding the uttering of these words, interesting though it is. Mary Magdalene would have detained the Saviour, not knowing that she, and ultimately the church, must now know Him only after a heavenly sort. It was a high privilege that she did not realize at the time. More than this, we find that the word “Father” comes before “God.” It was the same divine hand that wrote by the same John the phrase “grace and truth.” The tender relation comes first.
However, we note that it is not “our Father,” nor “our God.” That could not be. Whatever the grace shown out, the interval between the creature and the Creator cannot be bridged in that sense. His relationship is a unique Sonship, while at the same time there is an emphasizing that His God and Father is also ours.
Where can we find anything like this in human thought and expression? What comfort and anchorage for the soul are found in these words! A great poet once remarked that “our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,” but the Christian sings most sweetly in his brightest joys. Unlike Mary, we have not seen the Lord in His humiliation, but we, along with her, will see Him in glory and be with Him, when we too have ascended to the Father.
R. Beacon, adapted from
The Bible Treasury, Vol. N1, p. 312
The Father’s House
John 14
This chapter presents an object before our souls so as to give us our portion in Christ, a portion in the Father’s house, and, secondly, it presents how we get into this place. It wonderfully brings before us our place now that He is absent from us (though in one sense He is never absent), what the comfort of the Christian is, and the place into which God has brought him. This is no fresh truth, but showing where the heart of the Christian is when he really has Christ before him and the Holy Spirit working in him.
Christ Going Away
Christ was going away and it was natural that they should be troubled. At the end of the chapter He says to them in a touching way, “If you thought of Me, you would be glad that I am going back to My Father and out of this scene of sin and sorrow.” Still, it seemed to them that they were going to lose Him, and it was natural they should grieve, and so He gives them what is to be their comfort when He is gone.
Besides this, there is His coming again brought in. “I cannot stay with you here,” He says, “but I will take you where I am going.” The whole state of the world was unfit for Him to remain on the earth. He could not rest here. He could stay for a time and serve, but could not rest. Even long before, in the Old Testament, it is said, “This is not your rest, for it is polluted,” but this only led to the blessed truth that He was going to give us a rest where He could rest, with the Father, and that His work was so perfect and so effectual that He could give us a place there. We have got a portion where He has all His glory, all His rest, the fruit of the travail of His soul.
“In My Father’s house are many mansions. . . . I go to prepare a place for you.” Mark this, it was in His Father’s house, the place that He had as Son where He was at home, there He was going to prepare my place. That is unspeakable blessing! It was a comfort, a joy to have Christ with them in the world, but that was by the way. He was going to prepare a place where He was at home. Think what the home of such a heart as His must be — where all His divine affections would flow out, the divine Son and yet a Man, and to think that this is the place where He is going to take us. What a wonderful thing! What a home must that be!
Christ Coming Again
“I will come again, and receive you unto Myself”—not call you up, that would not do — not send for you, that would not do — but “I will come.” How touching! Though gone into glory and sitting on His Father’s throne, He would leave it to come and fetch us into His Father’s house. His affections are so set on us that He is not satisfied without coming Himself for us; He would not send. It is not only the blessedness to us of His coming Himself for us, but it is the expression of Christ’s heart. He wants it — wants to have us. It is His own interest in us, His love to us. When we know that, then the heart is drawn out to Himself. No doubt it is an unspeakable blessing to us, but it is the revelation of Christ Himself. The one only blessed hope of the church is that He would come again and fetch us. Confidence is sure that when we are unclothed we shall be with the Lord, “absent from the body . . . present with the Lord.” Yet that is not the hope; the hope is that He will come and fetch us. It is on His heart and should be on ours. They went out to meet the bridegroom; that was the condition of the church at the first. Converted to wait for His Son from heaven, they all went to sleep, wise as well as foolish, and had to be awakened by the midnight cry. It was “My Lord delayeth His coming” that brought deadness into the church and that led to the eating and drinking and drunkenness, beating the men-servants and maid-servants.
The Hope in Our Hearts
This is not truth that may or may not be held. It is essential to the daily life of the Christian. If I am daily expecting Christ, I shall not like to be in any place where I would not like Him to find me, and whatever would not please Him, I should put off, whatever it is. We are looking for One who loves us. His heart wants us, and He is going to satisfy His heart. It is not prophecy; prophecy has to do with God’s government of this world, and it is very interesting in its place, but it has nothing to do with our hope.
Now comes in another thing. If I am sending my son, or orphan, if you please — though in one sense we are not left orphans — to a strange place, the grand point would be for him to know what sort of person it was that I was going to send him to live with. Heaven is a very vague place if I have not got a Person in it. If there were no one there — if we were to dwell in a holy place by ourselves — it would not do. We should have no object there before our souls. There would be an immense gap. Of course, it is not possible that it should be so. And so He tells us that we have known the Father if we have known Him — that it is the Father’s house He is going to and going to take us to. So the grand point for us is how we can know the Father and perfect satisfaction. It is not like this poor empty world, which, our hearts being made for God, is too small ever to fill them. This object is too big for our hearts. I press this, how close the Father has been brought to us. They had seen Him and so had seen the Father, and when they ask the way, He says, “I am the way.”
The Way to the Father’s House
“Philip saith unto Him, Lord, show us the Father.” They had got the full blessedness, but their poor hearts did not know it. Could He say to us, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me?” Or can we say that our souls have so seen the Father in the Person of the Son that we can say, “I have found it all; I have got it.” It is that that forms the heart as to its affections. If we have followed Christ in His path down here—followed Him in the Gospels — have we learned the Father’s ways in the Son? He passed all on that He enjoys of the Father to the disciples that they might enjoy it with Him. How much have we learned of this favor and blessedness which He reveals? I cannot learn anything of it that is not mine, “that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” All things are mine.
The Lord presses this upon them, that “no man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” It is a wrong thought that He left the Father’s bosom. He never did; He left the Father’s house. You get in Christ the full revelation of what the Father is. The only begotten Son, all the Father’s delight centers in Him, in the bosom of the Father, that is in the full enjoyment of it, He declares the Father. I see He is infinite, and I adore Him, but I see He is the revelation of the Father’s love to me, as I go over His life down here.
Fellowship Together
It is not merely saying, I am a lost sinner and have been saved, but it is the Holy Spirit dwelling in me, occupying me with Christ, having fellowship with the Father and the Son, that is my portion. When I say I have fellowship with anyone down here, I mean I have the same thoughts, the same joys, the same ways. Is that true of us with the Father and the Son? It gives holiness of thoughts, of course, and it gives piety of thoughts, that is, you get affections according to the relationship you are in, suitable to that which is before your soul.
Supposing my soul is dwelling on the blessed obedience of Christ — His obedience unto death —and I am adoringly sitting and contemplating Christ so, does not the Father contemplate it too? Do not I know the Father’s delight in it too? “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life,” and that is why I love Him, because He has laid down His life. I love in my poor, feeble measure, of course, but it is having the same object.
Do not rest satisfied if you do not know what it is to enjoy the Father’s favor in the Son and to know the Father revealed in all the ways of Christ, that the Son of God is come into the world to reveal the Father. How much have your hearts learned what He came down to let you know, the love of the Father and the Son?
The Lord give us to have our eyes resting on Him, on the fullness of grace in Him, so that knowing what He is going to take us into, we may know Him in us now — in Christ and Christ in me — and know His strength to go on, showing Him forth.
J. N. Darby, from Miscellaneous
Writings, Vol. 4, pp. 4350
Christ the Revealer of the Father
God has been pleased to reveal Himself in various ways and under different characters in every age and in all dispensations. Before the cross He had made Himself known to Adam, the patriarchs and to His people Israel, but it was not until Christ came and had glorified God on the earth and finished the work which had been given Him to do that all was told out — that the Father-name of God could be fully revealed. Before this, clouds and darkness were round about Him, but as soon as atonement had been made by the death of Christ on the cross, the veil was rent, and believers could thereafter be set down in the light as God is in the light. All distance and concealment were now abolished, and all that God is, together with the name of Father, was fully displayed. Christ Himself, as the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), was Himself the revelation of the Father. But until the descent of the Holy Spirit there was little, if any, power on the part of those before whose eyes the revelation was passing to apprehend it.
No Knowledge Until . . .
Practically, there was no knowledge of God as Father until after Pentecost. This will be plain if we trace the successive revelations of God that were made to His people in the Old Testament. To Abraham, God said, “I am the Almighty God; walk before Me, and be thou perfect” (Gen. 17: 1); to Moses, “I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:14). And when He entered into distinct relationship with His chosen people, it was under the name of Jehovah and that was ever His covenant name with Israel. Search the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures and not even the word “father” will be found more than five or six times as applied to God, and in most of these cases it is used rather as indicating the source of existence than as implying relationship.
The Old Testament saints were undoubtedly born again. This is to be insisted upon, for without a new life and a new nature they would not have been able to converse with God, but it is equally true that they never knew God as Father and therefore that they could not be in the enjoyment of the relationship.
The Son Reveals
God was not revealed as Father before Christ came. Christ Himself was the revealer of the Father. In the Gospel of John He is presented to us in this character. In the very first chapter of this Gospel it is said, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, [who] is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (vs. 18). None other but Himself could have done so, and this is because of the position He ever occupied — the place of intimacy and communion that He ever, and He alone, enjoyed, as marked by the words “in the bosom of the Father.” This place He never left. It is a moral expression. He was in it as much when He was the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief as when He possessed the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, and on the cross itself He was still there, for He Himself said, “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again” (John 10:17) — His death was in obedience to the commandment which He had received, supplying, as it were, a new motive for the expression of His Father’s love.
Later in the Gospel, we find one of His disciples permitted to lean on His bosom, and this same disciple was the chosen vessel to unfold in his Gospel the eternal Sonship of Christ, and this in some measure may aid us in understanding that none but He who was ever in the bosom of the Father could unfold Him in this character and relationship. In divine things it is ever true as an abiding principle that we can only tell out to others that which we ourselves know in our own souls. If we are not in the power of the thing spoken of, our words, clear as they may seem to be, will convey but little significance. The Lord Himself laid down this principle when He said, “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen” (John 3:11).
How He Reveals Him
Let us then enquire in what way the Lord revealed the Father. He Himself has answered the question. “Philip saith unto Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto Him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of [literally, ‘from’] Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works’ sake” (John 14:811).
Christ Himself then, in all that He was, in the life He lived when down here, was the revelation of the Father; that is, He was the perfect moral presentation of the Father, in all that He is, to all who had eyes to perceive it. As He said, “I have declared unto them Thy name” (John 17:26) — name in Scripture being the expression of the truth of what a person is, and it signifies, in this connection, the truth of the Father. Thus as Christ passed through this scene, every feature, every moral trait, all the perfections of the Father’s mind and heart and character were fully exhibited. To the natural eye He was only Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son, but the eye opened by the Holy Spirit beheld in Him “the glory as of the only begotten of the Father” and as such the declarer of the Father.
By Words and Works
His words were as perfect as His works, and thus when the Jews asked, “Who art Thou?” He replied, “Altogether that which I also say to you” (John 8:25 JND). As another has said, “His speech presented Himself, being the truth.” Our words often convey either more or less than the truth, and we are frequently humbled at the discovery that we have failed to express even what we desired, and sometimes because we have left behind a wrong, if not untrue, impression through the imperfection of our words. With Him, on the other hand, every word was perfect and therefore a ray of His own glory as well as a manifestation of the Father. Thus we find in John 14 that He identifies His words with His works. “The words,” He says, “that I speak unto you I speak not [from] Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works” (vs. 10). The words were as perfect as the works, and both alike the revelation of the Father.
How to Have a Fuller Knowledge
The question may be asked, “Where then can we obtain a fuller knowledge of Christ in order more perfectly to know the Father?” The answer to this question is of all importance. It is only in the Scriptures that we can learn what Christ is. There may be meditation upon Him undoubtedly, but if we would be preserved from the snares of mysticism and imagination, the Word of God must be the basis of our contemplations.
Remembering this will give an incentive to study of the Scriptures in such a spirit as would be an occasion for adoring worship and for grateful praise.
E. Dennett, adapted from The Child of God
The Knowledge of the Father
“I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father” (1 John 2:13).
What is this knowledge of the Father to which the youngest child in Christ has his inalienable title? And if he has this title, is it yours and mine actually to enjoy it in all its inestimable privilege? It is clearly something more than knowing that we are children of God, though our hearts may well be deeply touched as we behold the manner of the love bestowed upon us that we should bear this name and be able to take up the children’s place before the Father, as born of Him and possessing the Spirit of His Son (1 John 3:1).
Relationship and Knowledge
The relationship is one thing; the knowledge of the Father whose child I am is another. Suppose the case of natural relationship, and the difference will at once be perceived. The relationship remains the same whatever the character of the parent, but for the children how much depends on it — the father may be loving and considerate or very much the reverse, and the difference to the child is incalculable. Is it enough, then, for us to know that by infinite grace we are the children of God, or shall we not seek to know our Father? Ought we not to earnestly desire to become familiar with the thoughts and feelings of His heart, the love of His nature, His character (if I may use the word in the deepest reverence), when He makes this knowledge of Himself the privilege of the youngest child of His? But it may be asked, How am I to know Him? It can only be as He reveals Himself. Let us then humbly seek the way Scripture presents this blessed revelation to us.
Revealed Unto Babes
Matthew 11 will naturally come before us as the first intimation of such revelation in the ministry of the Lord Jesus. All the circumstances make it the more affecting for our hearts. It was a time of deep trial and testing for Him. Hardhearted unbelief met Him in the cities wherein most of His mighty works were done, and these works attested to who He was in whose presence they were so unmoved. But it only served to bring out in the perfection of the blessed Lord what the knowledge of the Father was to Him. He knew whence to receive all that pressed so heavily upon Him, for we read, “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”
In His rejection by these cities He owned nothing but His Father’s ways of perfect wisdom and love. If in divine wisdom these things were hid from the wise and prudent, there were babes to whom they would be revealed by infinite grace. He knew the love of the Father, and in this He found His perfect resting place and submitted Himself absolutely to His will; this is clearly expressed in the words, “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” These two things come before us, then, in the experience of the blessed Lord: the source of His rest in the knowledge of the Father and His perfect submission to the Father’s will. Into both He would introduce us, for this is the connection of the words that follow, too often missed. In verse 27 all the deeper glories of His Person, of the place given to Him and His work in the deepest character of it come before Him. Not only the Messianic kingdom, but “all things” in universal supremacy are delivered unto Him by the Father. The unfathomable glory of His person is made known in the words, “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father,” and then as the most precious object of the incarnation, “Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” He had come to reveal the Father and this goes far beyond and above the glory in which He had been presented to Israel up to this point in this Gospel. But let us carefully observe that it is when the divine and inscrutable glory of His person as the Son is brought out that He intimates, as so closely connected with and depending upon this glory, His purpose to reveal the Father.
If it now becomes an anxious question, “To whom will He reveal the Father whom only the Son had seen and known?” the answer comes at once in the precious words, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” How many there are that have been through the world and with all their toil and weariness have found it void of anything to satisfy. The Lord Jesus has been through it and found it to be such, but He had a secret source of perfect rest. He calls us to Him that He might reveal it to us. This source of rest is the Father, and His heart of infinite love. The Son would give us rest by revealing Him, and then we have only to learn of Him, the meek and lowly One. We have to submit ourselves absolutely to His will to find this perfect rest realized practically under all circumstances. Both the Father and the Son have been seen in practical operation in the blessed place the Lord took as expressed in “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” When one in faith recognizes that all their burdens are allowed by their Father and submits to them as “good in His sight,” then the yoke of submission is easy and the burden is light.
Needed to Give Rest
How blessed, then, the confirmation that to know the Father is not some advanced experience that only belongs to those who have been long in the Christian way. We find that it is the first thing before the Lord which was needed to give rest and to establish the heart that trusted Him in view of the consequences of His rejection. But for the full development of all that flows from the divine glory of His Person, we must turn to the Gospel of John, where from the outset it shines out everywhere, though veiled in the lowly form of Manhood.
The Word, who was in nature God, became flesh and tabernacled among us, so that the opened eye of faith beholds His glory, the glory as of an only-begotten with a Father — the one cherished object of the Father’s delight (John 1:14). This it is that gives His blessed competency to make the Father known, even as we read in verse 18, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” Who was so fitted to make Him known as the Son who dwells in His bosom, for His nearness and intimacy of relationship with the Father ever characterized Him while speaking and acting as Man among men.
The Words and Works
Let us seek to follow out how the revelation of the Father comes to us in the person of the Son. It is in His words and works as grouped together by the Spirit in the Gospel of John we shall find it. Here alone, in all Scripture, the Father is fully revealed, one reason, doubtless, why the little flock turns to it instinctively as their richest pasture.
All His works were thus the Father’s works, the expression of the Father’s nature and will as flowing from this divine communion. In His works the Father was revealed. Hence His solemn words in John 10:3738: “If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.”
It was not otherwise with His words, as John 12:4950 wonderfully shows: “I have not spoken [from] Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. . . . Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak.” What new and precious interest His whole path is invested with, when we learn that in words and works alike He is expressing the Father, that we might be brought to know Him as thus perfectly revealed. From this, too, flows the revelation of the Father’s house, never before spoken of in Scripture.
J. A. Trench, adapted
Theme of the Next Issue
“Behold What Manner of Love”
1 John 3:1
How beautiful it is to hear these words from one who had known that love so long and so well! The Apostle had just said, “If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of Him.” What a thought! It is this that causes the Apostle to exclaim, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons [children] of God.” It gives a character and a relationship of which the world knows nothing. He who was the Son of God, the only begotten, was not known by the world. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not” (John 1:10).
We have Christ’s relationship with the Father, and we have His place as unknown here on earth. “Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not” (1 John 3:1). We suffer with Him here; we shall be glorified with Him there. Here it is suffering with Christ in a scene where sin has its sway, but being children of God, we wait for the children’s place in glory. As His coheirs we shall then possess the inheritance with Him and reign with Him, having been glorified with Him. We can then well afford to be unknown in a world that knew Him not. In the meanwhile, we need patience and confidence in God, for “yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Heb. 10:37). It is blessed to look forward to His coming, but now we must be content to be unknown in the world.
A Present and Known Relationship
However, while we wait for Him, we have a present and known relationship with the Father —we do not wait for this! We are born of God now and are children and heirs of God now. It is a present relationship which we know by the Word of God and have the consciousness of by His Spirit in us. How vastly more blessed this is than anything that can be known by this poor world! In this world it is wonderful to be the child of a king, but what is this compared to being heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ? This is the dignity of the humblest and poorest believer in Christ. How it ought to lift our hearts above all the empty glory of this world!
Objects of the Father’s Love
But this is not all. In the relationship we have with the Father, through Christ, we are the objects of His love — immeasurable, boundless, eternal. Who can measure that love? Only at Calvary’s cross can we see the measure of that love. But the price has been paid, and now we have the same place in the Father’s love as Christ Himself. The day of glory will manifest this even to the world — “that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved Me” (John 17:23). We are privileged to drink into this ocean fullness of love even now!
In the coming day of glory we shall not only enjoy this love for all eternity, but we shall be fashioned into the likeness of the glorified Firstborn. Of this we can confidently say, “We know,” although today it is not a matter of public manifestation. But we shall see Him as He is. Here it is not His coming Messiah glory that is in view. To be sure, we shall see Him and be with Him in His Messianic glory, for “when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4). All the world will see Him then as Son of Man, publicly displayed. But we shall see Him as He is now in the glory of His Father’s presence. This is the expressed wish of the Lord Himself — “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). The One who was loved before the foundation of the world is the object of the Father’s unchanging delight. Having glorified God as man here on earth, He has been glorified as man on high with the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. This is the One whom we shall see as He is! What a sight that will be! What praises will flow from us when we see that once crucified, but now glorified Saviour!
Like Him in Dazzling Glory
How could our mortal eyes look upon Him, in that dazzling glory? The answer is simple — we shall be like Him! Our bodies, humbled by sin, will be changed into a body of glory, after the likeness of Christ’s body of glory. And this is not merely in body, but in spirit as well, so that we shall in every way be united to the glorious sphere where He dwells.
What present effect does all this have on you and me? “Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). Do we expect to be like Him in that day? Then it is worthwhile to be like Him now — in purity of heart, in spirit and in ways, giving forth the sweet fragrance of His life along the path here.
May we continue to purify ourselves as He is pure till He comes and completes it in glory!
A. H. Rule, adapted from
Things New and Old, Vol. 31, p. 29
How Could I Murmur?
Murmurings and disputings are the little foxes that spoil the vines! These things are to be avoided, that we may be blameless and harmless. But how could I murmur, if I have any sense of the Father’s care and love? How could I be disputing, if I know my place as a child with the Father? No; both the one and the other are falsifications of the grace of God.
E. Dennett