It was once asked me, Had the Father no bosom till the Babe was born in Bethlehem? Indeed, fully sure I am, as that inquiry suggests, He had from all eternity. The bosom of the Father was an eternal habitation, enjoyed by the Son, in the ineffable delight of the Father— “the hiding place of love,” as one has called it, “of inexpressible love which is beyond glory; for glory may be revealed, this cannot.”
The soul may have remained unexercised about such thoughts as these, but the saints cannot admit their denial.
“Lamb of God, Thy Father’s bosom
Ever was Thy dwelling-place!”
The soul dare not surrender such a mystery to the thoughts of men. Faith will dispute such ground with “philosophy and vain deceit.” Even the Jews may rebuke the difficulty which some feel regarding it. They felt that the Lord’s asserting His Sonship amounted to a making of Himself equal with God. So that, instead of Sonship implying a secondary or inferior Person, in their thought it asserted equality. And, in like manner, on another occasion, they treated Jesus as a blasphemer, because He was making Himself God, in a discourse which was declaring the relationship of a son to a father (John 5:18; 10:33). The Jews may thus, again and again, rebuke this wretched, unbelieving difficulty which the vain deceit of man suggests. They were wiser than to pretend to test, by the prism of human reasonings, the light where God dwells.
“No man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father,” (Luke 10:22), is a sentence which may well check our reasonings. And the word, that the eternal life was manifested to us, to give us fellowship with the Father and the Son (1 John 1:2), distinctly utters the inestimable mystery of the Son being of the Godhead, having “eternal life” with the Father. And again, as we well know, it is written, “The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father. He hath declared Him.” I ask, Can any but God declare God? In some sense God may be described. But the soul of the church will not rest in descriptions of God; though the wisdom of the world knows nothing else. It asks for declaration or revelation of Him, which must be by Himself. Is not then, I ask, the Son in the bosom a divine Person?
Nothing can satisfy all which the Scriptures tell us of this great mystery, but the faith of this: that the Father and the Son are in the glory of the Godhead; and in that relationship too, though equal in that glory.
He who was with God in the beginning as eternal as God, being God Himself, was also the Son of God”—as another has expressed and then adds, “God allows many things to remain mysteries, partly, I believe, that He may in this way test the obedience of our minds; for He requires obedience of mind from us, as much as He does obedience in action. This is a part of holiness, this subjection of the mind to God; and it is something which the Spirit alone can give. He alone is able to calm and humble those inward powers of mind which rise and venture to judge the things of God, refusing to receive what cannot be understood; a disobedience and pride which has no parallel, except in the disobedience and pride of Satan.”
Holy, seasonable caution for our souls! “Who is a liar,” asks the Apostle, “but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?” And he immediately adds, “He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” And again, “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.” 1 John 2:22, 23. These are very serious sentences under the judgment of the Holy Spirit. And how can there be knowledge of the Father but through and in the Son? How can the Father be known otherwise? Therefore it is written, “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father.” I may say, “Abba, Father,” in the spirit of adoption; a poet may say, “We are also His offspring”; but God is not known as the Father, if the Son in the glory of the Godhead be not owned (Rom. 8; Acts 17). Sure we may be, nay, rather, assured we are, on divine authority, that if the unction which we have received abide in us, we shall abide in “the Son,” and in “the Father.”
Can the Son be honored even as the Father, if He be not owned in the Godhead? (John 5:23). The faith of Him is not the faith that He is a Son of God, or Son of God as born of the virgin, or as raised from the dead; though those are truths concerning Him, assuredly such. But the faith of Him is the faith of His proper person. I know not that I can call Jesus “Son of God,” save in the faith of divine Sonship. The understanding which has been given us, has been given us to know “Him that is true,” as being “in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ”; and to this is added, “This is the true God, and eternal life,” 1 John 5.
Is not “the truth” in the sense of John’s Second Epistle, “the doctrine of Christ,” or the teaching which we have in Scripture respecting the Person of Christ? And in that teaching, is not the truth of Sonship in the Godhead contained? For what is said there? “He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.” And the door is required to be shut against those who bring not that doctrine; the very same epistle speaking of Him as “the Son of the Father”; language which would not attach to Him as born of the Virgin by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.
But still further. I ask, Can the love of God be understood according to Scripture, if this Sonship be not owned? Does not that love get its character from that very doctrine? Are not our hearts challenged on the ground of it?
“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Again, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” And again, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” Yet again, “We have seen, and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world,” John 3; 1 John 4.
Does not this love at once lose its unparalleled glory, if this truth be questioned? How would our souls answer the man who would tell us, that it was not His own Son whom God spared not, but gave Him up for us all? How would it wither the heart to hear that such a One was only His as born of the Virgin, and that those words, “He that spared not His own Son,” are to be read as human, and not as divine? (Rom. 8:32).
Good care are we to take not to qualify the precious Word, to meet man’s prejudices. Was it with his servant, or with a stranger, or with one born in his house merely, that Abraham walked to Moriah? Was it with an adopted son, or with his own son, his very son, his only son, whom he loved? We know how to answer these inquiries. And I will say, I know not how I could speak of the Son loving me, and giving Himself for me (Gal. 2:20), if I did not receive Him by faith as Son in the bosom of the Father, Son in the glory of the Godhead.
The Son is the Christ. God, in the person of the Son, has undertaken all office work for us, all work for which anointing or Christhood was needed. And this He has done in the person of Jesus. We therefore say, “Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The Only Begotten, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, are one. But it is in Personal, essential glory, in office, and in assumed manhood, that we see Him under these different names.
(Continued from page 136.)
(To be continued.)