Address—C. Hendricks
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In the Epistle to the Philippians.
We are very familiar with the epistle.
We have in the first chapter.
Christ is our life for me to live as Christ, Paul says.
In the 2nd chapter, Christ is our pattern or example.
The lowly Christ let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. The lowly mind, the subject mind.
In the 3rd chapter we have Him presented to us in glory and we have the perfect mind occupation with Christ in glory.
And in the 4th chapter we have the.
Constant mind, the going on.
With him through all things. Well, I'd like to look at him a little tonight in the Word as he's presented to us in the 2nd chapter. I just want to read a verse or two in chapter 2.
Verse 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. What was that mind? It was the IT was the willingness to to surrender the the glory that he had with the Father and come down into this scene.
And it goes on to describe this mind who being in the form of God, that's what he ever was. He was in God's form. He was God the Son, coequal with the Father and the Spirit, and he was in the form of God and in nothing other than that form.
He thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
Another rendering of that passage is he thought it not a thing to be grasped.
To be held unto. He was in the form of God. He was very God.
Deity itself. But he did not. He did not have the attitude.
Like man has, I am God, and I'll never consider being anything other than God.
Now he emptied himself. It says He took upon him the form of a servant, Verse 7. But being but he made himself.
Of no reputation.
Literally, he emptied himself. What did he empty himself out? He didn't empty himself of his love. He didn't empty himself of his.
Holiness, he didn't empty himself of his.
Truth.
And all the moral attributes that applied to him, he, he didn't empty himself with them, but He emptied himself of the outward form of Deity by taking the form of a servant. He was in the form of God and in nothing less, and He took the form of a servant.
And was made in the likeness of men, the form of a servant, and as soon as he entered.
His own creation, the Creator himself. As soon as he entered his own creation, he now finds it necessary to be obedient, and he learns obedience by the things which he suffers. I'd like to trace his pathway.
As we find it in his precious word, let's turn back to John chapter 4. John's Gospel chapter 4. We're going to.
Just.
Touch upon various passages in this gospel.
Which characteristically presents him as the eternal Son of the Father. Matthew presents him as the King, the anointed King, the Christ. Mark presents him as the perfect servant. Luke presents him as the dependent, obedient man. John presents him as the eternal Son. And yet we're going to read many, many passages in John's Gospel that speak of him as the dependent 1.
The wonder of it that he who is God over all blessed forever.
Took the form of a servant, and we're going to trace him in that blessed pathway. Verse 34 of John 4. Jesus saith unto them, My meat.
My me, my sustaining food is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. Now we're going to read that expression over and over and over again in John's gospel. Him that sent me, the Father who sent me, He was the sent 1 He came, but he was sent and he loves to speak of himself as the sent one of the Father. He was here on a mission. He was.
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Not to do his own will, but the will of him that sent me. He says my meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
Now in the 5th chapter, we're just going to touch on various passages. Verse 17.
Jesus answered them. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father. In the translation reads that God was his own father, making himself equal with God.
It's interesting that all he had said. Very simple statement. I believe it's the second time in the word where he uses this expression. My father.
The first time is in Luke, where he is a lad of 12, and his mother comes to him and says, Why hast thou thus dealt with us? Why may thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing?
And he says, How is it that she sought me, wished ye not that I ought to be about my father's business?
And the next verse says they understood not what he said.
They did not grasp the immensity of the statement, but these Jews understood what he was claiming. All he said was My father worketh hitherto, and I work.
And they understood him to be claiming equality with his father.
Notice what they say. What happens? Verse 18? Therefore the Jews sought the Moor to kill him.
Because he not only had broken the Sabbath.
But said also that God was his father, God was his own father, making himself equal with God.
The Jews understood that for a man, a mere man.
To speak of him as my Father was to make himself equal with God, and to them that was blasphemy and he was worthy of being stoned.
Notice his answer. Then answer Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself or from himself as a source. That is, He did not ever act independently as a divine person. He could have, but as having taken the form of a servant, and having laid aside the form of God and taken the form of a servant.
Would have been inappropriate for him to have acted of or from himself. Instead, he always acted in obedience to his Father.
The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do. For what things so ever he doeth these also doeth the Son. Likewise we're going to see as we trace these blessed passages in John's Gospel, how they hear He, the Son, become a man, is here to carry out the will of the Father, to do the will of the Father, to do His works, to speak his words.
The two manifest the Father so perfectly that he could say he that has seen me have seen the Father. Then we go down to verse 30 of chapter 5. He says I can of mine own self do nothing.
Does that mean he wasn't he didn't have the power to do something from himself? No, it doesn't mean that. But it wouldn't have been morally suitable to the place that he had taken in lowly grace when he assumed the form of a servant. Now it's not for him to act independently.
It's for him to act in obedience to his Father, and he always did that.
The blessed, the blessed path of the Lord Jesus as a man here is your path, is my path. He is the pattern. We were talking last night in the reading about the law being the rule of life in the Old Testament, and that's been set aside now for the Christian, it's not the law, it's something far higher. It's Christ himself, it's his pathway.
Our Jesus footsteps ever show the path for every child.
And here we see a perfect man, a dependent man, an obedient man, a subject man, always, always doing the will of the Father. I can of mine own self do nothing. As I hear, I judge. We read in Isaiah 50 that he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed morning. By morning he went out, and he gathered fresh instruction from his father.
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He was the hearing one.
He was the one who heard the instructions the father gave, and he says as I hear.
I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will.
But the will of the Father which hath sent me.
Wonderful to think of a man down here in this scene. We Passover these verses too rapidly, too quickly, without pondering them. You ought to write at the end of some of these verses. Sila, pause, reflect, consider what he's saying. He says I can of mine own self do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
Verse 43 I am come in my father's name.
And you receive me not for another shall come in his own name. Him ye will receive. To reject the one who came in the Father's name opens the person up for receiving the one who would come in his own name, the Antichrist.
He's called in Daniel. I believe it's Daniel 11, the willful king. The king shall do according to his will.
Here was the dependent king, here was the one who never did according to his own will, always the will of the Father.
Chapter 6.
Verse 38 For I came down from heaven.
Not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me, that sent me. I'm here as sent of him. I'm here to do his will. I'm here to speak his words. I'm here to do his works. That's why he came.
And he did it in perfection.
Verse 57 As the living Father hath sent me.
And I live by the father, by reason of the father, on account of the father.
So he that eateth me, even he shall live by me, by reason of on account of Maine.
That's why we're here, as he lived on account of the father, as he lived for the father.
As He always did the Father's will, so you and I have been set here.
To represent the Sun, even as he represented the Father.
You know in John 17 he says, Father, I have declared unto them thy name, and I will declare it.
He had declared it, He continues to declare it from on high. Now in the glory, Wonderful blessed person, as the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. Chapter 7, verse 16. Jesus answered them and said, My doctrine, my teaching is not mine.
But his that sent me, his that sent me.
Again, the expression as being sent of him, verse 28.
Then cried Jesus.
In the temple, as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am.
And I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true.
Whom ye know not.
But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He hath sent me. Oh, how he loved to tell them that He was the sent one of the Father.
At the end of the Chapter 7.
Verse 45 it says, Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees.
And they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him? They had been sent to take him.
The officers answered never man speak.
Like this man never man spake Like this man these were not.
Just the words of a man. These were the words of the father spoken.
By the sun in manhood. Wonderful, wonderful revelation.
So perfectly did he speak, so perfectly did he do the words and works of the Father, that to see Him is to see the Father. There isn't any more to know about God. It's been revealed. All has been revealed in the person of the Son in manhood.
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He came to where you and I were. He didn't remain in deity. He didn't remain in the form of God. We couldn't have grasped that. It would have been beyond us. So He assumes the form of a servant. He comes to where we are, becomes a man, and as man, he reveals God the Father.
Never man spake like this man. Now in chapter 8 verse 25, one of the most profound verses and most difficult to translate, I understand.
From the Greek language is verse 25.
Then said they unto him, Who art thou now? They asked John the Baptist the same question in the first chapter.
Who art thou?
And he says, I am not the Christ. 5 words, I'm not the Christ. And they asked him, what then art thou Elias or Jeremiah? One of the prophecies says I'm not 3 words. And then they said, art thou another one? And he says no.
5 Three and one. Now they asked us. Now they asked the Christ.
That same question, Who art thou?
And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning. Now that's close.
Our rendering here in The King James is close, but it's not quite precise enough.
The the most accurate translation that I've come across.
He answers. I am altogether.
And absolutely what I say to you.
He was the truth.
And all that he spoke was the truth. He was the living embodiment of the truth.
Who are you? I am altogether and absolutely what I speak.
To you.
Verse 26 I have many things to say and to judge of you, but he that sent me.
Is true and I speak to the world those things that I have heard of him.
You see, it's impossible to read verses like this and then take the position, well, I believe that Jesus was a good man and I believe in, in, in, in Jesus as a good man, but that he's God. No, I, I can't accept that. You can't take that ground. He was either everything that he claimed to be or he was an impostor and you can't take the ground. Well, I believe in God the Father, but I don't believe in Jesus the Son. You can't take that.
Because all that we know of God, all that has been revealed to us of God, has been revealed in the person of the Son.
I speak to the world those things which I have heard of Him. They understood not that He spake to them of the Father. Now. Verse 28 Then said Jesus unto them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
And he that sent me there you have it again is with me.
The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always.
Those things that please him, Selah reflect.
Pause. Here's a man on earth that could utter these words. I do always those things that please him. You can't say that. I can't say that how many times we have sought to please ourselves.
Says in Romans 15 even Christ pleased not himself. It was a man on earth that never did anything for himself.
Always living for the glory of His Father. Always doing the will of His Father.
Always speaking the words of his father and the works of his father.
So that to see him is to see God himself. I do always those things that please Him.
Chapter 9.
Verse 4.
I must work the works of him that sent me. While it is day, the night cometh.
When no man can work.
His works were those of the father who sent him.
And I'm not reading every passage in John that speaks of him as the sent one, but we're looking at many of them. But I'm not exhausting them. There are many more. I'm just touching upon certain ones. I must work the works of him that sent me.
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Wonderful as we look at his works, as we see all that he did and hear all that he said.
We know what God is like.
Now we come to a most blessed passage in John chapter 10.
Verse 17.
He says, therefore doth my father love me?
Because I lay down my life that I might take it again.
The Father always loved the Son. We know that from other passages of Scripture.
He lay in his bosom from all eternity, the hiding place of love.
He knew the joy of that bosom, therefore. But now here he says a remarkable statement.
He says, therefore doth my father love me, A fresh motive on the part of the father to love his son.
Because I lay down my life that I might take it again. It was the love of the Father to the Son when he saw perfect obedience.
Philippians chapter 2 he was obedient unto death and that.
The death of the cross. He saw perfect obedience at infinite cost to the Lord Jesus.
A cost that you and I can never measure. We'll never be able to measure it.
The depths of all thy sufferings we sing. No heart could ere conceive. Cup of wrath, or flowing for us thou didst receive.
Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. Think of that Father looks down from heaven. He sees that Blessed One, maltreated by his creatures, abused moths, spit upon, struck with the fists of the soldiers, All the indignities that could be heaped upon him were heaped upon him.
And then he goes.
To the darkness of those three hours.
When he was shut into God alone.
God saw him obedient even to the point of death, and that the death of the cross, What a what a scene, what a scene where all that was in God against sin was poured out upon the Lord Jesus. And at the end of those three dark hours.
A cry pierces the thick darkness enshrouding Golgotha's Hill.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Had he wavered?
Had he failed in one point of obedience, all would have been lost.
Your salvation in mind depends upon perfect obedience, absolute.
Absolute surrender to God.
Into the will of God.
And when God the Father looked down and saw his beloved Son undergoing the infinite judgment of God against sin.
We read therefore doth my father love me?
In his lifetime, he was obedient in the joy of communion.
But now he's obedient, forsaken, alone, abandoned.
God saw the perfection of His obedience during those three hours.
And the Lord says, therefore doth my Father love me?
Because I lay down my life that I might take it again.
No man taketh it from me. Sometimes we speak of him as we speak of his martyr sufferings.
I believe that's an acceptable expression, although it's not correct. He didn't die as a martyr.
He did die, apparently under the hand of man, but really, man couldn't do a thing to him.
Until he allowed it.
I loved him, Mr. Bellitz, the Son of God.
It's just a little aside.
The Philistines captured the Ark.
The arc was a picture of Christ.
Christ in all his deity would the **** him would overlay. That's his humanity overlaid with gold. That's his deity, God and man in one person. And they it was just a box, something like this. This is what I have here in front of me. And it went from one city of the Philistines to the next to the next. And there was judgment upon every city, every city.
Why didn't they just smash it? Why didn't they do away with them?
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Box.
I love his answer. They couldn't.
They couldn't.
Why didn't they kill the Lord Jesus? They tried over and over again in Luke 4. They took him to the brow of the hill to cast him off. Had they cast him off?
He would have walked unharmed away at the bottom of the hill, but he didn't perform a miracle. He didn't use his deity to shield himself from their abuse. He just walking through the midst of them went his way.
When he said in John 8, before Abraham was I am, they took up stones to cast at him, and again He, walking through the midst of them, went His way. In John 18, when they came to take him, he said, Hum, seek ye Jesus of Nazareth, And he said, I am He.
They all went backward and fell to the ground.
I told you that I am he. If you seek me, let these go their way.
They couldn't touch him until the time came when the divine restraint upon man was removed and then he was allowed.
To take him well here he says in verse 18, No man taketh it from me.
His life, but I lay it down. Of myself, I have power to lay it down.
And I have power to take it again. Now that sounds like a contradiction to what I've been saying. Sounds like here he's acting from or of himself.
But let's read the rest of the verse. This commandment have I received of my father. He did it. He laid his life down.
In obedience to the Father's commandment, all was done in perfect submission and subjection and obedience. This commandment have I received of my Father.
Then chapter 10, verse 25.
Jesus answered them, I told you.
They just ask if they'll be the Christ. Tell us plainly, and he says I told you, and you believe not the works that I do in my father's name.
They bear witness of me.
Verse 32 Jesus answered them. Many good works have I showed you from my father.
For which of those works do ye stone me?
Chapter 11.
They don't have time to spend much time on any of these passages, and in Chapter 11 we know the story of Lazarus.
In verse 41 it says they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that thou hast heard me, and I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which stand by, I said it that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
He said it so that they could believe that the Father sent him, and when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice. Lazarus, come forth.
Well, he didn't raise Lazarus just by divine power. He did it in obedience to the Father. He had prayed to his Father, and his Father had given him instruction.
At the beginning of the chapter.
When they came to him.
Mary and Martha, they said, He whom thou lovest is sick.
And.
It says when he had heard before that he was sick, verse 6 he abode 2 days still in the same place where he was.
He whom thou lovest is sick. But why didn't he go right away? It was an urgent appeal. It was an urgent message from the two sisters. Come.
But he waited two whole days.
Didn't look like he loved him. No, he didn't have a word from the father. Oh, he loved him all right. He loved him as none has ever loved. But he had to. He had to receive instructions from his father before he went.
To.
We had some very precious verses.
Verse 44 Jesus cried and said he that believeth on me believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.
He that seeth me seeth him that sent me. Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful if that was true of you and me, that it could be said He that sees us sees Jesus.
As the living father has sent me, and I live on account of the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live on account of me.
And so we're to manifest the Father, we're to manifest the Son as he manifested the Father. But then we look at the last two verses of chapter 12, very wonderful verses.
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For I have not spoken of myself.
Or from myself as a source. But the father which sent me, he gave me commandment what I should say and what I should speak.
So everything that He spoke, everything that he said was the Father's commandment. It was the expression of eternal life. And he says that in the next verse. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting, life eternal.
Whatsoever I speak, therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
His words were the expression of himself, and they were at the expression also of the Father's commandment.
Which was and is eternal life.
Chapter 13.
It says in verse four he riseth from supper. He laid aside his garments, took a towel, and girded himself.
Where we've been looking at him it as the girded one, the subject 1 The servant.
The girded one, he's a servant. He was about to serve them and to Washington their feet. And then in verse 14 he says we know the story well. If I then your Lord and master have washed your feet.
You also ought to wash one another's feet.
For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent.
Greater than he that sent him.
If you know these things, happy are ye if you do them. I believe the source of our all of our unhappiness as Christians is because we know these things, but we don't do them.
And if we would walk as He walked in obedience and be the expression of these precious things, there'd be joy.
Flooding the soul.
Now the 14th chapter, we have verses very well known to us.
And Philip comes to him.
And says to him in verse 8, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
In the first chapter.
Philip is the one that speaks of the Lord and we might notice it coming right back here to chapter 14, but I just want to refer to the verse in chapter 1, verse 45, Philip findeth Nathaniel and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses and the long the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
Now that was a mistake. He wasn't the son of Joseph. Oh, legally.
But not actually.
No man had anything to do with that birth. He was born of the virgin.
Begotten of the Holy Spirit.
So he called him the son of Joseph. Oh, that was common. That was the mistake that most men made. They thought of him as such. Now it's to Philip. Phillip says, show us the father and it suffice with us.
And the Lord says to him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me? Philip, I am reading John 14/9.
He that hath seen, may have seen the Father. And how sayest thou then show us the Father. He who had said, the Son of Joseph now learns he is the Son of the Father, the Son of the Father. Oh, a revelation that was hard to grasp for these disciples.
Believe St. thou not, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself.
But the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works here. He speaks both of the words and the works that he did.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works sake.
Verse 31 of John 14.
But that the world may know.
That I love the Father.
And as the father gave me commandment.
Even so.
I do arise. Let us go hence.
The proof of love is obedience. The proof of His love to the Father was.
Doing the commandment of the father. Doing the will of the father.
And as he says to us, if you love me, keep my commandments.
In John 15 he says in verse 22, If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin.
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That hateth me, hateth my Father. Also impossible, as I said before, say it again, to take the position that one loves God but doesn't love the Son. It's impossible. To hate him is to hate the Father.
He that hateth me, hateth my father also.
If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. But now have they both seen and hated both me.
And my father. In John's writings, the Father and the Son are bound up together. They're often spoken of as in a confused way, as though you don't know if the writer is talking about the Father or the Son. That's done intentionally because they are one. One in glory.
In John 17 verse four he says, I have glorified thee, Father on the earth.
I have finished the work.
Which thou gavest me to do.
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self.
With the glory which I had with thee.
Before the world was.
The glory that he had with the Father before he laid it aside.
And came down into the form of a servant.
Now he asks to be reinstated as man into that same glory, a man in the very glory of God. Tremendous thought.
Wonders thought.
That he's been here perfectly revealing and expressing the Father, perfectly making him known, and now he's back with the Father. The Father has answered that work. He's answered it immediately, glorified him immediately.
Set him there. And so here he demands. Mr. Darby uses the word instead of justice. I will. He uses the word I demand. It's an equal speaking to an equal.
It's the Son speaking to the Father, Not an inferior speaking to 1 Superior, but it's the Son speaking to His Father. And yet the mystery of his incarnation and his lowly subjection is that he took that place in lowly grace to reach you and me, to bring the likes of us into blessing.
To bring us to know God can only be known in the Son. Become a man.
Oh, what a wonderful savior. Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 5.
Verse 8.
Though he were a son, or though he were son.
There is no indefinite article in the Greek language, and sometimes it has to be supplied for the sense, and sometimes it's better left out. I believe it's better left out here though. He were, son.
Yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
Though he were son.
Yet learned the obedience by the things which he suffered.
He came into his own creation. See, obedience was something that was not a part of any of his experience when he was in the form of God and only in the form of God.
He gave the orders, he did the commanding, and all did his bidding, but now he enters his own creation.
And he learns obedience.
By the things which he suffered. But there's more in that verse.
That verse proves the eternal sonship of Christ, it says.
Not in spite of his being the son.
It says though he were son.
He was son.
And yet he learned obedience.
I should have said the force of it is in spite of the fact that he was Son. That's really the force of it. In spite of the fact that he was Son, he learned obedience.
There are those that teach that he didn't become son until he became a man. That's called the temporal sonship doctrine. He never became the Son. He was always the Son. Son from all eternity.
And says, though he were sung in spite of the fact that he was the Son, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. When did he learn obedience? When he became a man.
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When he enters the form of a servant and takes that form upon himself, though he were son.
Now let's go back to John 5. We've looked at it in one connection. I want to look at it in another connection, John 5.
Verse 17 Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto.
And I work.
If you want to do a nice little study.
If you have a computer, you can do it easily.
Put in the expression my father.
And search all the passages of scripture.
And who says that expression? Who uses that expression? I'm talking about talking to God.
I'm talking about a human relationship where someone says to his earthly father, my father. I'm not talking about it. I'm talking about anyone on earth, any apostles. Well, I've done that.
And.
The only one that ever uses the expression my father.
Is the eternal Son.
Is the only one entitled to?
Then I typed into the little computer that I had. Little small one, not very powerful. My God.
The Lord Jesus called him my God and the cross, my God, my God myself forsaken me.
Psalm 22 Thou art my God, even from my mother's belly. That's the point in time when he became a man.
His mother's belly. Then he became his God. Before that, he was my father.
In deity he was not his God. He was God and nothing other than God.
Father the Son, the Holy Spirit. But now he enters his own creation, assumes the form of a servant, and now he can say, Thou art my God.
Even from my mother's belly, Speaking of his humanity.
And on the cross it's the man crying out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken? All other times he speaks, he speaks to him as my Father and the Father and Father and ABBA Father. But on the cross it was my God. And then in resurrection to Mary, he says, Go unto my brethren, and tell them, I ascend unto my Father and your father.
To my God and your God.
And so the epistles are all addressed to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Not Heavenly Father. Never is an epistle addressed to the Heavenly Father. That was, you might say, an intermediate thing that the Lord revealed to His earthly disciples, the Jews. But for us, we know Him now in a higher relationship even than Heavenly Father. We know Him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What He was to that blessed man as God, He is to you and to me as God, what He was to him as Father.
As Father.
You notice the order.
Scripture is perfectly precise.
When he introduced this truth to Mary, he says, Go to my brethren, John 20 the risen Christ, and tell them, I ascend unto my Father, and to your Father, to my God, and to your God. He puts my Father first.
And really, he's the only one entitled to do that.
The epistles never do it that way. The epistles always address him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, to him he was the Father always.
And when he became a man, then he was his God.
But to us, he was always our God.
And when we got saved, he becomes our father.
God first with us, Father next. But with him it was just the opposite.
And so he is the only one.
That ever can speak, That ever did speak.
To him as my father. And so when the Jews heard him say that.
Verse 18 of John 5. Therefore the Jews sought the Moor to kill him.
He had just said, my father worketh hitherto, and I.
Because he had not only broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making himself equal with God, they understood His words perfectly.
He said my father and they said that's making yourself equal with God, and that's exactly what he was doing.
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We don't have the right to use that expression. We can say our father.
We are taught to say that.
But he alone could say, My Father. Then I looked up the expression, my God, and I find that the apostle Paul used it a number of times. Lippians four. My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.
And there are other instances you can check it out, he said. My God, it's all right.
But no apostle, not even the apostle Paul, said. My father, that's reserved.
For the eternal Son of God.
That sets him apart. You know when the ark went into the land.
There were 2000 cubits between the arch and the rest of Israel. There's always that distance. He's brought you and me so near, and yet there's there's still the distance there's still.
Who he is in his person.
Very God.
And very man.
And.
Let's look at let's look at that passage in Luke. We have just a moment or two before we close Luke chapter 2. This is the first time the Lord uses the expression.
And.
You remember the account when he was 12 years old, verse 42 of Luke 2. They went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the the feast.
And when they had fulfilled the days as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.
But they supposing him to have been in the company when a day's journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. When they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And he came to pass that after three days they found him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions.
And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. Here he is, a boy of 12. And when they saw him, they were amazed. Why were they amazed? Why didn't they expect to find him in the temple?
And his mother said unto him, and I detect a tone of irritation in her voice, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father, and I have sought thee sorrowing.
Notice how he corrects her very gently.
And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me?
Wished he not that I must be about my father's business. There we have it. First time he uses the expression in the word of God. A boy of 12.
Don't you know I must be about my father's business? She had just said. Thy father and I have sought me sorrowing, he says, Mother, no.
My Father's in heaven undoing my Father's business. Joseph's not my father.
Mary has called his mother over and over again in scripture because she was the mother of his humanity, but no man had anything to do with his humanity.
The Roman Catholics speak of Mary as the Mother of God.
God has no mother.
But the one who became a man has a mother.
As to his deity, he has only a father.
As to his humanity, he is only a mother.
No, father.
As to his deity, he has no mother, only a father.
And so the air in their Speaking of the blessed Lord.
But notice what it says. Mist wished ye not that I must be about my father's business.
They understood not the saying which he spake unto them. What is he claiming?
What is he claiming?
They didn't understand.
His person, the glory of his person, she had been told Mary.
He shall be called the Son of the Highest. The Son of the highest. She had been told that. But you know how slowly we apprehend the glory of this person, how slowly we understand who he is.
And so it was with them.
And then it's the beautiful, beautiful next verse is what we've been looking at. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them.
But his mother kept all these sayings in her heart, and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.
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Whenever you read of him increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor and so on, it's always his humanity, always his manhood.
As God, he could never.
Learn anymore, he can never know anymore, says in 149th Psalm. I think it is. It's his understanding is infinite as God.
And he's the same, so he can never know less. He can't change.
Is the unchanging 1. You can never know more because he knows everything. He never know last because he's the same.
And but as man, he increases in learning.
You say I can't fathom that. I can't put that together. I can't understand that. Well, none of us can.
Who can understand God and man in one person? God and man and one person.
The mystery greatest the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit.
Scene of angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world.
Received up into glory.
The mystery of godliness.
The mystery of his person.
Well, he says it for the first time, and he says it over and over again. You can trace it through the Gospel of John.
It's over and over, he says. My father, my father, my father, my father, that he's the only one.
That ever used that expression, the only one entitled to we can say thankfully, because now we're part of the priesthood family, we can say our father.
And rejoice in it. Or we can say the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.