The Lord had much to tell His disciples of the Father. But hitherto, as He says in ver. 25, He had spoken to them in proverbs, as they were able to bear it. Then He went on to say that the hour was coming when He would speak to them plainly of the Father. Clearly this hour dawned at Pentecost, and it is interesting to see how what we have here accords with the statement in Acts 1:1. “All that Jesus began, both to do and to teach.” In the one passage we have the clear intimation that our Lord would instruct His servants at a coming hour; in the other the blessed fact is implied in the striking word “began,” which is far from being otiose, as indeed naught in holy scripture is or could be. In short it marks the continuity of what our Lord did on earth with what He did after His resurrection and ascension.
Hereby we learn incidentally how impossible it is to isolate the persons of the Godhead. If “in the days of His flesh” the Savior cast out demons by the finger of God (Luke 11:2), by the Spirit of God (Matt. 12:28); if through the eternal Spirit He offered Himself without spot to God; if again, it was through the Holy Spirit that He gave commandment unto His chosen apostles, it is equally true that what the Spirit revealed at and after Pentecost was virtually revealed by the Son. “I shall show you plainly of the Father” (ver. 25).
But, if that fuller revelation still tarried a while, the Lord does tell the disciples in the clearest language truth concerning Himself which it was of all consequence that they should know, and which it was supremely blessed to hear from His own divine lips. Needless to say, it is also truth most instructive for us to ponder. I allude now to the closing sentence of ver. 27, and to ver. 28. Let us read the passage as it is more accurately given in the R. V. “I came forth from the Father. I came out from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father.” The careful reader will note some difference between the above and the A.V. In the first place “Father” is found instead of God in the first statement; secondly, there is the distinction of “came forth from,” and “came out from.” Together they give us the fullness of the truth. As one has said, “no phrase could express more completely unity of essence than the original of these words.” Nor was it the first time that the blessed Lord had held such language. In the eighth chapter of this Gospel we read (ver. 42), “I came forth from (ἐκ as here in ver. 28), and am come from God” —words wholly inexplicable and unintelligible except as a statement of the essential Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is “very God of very God.” And how blessed, as remarked above, to have all this truth as to His person from Himself. The former expression “I came forth from(παρὰ) the Father” implies the leaving of the Father's side; the latter, “I came out from (ἐκ) the Father,” points as we have seen to the true Sonship of the Savior.
It is also interesting to notice that there is a third preposition (ἀπὸ) found in the 30th verse of the sixteenth chapter, and also in the third of the thirteenth. It is sufficient to point out that as distinguished from παρὰ it marks the separation involved in the Incarnation while the latter word emphasizes the fellowship between the Father and the Son. And all these wonderful shades of meaning are conveyed in the original with a directness and a simplicity that I suppose no other language but Greek is capable of. It is matter of common knowledge that this tongue is unique in its powers of subtle precision. Learned men may praise the accuracy of Plato, and cleverness of Aristotle; the believer, learned or unlearned, can feel and admire the profound and striking accuracy of the Scriptures of God.
“I leave the world, and go unto the Father.” Thus does the blessed Lord return to Him from whom He came. True He was always the Son of man who is in heaven. But divine intimacy could not be enjoyed when the sinless One was made sin during those three hours of supernatural darkness. Then and then only does He say, “My God, My God.” “Father” precedes and follows in the well-known utterances on the Cross, whereby God can in very deed be the Father of all who believe in His Son. “Ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26).
The consideration of points like these leads us perhaps into what may be called side-tracks of the truth. They may possibly not come within our purview when expounding the broad principle of evangelical or ecclesiastical doctrine. They may suggest the microscope rather than the telescope, but they are none the less highly illuminative. R. B.