THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FATHER AND THE SON
[p. 23] THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FATHER AND THE SON
I dare say, beloved friends, some may wonder at my taking up such a passage as this to speak from. In fact, I feel some hesitation myself. There are many parts of Scripture which one would not have the same feeling about at all, but one has some difficulty about taking up such expressions as these — the prayer of the Lord. What I read is part of the Lord’s prayer; some of us have been accustomed to think of something else as the Lord’s prayer, but this is really the Lord’s prayer. One feels some hesitation, as I said, in taking up part of the Lord’s prayer as the subject of an address; but it is only with the thought of bringing out two or three points which come before us in these first verses.
What I first wanted to lay down as a principle, is this: the greatest blessing God has conferred upon us is the knowledge of divine Persons. It is the greatest blessing God could confer upon a creature; no other blessing can come up to it. I do not think anyone can contest that for an instant. If I think of what our future is to be, we come into an inheritance; but whatever we come into in that way is below us. Naturally it is so. Suppose I was heir to a great estate now in my father’s possession, and constantly heard it said all this was to be mine; I should say, I have a privilege much greater than that, I have the privilege of knowing my father. If things were not altogether out of course in the world, people would think so. They would consider the privilege of intimacy with one’s father greater than any advantage one could come into by being the son of his father. When I look at divine
†Notes of a Lecture given at Quemerford in July, 1889
[p. 24] things, I see there is no blessing God could confer upon a creature to be compared to the knowledge of Himself in the blessedness of His own nature and His own thoughts; for that is what is involved in the knowledge of God. Poor sinful creatures that we are, we are called to heavenly blessing, to the knowledge of God Himself as He has been pleased to reveal Himself in His blessed Son.
That is the first principle I want to lay down before I touch these verses; and then another thing, namely, that the blessings that belong to us as Christians, lie completely outside this world of sense. I do not doubt there are many things we enjoy down here, such as justification and peace, and the sense of acceptance. More than that, God has given to us the Holy Spirit to conduct us through the wilderness, the pathway down here. We have grace ministered to us in our circumstances day by day. How could we get on without it? And not only that, but mercy. Mercy and grace are not precisely the same thing: the Christian has both. As the children of Israel had manna for their daily necessities, so I have grace ministered to me for mine. We are the recipients of a thousand mercies from God to us down here, as the Lord said to His disciples in regard to temporal necessities, “Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things”. Do you not think you have the care of God in your pathway here? Do you not remember what the apostle says: “Therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour (Preserver) of all men, specially of those that believe”? I ask the poorest Christian here tonight: Do you not think God cares a great deal more for you than for those who do not believe? He is the Preserver of all men, specially of those that believe. That is the care of God for His people. We are subjects of that. The Lord told the disciples not to be careful for the morrow, what they should eat or [p. 25] what they should drink. He says, Your Father knows. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”.
I only just bring this forward because it is of all importance that we should apprehend and understand the care of which we are the subjects down here. I do not believe there is a single thing which exercises me, that is not a care for God. You remember the exhortation: “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you”. I should be very sorry to get into an unreal Christianity; and it would be that, if we failed to see the care of God for us down here. But my point tonight is, that the privileges that belong to the Christian, his proper portion, are outside this scene altogether. These blessings are ours by faith, made good to us by the Holy Spirit; it is not that we have not the power to reach them, but they are outside this world of sense. Suppose a Christian dies, what is the effect of death to him? He goes nearer to his blessings. Suppose it were possible for a saint to die in the millennium, he would go away from his blessings, they will be all upon the earth; but with a Christian it is totally different. If I die, I simply go to where my blessings are; I go to the scene to which my blessings belong. The blessings and privileges which God has given to me are completely outside this world of sense; and whatever may be said about it, the highest of these lies in the knowledge of God Himself. Who were the most privileged class in Israel? The priests. They had no lot nor inheritance among the people. What was their portion? They had access to God in a figurative way (not really), and they were the only class who approached God. It was the highest privilege God conferred in those days. What are we called to? To have access to God, as we read in Ephesians: “Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father”. That is the peculiar privilege which belongs now to the people of God.
[p. 26] Now I pass on, beloved friends. I merely lay down these two principles: the greatest privilege you can possibly have, consists in the knowledge of God, as He has been pleased to reveal Himself in the Son; and the blessings peculiar to the Christian are outside this world of sense altogether.
I want to dwell upon the first of these verses, and then to show you how the third verse connects itself with the first. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”. I desire to show what it is to know the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, His sent One. I will speak a word or two at the end as to the capacity, but now I want to speak about what the blessing is in itself. The Lord prays these words (He speaks here as a divine Person): “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee”. He, the Son, prays to be glorified, in order that He may glorify the Father. I wish that God might enable me to make plain, in some degree, the force and meaning of that verse. It is a very great verse. He was no longer to be here in humiliation: He prays to be taken out of humiliation; to be glorified, that He may glorify the Father. One word about the Father. It is a great thing to know the Father, to understand what God intends to convey to us by the name of the Father. There is nothing connected with the name of the Father in Scripture but pure grace. Scripture keeps every other thought apart from the name of the Father. There are things connected with the name of the Son that are not in connection with the Father’s name. For instance, judgment is not connected with the Father’s name, but is with the Son’s, because He, as Son of man, has been humbled. I remember we were once pretty much taught that the Son was for us, and God, as Judge, against us; but Scripture brings before us a very different idea in connection with the name of the [p. 27] Father. I beg you to bear in mind, that the thought in Scripture connected with the name of the Father is pure grace. All the counsels of grace flow from the heart of the Father; “As the living Father hath sent me”. If you were to go through the whole of the gospel of John, and find every place where “the Father” occurs, you would, I think, find in every one that it is connected with grace. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”. I hardly know a more precious verse. Do you remember the occasion of it? The Jews were reproaching Jesus for breaking the sabbath. That was His reply. The Father had been working ever since sin came in. He began then to work in grace. We do not see the Father in creation. The Father is the name of God revealed in grace. There never would have been a bit of grace for man, or a hope of salvation, if the Father had not begun to work when sin came in.
When the Son was here, what was the Father doing? He was drawing to the Son. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him”. The Father was drawing to the Son, that souls might be blessed by the Son, that He might bless them, because they were given to Him of the Father. There was, what I might call, the most wonderful administration of grace when the Lord Jesus Christ was here upon earth: the Father drawing to the Son, and the Son delighting to bless those who came, because the Father had drawn them. He delighted in them; He appreciated them, because they were given of the Father. “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out”. Why? Because they were drawn to Him by the Father.
Two or three other expressions I refer to: “My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven”. The Jews wanted a sign, and said their fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. Jesus answers, “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the [p. 28] bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world”. Then, too, I recall another passage in John 4: “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”. This is the necessity of what God is; but as to the activity that was going on Jesus says, “the Father seeketh such”. I bring these quotations forward to prove my point, and it is a very important one, that Scripture takes care to keep the Father’s name connected with grace. All the counsels of blessing belong to the Father. It is a great thing to see the glory of each divine Person. Each divine Person has His own peculiar glory. Counsels belong to the Father. The Son says, “All things that the Father hath are mine”, and again, “The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth”. I want you to see the thought connected with the Father’s name, and that He is the source of all the counsels of grace.
Now the Lord says, “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee”. What do you think that means? It is not the same thing as the Son of man being glorified, “crowned with glory and honour”, as in Hebrews 2. Here it is the Son of God: “Father, ... glorify thy Son”. He prays that He may be taken out of the condition of humiliation into which He had entered, and to be glorified, that He might glorify the Father. How would He glorify the Father? I will tell you: by giving effect to all the Father’s counsels of grace. That is the idea which is connected with the Son. He says, “I come to do thy will, O God”. He has become the sent One in order that He may accomplish God’s will. He is what we may call the Agent, the One who effects all. If He is to give effect to these counsels He must be glorified. He could not give [p. 29] effect to them in humiliation. He came down here in humiliation that He might put away sin; but He is no longer here in the place of humiliation. He was down here, and, in a sense, His glory was veiled. It is no longer so now: He is glorified, that He might glorify the Father. These are the thoughts connected in Scripture with the names of these blessed, divine Persons. “The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world”. He is the source of all these counsels and we have the Son now glorified to give effect to them.
I pass on now to verse 3, to speak for a moment about the Father and the Son. I wish I knew more about it! I wish I were more in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring it with more unction before you. The great thing is to find an attraction in these names. I think people need to be attracted, to be drawn from the influence and power of things here, and I wish I could present the attraction in the names of the Father and the Son! It is a wonderful thing, that when sin has come in to spoil everything here, we should find there were counsels of blessing in the heart of the Father, the thought as it were of reconstructing everything — of new creation and all connected with it; and then the Son comes down here in humiliation, taking part in flesh and blood, going down to death that He might put away sin, and then be glorified in order to give effect to all these wondrous divine counsels of the Father; and these counsels are bound up with our blessing, and the blessing of the world too. It is indeed blessed to know this in the midst of this world of ruin and sin. It was wonderful for the Lord to be able to say to a poor woman: “The Father seeketh such to worship him”. Sinful, degraded as you are, you are not below the notice of the Father. “My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven”; but He had also to say to the Jews, “Ye also have seen me, and believe not”; and then, there had to be the silent [p. 30] work, the drawing of souls to Jesus by the Father. You may depend upon it, beloved friends, heaven will be a wonderful scene; I quite admit we enter into heavenly joys now by anticipation, but heaven will be a wonderful scene, where the Father will be fully known, and the Son, too. These blessings belong not to the earth but to heaven, where the Father and the Son are known without a veil.
“This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”. This is what we are called to! The highest and greatest privilege to which we are called, is to know these divine Persons. To know is a very great word. It does not mean to know there are such divine Persons, but as we say in natural language, I know such a person: that means, I am intimately acquainted with him, I delight in his company. That is the idea of ‘know’ here. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee”. The Father was to be known as the only true God; and who is the Father? Such a One as I have been trying to bring before you — the Source of all the counsels of blessing. I often think, when we are in the presence of the Father, whatever we are before the Father, originated in His heart; and it is not only the knowledge of the Father, but of “Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”. I do not think the disciples, when the Lord Jesus was on earth, could completely know Him; and for this reason, His glory was veiled. It could not help being veiled, because of the condition in which He took part as Man down here. But His glory is not veiled any longer; He is glorified; He is taken out of that condition into which He entered down here; He is risen and glorified. And now it is, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”.
I ask every one here tonight, how far do we enter into this? How far do we appreciate that this is the [p. 31] privilege and blessing God has conferred upon us? There are many things we rejoice in. People rejoice in the knowledge of salvation, and rightly; and they rejoice in hope of the glory. But what I desire to bring before you is, your present privilege (for it is present and not future only), that we should know the Father, the Source of all the counsels of grace, and the Son, who is become the sent One to give effect to all the Father’s will.
Two or three other points I desire just to speak of — our side of it, as I might call it, as to our capacity, and so on. I do not think one could ever understand it, without apprehending first, the position in which we are placed; and the power and capacity God has given by which we can enter into this privilege: for I need hardly say, no creature, as a creature, could enter into it for a single instant. The point is, we are to know the Father and the Son in Their own circle, if you can understand the expression. It is not as the angels know God; they do not know the Father and the Son. The Lord said, “In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven”; but they do not know the Father in the sense of this verse. You must be in that circle, as the apostle John says in his epistle: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”. I do not, of course, mean to say but that the Father has His glory, and the Son His glory; but we are put into that circle. How are we put into that circle? Do you remember a verse in John 1, “As many as received him, to them gave he power (title) to become the sons of God” etc.? Jesus has given us title to that place (we could not have it without title), the One who died because of what we are; the Son of man lifted up, who has borne the judgment of our state, that He might bring us into His own relationship as Man with the Father. You get it all brought out in John 20, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God”. You see that the first thing which He does, as risen from the dead, is to place the disciples in the same relationship as Himself with His Father, and His God. He puts them into this circle and family privilege. Scripture tells us of other families in what one might call the economy of blessing; but I speak of this one family privileged to enjoy communion with the Father and the Son. The first thing is relationship. The youngest babe in Christ that has the Spirit, cries “Abba, Father”. I admit it; but I do not think every babe appreciates, and enters into this knowledge of the Father and the Son, as we get it in this verse of John 17. It belongs to them, the youngest and oldest alike; but to enter into it involves faith, and the knowledge of deliverance. All this belongs to every Christian. Faith in Christ belongs to the babe; deliverance by the death of Christ belongs to the babe as much as to the father, but I question if the babe enters into it as the father does. A very good thing if it were so, but I do not think it is so.
Realisation is a very good word, because you realise what belongs to you; so that with the blessings of the Christian, everything belongs to every Christian alike, but very many Christians may not have realised what belongs to them in the gift of God; but it is none-the-less the gift of God to all alike. It is a very great thing to enter into the enjoyment of this circle of blessing. I ask every one here tonight, Do you know what it is to enjoy fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ? Manifestly that is outside this world. You have to go in the power of the Holy Spirit by faith outside this world altogether. It is the greatest blessing that God could confer upon us, but it is completely outside this world of sense.
I have spoken about the relationship Christ has [p. 33] given us as children; and there is another thing — the divine nature. I must be according to God as to nature — one in nature with Christ. If I am not according to the Father and the Son in nature I could not know Them. If I had only human nature, even if it were perfectly pure, I could not know the Father and the Son in this way. We have the nature: it is not only that Christ has given to us the relationship, but the nature. The Son quickeneth whom He will. He quickens after His own order. He gives us a nature suited to the relationship in which He sets us.
Then there is a third thing needed, and that is power. We have that, too. The Holy Spirit is power. After the Lord, in John 20, had conferred upon the disciples relationship, He gave them power. “He breathed into them, and says to them, Receive the Holy Ghost”. All these things belong to every Christian: every Christian is brought into this privileged circle by the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has gone to the cross, in order that He might close up my history here; He bore the judgment of my state, so that He might bring me into relationship with His Father and His God. That is what He has done for every believer; every believer is entitled to know it, is set in that relationship; the nature is given by the quickening power of the Son, and the Holy Spirit is given that we may not only have the nature but the power. It is the Spirit of God’s Son that is sent forth into the hearts of Christians. As Paul says, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father”.
Well, now, dear brethren, I feel my great inability to bring the Father and the Son before you according to what I may call Their own proper attractiveness, and indeed it is only the Holy Spirit who can do it; but it is a most wonderful thing to me to think that the Father should have been pleased to reveal Himself in the [p. 34] Person of His Son, in the midst of this sin-stricken world. Knowing what the world is, knowing what I am, it is blessed indeed to know what counsels of grace have been in the heart of the Father from all eternity, and that the Son should have become the sent One in order to accomplish all this. “The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world”. And here are we brought into all this privilege now — everything given to us to qualify us for it. We could not have the knowledge without the relationship: and not only the relationship, but the nature and the power also given that we may have fellowship with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
I should be inclined to insist strongly upon the importance of faith and deliverance. I do not mean simply the acceptance of the work of Christ for us; that is the beginning; you would not be a believer at all without that, of course; but what characterises the Christian is present faith in Christ. He is to me the Object of faith, and governs my soul because He is; and by His death I am delivered from this present evil world. The link is broken. You will have to go through this world. I quite admit it; but I am sure it is a great thing to realise that you are free from it; it has no claims upon you. I do not care about my status in this world; it is not of moment to me. I pass through in the grace of God, but I am free of it, because the grace of God has set me in a heavenly state and relationship before Him.
I pray God in His grace to come in (if I have not made things clear, and very likely I have not) to present to you the attractiveness of the Father and the Son, that you may know all the blessings in Scripture connected with the Father’s name. Christ not only declared the Father, but He manifested the Father’s name; John 17: 6. The wonderful truth that came out was that God could stand in relationship to a man as Father. Jesus manifested His name. I can now [p. 35] say, Father; I know Him in the consciousness of His love to me, and I know Him, too, as the Object of my love. Scripture takes the greatest possible pains, as I have said, to keep clear the Father’s name from everything but thoughts of grace. Then, too, if you think of the blessed Son: who became Man that He might bear the judgment of our state, who as Son of man was lifted up, and, having glorified God, is Himself glorified, in order that He may give effect to the Father’s counsels of grace.
It is only a little while, and all these wonderful things will come to light. We are privileged to enter into them now by faith, but the time will come when these eternal counsels will be fully displayed, and then in heavenly courts we shall rejoice eternally in the knowledge of the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, His sent One. That is the circle to which you and I by grace belong. Our blessing is bound up with the knowledge of these blessed, divine Persons, and the nature and the power is given to us by which we may enjoy this knowledge, which the Lord speaks of in this verse.
Beloved friends, have you ever been really exercised about it? People ought not to remain just upon the threshold of Christianity. Forgiveness of sins, and even the gift of the Holy Spirit, is the threshold, as it were. The point is, to go in, to enter into the house — the circle into which you are brought by grace, to enjoy fellowship with the Father and the Son. We could not know these divine Persons if God had not been pleased to reveal Himself to us.
May God really give us exercise of heart about it, that we may not go on grovelling here, but that we may have grace to go within, and know these blessed, divine Persons where They are at home, if I may so speak. It is a great thing to know a person at home. You never know people till you know them at home. Christ was not at home down here, He was in a foreign [p. 36] scene. Now He is at home, and we have the power to know Him there. We have the relationship, the nature, and the power. Then what do we want more? We want faith, and we want deliverance. It is not that they are not ours, but we are slow sometimes to accept them.
May God exercise our hearts! I assure you I am exercised about it, and about the miserable, low state of the people of God. How they grovel down here!
May God stir us up, beloved friends, that we may enter now into what is to be our blessed and eternal portion!