THE FATHER'S THINGS
THE FATHER’S THINGS
John 16:13-16; John 16:23; John 16:28
I do not think there is anyone who would not admit that we can recognise in the New Testament what might be called two parts in the ministry. Paul speaks of it distinctly; there was that which he ministered to those not established, and what he ministered to those who were ‘perfect’; he did not minister to the unestablished what he ministered to those who were ‘perfect’. “We speak wisdom among them that are perfect”, whatever the word ‘perfect’ may mean; I do not go into that now. One point distinguishes one part of this ministry (I do not quite like to speak here of ministries) from the other; namely, that what he ministered to the perfect were “the deep things of God”; what we are accustomed to understand by that is, that he ministered to them the counsels of God, the things God has purposed for His own glory — our glory, too, as far as that goes. In connection with that he brings forward the subject, not of what saints had, but of what they were. The condition of a vast number of souls is, that they need to understand deliverance; they do not apprehend the meaning and power of the work of Christ as deliverance. They know it as justification, but I do not think they know it as deliverance. So long as they are in that state, I do not doubt the apostle would talk to them, and we ought to do the same, of what they have; but with the others, the ‘perfect’, it is what they are. When I come to God’s purposes, and look at saints in reference to those purposes, it is no longer a question of what saints have, but of what they are in relation to them. In Ephesians it is, “May grow up to him in all things”. That is not what I have, but what I am. Growth is in what I am for God. “Holding the truth in love”, and so on. I think, in [p. 38] another line, we get both things brought out in this chapter; John 16. The Lord tells the disciples what the Holy Spirit will do. He is referring to the time of the Holy Spirit, and is telling them what He would do. On the one hand, He would bring before them the Father’s things that were the Son’s; and on the other hand, they would have the freest access to the Father in the name of the Son. I want just to suggest these things. I do not feel I can give a very orderly address, though each of the subjects is vitally important. If we intend to go on, that is what we have set before us.
One thing is very noticeable in this chapter, and distinguishes it from chapter 14. You do not find in it a single ‘if’; not a single condition introduced; it is a chapter of privilege; it brings before us God’s sphere. It is not a question of our responsible walk, or anything of that kind; it is the sphere of the Father’s things which the Holy Spirit is to bring before the disciples; and what marks the end of the chapter is, that they would have the freest access to the Father in the name of the Son. You will find all the latter part of chapter 14 is conditional; it is all on the ground of their walk down here, I can understand it. The great subject of chapter 14 is comfort; and even what comes out — the Son manifesting Himself and the Father and Son making Their abode with saints — is all as comfort in the pathway down here. Therefore it is, in a certain sense, conditional on our keeping Christ’s word. It is not attainment or anything of that kind; it is all simple. But if they were going on in that pathway, the Lord brings to their minds the comfort they would have in it. But here (chapter 16) there is nothing conditional. You get, if I may say so, the free power of the Holy Spirit, but it is in connection with the sphere and range of the Father’s things; and this is what I want to say a word about for a moment.
Jesus says, “All things that the Father hath are mine”. He says of the Holy Spirit, “He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you”. If I understand the expression at all (and I only suggest it), when the Lord speaks of “all things that the Father hath”, it brings before us the whole universe of bliss, the Father’s purpose, which is to be filled by the Son. Another point is, this has been revealed to us; it is real to us. I could hardly say the same thing when the Lord Jesus was down here, although He did say, “All things are delivered unto me of my Father”; but now He is exalted, glorified; and therefore the whole range of the Father’s counsels comes to us as truth. That is a very great expression, “He will guide you into all truth”. You say, You are leading us on to the ground of imagination! No. I would seek to lead you on to the ground of faith. Christ is in glory; everything is established in Him. I am not dealing with imagination, but I would seek that our souls may understand that expression; “All things that the Father hath are mine”, and all the range of the Father’s counsels and purposes which He will display in His blessed Son, who is glorified. That comes to us in the way of truth. It is for faith, and not something to minister to imagination. It is revealed by the “Spirit of truth”. “He will guide you into all truth”. He would bring before the hearts and minds of the disciples the whole range of the Father’s counsels. That was to be the world in which faith was to live.
I should like to say a word in connection with this. This present world is not truth; the principle of the world is not truth; there is nothing truthful about it; the world is a great falsehood, there is no doubt about that. The god and prince of this world is a usurper. We have to pass through it, and the Spirit of God carries us through it, and the grace of God keeps us, and we experience many a mercy of God as we pass [p. 40] through, but the character of the world is false. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, everything false and evil, nothing of truth in it. The prince of the world is, as I said, a usurper. There is nothing of truth in this organisation which we are accustomed to think of as the world. But everything is truth in the Father’s universe; the Father’s world is what is truth. All the counsels and purposes of the Father are to be fulfilled in the Son, on the ground of redemption. He has exalted Him far above all heavens that He may fill all things. Christ has not only cleared the ground, but He is going to occupy the ground He has cleared. He fills the whole of God’s universe. That is what the Father has purposed, and what will be accomplished in the Son; and the pledge of it is, the Son is no longer here in the place of weakness, but in the glory of God, in the highest place, as we get in the next chapter: “Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee”. He was to give the fullest effect to all that was purposed.
That was what the Spirit of truth was to bring before the minds of the disciples. If we are in the power of the Spirit, that is the world in which faith lives. It is not a world of imagination, but a world of truth. Christ is in the place of power and glory. If we are living here in the faith of Christ, in the power and energy of the Holy Spirit, I have no doubt faith will delight itself in this vast universe of bliss. We sing of it sometimes
“Of the vast universe of bliss,
The Centre Thou, and Sun”. (11:4)
Not only is He the Head of it, He is to fill it all according to God’s counsels. He is the Lamb of God; He has died for it all. He takes away the sin of the world, and He establishes the universe according to God, and fills it with blessing. He brings us to a scene of blessing of which He is the centre and glory.
I only say that much to bring in the latter part of [p. 41] the chapter. We may put ourselves in the place of the disciples in this chapter. We find ourselves in the presence of God’s counsels. The first thing is this Jesus goes to the Father. He says, “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father”. A puzzle to them! The reason He gives is of all moment — “because I go to the Father”. We should say, naturally, that would bring to an end their seeing Him. But no; His going to the Father really meant their going to the Father. He did not go back to the Father merely for Himself. He did go back to the Father; His place was there. He might have gone alone for the matter of that; but He went back in the value of redemption, and so made a way for us there. His going there means our going there. We have free access to the Father. He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”. And the first thing that comes out here is this: He is gone to the Father, and we now have joy, because He is gone to the Father. That is a wonderful thing. Not only are the whole range of God’s counsels revealed, but we have access to the Father, as the apostle puts it, “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him”. The Holy Spirit not merely conducts us through our responsible life down here, but maintains us in liberty with the Father, in the name of the Son. “Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father”. Jesus went to the Father. Because of that they would have joy; they were not to lose Him. It is a wonderful chapter, as opening out a new order of things. They had known the Lord Jesus down here, coming down, if one might so say, to the level of their weakness. They had valued His company; He had revealed to them the Father’s name. But this chapter is in contrast to all that; it opens out the range of divine glory. He was going to the Father,
[p. 42] and because of that they would have liberty there.
I come to another point; and mark, there are no ‘ifs’ because it is a question of the free power of the Holy Spirit. He connects us with this new order of things. “In that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full”. It is illimitable; and why? Because now we find ourselves in connection with the scene that is to be filled with the Son. “My name” — that Name represents the Son in His absence; and whatever we ask in the name of the Son, the Father will give it to us. But we must lay hold of the first principle of the chapter, that the Son is to fill God’s universe. The moment has not come for that (in display), but the Son is to fill me; we are to be filled with Him, and now we have the freest liberty to ask whatever will promote the Son in us.
It is a blessed thing to go to the Father in liberty. I am bent upon one thing; I do not want to do the best I can for myself in this world; in fact, I do not care so very much about this world, but I do care that the Son should fill me, that He should be promoted in saints. I want Him to displace everything in me that is not of Himself. It is practically “as the truth is in Jesus”. The “having put off ... the old man ... and your having put on the new man”. There is the displacing of the one thing to make space for the other. The great point is, that the Son should be promoted in me, and the same in every other saint of God.
If you want to seize the idea, I think you must get hold of the first part of the chapter, that is, all the counsels of God centred in the Son. The counsels are of the Father; the accomplishment of those counsels is by and in the Son; the Holy Spirit indwells the believer, and gives effect subjectively in the believer to those counsels as established in the Son.
[p. 43] It is just those two thoughts I desire to bring before you: what the Spirit of God would do in the disciples; the world of faith He would bring before them. Truth is a real thing, and these counsels of the Father are revealed and made true to us by the Spirit of truth. “He will guide you into all truth”. What a thing it is to live in the presence of this wonderful revelation; to be led by the Spirit of truth into these eternal divine secrets! And then to know what the Father desires us to be; what the Lord desired for His disciples down here, that He might be promoted in them; whatsoever they asked the Father in His name He would do it.
I cannot improve the world, but I can seek that the Son should have His fullest place in me, and in every saint, and that everything else should be displaced. There is a complete end of the old man in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ; and all that has to be worked out, practically in detail, in every one of us. We want conscience, as we have heard, that the truth should do its work practically, and that the truth, as in Jesus, should have its place — the disallowing of the first man, that there should be the fullest room for the Son in our hearts.
I only want to indicate these two thoughts in this chapter of deepest import; it paves the way for the prayer in the next chapter; chapter 17. Chapter 14 is the comfort of the Holy Spirit; chapter 15, the testimony of the Holy Spirit; but in chapter 16 the Lord shows what the Holy Spirit would do in bringing before the minds of the disciples this new and wonderful order of things established in Himself.
May God give us to apprehend our place in this realm of faith — to live there. It is not a question of what we have; we have everything. It is a question of what we are to grow in, and of what is to be promoted in us by the power of the Spirit of God.