THE FATHER AND THE SON
J.N.Grace
Genesis 22: 7-9 (1st sentence); 1 Kings 2: 1-3; 2 Kings 2: 11,12 (1st sentence);
We are in a time, dear brethren, when there is about to be a change of the dispensation and it is a very interesting thing, if we go through Scripture and see one generation passing and another coming on, to see that it is marked by certain affections between the father and the son, all pointing to just where we are now. God has not given up His thoughts; it does not matter what the dislocation maybe in the world, the terrible things that are happening to mankind, God has not given up His thoughts; and not only has He not given up His thoughts but He has secured an answer to His thoughts somewhere in someone. That is because God Himself is here in the Spirit, and as sure as the work of Christ is perfect and nothing can be added to it or taken from it, so surely the work of the Spirit will be perfect and nothing will have to be added to it or taken from it. I would like to be with the Spirit in what He is doing. Somewhere in the overcomer there is an answer to every divine thought, not on the level of man's thoughts but on the level of God's own thoughts because God Himself is working here. It is an encouraging thing therefore to see from these scriptures what God is securing.
God was about to work in a family in the first passage we read in Genesis and it is so stimulating to see that He presents early in the history of the human race the choicest of His thoughts in the expression of affection between the father and the son. So I just dwell on these expressions for a moment as to Abraham and Isaac: "Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, My father!" What that must have meant to Abraham and what that must have meant to God as He looked forward to the incoming of Christ, His own beloved Son. Dear brethren, do we realise what the incarnation meant to the Father? For four thousand years God had looked for an expression from a Son; all that a son could be to a father God looked for for four thousand years and He did not find it until Christ came in. But then He found it just as He wanted to find it, He found in Jesus all that He could look for in a son's affections, in His own beloved Son; that is why the voice came from heaven. And there was one Man on earth who enjoyed the affections of a father as no other man had ever enjoyed it, and that was Jesus. Now that is the standard, the divine standard between the Father and the Son as seen in Jesus. So the more we focus our attention on Jesus the more we will understand divine thoughts and the more we will be formed by them because we will want to be formed in accordance with the divine standard. It is so attractive. All the types in the Old Testament are only a shadow of the real thing, and yet they are so interesting because they are indited by the Spirit of God. What comes out in these expressions between Abraham and Isaac is so choice, choice expressions of a father and choice expressions of a son, and they meant so much to God that God says I am going to extend that. He swears by Himself: "I will richly bless thee, and greatly multiply thy seed" (v 17). Of course that is only a shadow of what God found in Christ. What the Father saw in Christ in the en j oyment of those relationships of father and son meant that God was going to have every family in heaven and earth named of the Father; that is what God thought of what He found in Christ. We come into the first family, dear brethren, and it is our privilege to be in the enjoyment of divine affections as no other family ever will enjoy them. So we are told in Romans that we have received a spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father (see chap 8: 15). We think of it so often from our side what a wonderful thing it is that we can enjoy the affections of the Father and we can say, Abba, Father, but do we realise what that means to the Father's heart that through the gospel there is produced in the hearts of men the same cry that found expression from the lips of Jesus - Abba, Father. That is what God is getting through the gospel; that is the divine standard in the gospel. How soon it is that God introduces that into our hearts - not a mind matter but into our hearts - "God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father", Gal 4: 6. It is the affections responding to the heart of the Father. And it is not only you and me but it is our joining together, it is the first collective touch, I think, in Romans; "Whereby we cry, Abba, Father", chap 8: 15. These are fine touches, dear brethren, and they are intended to come in early in our history, the enjoyment of divine affections with one another and response to the heart of the Father who gave His own Son. How precious these words are that the Spirit of God employs time and time again: He spared not His own Son! Romans gives us His own Son: "sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh", chap 8: 3. O, what it must have meant to God that Jesus went to the cross and solved every moral question there! For you? Yes, but in order that God might be free, free in the enlargement of His own affections in the hearts of men to secure from them what He secured from the heart of Christ, ever keeping in mind of course that Christ is unique-always unique. We begin with that; whatever we think of in terms of our blessing let us ever remember that what God found in Christ was unique because of who He is; but that is the divine standard. So we get this expression in Genesis between Abraham and Isaac and it is carried right through Scripture. Abraham is the great idea of the progenitor of faith but the progenitor of the fatherly idea in every family. So the idea is carried forward in Genesis. Failure comes into that family history with Jacob, but also recovery. While you get what is perfect in Abraham's history and Isaac in chapter 22, when you come to Jacob you find that there is failure like it is with us all. But God has the victory. When Christ is established in the position on high as represented in Joseph, then there is recovery for all the family and recovery to the Father's heart. So Jacob shines at the end of his history, he shines as a father. There is not time to go into that but it is a fact as you look into it, the fact that the fatherly side of things is represented in Jacob even when Joseph himself failed. Jacob shines as a father even in the presence of Pharaoh because he is representative of God. How God will secure at the end the victory! Make no mistake about it, riot one divine thought will fail because of the wonder of Christ; His death, His resurrection, His ascension ensures that every divine thought will go through on the divine level.
Now when we come to first Kings we see David failing, the days of David when he is going to die. Another regime is about to be established. Another side of things is presented elsewhere, but in this section the affections of David in relation to Solomon shine. It is the father and the son again, perhaps more from the side of sonship in Solomon, loved as he was by his father; the very name means that ... 'beloved'. "I will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2 Sam 7: 14); that was what Solomon was in type the Son. What David says is, You be a man. Why I am saying this, beloved brethren, is because some of us are getting advanced in years and we have not much time left here, but while we are left here we want to ensure that the affections proper to fatherly relationships and the relationship of sons are maintained and expressed, not just for our enjoyment but that there should be at the end of the dispensation God's thoughts enshrined in every heart as in the light of the assembly and find expression in our relations with one another. So what a father it is that says to his son, Be a man! We have had the truth, and what truth has been recovered and developed in this very locality by a father! Let us be sons therefore and let us be men to carry out the relationships that have already been demonstrated in a fatherly way in relation to the sons who are to carry on. So David says: "as it is written in the law of Moses ...”, in other words he carries through the whole truth that we get in Romans and Corinthians and carries it through to Ephesians where sonship is developed according to the divine counsels, by way of doctrine but also by way of enjoyment. That is what God is after in these days, dear brethren, He is after the enjoyment of the truth in family relations in our local assemblies. And that is what the devil is after to disrupt; if he is trying to do anything it is to bring in a lack of confidence between the brethren, a lack of trust and a certain distance. In the Spirit of God we have all the resources of the Father to meet it so that we can enjoy it in the face of what is the rising tide of apostasy in Christendom - and it is rising very fast.
I want to speak now of Elijah and Elisha because it is the same thing, it is the transfer of one regime to another, of one dispensation to another. I want to call your attention to the impression on Elisha of what he had found in Elijah. When Elijah goes up he says "My father, my father!” That is how he had come to love Elijah. And the affections that he had seen in Elijah dominated the ministry of Elisha. The ministry of Elisha is the ministry that applies particularly to the present time, the double portion of Elijah's spirit. Seen how? Seen in the way of supply. There is the authority of the Father, there is the affection of the Father, but then those things come out in Elisha's ministry, a ministry of supply. So if there is a want in a locality, if there is a want in our families, can the father bring in what is needed, supply what is needed? Now you will find, I think, that in every situation in which Elisha finds himself wherever there is a want and a need, Elisha can meet it. Why? Because he carried forward the double portion of Elijah's spirit. Elijah refers, of course to the ministry of Christ on earth; but now He has gone on high and the Spirit is here, abundant resources to bring in things in a fatherly way to supply what is lacking in each one of our localities. Now that is a challenge: can we do it? Can a fatherly spirit prevail amongst the old and the young to carry forward the recovery of the truth in the relations between one and another in family affection?
Now we go over to Paul and Timothy. The same thing you see in Paul's affection for Timothy. Paul not only brought out the truth in its fulness on a level of things as he finally gives it in Ephesians but he demonstrates the thing in his own life. That is what the Spirit of God wants, not only that we can go to the bookshelves and refresh ourselves there (if we read a little of the ministry what refreshment it brings!) but it is not enough to do that; the truth is not on the bookshelves the truth is livingly in the hearts of the brethren. The way the testimony has been carried right down the ages is not only by way of printed ministry - thank God for the light which that gives us - but the light that that gives us is intended to be formed in our souls so that the testimony is carried on livingly in the affections of the saints. In the rising face of unbelief and apostasy today God is looking for a demonstration of the finest features of the truth on a heavenly level in the relations between the brethren, between father and son, husband and wife, between parents and children, between brothers and sisters. God is looking for a demonstration of this right here in New York and every other place that is represented. You say, That is a hard thing. Elijah said it is a hard thing you are asking for but nevertheless the double portion is here, dear brethren, all the resources of Christ in heaven are available here in the presence of the Spirit. So let no one's faith fail. Whatever may be the difficulties (and difficulties there are, I think there are sorrows in every heart that are known only to that heart, the bitterness of everyone's heart is known to themselves) there are resources in the Spirit to meet them, not only to meet our difficulties and get us through in relation to them but get us through, dear brethren, in an enjoyment of one another and in the enjoyment of divine affections seen between the Father and the Son. That is the divine standard and that still exists, and all that is going on in heaven between the Father and the Son is brought within our range down here now because of the presence of the Holy Spirit. May God help us, for His Name's sake.
NEW YORK
29 September 1984
THE CHILDREN'S THIRST
In the picture-language of Scripture God has likened Himself to a fountain of living waters. Who, in a thirsty land, would be so foolish as to forsake such a source of eternal joy and satisfaction? But some of God's people did so and, worse still, they tried to quench their thirst from broken cisterns! It was an Eastern custom to spend perhaps many months hewing out a cistern in the rock, hoping to get it filled with precious water in the rainy season. At last the rains descend - but suppose the water level does not rise and the water runs out as fast as it runs in, then it is a broken cistern. What a disappointment - wasted labour and still thirst! That is God's picture of a heart which has turned away from Christ.
The fountain of water for the Hebrew children in the desert was the rock which followed them. They could turn to it at any time and at all times for satisfaction. That rock was a sign or type of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ who meets the needs and the longings of the soul of every believer on Him. God once proved His people by leaving them for a time without water for their thirst. Moses was then told to smite the rock with his rod when the waters gushed forth. This is another illustration, teaching us that Jesus must be smitten and die so that we might be given the Holy Spirit. In yet a further symbol the Spirit is "a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life" within the believer.
All the blessings of the thousand-year kingdom of Christ on earth, yet to come, can be enjoyed now in spirit by the believer on Him. What attractive words are these: "And with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation"! Scripture does not tell us how many wells there will be, but evidently salvation will be needed then also. Every child will be able to think with joy of some ways in which we need a Saviour. Names are often given to wells. We could suppose one being called 'Salvation from self'. If any older persons should happen to read this they will agree with me that we often need to be humble and stoop down to drink from it. Perhaps we go with sorrow but drink with joy because the springing waters lead us upward to the Giver and occupy us with Jesus where He is. Do you agree with me?
J.C.Evershed