“I LOVE THE FATHER”

John 14:31 (“I love the Father”)

The Lord Jesus is the Model and the Example for us. And He is more than that, so that if we have been considering the way in which He could say these words “I love the Father”, it must be far beyond anything that we could take on our lips. How great, how grand it is that Someone who was personally God, but now having come into that place in manhood, but also acclaimed as the Son, should speak in this way to the Father, and say, “I love the Father”. But still, He is an example for us and I would suggest to you that He is an example for you and for me in these very words. I would suggest that it would be something for each one of us to take upon our lips, “I love the Father”. Think of the wonder of the fact that we have this relationship.

I would firstly address the little children, because little children are particularly addressed in Scripture about this. In John’s first epistle he says to them, “I write to you, little children, because ye have known the Father”, 1 John 2:13. So there you are, little children, there is a portion in Scripture that is addressed to you. No doubt everyone who has grown up has an increased appreciation of it, but it is for you, that this Person, who is God over all, is prepared to be towards you as a Father, in all the blessedness of what a true Father is. So that means that any day, any hour, any moment, whether in a happy time or sad time, or when you have a problem, you can turn to Him, and you can speak to Him. The Father is always there for you, always ready to listen to little children. It is for you. Grasp hold of that, and in grasping hold of it you will begin to love this glorious Person, the Father. I would commend that to you, little children; it is a scripture for you and it relates to this glorious Person.

We have spoken of the way in which the Lord Jesus could speak to the Father, and is our Example. He is more than our Example, of course. There are some ways in which the Father’s affection was shown to the Lord Jesus which are different from the way in which that affection for us is known, for example in response to our need. But we can look to the Father, and say, ‘I love the Father’, when we consider three things, I would suggest. Firstly, “He...has not spared his own Son”, Rom.8:32. Because of you and because of me, the Father has not spared His own Son so that we should be secured for Him. Secondly, as suggested in the scripture in John, God has set Himself in relation to you as Father. That is very wonderful; how great and majestic He is. God, in His glory and His majesty, has set Himself in relation to you as Father, so that you should be one of His children and one of His sons. How blessed that is. John speaks of the wonder of it: “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God”, 1 John 3:1. How much that would stimulate our hearts to say, ‘I love the Father’, to the One who has brought me into this family, and into this relationship. The third thing that I would draw your attention to is that He has given the Holy Spirit. These things would stimulate our affections in relation to the Father, for they involve all three Persons of the Godhead. I think that it is a wonderful thing for every one of us to grasp, that all three Persons of the Godhead are in relation to us; that the Father “has not spared his own Son”, that the Holy Spirit has been given to us, and that the Father would set Himself in relation to us, as Father. How wonderful this is. That is the kind of God that we have to do with.

Now, I trust that, as we were conversing earlier about the Lord Jesus and His relations with the Father, there was something stimulated in every heart. If the Lord Jesus could say, “I love the Father”, and was in such relationship with the Father, then you should desire to take these words on your lips, ‘I love the Father’. Think of the way that the Father was in relation to the Son. Much of it is beyond us in all its detail and all its fulness; the Father in relation to the Son will indeed be our eternal occupation. But we can think of the way in which the Father received the Son into His bosom, gave Him that place of repose as He went through the whole of His pathway here, the repose that there was in the bosom of the Father. As you think of that as a wonderful fact, I would suggest to you that it is a reason for you to say, ‘I love the Father’. Day by day in that pathway of perfection that we have spoken of, there was the Lord Jesus going His way and there was the Father, in His care and affection, going with Him. How beautiful it was, particularly in these days between the mount of transfiguration and the cross, that there was that communion and joy of the Father with the Son.

We referred earlier to the Hebrew bondman (Exod.21:1-6). The Hebrew bondman was prepared to commit himself; “I love my master” would correspond in the Old Testament type to “I love my Father”. So the bondman says “I love my master”, and then, what does the master do? It says “then his master shall bring him before the judges, and shall bring him to the door, or to the doorpost”. Think of these steps. Christ, as prefigured in the bondman, says in principle, ‘I am committing Myself to that way. I am not going to go free. I am going to go on to the cross to fulfil the will of God’. So that, on the mount of transfiguration, He was speaking of His departure which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). The Father went with Him. Does that raise affection in your heart for the Father, that all the way, as far as He could go, the Father was with Jesus? We could say carefully that there was a point at which the enjoyment of that relationship could no longer continue because the Lord Jesus had to take on our liability and be made sin for us. But thinking of that bondman; he and the master went as far as the door, where his ear was pierced through with an awl. In going to the cross, the Lord Jesus had the Father with Him. You can see that in the type of Genesis 22, the two of them going together as far as they could go. The Lord Jesus had the comfort and the encouragement and the stimulation of the Father’s company throughout what we sing of as those closing scenes of anguish (Hymn 298), as far as the Father could go. How wonderful. We can see that, on the cross, the Lord Jesus could address Him in that way as Father; “Father, forgive them”, Luke 23:34. He had the Father to listen to Him; He had the Father to understand His feelings and affection up to that time. We must distinguish a time when the Son could no longer be in the enjoyment of the fulness and blessedness of the Father’s nearness, but the Father went as far as He could go. Our hearts would go out to the Father who went with Jesus in that way, as far as He could go.

Then we think of the Lord Jesus having endured everything for us, having borne these things. The answer in its fulness to what Christ had done could only be in resurrection, but the Father was there, and the Father was active. You think of that, these three days and three nights that the Lord was in the heart of the earth. That is where His body was. But where was His spirit? For these three days and three nights, His spirit was in the Father’s hands. His spirit was held by the Father in affection during that time. He had said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit”, Luke 23:46. How wonderful are the Father’s affections. As you look at the way in which the Father acted there, does that not stimulate in you the desire to say, ‘I love the Father’, as answering in affection to the Father who has done so much for His beloved Son.

Men, of course, would have put the Lord’s body in a criminal’s grave, in a common grave. They reckoned this Man as worthless. Was the Father going to allow that? No, there was care needed for that body, we would reverently say, and the Father provided it in Joseph of Arimathæa (John 19:38), who was available to care for, to protect, the body of Jesus. Was that a natural impulse? It was beyond a natural impulse. Think of the reproach involved in asking for the body of Someone who men regarded as a criminal on a cross; anyone would have shrunk from that. But here was someone who knew that it was a Man in perfection who had been there on the cross, who had some inkling of that, and Joseph was moved to do it. The Father ensured that the Lord Jesus was cared for, and His body wrapped in the linen cloth. And then, the three days and three nights being past, we see Mary, in a provision of divine affection, in her fervency and desire, in her love for her Master, getting there to the tomb as early as she could (John 20). But the Father was there first. At the first possible moment that He could be, the Father was there. Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. When you think of it, and the Father’s activity there, you say, ‘I love the Father; I love the Father who has done so much for His beloved Son; I love the Father who has secured everything for Christ’.

Then as His disciples gathered over the next few days, what must they have thought? They did not have a full apprehension of what He had secured for them, but they must have thought, ‘This is the Victor; here is the One who is victorious over death, over the grave. What does He deserve?’ Do you sometimes ask yourself, ‘What could we give Him, what could we secure for Christ?’ You might say that anything that we could give Him is far, far less than He deserves. But the Father has done it for us. The Father has done it for Himself too, of course, in raising Him, carrying Him up to heaven and giving Him the place of the greatest and the highest honour on His throne. We are in the closing part of the dispensation that has been characterised by the fact that the Father is there and the Son is with Him on His throne, and blessing has emanated because of that. It would raise your hearts, would stimulate them, so that you would say, ‘I love the Father, the Father who has given Him that place’.

The Lord Jesus had asked in relation to the Holy Spirit being given, and in answer to that request of the Son, the Holy Spirit had been given. Think of the Spirit as given, in that way. There are various ways in which you can look at the coming of the Spirit. He has come in His own sovereign right, as we have said, but think of Him given as the Father’s answer to the request of the Son. He was poured out and He is here, He has operated in you and in me to draw you, to cause each one of us to be responsive, to say, ‘I love the Father’.

Well, that is in relation to Christ, but think of it in relation to yourself. How wonderful it is to think of the way in which the Father is active towards you. He is active towards you as a Father in His affections, and that comes out well in the Scriptures. It comes out in Luke’s gospel chapter 15; it is very beautiful, and we know it well. Think of the Father in relation to you! Each one of us would have had the experience of Luke’s gospel chapter 15. If you are a believer at all, you would know of the Father’s feelings towards you. Think of how, in the parable, the father, “while he was yet a long way off” (v.20), had his eye upon his son. You have known that, have you not? When you were a long way off, when you were far from Him, the Father’s eye was upon you. Something moved you in your spirit that you should return, and your Father’s eyes were upon you from that moment of turning. Your heart would go out in affection to Him, as the One who viewed you in that way. But then, the father is prepared to run; how wonderful that is. If you think about it in the literality, it must have been quite a sight, the father running. That is the affection that the Father has towards you, that as you turn, He would run, He would let you understand His appreciation that you have taken a step towards Him. Perhaps there are some persons here, perhaps it is you, who have made a step towards Him and should take more, should be more committed. Well, the Father is towards you; His eye is upon you and He will run. He is ready to kiss you and to embrace you and to assure you of the depth and fulness of His affection for you. And so in the parable, the younger son comes in and he says, as it were, ‘I have a plan, I have some terms on which I will come back and look a bit humble, I will be a hired servant’. But the father says, ‘No, you are not coming in on your terms, you will come in on my terms. You are not going to come in as just a servant, because the servant goes out again. You will come in to my presence and place in the full blessedness of being one of the sons’.

How wonderful that is. That is the way in which the Father has taken you in, and you respond, do you not? Your heart goes out to that One. You say, ’I love the Father, the Father who has taken me in on His own terms’. You are there before Him, kissed, embraced in the affection of the Father, and dressed suited to Him. You are dressed in the worth of Christ, clothed in the best robe. How wonderful the best robe is, dressed in the worth of Christ. How fine to be for the Father. Have you thought of the way in which He has secured you in the glad tidings and given you that place and embraced you? Have you turned to Him in affection, have you loved the Father because He has embraced you and given you the best robe? The Father Himself has assured you of divine affection in that ring on your hand. The Father Himself has given you the liberty of His house and the sandals on your feet. How wonderful it is! You might say, ‘That is fine, what could be better?’; and God would say, ‘Here is something better for you. You are going to share My appreciation of Christ, of that blessed One’. “Bring the fatted calf and kill it”; they are all going to join in the appreciation of the glory and the majesty of the Lord Jesus. It is not just your appreciation of Him as your Saviour, although that is wonderful, but it is the Father’s thoughts of His own Son. How wonderful! The Father has these things for you.

I want to refer to one other scripture because it is a scene that is eternal in its character: it is something that will continue in our spirits and thoughts, and, in response to its fulness and outshining, our love for the Father will be drawn out eternally. I refer to Ephesians 1, where the apostle addresses them, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ; according as he has chosen us in him before the world’s foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love” (vv. 3,4). If we can use four words in John’s gospel for an address, you could take any two words from that scripture and have an address on them, because they are wonderful, they are full and they are expansive. We can only touch very briefly on the glory of what is there. It begins with an appreciation that you were chosen before the world’s foundation, before this whole scene was in existence. We know very little about it, but we know that love was there because the Lord said, “thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”, John 17:24. Love was there. We know that glory was there because there was a glory that was before the world’s foundation. But you were there in the thoughts of God before the world’s foundation. How wonderful that is! Does it not move your heart in affection to the Father that before anything existed here in this scene, you were there in divine choice? You might think there could be nothing better: but God chose you in Him, because the Father had a Man in mind, a Man of perfection and glory, the Lord Jesus, the Son of His love. So, if you are chosen, you are chosen in Him. How wonderful.

We see in the previous verse that the Father has blessed us. In the Old Testament, there were plenty of persons who would have been pleased to say, ‘God has blessed us’. They were, and it was fine, but now the Father has a greater thought. The present dispensation and the present place of the Lord Jesus in ascension means that there is something more, something greater. He has not just blessed us. You might quite like it if there were a few natural blessings, but He does not have that in mind for you: He has spiritual blessings for you. Here? Yes, in a degree here, but things that are here might be lost. So they are secured; they are “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies”. And again, they are in Christ: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”!

What more can you say than that about the love of the Father? He has done all this, “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. So, remember that you were chosen, and then remember that you are blessed, and the Father is blessing in fulness. Then you get one of Paul’s little phrases that stimulates the heart; he says, “according as”, and you see that the choosing and the blessing coalesce exactly. The fact that you are blessed now corresponds precisely with that choosing before the world’s foundation. How wonderful, how blessed it is. You can see how this stimulates the heart of the apostle and he moves forward in it as he says, “having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved”, Eph.1:5,6. You see the fulness and the blessedness that this One is the Father’s Beloved, and He is the One in whom you are taken into blessing. It is to stimulate your heart towards the One who is God’s Beloved, and to stimulate your heart towards the Father, so that you might say, 'If He has blessed me in that way, I love the Father’.

Beloved, I commit these things to you. May the Lord bless the word.

Address at Grangemouth

16 May 2015

D.C. Brown