THE KNOWLEDGE OF "BABES" AND OF "FATHERS"

THE KNOWLEDGE OF “BABES” AND OF “FATHERS”

As to your difficulty between the little children knowing the Father, and the fathers knowing “Him that is from the beginning”, it is at once solved when you apprehend the difference between the knowledge of the Father and the knowledge of Christ from His beginning on earth. The former is the knowledge of relationship; “because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Galatians 4: 6). The Christian state is that of a son in the Son’s life. This is the true and proper position of every believer. The knowledge of Christ from the beginning is more extensive and comprehensive. You cannot exceed it. It includes everything revealed of God, and excludes everything that is not of God. A wonderful range of knowledge, you cannot add to it, though you may and will ever deepen in it, for it is infinite. It is not merely the knowledge of relationship, great indeed as that is, it is the knowledge of God revealed by the Son. This is as I understand it. If I do not make it plain to you, kindly write again. There is a great difference between knowing the relationship into which Christ has brought me, and knowing Himself. Paul, to the end of his course, was pressing on to “know him”. You were very young when you knew that Mr. ———— was your father, and you knew his affection and delighted in it, and this for many years before you knew the range of his interests morally, and what his life as to its scope and power embraced. The latter includes the former, though the former does not embrace the latter, yet through divine grace one may pass on from the lesser to the greater, for we know each in the same life and the same Spirit.