RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FATHER
[p. 445] RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FATHER
Romans 8:15; Ephesians 4:6; 2 Samuel 7:14, 15; 1 Chronicles 29:1
I have in mind, brethren, to speak about our relation with the Father and of His love and care for us, and so I began with Romans 8, which marks the believer’s first recognition of his relationship with God as his Father; and I read Ephesians where we have “one God and Father of all” as the end of the experience and enjoyment thus begun. Much of importance might happen from the time of the believer’s birth till the time when he says, “Abba, Father” but one thing we have to guard against is that no damage should occur to the infant between the time of birth, or as we may say, the beginning of God’s work, and the time when he says “Father” Much damage may occur; oftentimes defects occur in the constitution which remain, and which necessarily hamper later growth, and the moral beauty and perfection which God intends in each of us as His sons. Attention is required until the time of maturity. But when the believer can say “Abba, Father” he is on new ground.
You will all remember the great occasion in Abraham’s house when Isaac was weaned. His mother was concerned; she had spent, we may be sure, all the ability she possessed in caring for and nourishing her infant, and as the weaning time arrived, Abraham made a great feast. It was a great day in the house. The Lord said, “Abraham exulted in that he should see my day, and he saw and rejoiced” John 8:56 I have no doubt he saw in that weaning something of Christ, and this is what the Lord alluded to. The child was weaned and Ishmael mocked. But the thought of God had been reached. There was a son in the house,
[p. 446] but he must not be there with a “wild ass of a man” Genesis 16:12 Many young ones acquire the “wild ass” feature; and so, in true motherly instinct, Sarah says that the bond-woman and her son must go; they are not to inherit with her son. You see how much may happen in the infancy or early days of believers, and hence the care needed. I believe that Sarah alludes to maternal instincts in the assembly, that is, care over each, that there may be nothing of Ishmael — the “wild ass of a man” Genesis 16:12 There are wild asses and domesticated asses in Scripture. We have the record of an ass speaking with man’s voice, forbidding the madness of a prophet. The domesticated, such as Balaam’s ass was, may become the mouthpiece of God to rebuke evil, but Ishmael was a wild ass of a man, and our young must be carefully guarded against that kind of influence. The Galatian Christians were seriously damaged by it and countless numbers are today. So that in Romans 8 it is said, “Ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear” We have not received that spirit; we have received the “Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father” We are consciously and intelligently in relationship with the Father.
I wish now to illustrate from Solomon what I have in mind. I hope young believers especially will follow what I have to say, so that they may know the interest that God has in them from the very outset. Solomon is taken up, representing one in relation with the father as adopted. God said of him “I will be his father, and he shall be my son” So that although Solomon was chosen, he was not adopted as he was born; but he was loved as he was born. I need not say that God could not adopt what He could not love; He adopts what He can love; and certainly He cannot adopt the man after the flesh. There is that which is of God, and God, I may say, loves one, not only in the general sense in [p. 447] which it says God loves the world, but He loves what is lovable. God loves what is lovable, as we get Moses saying, “Yea, he loveth the peoples” Deuteronomy 33:3 “When Israel was a child then I loved him” Hosea 11:1 He was lovable. And so it is that God loves you, and He adopts what He loves; and so with Solomon. He is called Solomon by his father, meaning ‘peace’ or ‘peaceful’, and I may say a young man or woman is of no practical value until he, or she, becomes “a son of peace” Luke 10:6 All the troubles among the people of God arise from those who are not sons of peace — like Absalom.
Well, as Solomon was born, and peace marked him prophetically, God comes in and indicates as to him more than peace, he is lovable. These are the traits of the initial work of God in us, and the greatest care is required lest damage happens between that and the time when the believer should say, “Abba, Father” God sees the end from the beginning, and so Solomon as a child is loved by Him, and he was called Jedidiah because of the Lord. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” John 3:6 and “God is a Spirit” John 4:24 But then adoption comes in; the believer gets the Spirit of adoption whereby he cries “Abba, Father” Every believer should be assured that he has the Spirit of God. “Ye have not received a spirit of bondage again to fear but ye have received a Spirit of adoption” God has marked me off and sealed me; He has anointed me; He has given me the earnest of the Spirit in my heart; I have received the Spirit of adoption, and I cry “Abba, Father” God has worked in me, and now I am come into the region of family relationship; I am consciously in sonship, having liberty to call God, Father. That is the great line in Solomon. As David is before the great assembly in 1 Chronicles 28, he “stood up upon his feet” and said that he had had it in his heart to build a house for the Lord, but he was a man of war and had shed blood; but as divinely instructed he says, “God has chosen Solomon” to build it. He dwells on the thought of sovereign selection, for he has now arrived at it. It is a great day when one arrives at the realm of sovereign purpose, and everything, beloved brethren, in God’s realm is on the ground of sovereign choice. God has chosen us in Christ “before [the] world’s foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love” Ephesians 1:4 And so David says, “Hear me, my brethren; ... for he has chosen Judah to be the prince; and of the house of Judah, the house of my father” 1 Chronicles 28:2 - 4 God has very good reasons for choosing. He chose David because He ‘liked’ him: “Among the sons of my father he took pleasure in me to make me king over all Israel” 1 Chronicles 28:4 God Himself says, “I have found David ... a man after my heart who shall do all my will” Acts 13:22 But then David says, He did not choose me to build a house. Not only does He choose one to be king, but He chooses His workmen — and every man has his work appointed to him; and so David goes on to say, “And of all my sons, (for Jehovah has given me many sons,) he has chosen Solomon, my son” 1 Chronicles 28:5 The sons were all given to him, David says, but Solomon alone is chosen to build the house of God. And he says, He has taken him to be His son. Solomon was adopted.
Now I want you, young people, to understand this great period of spiritual history — the period of adoption. In that passage in 2 Samuel 7 God says, I will be his father; not only is He in that relation, but He will do the part of a father; Solomon would lack nothing of all that a father could do for him. “If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the sons of men”; note it is the rod of men, and the stripes of the children of men. This is the discipline of the young, so that they are preserved; as it says, “Who is the son that the Father chastens not?” Hebrews 12:7 We are dealt [p. 449] with as His sons. He is the Father of spirits, and as subject to Him we live. And so now we are consciously and intelligently in adoption, and under the Father’s care and discipline, and times of discipline may be severe. ‘Stripes’, I apprehend, may be more or less according to the divine choice, but there are the two — the rod of men, and the stripes of the children of men.
Well now, proceeding in 1 Chronicles 29, I want to show you how much fell to Solomon in early age. Some of us assume that certain work may be done by the elder brethren only. God intimates plainly that it is His province to select the workers. Age has its own value, but it may be blemished as in David’s case; at any rate, God must be allowed to choose. David bowed with all his heart and said, God has chosen Solomon, my son. Solomon was a very young man, about twenty — certainly not much more; anyway, David says, “Solomon, my son, the one whom God has chosen, is young and tender” Did the Lord not know that he was young? He did. He knew every day of that child’s life, every moment of it. No one knew better than Jehovah how old Solomon was, and David knew. He was his father’s son, tender and beloved. May we not learn from this what divine sympathy with the young brothers and sisters is? Are they to be kept always in the nursery? God has chosen them; He knows their age. “Solomon, my son, the one whom God has chosen, is young and tender” and yet the work given him to do was great. What is the work? A palace is to be built. The palace is being built now, and all those young people are needed, but they are young and tender; they need much care. One generation passes away and another comes, and God has the tenderest consideration for the young generation. Think of the magnitude of the work resting upon their shoulders! Being young and tender, they need [p. 450] every possible attention and consideration; they are not to be given to understand that it is not for them, but rather that the work is theirs and it is great. We see in Timothy a young man, one who shed tears, one marked by feelings, and who cared for the saints, accepting the burden laid upon his shoulders. And if you read Paul’s second letter to him, you will see a father’s heart coming out to one whom he regards as his “beloved child” He says, “God has not given us the spirit of cowardice, but ... of love” 2 Timothy 1:7 The work is great, and so David said, “this palace is not to be for man but for Jehovah Elohim” Think of the magnitude of such a palace! Hence, so as to have part in the work, “To each one of us has been given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ” Ephesians 4:7 Then there is the solemn warning. “Let each one see how he builds” 1 Corinthians 3:10 Hence the need of dependence on God. Solomon prayed for wisdom and God gave him wisdom. I would impress upon all the magnitude of the work, so that we may be equal to it and engaged in it. It is to be completed; the top-stone must be laid on. And so God gave Solomon wisdom, largeness of heart and riches.
But I want to show just in closing how we reach the idea of the greatness of God, as seen in the passage I read from Ephesians. In Ephesians 4, in relation to the unity of the Spirit, we have a fixed order of things, beginning with the body — a very remarkable fact, for instead of beginning with God, the fixed order of things begins with one body, which means the saints. “One body, and one Spirit, as ye have been also called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism” Ephesians 4:4,5 These things exist. They are a fixed order of things before God, and immutable as the heavens and the earth are. And finally, there is “one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all” Now you see how the believer, beginning with “Abba, Father” develops [p. 451] into the full knowledge of God, and finds a fixed order of things, over which and in which He is throughout. “One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all” In this blessed order of things I am as fixed as the stars in the heaven. I know my relation to Him and nothing can disturb that; it is most steadying. I begin to take account of the one body as being connected with that great system; then the Spirit, then the calling, and then the kingdom, and then finally the universal circle. I believe we can travel a long time before arriving at this, but if we apprehend these circles, we move on in relation to the fixed order of things in which we are, and our position being thus fixed, as I said, we are assured and restful. It is a relation of love, the Father’s love, pervading all. He is the source of all, and all is through Him and for Him. In final result “God may be all in all” 1 Corinthians 15:28. The Son Himself takes a place of subjection to Him who has subjected all things, that God may be all in all. We reach now this fixed order of things pervaded by love by the Spirit. Our Lord Jesus Christ is now engaged in bringing about this grand ‘end’; when it is reached “He gives up the kingdom to him [who is] God and Father” 1 Corinthians 15:24 The blessed state of things which God has ever had in His heart to effect is thus reached. God is over it as Father, and all are eternally blessed in the realm of His love.