THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE LOVE OF THE FATHER
THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE LOVE OF THE FATHER
The love of God and the love of the Father are from the same blessed One. The love of God comes down to us in all our ruin, but the love of the Father connects us with Himself in all His own divine perfection. It is not easy at first to see the difference. The manna, the grace in which Christ walked on earth, and the old corn of the land, as He lives in heaven, are in a way an illustration of the difference. In the one case He was in a scene where all was incongruous to Him: nothing here was in accordance with Him, and He could say, “I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved”. (Psalm 16: 8) But the old corn of the land is that which is indigenous to heaven, and is in a scene where all is in perfect accordance with Himself.
[p. 308] Now in the Old Testament the name of Father was not revealed. He was known as God Almighty and as Jehovah. His love for His people was unbounded. He says, “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye”. (Zechariah 2: 8) Then the love came down to man in his low estate while man was under trial, and the judgment of death which was on him had not been removed. There was nothing then about drawing the believer to Himself as a son to a father.
Now when Christ came, “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. (Romans 5: 8) He came down to us in our low estate, and removed in the cross the judgment that lay upon us; and until we know what the love of God has effected, and that He can receive us in love, as the parable of the prodigal prefigures, there can be no knowledge of the Father’s love. It is only when we know Him as sons, as brought to the Father in Christ that we can enjoy the Father’s love. He, as the Son in the bosom of the Father, has declared Him.
We must learn fully the love of God as come down to us, before we can rise to Him. The prodigal had not entered into the greatness of the reconciliation until he was fitted to enjoy his new relation to his father, as we read in Romans 5: 11 “we are making our boast in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have received the reconciliation”.
I see in John’s gospel that we do not come to the Father until our distance from God has been removed by the operation of His love. There is nothing about the Father in chapter 3, nor in chapter 4, till you come to worship. All that is required for our own relief from the ruin we are in, is spoken of before there is any reference made to the Father. The Father comes out prominently in chapter 5; there resurrection is [p. 309] the great subject; all the distance is removed, and we are seen in an entirely new condition before Him.
We get no allusion to the Father in Romans till we come to chapter 8; then every shade of distance has been removed; all that descending love could accomplish we enjoy; then we come to the great fact, that led by the Spirit of God we are the sons of God; we are now in a new relationship to Him and it is in the Spirit of the Son we can say, “Abba, Father”. Many have supposed from the sermon on the mount and other references to the “Father which is in heaven”, that that is the relation in which He is to us as to things down here; but it is only brought out there to show what ought to characterise us as belonging to God in His own place.
Our blessed Lord’s great work was to declare the Father, not only to relieve man according to his own sense of want, but according to the fulness of the Father’s heart. My need was not the measure of His grace; in all things His love superabounded, therefore His love is properly the measure of His grace. Until you know where His grace has set you, you cannot enjoy your new relationship, nor ascend to the love of the Father. You learn from the Hebrews, where the name of Father does not occur, that Christ’s own were drawn away from the earth, to be in association with Himself in the holiest of all, outside of everything here; and there we know that by Him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Unless “his love is perfected in us”, (1 John 4: 12) and we know that “as he is, so are we in this world”, (1 John 4: 17) we cannot be consciously as Christ before the Father, nor can we know the Father’s love, as Christ says, “The Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me”, (John 16: 27)
There is nothing about the Father in the addresses to the seven churches, nor is the Father spoken of in the new Jerusalem, because it is God coming down to man. In order to enjoy the love of the Father, you [p. 310] must be in the place where He is. The Father is spoken of in the first three gospels in connection with His own place, “your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 23: 9); Christ was making Him known down here; and in the gospel of John He says, “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it”. (John 17: 26)
John 17 opens out how we are led into the knowledge of the Father’s love, not only by what has been declared when Christ was down here, but by what He declares of the Father from the glory: “Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee”. (John 17: 1) Eternal life is the start, and you are in the sphere of that life, as John says, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”, 1 John 1: 3. Their fellowship was with the Father and the Son; they are characterised by unity here - sanctified by the word of the Father, kept apart from the evil here, therefore practically in the unity of the Spirit - as the apostle Paul says, “that ye all speak the same thing .. . that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment”, 1 Corinthians 1: 10.
Christ Himself is sanctified and set apart from this world, that they also might be sanctified by the truth. Thus they are in the place where they can know the love of the Father.
No one can enjoy love but in the place where the person is. You can enjoy service when not near, but you must be near the person to enjoy love. Hence young men can be strong, the word of God abiding in them, and they have overcome the wicked one; yet they might love the world and the things that are in the world; but if they do, the love of the Father is not in them.
It is a great cheer and solace to the heart, when in company with Christ, we are brought into such nearness to the Father that we can know His love. The [p. 311] Lord lead our hearts into it more and more. When we are in this nearness, we are not thinking of anything down here; our hearts are drawn away in the blessedness of being loved by Him. There is no higher enjoyment than the sense of being loved by One inconceivably worthy. May we all know more of this!
Scarborough,