NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 40
NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 40
This is a quotation from Psalm 22, the first part of which describes the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we have come to remember His death, and we are in His presence, we know His present work. We learn from John 17: 1 that when He was glorified He would glorify the Father. In His service on the earth He had glorified the Father, He had finished the work that the Father gave Him to do. All that was required to declare the heart of God for man had been accomplished, but now in glory He would make the Father more fully known. As we read in the last verse of John 17: “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them”, etc. In Hebrews you have entrance into the holiest, you are in the place where you can worship the Father, though you do not get so far in this book.
In Ephesians 2: 18 we read, “Through him we [p. 87] both have access by one Spirit unto the Father”. This is known when union with Christ is known. In Ephesians 2 our calling as united to Christ is described. When we take into account all the blessing which accrues to us when we are in conscious union with Him, it as indicative of how little personal affection we have for Him, that we are not set in full purpose of heart to know our union with Him. Once we were set to know salvation, and now we ought to be set to know union with Him who saved us. United to Christ we know that we are in the presence of God as He is there. Through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father, a new sphere altogether. A child understands the difference between the nursery and the parlour. In the nursery we have all we ourselves require, while, as if in the parlour, we are shown the Father’s things, apart from all temporal things. The young men in John, though they have overcome the wicked one, typified by Pharaoh, yet have to learn not to love the world, nor the things in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. It is inconceivably blessed to be loved by the Father as Christ is loved. I can in some measure comprehend God’s love for a sinner saved by grace, but I feel that if I knew His love as He loves Christ it would impart to me a calm dignity which no other possession could confer. As we know Him we adore Him, our hearts can rise and bless the Father.