"THE FATHER, OF WHOM ARE ALL THINGS"
“[p. 264] THE FATHER, OF WHOM ARE ALL THINGS”
I desire to bring out this point, that in the economy or ways of God in grace all is viewed as of the Father. By this I do not mean to deny what we would all admit, that all things are of God, as, for example, in creation, but I desire to look at things from another standpoint, from which the Father is seen as the source of everything.
Revelation is all-important as the only way by which God can be known. In view of and connected with revelation the position of divine Persons comes before us, and we find the Father the source of all, and the Son, as subject to the Father, having all things delivered to Him of the Father. He says, “My Father is greater than I”, (John 14: 28). The Lord presents to the disciples the Father as the source of everything in the economy of grace. This in a sense limits our vision, for we cannot look beyond what is made known. When you have got to the Father you have got to the source of all that abides. There is a very great deal that is going to pass away, but what is of the Father abides. All else will disappear; all that is of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, and the world passes away, and its lust. The thought that all that abides proceeds from the Father as source is intimately linked with the fact of revelation. There are things which are not revealed, as, for example, “No man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father”; there is that which is beyond man’s knowledge.
Now Christ came into the world on the one hand that He might declare God, and on the other to be Himself the centre of all that lay in divine counsel. We read, “The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the rather, he hath declared him”. And the Lord says, “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand”; and again, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”. These two thoughts are of all moment. God is declared, and Christ has become the centre of all that is of God. There is nothing else worth regarding. I quite admit that the world is the scene of God’s discipline of His children, but it is a scene of moral confusion, and will pass away. The value of things in the world is morally very small, and we do not want to be taken up with them, but with the Father and the Son.
Now in speaking of the Father as source, the first thing I find is that the Son is of the Father. He is “the Son of the Father”. He proceeded forth from the Father. The Son has taken such a place in regard of incarnation. We read, he “made himself of no reputation ..”. The Father sent the Son, and the Son came for the Father’s will. He came to declare God — came forth as the Word, the full and perfect expression of the divine mind in regard of man. He came forth full of grace and truth. It is very important to apprehend the Father as the source of all, for all takes its character from the Father. Next we find that the Son goes back to the Father. He was not to continue here. He came into the world simply to do the Father’s will. At the outset of His life He could say to His earthly parents, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” He was not here for the pleasure of His parents, but for His Father’s business. He says, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me”; and again in John 6: 37, 38, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me”. And in view of that will being completed He says in John 16: 28, “Again, I leave the world and go to the Father”. He goes back to the Father in the condition He had assumed as man.
But in going back to the Father He sends the Comforter, and the Comforter proceeds from the Father. You see that Scripture keeps before us the thought of the [p. 266] Father being the source. All that is of the Father abides. The Holy Spirit is the promise of the Father, and He comes as another Comforter, to abide with us for ever, as in John 14: 16 - 17. If you look at the end of Luke’s gospel you find there that the Lord speaks of sending the promise of the Father (Luke 24: 49 - 53), when He is about to be parted from the disciples, in the act of blessing them. And the Spirit came on the day of Pentecost; He proceeded from the Father. He came that effect might be given to what is of the Father.
Now I want you to observe what it says in the end of our chapter, (Matthew 5: 43 - 48). You find there that the children are of the Father. We have seen that the Son is of the Father, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and now we find that the children are of the Father. The idea of the Father that I gain from these verses is that He is unaffected by evil. I do not mean that He is indifferent to or unaware of evil, but He is not affected by it. He causes His sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. It is very important to get a right thought of God. He will and must judge eventually, but He is not affected by it; it does not cause Him to withhold His good hand. He is good, and the same in spite of all evil. Now this is not found with man; it is possible only with God, who is superior to all in goodness.
Now the thought of children of the Father spoken of in the end of Matthew 5 conveys to me the idea that there is a generation here which is of the Father, and this constitutes the true character of christianity. God holds His hand over the world in government, but there is a generation here of which the Father is morally the source, a generation intended to bear the character of the Father. In the first chapter of John, verses 10 - 12, we read that Christ “was in the world ... and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not; but as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God”. This must be understood [p. 267] if christianity is to be understood. It speaks not of a justified people who have received the Holy Spirit, but of a generation of whom God is the source of their moral being. You need to get below the surface of things and to apprehend here on earth that which is of the Father, that which will therefore continue. The Father is the source of all that is good and blessed; every family in heaven and on earth is named of Him.
Now how are we to be brought into practical accord with the Father? It is by the teaching of Christ. He has declared the Father’s name. He is the blessed Teacher, as in Matthew 5, the One who instructs the hearts of His own in the knowledge of the Father. This teaching is carried on by Him with untiring patience. He first puts you in the place of children, and then instructs you in what is suitable to it. I think you get a picture of this in the case of Mary at the close of Luke 10; she sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. “Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”. I think Mary profited by this.
Again, when the disciples come and ask the Lord to teach them to pray, He in doing so leads them to the Father. I believe this is the work of Christ in grace, instructing our hearts in the goodness of the Father. The disciples understood this better later on, when they received the Holy Spirit. They were poorly prepared at the time. Jesus speaks in the fifth of Matthew in contrast to “them of old time”, (verses 21, 33, etc.). And it follows that, having come from the Father, He must instruct in the knowledge of the Father, and so, too, the Holy Spirit. What I understand by the “Father” is God in the supremacy of goodness, goodness which cannot be affected by evil, goodness in spite of all the evil in man. He sends the Son as Saviour of the world.
Now this is what was to form the standard of practice for disciples. The Lord could not speak on lower ground. He did not accommodate Himself to the level [p. 268] of His disciples, although He did speak the truth as they were able to bear it, and they understood very little at the time. Still they treasured up His sayings, and understood afterwards when the Holy Spirit came. It must have seemed extraordinary to them to be called on to be like the Father. All was of the Father, and there was to be a generation bearing His moral impress. The same thought comes out in Philippians 2: 15, children of God “... in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation”. All our practice depends upon our appreciation of the Father. You could not reach such practice by legal effort. Christ leads His people into the sense of God’s goodness, and He could well do it, for He was Himself the perfect expression of it. There was no hardness in His thoughts toward man. His grace was toward all alike. True, He received those who were drawn to Him of the Father, but His grace was toward all. He “went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil”. When the ten lepers came to Him He healed them all alike, though one only proved to be really thankful. And in all His ways down here, “healing all manner of sickness”, etc. (Matthew 4: 23). He was the full expression of God’s mind toward man. So too, in 1 Timothy 2: 5, 6, the Man Christ Jesus is the “one mediator ... who gave himself a ransom for all”. On the one hand man’s necessity was manifest, and on the other the power of God to meet it. God’s goodness was seen in that way by what Christ did. He did teach, too; but I think few could understand Christ’s teaching on earth. But there was something about Himself that could not be taken in simply from His words or His works. He declared the Father, giving the sense of the supremacy of God in goodness.
Now we are called to walk as Christ walked. We are put into the place of children, are given to know the Father’s love. We see the Lord in John 17 putting the disciples under the Father’s eye that they might be conscious of the Father’s love. “That the love wherewith [p. 269] thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”. The Holy Spirit is abiding here today unless christianity is gone. But christianity is not gone, and there is a generation here loved with the same love as Christ. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God”, (1 John 3: 1). Again in Romans 8, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God”. If we are not conscious of the place and the love, there will not be much of the practice suited to it. It is the place which makes the practice, and you cannot practise suitably to the place unless you know the place. The disciples were associated in that way with Christ on earth, (John 17). The Lord says, “For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? ... Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”, (Matthew 5). What remarkable words! There is a generation in whom the Spirit of the Father is seen.
You do not need to be much concerned with evil except to deal with it in yourself. You do not need to be occupied with it in others, or in the world. We need to judge evil in ourselves, but not to be affected by the evil without. I think a censorious person is more or less painfully affected by evil; but you want to be superior to it. Deal with it in yourself, be self-judged, and you will not be painfully affected by what is without. I do not mean that you will be indifferent to it. God is not affected by it, but He is not indifferent to it; if it did affect Him, what would become of man? His goodness is supreme and rises above all. This is the standard for us: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”. This is the generation which is of God, and it abides because it is of the Father. “He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever”, (1 John 2: 17).
I want you to notice that all this is a different thing from merely being saved from judgment to come. Everything has originated with the Father as the source [p. 270] of all that is to abide, and Christ is the true beginning of it all — “the beginning of the creation of God”. He has sent down the Comforter, who is of the Father, and there is a generation here of which the Father is the source, in conscious relationship, and their standard of practice is according to the Father.
How far do we answer to it? Be assured that nothing short of it can fully meet the Father’s mind. Christianity is but poorly understood, and can only be entered into in the light of the Father’s love. As we have seen, the Lord put the disciples under the Father’s eye “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them ..”. And there is the practice suited to it, according to the teaching of Christ, which instructs the hearts of His people in divine goodness. Nothing can be more important than to see that everything of the Father continues for ever.