THE SON LOVED BY THE FATHER AND BY THE SAINTS
John 17: 25, 26; Ephesians 3: 14–21
PvdB The Lord is about to go into death. These are the last words He spoke with His own in the upper room, before He went beyond the torrent Cedron and it is impressive that over against the world that did not know the Father, the Lord says, “I have made known to them thy name”. There was a company there to whom He had made known the Father’s name and He desires that the love wherewith the Father loved Him might be in them, “and I in them”. The ministry of the apostle Paul in Ephesians leads on to what was in the Lord’s heart in relation to the present time in which we are. Great thoughts had been brought out in this chapter in relation to the assembly, a vessel of divine wisdom. And now he bows his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and desires that they might be strengthened with the Father’s Spirit in the inner man. That would answer to what the Lord says in John 17, that it was by the Spirit having come that the love of the Father would be strengthening the saints, that the Father’s own love for the Son might be in them, and that Christ might have His rightful place in our hearts, in view of the great end that is in view that there might be glory to God in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. The service of praise requires Christ to be in His rightful place. He says, “in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”, Hebrews 2: 12. The Lord makes known to the assembly in Philadelphia, to the overcomer, that He will write upon him the name of His God. Light has been brought out in the recovery in relation to the distinctive places of divine Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the full light of the revelation of God, “the name of my God”, Revelation 3: 12. The Lord says to Mary, “go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father” (John 20: 17), that is the Lord in His distinct relations with the Father; only He could say, in the way He does, “my Father”, and He brings His own
into it in association with Him, “my Father and your Father”, then He goes on to say, “my God”. Only the Lord could say, “my God”, in the light and the knowledge of who He was in His Person in manhood. But then He goes on to say, “and your God”. I thought this would have its effect on the service of praise and the sense in which we are led into eternal conditions as in Revelation 21, where we have God in eternal conditions dwelling with men.
It involves that the God we know as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is made known to us in Christ both in the revelation and declaration of God. In eternity God will shine out in blessing towards the universe through the assembly and everything being affected will raise a response to God, an eternal flow of the way that God will shine out in eternal conditions resulting in a return flow in glory to God in the assembly in Christ Jesus. I thought we might have a sense of this because what will shine out in the world to come, in administration, and what will shine out in the service of praise eternally is to have its effect on the assembly now.
In this chapter in Ephesians the manifold wisdom of God is made known “according to the purpose of the ages” (Ephesians 3: 11). It was in the purpose of God that there should be a vessel here through which the wisdom of God would be made known, and also that there would be the service of praise in the present time. It will have its answer in the world to come and in eternal conditions, but it is now made known through the assembly which involves the present time. I thought we might be helped as to the Lord’s own desires that the love wherewith the Father loved Him may be in us, and Christ might have the place in our hearts that He has in the heart of the Father, and that He might have His right place in the affections of His own, “I in them”. That might set us on a little.
JS He says in John, “I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known”. Is making the Father’s name known an intimate suggestion?
PvdB Yes, it comes into Psalm 22, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee” (Psalm 22: 22). When the Lord was here the
Father’s name was made known, and in resurrection as He comes in amongst His own He appears to Mary and says, “go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”, John 20: 17.
JS Is this the greatest thought of love, “the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them”?
PvdB Yes, I think so. It is wonderful to see the affections that were there between the Father and the Son, involving the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit is the bond, as Mr Raven said, between the Father and the Son, there is a flow of reciprocal affection between the Father and the Son, it has its effect on us too, that we might come into it, that the love of the Father for the Son might be in us. Also, of course, the Son’s love for the Father, and it is by the Spirit we can come into this too. It was there in those relations of love, and by the Spirit we come into it—the Father’s Spirit and also the Spirit of His Son by which we cry, “Abba, Father”.
JS It is through these affections the knowledge of God has come to us, “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”, John 1: 18. It is the way to the full declaration of God.
PvdB Yes, the full declaration of God, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, John 1: 1. “The Word” was a term used in the Lord’s life here in relation to Him; what was witnessed in Him by those that attended on Him, according to Luke, and the declaration of God was connected with that, He was the Word itself.
WB It says, “and will make it known”. Is it something that is going on in this dispensation?
PvdB Yes. He made it known to His own in resurrection, “my brethren”. It was in the purpose of God that Christ should be the Firstborn among many brethren, and so it is to come into the service of praise—the service of God. The light of it has come to us in the light of how we know God and the way He has come out in Christ, and by the Holy Spirit in relation to the Father, and that has its answer in the service of praise.
JS The Lord Jesus has His own distinctive place. He says, “I ascend to my Father”. He has His own distinctive place in the Father’s affections. Then He goes on to say, “and your Father”, John 20: 17. We are brought into association with Him.
PvdB Yes. He does not say our Father, He says “my Father”. That is distinctive, then we come into it “and your Father”. He is also our Father as you say, in association with Christ. Association is the greatest privilege we have. It is even greater than union.
JS It is a wonderful thing that the Father found an object adequate for His affections in the Son.
PvdB Very wonderful, and we come into relationship as His brethren, “I will declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”, Hebrews 2: 12. How it affects the Lord’s heart that He has a sanctified company, all of one, which is of His order.
IMS Would you say some more as to your remark that association is even greater than union?
PvdB Yes, Mr. Raven brought that out, you will find it in readings in Peckham, London; union is with the exalted man, association is with the Son of God.
IMS I am sorry, what was your reference?
PvdB Union is with the exalted man, association is with the Son of God. It was referred to in meetings with Mr. Raven (Vol. 3, pp.202, 203). The greatest thoughts of God are in relation to sonship, there will ever be praise to God in the glory and dignity of sonship.
When the Lord speaks of “my God” we have to understand that He is speaking as Man. Union is with Christ as Man; but in the term “God”, He Himself is included. That will be so in what will be eternally, God being with men will involve the Trinity; “that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15: 28), involves the Trinity. When the Lord Jesus came into manhood, there was no change in His Person, but there was a change in the condition He took. It is in that condition, but now in glory, that the assembly is united to Him. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” is an order of things to which the assembly can be related.
JS When He said, “my God”, that would involve His perfect knowledge of God, being who He was in His own Person. So He could say that in a unique way. When He says, “your God”, our knowledge would be limited to what has come to us in revelation.
PvdB Quite so. So that the glory of His Person was unchanged, even on the cross the Lord remained who He was, but it was in His manhood that the communion with the Father was broken.
JS When He said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He said it in the perfect knowledge of what the glory of God required.
PvdB Exactly. You can understand things only on that basis, the forsaking can only be understood on that basis, that it was as Man that He was forsaken of God. Mr. Darby was asked about that and he said, The Man who died was God. So, in Revelation He says, “I became dead” (Revelation 1: 18), that is what He did Himself.
JS If I remember rightly, Mr. Darby was asked the question. Did God die? He replied and said, The Man who died was God.
PvdB Yes, exactly. So it is the great thought of God that we should be in sonship before Him and the Lord says in this chapter, “the glory which thou hast given me I have given them” (John 17: 22). It was the glory of sonship given Him in His manhood; in having come into manhood He became Son, He was born Son. We come into it through adoption.
IMS There was a reference in Grangemouth to the completeness of the Lord’s identification with the condition into which He came. So that we have these extraordinary statements of the Lord Jesus as a Man that have really enabled us to have this depth and breadth of understanding of our own relationship as now taken into favour.
PvdB Wonderful! “God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus”, 1 Timothy 2: 5. As God He is who He is, and that will be so eternally; our link with Christ will be in His manhood, and it is in association with Him that we shall be in sonship’s glory,
answering to God in the light in which He has made Himself known in revelation as Father.
Son and Holy Spirit.
APG In Ephesians 1 it says, “he has taken us into favour in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1: 6). As the Beloved He is loved of the Father. Does it mean too that He is beloved of the saints, those that are sons by adoption?
PvdB Yes. There is a link in what the Lord says, “that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them”, that would be the evidence, “I in them” is a matter of affection—
He would thus be in the affections of His own so that He might have His rightful place. It is important as we come together for the Lord’s supper that we have a sense of this in our hearts, what He is in the Father’s love as the Man of God’s purpose, and the glory that is related to Him. In the course of the service we arrive at the Father, but I think we would come together as strengthened by the Spirit of the Father, with Christ in our affections, “I in them”.
JS Is it not attractive that the One who means so much to the Father, calling out His affections, has come to mean so much to us, bringing out our affections, so that He has a place in our hearts?
PvdB Yes. It is wonderful how close the assembly is in relation to Him! There was that in the relations between the Father and the Son that was to be in His own as well. “I know those that are mine, and am known of those that are mine, as the Father knows me and I know the Father”, John 10: 14, 15. It is that character of knowledge that was there between the Father and the Son that would also come into the relations between Christ and His own.
There are other references to it, “As the Father sent me forth, I also send you”, John 20: 21. It was on that level and in that dignity, the way He was sent by the Father, that He sends forth His own in resurrection.
JS It helps us to appreciate your reference to verse 22, “And the glory which thou hast given me I have given them”. It is very attractive how He speaks of it with the idea of glory. He does not simply say sonship, we
understand it is sonship, but there is a glory connected with it.
PvdB Yes there is. Think of it being a glory that the Father has given Christ and giving it to us! He is distinct as being the Son; only He is the Son. I think this is something that is in a sense beyond us, but it was there in the flow of reciprocal affections between the Father and the Son. Our relations with the Father would be as sons with Him brought to glory.
DM So is that what it means to be sanctified?
PvdB Quite so. “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one”
(Hebrews 2: 11), that is in origin. The many brethren are the many sons, the brethren are the sanctified company “all of one”. So you can understand what the Lord says in John 17
following this glory being given, “that they may be one, as we are one”. There was that order in manhood that could be with Him in that close relation. It was in the divine purpose, as foreknown before the world’s foundation, that Christ should be the firstborn among many brethren.
WB Is it the greatest glory He could give us, the glory of sonship?
PvdB It is indeed, it is the greatest glory that could be bestowed upon us, that we should have that place with Christ in the presence of the Father, that we should be in the dignity of sonship as taken into favour in the Beloved. What a place it is and how it is to affect us also in the working out of things in administration in responsibility. It is very important, dear brethren, that in any matter that is amongst us that things are worked out from the divine level in the dignity of sonship, and the glory of our union with Christ. The assembly in Ephesians 3 is the vessel of divine wisdom where things work out from the divine side.
JS It says in Ephesians 3: 10, “in order that now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God”. That would be intended to work out in our local settings.
PvdB Yes, indeed.
JS In a local company, for we can hardly have the assembly in a universal sense at the present time.
PvdB Yes, the glory of the present time is that it works out in local assemblies.
Administration in the world to come will be universal, but in the present time administration is local.
JS So that this lifts administration in the assembly to this wonderful level of what exists between the Father and the Son.
PvdB The glory of sonship should be in evidence. When there was a difficult matter in Matthew, the Lord met the situation and He said, “Then are the sons free”, Matthew 17: 26. It should set us in the liberty of sonship. You want to see the saints in liberty, in the liberty of Jerusalem above which is our mother. That would mark the administration. The glory of what will work out in administration in the world to come should affect us in the local working out of things at the present time, as owning the rights which the Lord Jesus has in local assemblies.
JS Do you think it is helpful to realise that the assembly will actually enter into and enjoy her eternal portion with Christ before she comes out in administration?
PvdB That is certainly wonderful. You first have the eternal setting in Revelation 21: 1–8, and then you have the world to come following. The present time too comes into chapter 22. The heavenly city in chapter 21 is first seen in its eternal setting, then in the world to come; and in chapter 22 it is here, we have the assembly here, and we have the gates, and persons washing their robes, establishing their right to the tree of life and entering into the city. That is now. The working out is from the eternal setting into the world to come and into the present time.
JS That should be a help to us if we touch something of the enjoyment of eternal and heavenly things, after the Lord’s supper. That should give colour and character to what takes place during the week, do you think?
PvdB Yes, that is right, it should affect us and I think we need to proceed from that level, that is connected with eternity; there is a vessel here where there will be glory to God in the assembly in Christ Jesus eternally. The glory of God is the outshining of God in His attributes and His nature and it finds an answer in the assembly. It will shine out in the world to come in administration, the city comes down out of heaven, not reflecting, but having the glory of God. The glory of God was maintained on the cross when the Lord Jesus was forsaken. The righteousness and the holiness of God in His attributes were maintained and the love of God had its way, and that is to affect the administration in the assembly. What was maintained on the cross is the standard of what is maintained in the assembly here.
JS Glory to God in the assembly would be in the way of service to God, but what comes out in this, what is made known now, would be testimony at the present time.
PvdB Yes, so glory to God in the assembly is really response to God, a response in the assembly that is equal to the revelation.
JS Maybe you have something more in your mind as to how things are to be viewed and judged in the light of the cross as the divine standard.
PvdB We can see what God has purposed and what He is working out according to His counsels, involving that one of the divine Persons should come into manhood and die. God had in mind to secure a vessel that would be equal to what He maintained on the cross. That should sober us in many matters. We need to see what God is working out according to His own purpose and counsels in the mystery of His will, and that what He is working out will have its culmination in the heavenly city. It is on that level. Paul bows his knees, he comes to what he knows he could not effect as a servant, distinct as he was in the light that he had, but he bows his knees in dependence. “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, in order that he may
give you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”. Paul could bring out all the counsel of God, what was on the divine side of things, the way it is being worked out in the present time. So God, operating in the way He does, has provided both Christ and the Holy Spirit, and He cannot be hindered in any of His thoughts in what He is doing for Himself in new creation glory, in which there will be an answer to His glory in His attributes and nature. He has it all in Christ and what has its answer in the assembly eternally. Every family that is going to be brought into blessing will be there in the eternal state where the tabernacle of God will be with men. The assembly itself is nearest to the Deity and will be God’s immediate dwelling place in eternal conditions, and will shine out to the other families. God has worked in men in previous dispensations and He will have other families yet to come, it says in Hebrews 11 of the cloud of witnesses mentioned there, that they should not be made perfect without us (Hebrews 11: 40). It requires the assembly, and the assembly will be the nearest to God in the eternal state.
JAW Is Paul conscious of the great wealth of things in this epistle and is he seeking that the brethren should be in the good of it, to enter into and experience the great depth of riches, the riches of His glory and all these great things he brings in here? Would it be an extension of John 17, the working out of what the Lord was desiring in John 17?
PvdB Yes. Paul being in prison conditions when he wrote this epistle would bring out what the Lord had committed to him. The ministry that Paul had was the result of the appearing of the Lord Jesus to the apostle.
JS Is the whole matter kept fresh in our souls by the continuation of these appearings of the Lord Jesus?
PvdB Yes, and you can see also how close Paul was in being associated with the sufferings of Christ for His body which is the assembly.
KW Is the enjoyment of these things intensely inward? “To know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge “is beyond any natural knowledge, any human knowledge, it is deeply affectionate. Love is mentioned so often here in these chapters, that we might be holy and blameless before Him in love. Here we have “to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”; it is all inward and affectionate is it?
PvdB Very good. What the apostle is bringing out here is not something that is beyond us, he says, “that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height”, it is that which can be laid hold of in love. The Holy Spirit is here to lead us into all the truth and to help us to understand particularly the distinctive ministry of the apostle Paul. Peter gives us the kingdom in the beginning, and John gives us the conditions in the end, but Paul gives the filling out of the dispensation. I think the breadth and length might be connected with the teaching of the apostles, and the depth and height with the apostle Paul in what he received from the Lord in glory. The apostles received it from the Lord Jesus down here, “that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes” (1 John 1: 1), connects with the declaration and the revelation, what they received from the Lord down here; but Paul received the light from the Lord in glory, including the Lord’s supper.
JS With regard to this matter of being “strengthened with power by his Spirit”, that is the Father’s Spirit, “in the inner man”, could you say something about the Father’s Spirit in this regard?
PvdB I think we could not have a closer link than having the Father’s Spirit in the Father’s feelings in relation to Christ, “that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them”.
JS This is something that takes place in us, not just objectively, but something that works inwardly.
PvdB The Lord goes on to say, “and I in them”, that is that Christ has the supreme place in our affections.
WB Would the Spirit of the Father help us to get a greater apprehension and appreciation of the inheritance? Would He enlarge our view in regard to the inheritance of God?
PvdB I think so. The inheritance is where we enjoy the blessing of eternal life, in the enjoyment of our heavenly relationships in love. Paul speaks about an inheritance among the sanctified, and he was bringing out in his service that they might enjoy their heavenly portion, their heavenly inheritance. I am sure that the Father’s Spirit would be the way that things would be effected that were in His purpose for us, in heavenly relationships.
IMS Would you say something further as to Paul’s interceding in bowing his knees?
PvdB There was much that was on the apostle in the way he was bringing out things and, as you read this chapter, you can see the need for Paul that he should bow his knees.
These things were so great that he felt for the sake of the Ephesians that he had to bow his knees that they might come into it, that Christ might dwell, through faith, in their hearts. If anything is to be effected, it must be Christ, and Christ only. Christ is the Man of God’s purpose, and everything that God has given us is in Christ. He is the expression of the purpose of God, and we lay hold of eternal life in Christ as the expression of the purpose of God. When Joshua and Caleb had searched out the land, the inheritance, there was no faith for the report. We have the report in Paul’s ministry and we have it in John too, that which we report to you the eternal life, which was with the Father. That is the report and it is a question of faith on our part and the Spirit too, faith and the Spirit going together.
JS So it would be a good exercise for us to take this up in prayer for the saints that we should be brought increasingly into this level of things, do you think?
PvdB It is a high level and the question is, Do we have faith for it?
JS Is this not really what we have been taken up for?
PvdB Yes, quite so.
Reading at Dundee
27 October 2002
KEY TO INITIALS
P.van den Berg
Doug. Matthews
J. A. Walker
W. Becker
I. M. Shearer
K. Walker
A. P. Grant
J. Strachan