THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SON OF GOD
THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SON OF GOD
JT I suppose, that what you had in mind in proposing this scripture is the expression, “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God”?
RSS I thought of it as suggesting perhaps the line we might take. This scripture speaks of our coming to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, as in contrast to the end of Matthew 11, where it says, “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”. We need to know Christ better as the Son of God.
JT Ephesians 4 presents our side. It is our apprehension, but that must depend on the revelation.
RSS The revelation comes first, and perhaps we might begin by considering it on that side.
JT I think that in the Son of man we have the persons in whom God’s will is carried out here where it had been contravened. That is, we have set forth in the Son of man what man should have been for God. Obedience was to characterise man, hence when Adam was created we at once hear of commandment; the Lord commanded Adam, Genesis 2: 16. That indicated that man was to be under responsibility to do God’s will. The giving of the law later was to emphasise this. We are told in the prophets that Israel, like Adam, had transgressed the covenant; Hosea 6:7 Christ answered to it infinitely; He magnified the law and made it honourable.
RSS The first covenant, of course, was a question of the will of God.
JT That was the point [p. 373] in it.
RSS I have been thinking a good deal in connection with our meetings, how that Christ had come in to take up the will of God and to fulfil it, and that not only when man had broken down, but after Satan had rebelled and brought his own will into the universe, Christ comes in as the lowly Man down here and takes up everything, and fulfils God’s will and glorifies Him in the removal of lawlessness out of God’s universe.
JT Yes, so that the thought of man as taken up in Christ becomes a wonderful subject of consideration for Christians, as set here for God’s will; for if our position on earth means anything, it means that we are here for God’s will.
JLJ Do you say we have come to the knowledge of the Son of God before we can carry that out now?
JT I think the thought of Son of God is connected with the family of God rather than with man as such.
JLJ My thought was that we had to come to the knowledge of Him as the Son of God before we could carry out His mind.
JT I think that is true. We have to know the liberty of sonship before we can carry out God’s will here, but these are two distinct lines of thought. The Son of God is connected with the family of God. The Lord said in regard to Lazarus’ sickness, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby”. It was the sickness of a member of the family of God; it was not simply a member of the human race that was sick, or dead, such as we find in Luke 7, but a member of a circle that set forth in type the divine family. I think the family of Bethany was representative of the family of God.
RSS And we are distinctly told that the Lord loved them.
JT [p. 374] That is what I was thinking. The Spirit tells us before the Lord came to Bethany that He loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Lazarus was known in this connection; “he whom thou lovest is sick”. It appears to me that the glory of the Son of God is bound up with the family of God.
RSS Is association with Him in sonship more connected with Him as Son of God than as Son of man?
JT The idea of Son of God is primary and continuous, but I doubt whether the idea of Son of man is continuous. I think it comes in to show that all that which fell to man in the way of responsibility and privilege is taken up by Christ.
A.McB. As Son of man?
JT Yes; but the primary and prominent thought is Son of God; that continues into the eternal state.
RSS And that which is connected with the Son of man continues to the end of the kingdom.
JT I think so. It is in connection with God’s will.
WB In Romans 12 the soul is led up to the point of doing God’s will according to what he has learned of God in the previous part of the epistle. He carries out his responsibility as to this by the Spirit.
JT Quite so. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. So that God is vindicated in those who have really received the gospel. His will is carried out in them. In that way we are brought on to the hue of Christ as He was here. In Romans 8 we are to be conformed to the image of God’s Son; that is another thought; that is the heavenly and eternal side, but in chapter 12 we see, that the thought of God for us, as in the testimony down here, is that His will should be carried out.
WB-t When Mary Magdalene meets the Lord in resurrection, He says to her, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God”. When He says, “I am not yet ascended to my Father”, is the thought there that she must not touch Him as Son of God, although she had known Him as Son of man?
JT I think the thought there is that she was not to renew the old associations with Him, that the relations were to be of a new order; they were to be established from heaven; He had not yet ascended; the connection in Christianity is really established from heaven; the associations are heavenly.
AAT Would you distinguish between “the Son” and the “Son of God”?
JT I think the term “the Son” refers to the Lord personally, not to His relationship with us. “No man knoweth the Son but the Father”. The Son is unknowable save to the Father; but as the Son of God He is connected with revelation and the purpose of God. In Him the relation in which God intended man to be with Himself is set forth.
RSS That is a very important statement: that the “Son of God” refers to what God intended man in privilege to be; that whether we consider the Lord as the Son of man, or as Son of God, it is Christ in manhood. It is well to bear in mind that even where He is referred to as the Son in Matthew 11, it is still as in manhood, but it is what He is [p. 376] in manhood, Godward.
AFM If you would continue a few remarks in relation to John 11 and John 12 it would help us in this connection?
JT I thought of that; I think the term Son of God is connected with the family; that is, God’s thought is to take up man in family relationship. God intimated that He was to have a family. We read, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom [p. 378] of the Father, he hath declared him”. That is, the revelation is declared in One who is in the relationship of Son in the bosom of the Father; you have the family idea intimated there. It is a question of relationship, and I think that God set in the human family a testimony to that from the beginning. In creating man as he is, as a parent of children, as a father of sons, God set in every man’s heart a testimony to what was in His own heart; He was to have sons. My reason for saying that is, that in appealing to Pharaoh to let Israel go, He says, “Israel is my son, even my firstborn”. Then He says to Pharaoh, “If thou refuse to let my son go ... I will slay thy son”. He had set such a testimony in the way of natural relationship in Pharaoh’s heart that He could appeal to Pharaoh; in other words, He appealed to Pharaoh as a father.
RSS And the sacrifice in connection with Abraham and Isaac was really on that very principle; “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest”.
JT Yes; God at that early date showed what was in His heart. We know now by the Spirit that behind that statement there is the love of God for the Son.
AFM To return to John 11; that family was defective in one respect; you remarked that it had not a head.
JT Yes; there is nothing said in Scripture [p. 377] about the parents of that family; the Spirit only mentions the two sisters and the brother.
WB-t In what way do you speak of them as the family of God?
JT I think they are that in a representative way. One great line in John’s gospel is the family. In the preface to his gospel he says: “He came to his own (Israel in natural relation), and his own received him not; but as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name; who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh’s will, nor of man’s will, but of God”. Well, in chapter 2 His mother says to Him, “They have no wine”. She said that to the Lord because she was His mother. He says, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” He disclaimed the connection. He did not call her mother; He disowned her claim on Him, because He was there in regard to a spiritual order of things, and she appealed to Him in the natural order; so He disowns her claim and He proceeds to bring in the spiritual. He knew better than she did that the wine of nature was out, and He brings in the spiritual in type, “the good wine”. We shall find later in the gospel that He recognised another family, the family at Bethany, and He loves that family. The Spirit enlarges on the fact that He loved that circle at Bethany.
WCR How is the family formed?
JT I think the family is formed in the light of the revelation of God. The family at Bethany represented what was spiritual in Israel, but they were parentless; without a head. What they needed was that God should reveal Himself to them. How the spiritual element in Israel would appreciate the revelation of God! and that is what John brings out in his gospel. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. The One in the bosom of the Father has declared Him. The family has to be formed in the light of that revelation.
RSS The revelation of God as Father, and in connection with that, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, comes to light.
WCB You get the quickening power of Christ in chapter 5, bringing in life for that family.
JT Yes; and in chapter 6 you have the food that sustains them. The family would be really formed by the revelation made by the Son in the bosom of the Father. What depths there are in that to ponder over, “the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father”. There we get back to the thought indicated in God’s word to Abraham: “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest”.
WB-t Then the revelation of God as Father is in connection with the Son of God?
JT Clearly. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. That is the great point with John.
AMcB The revelation brings to light the family?
JT Yes. The family would appreciate the revelation. If you get a headless family, God comes in and takes the place of the parents. Mary in chapter 20 represents the spiritual family, and they are brought into new and heavenly relationships. They are associated with the heavenly One in His own relationship with the Father.
AMcB That is something greater than knowing Christ after the flesh. “Henceforth know we him no more”.
ST Is that why death is allowed to come into that family?
JT Death in a member of the family brings to light the great interest of the Father and the Son [p. 379] in the family, so the Lord says, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby”.
AFM I was going to raise that question in regard to the glory of God and the Son of God, that the glory of the Son of God comes out in placing the family on the resurrection platform; and does not chapter 12 bring that out?
JT Chapters 11 and 12 bring it out.
AFM In the latter they are in association. They have arrived, in principle, at the knowledge of the Son of God.
JT The knowledge of the Son of God necessitated His death. The sonship of Christ must be attested, otherwise we could not apprehend it. It is true that the Father called attention to it saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”; but there must be a testimony to the sonship of Christ in power so that faith may take hold of it.
RSS His power was manifested in raising Lazarus from the dead.
JT He is declared Son of God with power by resurrection from the dead, Romans 1. It is an abstract statement, it does not specify who the dead may be. He raises the dead; it is a fundamental element of faith. It is in the very foundation of Christian knowledge.
RSS Not only does God declare Him as His beloved Son, but considering us He gives us absolute proof of it in the fact that He raises the dead.
JT So at the tomb of Lazarus He turns to the Father and says, “I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may behove that thou hast sent me”. When He came to Bethany, Mary and Martha said, “If thou hadst been here my brother had not died”. But they did not apprehend the glory of the Son of God. The glory of the Son of God is [p. 380] not in retaining man in flesh and blood here. He could have done that, but then that would be merely to retain the man as he was here. The Lord says, “Thy brother shall rise again”. Still she says, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day”. She was dark in regard to the Lord’s Person, and yet she had love for Him, and He loved her. There are multitudes of believers who love the Lord and yet are dark as to the glory of His Person. They are orthodox as she was, but they are dark as to His Person.
WB-t I am not quite clear about that. The Lord said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” And Martha answered, “Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world”.
JT That was following on what I was referring to. I was referring to what occurred earlier, but the great light which the Lord wanted to introduce is contained in the statement, “I am the resurrection and the life”. That was light for her.
AB It is following on that that she says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of God”.
RSS In connection with the question that has been raised, in what sense did she say, “I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God”? Do you think that she apprehended what was revealed to Peter, the revelation of the Father?
JT Whatever she may have believed hitherto, the Lord brought in light by His reply to her, saying, “I am the resurrection and the life”. There was light in that.
RSS I thought it was very much like what Nathanael said: “thou art the Son of God; thou art the king of Israel”. I did not think that Nathanael [p. 381] apprehended the truth of His Person, but being an “Israelite indeed”, and instructed in the Old Testament scriptures, he looked for the Messiah as Son of God, according to Psalm 2.
JT She made the confession, however, that He was the Christ, the Son of God; but she does not say that He was the resurrection and the life.
JLJ She only speaks of Him as the One “who should come into the world”.
JT Mary also said, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died”, and the Lord says nothing to her, but goes on to the tomb. He does not repeat the discourse He had with Martha; the record is not merely historical, but to show how the Lord’s people are to be led on into the knowledge of the Son of God.
RSS That is why John’s gospel was written.
JT Then He comes to the tomb and says, “Where have ye laid him?” and He groans in His Spirit. The Lord accepted in His own spirit the pressure of death that lay on the family of God, the full pressure of death, and we are told that He groaned, showing how perfectly He entered into it; but entering into it in that way, He abolishes death.
AFM Going back to Mary for a moment, would you say she had learned more of the Person of Christ than Martha, although she says the same thing to the Lord that Martha does?
JT But I think that even in regard to her, and indeed all up to that time, there was darkness as regards His Person. What was before Him was to bring in the light of His Person, that they might believe, and the teaching in it for us is that we should become believers in the Son of God.
WB-t That is very good, and the effect of it in Mary is seen later on.
JLJ What did Mary get in Luke 10 when sitting at His feet?
JT [p. 382] The thought is different there. She was learning His mind.
EHT Is your thought that the glory connected with the Lord as Son of God is that He brings in life?
JT I think so, but the point here is not simply that He is the life, but that He should be believed upon by the testimony of life. Martha says, “By this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days”. The Lord says, “Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” That is what He had before Him. The Lord intended to establish that family in the light of His Person. This is where we are defective. You can never understand Christianity till you are on the platform of the Son of God. All this that happened at Bethany was to the end that this family should be set up in the light of the Person of Christ as Son of God.
RSS Do you think the Jews understood why the Lord wept? Why did He weep?
JT He did not weep at the gate of Nain in Luke 7, though death was there too.
LM If the Lord had power to raise one from the dead, He has power to raise every one?
JT Yes: if He could raise Lazarus, He could raise any one. Lazarus was as much dead as if he had been dead a hundred years. Christ is demonstrated to be the Son of God by resurrection from the dead.
EPL You quoted the scripture, “the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”, in connection with family relationships, but we have been accustomed to think of the Lord Jesus Christ coming to reveal God in all His attributes.
JT That is true, of course, but I was referring to the primary idea of God that He should have a
[p. 383] family. You must lay hold of the truth of the father and Son if you are to understand Christianity. The Son has revealed God, but He has revealed the Father. It is not said that He is in the bosom of God, but in the bosom of the Father.
EHT So your thought is that the family idea is set forth in the relationship between the Father and the Son.
RSS In the Old Testament God revealed Himself in many ways, but the name Father involves the greatest and most blessed privileges.
JT God’s thought is to have permanently a family order of things, not a national.
RML I suppose that in revealing Himself as Father all His attributes come out.
JT You must apprehend God in all His attributes first. What is involved in that is the question of righteousness; that has to be settled before we can arrive at the family. But I think it is an immense thing to see that the full revelation of God involves that His primary and perhaps most blessed thought is to have a family.
EHT What is the reason for that?
JT God’s purpose is the outcome of what He is, which is love.
JLJ His affections called for it.
JT The only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father revealing Him conveys the secret as to what was the divine thought.
WB How is this line of truth connected with the testimony of the gospel? Is it embraced in it?
JT I think it is. God revealed His Son in Paul; I think that involved the family idea.
WB Is there a privilege side connected with the gospel?
JT What is in view in the gospel is that we should be conformed to the image of God’s Son.
[p. 384] Ephesians 4 contemplates that we are to arrive at the full knowledge of the Son of God; the great end from our side is to know the Son of God. In the early part of Acts Christ is presented as Lord, but Paul’s preaching brought in the Son of God, and in connection with that you have the unfolding of the divine system. Family relationships, a house, and a city were brought into view.
BTF Regarding the family, what would you say about the Father seeking worshippers? Why was that brought out in John 4?
JT I think the prominent thought there is, that God is a Spirit. The Samaritans connected God with Gerizim and the Jews with Jerusalem, but both ideas really beclouded the idea of God, because God is a Spirit, and you cannot connect God in that way with any locality. The Lord said, “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”. The declaration spoken of in John 1: 18 is of God, and the Father; the declaration referred to both thoughts. The presence of sin in the world necessitated the death of Christ, so that God should be vindicated in every way. God must be revealed. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”. I do not connect eternal life exactly with the Father and the Son, but with God and Man. I think this is what the Lord’s definition of eternal life in John 17:3 implies.
RSS But in that scripture you quoted Jesus was speaking to the Father, and He goes on to say, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee (addressing the Father) the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”.
JT I think it is a question of God and Man brought together. “The only true God” has to be apprehended. God is to be apprehended.
E They could only be brought together in the Person of the Son.
JT Surely the Father and the Son are there. The Lord was speaking to His Father, but He is “the only true God” of whom He speaks; and Jesus Christ (not Thy Son, but Thy sent One); that is, Christ as Man here carrying out God’s will. So that we get there the true God and the true Man brought together. It is in the apprehension of these two thoughts that life eternal consists.
BTF God is revealed to us in the character of Father, is He not?
JT Yes; but the true God is in the light in which I apprehend God in my position down here where there are false gods. The idea of the Father carries me into the house where there is privilege, but on the other hand I am in this world where there is idolatry. It was in Eden that God was first displaced in man’s heart.
BTF Does not the thought of Father bring us more into intimacy, so there is a system of relationships, and in the enjoyment of them we find eternal life?
JT I doubt that. It is where death has been that eternal life is brought in. In Eden, God lost His place in man’s heart, and in consequence death came in. There was not the true man there. The true God was there, but He lost His place with man; but in Christ here on earth the true God is fully recognised. He is the true Man. Where idolatry was we have the true God. In the bringing to light of the true God you have the true Man, because we could not have the true God brought in fully except in the true Man; that is, in one in whom God has His true place; and that is in Christ the “sent One”. And it is in the knowledge of Christ brought [p. 386] in in that way that eternal life consists. “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life”.
WB-t What is your thought as to that verse?
JT The point there is that He is true. Then he says, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols”.
WB-t It is connected with the Son of God.
JT His Person lies behind it all, but here it is a question of what He was as Man; “Him that is true”. But then He was not only the true Man, He was the true God, and He presented the true God to man. “He is the true God, and eternal life”.
WB-t The thought in my mind is that in this chapter several times He is referred to as Son of God. It is in that aspect that we know Him and are in Him.
JT “We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding”, but then it says, “we are in him that is true”. If you think of the One that is “true” it refers to what Christ was as Man here. I fully admit that the truth of His Person lies behind it all, but you must get the idea of the true Man.
GH I never could see the difference between sonship and eternal life. Sonship is a greater thought than eternal life, is it not?
JT We must refer to Eden if it is a question of eternal life. You must bring God and man together.
BTF What about Psalm 133: “there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore”?
JT That refers to the sphere of eternal life.
[p. 387] That is another matter. I am speaking now of what we are to know.
BTF I think it is needful to get the two distinct so that we may distinguish between the knowledge and the sphere. Is the sphere where the believer is placed in a certain relationship?
JT I think so.
GFW I think I understand what you mean: that life was lost in the garden of Eden when man departed from the presence of God, but when man is seen in his true place in regard of God eternal life has taken form.
WB-t Have you any thought of the tree of life?
JT It has reference to Christ in His own sphere. Blessed are they that have washed their robes that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city, Revelation 22.
AAT What about that scripture that speaks of eternal life which was with the Father? 1 John 1: 2.
JT That is Christ as He was here on earth before the eyes of the apostles. The apostle is referring to Christ as He was in His pathway here on earth.
AAT It seems to be emphasised that He was with the Father.
JT Yes, I think so.
GFW You were speaking in regard to knowledge.
JT Yes, the elements of knowledge that comprise eternal life. The point is to see that it is brought in here, where idolatry and lawlessness are. The true God and the true Man are together. If you apprehend them together you have the idea of eternal life.
GFW If a man knows the true God, there is no room for idolatry.
JT And if he knows the true Man, there is no room for lawlessness.
[p. 388] LDT What is the true man?
JT He is not lawless; he practises righteousness. The Lord, the sent One, is the One who fully carried out God’s will.
WB-t You are referring to 1 John 5: 20. It connects the word “true” with “God”, and also with “his Son Jesus Christ”, so it is a scriptural expression. There is one thing I should like you to tell us about. It has been commonly said amongst us, that eternal life consists in the knowledge of divine Persons.
JT I would prefer to take it up as it stands. The Lord does not say, “To know thee the Father, and Jesus Christ thy Son”, but “thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”.
EHT Why do you not say it is divine Persons as such?
JT Because it is a question of the re-establishment of the true thought of God and the true thought of man.
EPL Is sonship a greater thought than eternal life. I suppose eternal life ends with the kingdom, and sonship will remain in eternity?
JT You would have to guard that, because the knowledge we possess will never disappear, but the necessity for the idea of the true God is not there; there will be no false gods there, and no lawlessness, so the idea of the true man is; not prominent.
AFM Referring to the subject before us in hand, is there any other glory besides that of resurrection in connection with the Son of God?
JT I think we should have to take that up in another reading. That involves John 12 and John 20. The latter chapter shows how the Father is brought in; the declaration of the Father’s name is made.