THE KNOWLEDGE OF DIVINE PERSONS AND THINGS READING (3)

THE KNOWLEDGE OF DIVINE PERSONS AND THINGS READING (3)

John 6: 66 - 71; John 8: 31 - 59; John 9: 24 - 34

SMcC The subject that is before us is the knowledge of divine Persons and divine things, and we come now to a very solemn and sobering section of John’s gospel, but a section in which knowledge shines, both in Peter and in the man of the 9th of John, and in the Lord Himself when He speaks in the 8th chapter, as in conflict with the Jews. There is the drift of unbelief in the 6th chapter, but in the midst of it and over against it we have the wonderful feature of knowledge in Peter, “We have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”. Then in the 8th chapter the Lord alludes to knowing the truth and the truth setting us free; then there is the stress on the greatness of His Person in that section - the great I Am, as He refers to Himself, “Before Abraham was, I am”. Then the delightful setting in John 9 of the subject of the works of God - the blind man, and the remarkable way in which knowledge appears in him, which may yield help for us. “He answered therefore, If he is sinful I know not. One thing I know, that, being blind before, now I see.” He could speak of one thing he knew, anyway, and he held to that whatever they did to encroach upon his testimony and to turn him from the truth; he held to what he did know, and the Lord comes in as he is cast out and imparts further knowledge to him. So as we begin with this section in John 6 we should see the way the work of God is appearing among the saints, and also, especially as John would have us from beginning to end, should we keep before us the glory of the Person of Christ. It is important, I think, that the Spirit of God uses John to keep us constantly reminded of who the Person is that He is God, and nothing less than God; he begins with that, and there is a person at the end saying, “my Lord and my God”. We may say that is on a lower platform, but nevertheless it is coming out of the mouth of a man who is affected by the Person who is before him, so that John the evangelist would impress our minds with the glory of the Person of Christ: that He is never anything less than God, wherever we see Him, in whatever circumstances we view Him. He is never anything less than God as to His Person.

APB Does that give a peculiar importance and lustre to all that He says and does, because it is God who is doing it and saying it?

SMcC John would remind us in that way of the greatness of the Person who is not bounded by this dispensation but who is outside of all dispensation - the I AM. In John 6 He is before us in the blessedness of His manhood, as Peter says, and has often been noted. It is not only a question of revelation here, it is a question of progressive knowledge - what Peter arrived at representing no doubt what there is in the body of the disciples, “We have believed and known, that thou art the holy one of God”.

EJH Is the personality of the “we” having believed and known standing over against the unique and distinctive personality of “thou art”?

SMcC Yes, the emphatic “we” and the emphatic “thou”. John in verse 67 says “Jesus, therefore said to the twelve, Will ye also go away?” How much was bound up in these words. How the Lord values what there is in the twelve. And the emphatic ye and the emphatic we brings out what there was generally among them. And I think one thing that impresses one in moving around amongst the saints is what there is in the body of the saints.

AJG Does this statement of Peter’s involve that they have apprehended in Christ the perfect answer in manhood to all that God looks for - “the holy one of God”?

SMcC That is it. “We have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God.” God is holy, and we get an answer in Christ in manhood to what God is in that way - the holy One of God. It has been said by J.N.D. that when the Father is mentioned in John it has to do with the expression of grace, but when God is mentioned it has to do with what He is, in holiness, and man in responsibility, so that the holy One of God would be a perfect answer on the responsible side in man in Christ, to God’s great thought.

AJG The woman of Shunem said, “I perceive that this is a holy man of God that passes by us continually”, but now there is the holy One of God.

SMcC That is excellent - the contrast in that way to what we have there, a holy man of God, and now the holy one of God. He is unique in that way.

WBH Is there a suggestion of that in Proverbs, “The knowledge of the Holy” (Proverbs 9: 10; and Proverbs 30: 3)?

SMcC Well, it is interesting how that expression comes up in Proverbs, because the knowledge of the Holy would call for holiness on our side, and I think the apprehension of the holy One of God would have a progenitive bearing on us as to holiness on our side.

PHH Do you mind saying a little about the name which comes a few times earlier in the chapter, “Son of man”? It says, for instance, in verse 62, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before”; and then earlier than that, in verse 53, “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood”, and so on. Would you mind saying a little as to the bearing of that on this part of the teaching?

SMcC Well, I think what you now refer to is very interesting, because the lines are becoming defined as to Judaism: the 6th chapter in its teaching bearing particularly on what is beyond the confines of Judaism; the Lord repeatedly referring to the world, as He says in verse 51, “the bread withal which I shall give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world”; and then, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before”. The title “the Son of man” refers to His universal rights, and the universal side is before us in the teaching in John 6, and it is interesting that it precedes John 7, where, as F.E.R. taught us, the change of dispensation comes typically on to our view. In the same way Stephen at the great transitional point in the change over stresses the Son of man; his vision is filled with the Son of man in glory.

PHH Is it remarkable that in speaking to Nicodemus in chapter 3 the Lord says, as was quoted yesterday, what pertains to His Person as Son of man? “No one has gone up into heaven save he who came down out of heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven.” Is it remarkable that He should have said that to one who was the teacher of Israel?

SMcC It is. And is it not remarkable that He says this again in verse 62 to those who were not understanding the teaching? Now this is to be noted. He says it to Nicodemus in chapter 3, and He is saying it again to those that do not understand the teaching here. They are finding it hard. They say, “This word is hard; who can hear it?” It was not even a question of who can believe it; it is a question of “who can hear it”. That is, they were not prepared to give it an entrance, and the Lord says, “Does this offend you? If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before?” It is, as we were saying at the outset, the way that our attention is constantly focused on the greatness of this Person. That He is nothing less than God, wherever we view Him, even though He may be in the condition of manhood before us, we are always reminded of the greatness of who He is personally.

JSE Is it right that when the Lord is speaking to His enemies in this gospel He is very emphatic as to His place in the Deity, but when He has His own around Him He speaks more intimately in relation to His place in manhood?

SMcC Well, that is interesting, especially as we shall see as we come into this section which involves conflict. The Lord is asserting His own Personality, asserting His Deity, and John’s ministry bearing on the last days would impress us with that. In the church councils of old, centuries ago, there was an attempt to protect the truth by the formulation of creeds, but it led into error, and was derogatory to the glory of His Person in that they put His sonship back into eternity, into the pre-incarnate conditions of Deity.

JSE Yes. Was that because there was a lack of understanding that “the natural man understands not the things of God”? Has it not always been damaging to try and adapt the truth to the mind of man naturally, whereas this gospel shows that it is impossible for the mind to take it in, so that the opening of the narrative emphasises that the writer and those with him understood and valued the deity of Christ, “the Word was God”; but the insistence on the term “I am” is invariably made by the Lord to His enemies, is it not? And is not that where our protection lies?

SMcC It is, because the Spirit of God in superintending the writing of this gospel has in mind to protect that glorious Person who has come so low, who has entered into such a subordinate position involving relative inferiority. The Spirit of God protects the glory and greatness of His Person at every turn throughout the gospel.

AHn Do you think that the speaking of the Lord in this gospel is calculated to impress our hearts with who He is? I was thinking of the remarkable passage in chapter 5, where He has been speaking to His enemies, the Jews, and they sought to kill Him “because he had said that God was his own father, making himself equal with God”. I wondered whether the ministry thus as John records has in mind to impress our hearts with the greatness of the Person of Christ.

SMcC Well, it is important that we should see that the greatness of the Person of Christ is to be maintained; therefore care is needed lest we should advance anything that is derogatory to the Person of Christ, because we have to maintain before our hearts and in our thoughts the greatness of who He is - not only who He was, but who He is, because He is unchanged in His Person wherever we view Him. His Person is the same.

WMB Is that borne out by the 9th of Romans - the reference to His coming in flesh and then immediately guarding it, “Who is over all, God blessed for ever”?

SMcC Yes, it is; it is one of the great passages that guards the truth as to the Person of Christ, lest in thinking of the economy and the lowly subordinate place He has come into in the economy we should think less of Him. The Spirit of God desires to guard it in our minds, lest we should have any thought that He is any other than God.

WJB And yet at the same time to hold to the genuineness of His humanity.

SMcC John insists on that, and so it comes out in John 8, “but ye seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you”. And as was referred to earlier, “the holy one of God”, a beautiful allusion to His manhood, especially on the priestly side - what is due to God, because Aaron, as we have often heard, would be brought into our minds as a type of this aspect of Christ.

PJB Would it be right to suggest that the disciples would speak together of Him, so that Peter, when he says “we have believed and known”, was able to speak emphatically because together they had arrived at this conclusion that He was who He was?

SMcC Yes, it is a tribute to their contemplation of the Person - to their observation of Him - what they had gathered up, while others were disaffected in relation to the teaching. Here were ones that were wondrously affected, so that Peter says, “We have believed and known”. Not ‘we have known and believed’, but “we have believed” - the activity of faith which leads us into this knowledge - “and known that thou art the holy one of God”.

EJH Would you say that in a general way the saints today line themselves up with Peter in regard to this very word?

SMcC I would say, from practical observation that in the body of the saints there is a great desire to protect the truth as to the Person of Christ, and it is preserved, we might say, in a living way in the assembly over against the error embodied in dead creeds.

JSE Confirming what you remark as to “the body of the saints”, would not the fact that the apostles are not referred to as such in this narrative help us to see what is to be expected in the last days - that the truth is held in the body of the saints affectionately by the Spirit, and that ministry must come on this line of holiness and affection in the understanding of Christ in the two ways you are suggesting?

SMcC Well, I am sure that is so, and I think we should see the importance of it at this juncture, and then the salutary word the Lord gives over against the attractiveness of progressive knowledge in Peter. John says in verse 70, that “Jesus answered them”. That is, the Lord takes up Peter’s “we” and it says, “Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you the twelve? and of you one is a devil”. Now this is a very humbling and searching matter, and it behoves us to be lowly and sober, and searched in the presence of the truth as the Lord is bringing it forward here. We have not only progressive belief in Peter, and in the twelve in this chapter, but progressive unbelief in those who go away into the drift of apostasy, the full result being seen in Judas.

PHH In regard to the expression “believed and known”, do you think that applies in general to the working of the truth amongst us? Here it is applied specifically to the Person of Christ, but would you think it also applies to the ministry of the truth and the way it is taken on and finds place in the souls of the saints?

SMcC I am sure it does - the importance of subjection. Mr. Stoney stressed that the great basis of spiritual prosperity in our souls was in being subject to the truth as it comes to you. That is a great matter. I was interested the other day in the word that God gave to Ezekiel in chapter 3, verse 10. He says to Ezekiel, “Son of man, all my words which I shall speak unto thee, receive in thy heart, and hear with thine ears”. Now we would have reversed that; we would have said, ‘Hear with thine ears and receive in thy heart’, but God puts the ‘receiving in thy heart’ first, and then ‘hear with thine ears’, showing the importance of the activity of faith and the subjective bearing of faith.

AWGT It is a Berean feature, I suppose.

SMcC It is. We are inclined to treat faith wholly in an objective way, whereas we are to see the subjective bearing of faith.

GAL It says in Acts 16 of Lydia, does it not, “whose heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by Paul”.

SMcC Very good, showing how the heart was the immediate subject of the operation to make way for all that was coming in through Paul’s ministry - a personal operation of the Lord. One has thought recently that we often speak of the Spirit as augmenting the service of Christ, but it is interesting to see how the Lord augments the service of the Spirit. The Spirit is the great power for understanding the truth, for understanding spiritual and divine knowledge. That is a particular feature of His glory. He is the power for apprehension and for knowledge in us. But when we come to the Pauline side, the Lord is brought into it; Paul says to Timothy, “Think of what I say, for the Lord will give thee understanding”. Not the Spirit, but the Lord will give thee understanding. And this passage in Acts 16, the Lord opened the heart of Lydia, “whose heart the Lord opened” - not the Spirit, but the Lord - “to attend unto the things spoken by Paul”.

JSE Is that to keep us balanced in our minds as to the equality both of the Lord and the Spirit in an operational setting?

SMcC Yes, exactly; and how closely they are related and linked in operations in the mediatorial economy, as in 2 Corinthians 3: 17, where it is difficult to discern where one service finishes and the other commences, and who it is that is referred to. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, but where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.”

FCH You have the same feature in the early part of Acts 16, after two references to the Spirit; it is “assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them”?

SMcC Yes. It is interesting to see how the divine Persons are operating together in relation to one another in these matters.

EJB Does the Father come into it too, in verse 45, “They shall be all taught of God, everyone that has heard from the Father himself, and has learned from him”?

SMcC There is a beautiful touch in this chapter in that way as to the Father - as the Lord again says in verse 65, “And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no one can come to me unless it be given to him from the Father”. We want to know the glory of this Person more in the economy, “the Father” - God as known in this Person, how He is operating. The Father is God, the Spirit is God, and the Son is God - let us never think anything different. God is One, involving three Persons, and yet there is the wondrous grace of the economy, “to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things and we for him” (1 Corinthians 8: 6) - God coming in in that way in a system of affections to impress our hearts with what He is. God is love.

PHH I suppose you would hesitate a little, would you, to apply the word Mediator, or mediatorial, to the Father. Christ is called the Mediator, and we can see that the Spirit acts mediatorially. Would you go further than that and apply the term mediatorial to the Father?

SMcC The Father has come within our range in the mediatorial economy; the Lord Himself in the 5th chapter says, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”, the working involving the mediatorial side, but the mediatorial position is set out in the Lord and in the Spirit, the Father remaining in the position of Godhead.

AHn In that connection how far do you think Colossians 1: 12 would go? There it is said, “giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light”.

SMcC What have you in mind as to how far it would go?

AHn Well, I was thinking of the question as to mediatorial operations of the Father.

SMcC Well, it is one thing to see the Father operating and what He is operating in relation to; but, rightly speaking, while He comes within our range in the mediatorial system and in mediatorial operations, the Father is presented to us as God in the economy, “To us there is one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by him”, so that the mediatorial side is rightly linked with the Lord Jesus and with the Holy Spirit.

JSE Do we not have to lay hold of this, that the supremacy marking the Father’s place in the economy in no sense hinders His delight to serve the saints?

SMcC No, it does not. We see how He is operating in this gospel, as we have already been referring to it, operating in affecting souls; but the mediatorial position is seen in the Lord pre-eminently, and the Spirit is acting in accord with that. We could not say the Spirit is the Mediator. Scripture says, “One Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”.

CH Is that not linked up with the suggestion that the Lord has lordship in a sense in a dual way; that is, He had not only lordship as in Godhead but He is made Lord officially?

SMcC It is important that we should see the way it is referred to in 1 Corinthians 8: 6. It says, “yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom all things, and we for him”. Now while God is presented in the Father in the economy, we must not use that passage to eliminate the Lord and the Spirit from the thought of Godhead, because Their place in Godhead abstractly has always to be maintained; while They have come into a subordinate position; Their place in Godhead is always maintained in our minds abstractly, and so it says, “One God, the Father, of whom all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him”. Alluding to His official place, one Lord, He is the one who is made Lord. It does not mean to say that we cannot refer to the Spirit as Lord, or the Father as Lord, because James refers to the Father as Lord, but “one Lord Jesus Christ” is an allusion to His official place in the economy.

JSE And the Lord Jesus addresses the Father as Lord, does He not (Matthew 11: 25)?

SMcC Yes, exactly.

PHH This scripture in 1 Corinthians 8 is not a full description of the economy, is it?

SMcC Because the Spirit is not brought into it?

PHH Yes. But is it Paul’s full answer to the gods many and lords many in the pagan world?

SMcC Well, it is; and I think it is important to see that while the Spirit is not formally mentioned in 1 Corinthians 8. He is involved in what is said. The fact that He is not formally mentioned does not mean to say that He is excluded; faith would understand His place in relation to the economy as stated.

WMB In Ephesians 4 we have perhaps a somewhat similar statement, and each of the three Persons is mentioned, and again the Father is spoken of as Supreme in the economy, would you say that?

SMcC Yes, One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in us all. It is an allusion to the particular place of supremacy that the Father has in the economy; and God, the Supreme Being, to be known and worshipped, in coming within our range as He has, in such an economy, and entering into that relation, has in mind to affect our hearts and souls through that relation in regard of what He is, in all His majesty and supremacy.

JAP You are speaking of how we are affected through the relation of ‘Father’?

SMcC Yes, it is a relation that God has entered upon, a name that He has taken, and the God who has entered into that relation must be greater than the relation He enters upon. We cannot limit Him to any relation that He enters upon, because He is God; He would not be God if we could.

JSE Does the verse in Ephesians 2 compress in a few words what you are saying, “For through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father”? Are not the prepositions ‘through’ and ‘by’ in some sense mediatorial in each case?

SMcC Well, it is, particularly setting out the mediatorial economy that through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father.

AWGT I should like to ask whether, notwithstanding the fact that the Father is supreme in the economy, nevertheless certain things are predicated of Him that He does? He draws to Christ, and makes us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light, so in a certain sense could you say that He comes into the operational side?

SMcC Oh yes. The Father is viewed as operating. The Father is the great supreme governor of the universe. The Lord says “I praise thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth” (Matthew 11: 25).

FWK In 1 Corinthians 12 we have the “same God who operates all things in all”. Is that the same thought?

SMcC Yes, that is God; it is God that is referred to. And it is interesting how that chapter is filled with the thought of the Spirit - what the Spirit does, so that we are always to keep in mind the necessity for being sober, and guarded in referring to the economy, lest we should in any way attempt to put limits on divine Persons. They have come within our range as They have, and our souls adore Them in the light of Their movements, and the positions that They have taken. But we cannot limit Them to positions that They have taken, while we are governed by the light of what They are in these positions.

JSE Is that emphasised in the verse in this chapter 6 as to the Son of man ascending up where He was before? Does that not show that He goes up in the right of His own Person?

SMcC Well, it does, and it is important that the glory of each Person should be preserved with us. One has heard of a statement only yesterday, which I think needs to be guarded, because I believe it is derogatory to the Person of Christ - that Christ is not God to us. Christ is God to us. While it says in 1 Corinthians 8, “to us there is one God, the Father”, that does not mean to eliminate from our minds that Christ is God to us. Who is He God to if He is not God to us? He is not God to the Father or God to the Spirit. When John says “He is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5: 20) he is alluding to what He is to the saints.

EJH Would you therefore support the words that are current amongst us and have been for many years, that He never ceased to be what He was on account of what He became?

SMcC Well, exactly, that is the truth, as stated in that letter of Mr. Raven’s on the person of Christ. We all do well to go over it carefully and read it; we should be helped as to the greatness of the Person - as to the distinctiveness of His Deity, and the distinctiveness of His humanity. It came up in the conflict that raged over the matter of whether there was the union in Him of God and Man.

GAL In Daniel 7 the Son of man is identified with the Ancient of days, is he not?

SMcC He is - a remarkable expression in Daniel, reminding us of the greatness of the Person. One would commend to the brethren the Scriptures in regard to this matter as to Christ’s deity, that we should be careful lest we should make any remarks that would be derogatory to the greatness of His Person as to who He is, for He is always God; He never ceases to be God.

AHn I think you remarked elsewhere, very helpfully, that personally He is God and His condition is man.

SMcC Yes. I was repeating the words of Mr. Raven.

CH Referring to Mr. Raven again: in his lifetime brethren were saying that we could not worship the Lord Jesus because He was man, and the way he met that was by saying that He had lordship in His own right and therefore had a right to be worshipped.

SMcC Well, that came up years ago and had to be met - that we could not worship the Lord as man. That results from a misapprehension as to His Person. He is the same wherever we view Him, unchanged and unchangeable in His Person.

APB Is it noteworthy that both Paul and Peter allude to the Lord Jesus as “our God and Saviour” (Titus 2: 13; 2 Peter 1: 1)?

SMcC It is, and that is an answer to this remark that is gaining currency amongst the brethren, which is not right, that Scripture does not say the Son is God to us, because He is God to the saints.

WSS So the passage in 1 Corinthians 12 says, “there are distinctions of services, and the same Lord”; and before that, “distinctions of gifts, but the same Spirit”, “but the same God who operates”. It is God operating, is it not?

SMcC Showing the assertion of deity in the Spirit. You see, while the economy is presented to us in the way in which it is in 1 Corinthians 8, that God is presented to us in the Father - Deity is presented to us in the Father - we must never forget the balance of the Scripture that fully asserts Deity in the Spirit and Deity in the Son.

WSS I think it was Mr. Darby who pointed out the importance of what is stated in those verses in 1 Corinthians 12: the gifts of the Spirit and the Lord over the services, but the same God operating, God operating whether in the Lord or the Spirit.

SMcC That is it. So that we are to be reminded that behind the economy and behind the Trinity in Their operations in the economy lies this great thought of the Being to be known and adored and worshipped: God - the beginning; and God - the supreme end of all things.

WSS Do you not think what you are now saying is being held, to use your earlier expression, in the body of the saints more than it has ever been held?

SMcC Well, it is, but doubts have been sown in some minds as to whether Mr. Taylor ever countenanced the speaking to God in the light of the three Persons. It was one of his greatest joys in recent years to speak to God in that way, embracing the three Persons; and I think it is remarkable, if one might refer to it, always keeping in mind the full value of the Scriptures and the importance of our minds being garrisoned by the Scriptures in these matters, that in 1935, on July 9th, in London, we had that unique address on the present position of the testimony, where Mr. Taylor alludes to God - not the Father - as the final terminus in the service. One month later, at Eastleigh, Hants, on August 9th, in a reading, the truth was fully gone into, and I think the brethren do well to read Volume 179 carefully and prayerfully, and see how the truth is set out according to the Scriptures in that address and in that reading.

PHH In relation to what was remarked about ‘being’, I was thinking of one of J.N.D.’s footnotes to Hebrews 1: 3: “Who being the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance”. The footnote says, “Clearly ‘substance’, ‘essential being’, not ‘person’. It is of God, not of the Father.” Now is it in your mind that the greatness of the being of the one great eternal God is to permeate all that we are saying about divine Persons?

SMcC Yes, always. Not that we can say much about it, but the blessed Spirit, the power for knowledge and apprehension, affords us in a holy and sober way a certain amount of latitude in thinking of God, so infinite in His majesty, in His Being as He is, yet coming within the range of creature mind and understanding to affect our minds and hearts in regard to Himself. We are reminded in the Scriptures that as far back as we can go “in the beginning” God was there, the great Being to whom we are alluding, involving all three Persons. Their personality distinct even there, we are never to forget that, one Being, but yet the personality of Each as revealed and distinguished in the economy is seen there - “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God”, the preposition ‘with’ in the Greek denoting communicative associations, signifying distinct personality in those conditions. What names or forms the relationships took we cannot say - the form of God is not revealed, but it is important that we should see that one distinct and glorious divine Being in majesty is God - the Deity - yet three Persons, distinct in Their personality.

AJG I suppose the expression “the eternal Spirit” would help as to the separate personality of the Spirit. In the economy He takes the name, or rather in the name of God in the economy He is the Holy Spirit, because it has reference to man, but personally He is the eternal Spirit. Would that be right?

SMcC Exactly. That helps in regard to what we have been saying as to distinct personality.

JAP Would you say a word about “my Father and your Father, my God and your God”, in regard to the way you are speaking now?

SMcC Well, we are going ahead of our subject, but that passage, if we might just allude to it in passing, shows what we have been saying, what we have learned and been taught: that God, not the Father, is the ultimate in assembly service in the worship of God; it is God as God; He has entered into that wondrous relation conveyed in the name Father, so expressive of grace, that we might know Him in the majesty of His being as He is, as God.

JAP And then you would include the Son and the Spirit in your thought of God?

SMcC Yes. When we speak of God as God there is light in our minds as to all three Persons, because abstractly neither the Son nor the Spirit have left Deity.

AJG Hence in that verse which was referred to, “through (Christ) we have access by one Spirit to the Father”, while the access is to the Father, you are in the presence of the operations of the whole Godhead, are you not?

SMcC That is it, and that is what we are to keep in our minds, and also that it is the same in eternal conditions. It says in 1 Corinthians 15, “then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection”. We are to be reminded of what lies behind all that, what is inscrutable to us, that we cannot enter upon, but reminding us of the majesty of the Being with whom we have to do, and who is to be all in all in that scene.

FCH Are these operations connected with the Father in this chapter still proceeding?

SMcC Well, they are, and I think if we are to have the knowledge of John’s God as we were referring to it we need to see the way that John the evangelist presents God as “the Father”. We need to know the way that John refers to the Person of the Father, so that we may be helped in worshipping God.

PHH Do you think the way that the Lord Jesus in John refers to the Father, and the writer refers to the Father from the beginning of the gospel, is to build up our minds and affections in regard of that great Person,

so that we might be set free to go to the length which is in mind in the gospel?

SMcC Yes, I think so, because I think the great bearing of the knowledge of the Father is to help us to know God, that is, what He is in the fullest sense, in all His supremacy and majesty as the Being to be adored and worshipped.

PHH And does that setting liberate us in love and restfulness so that we might be free, so to speak, to explore the divine domain as far as it is made known to us?

SMcC That is the point exactly, all bearing on the activities of the Father and the Son and the Spirit. We have thus an economy devised by divine love in which divine affections are seen so that we should know God according to what He is - as it is said, “God is love”, and that is how we come to know Him. The Trinity always has existed in Oneness, and the economy has been devised by divine love, in order that divine affections might be known, and it is in this way that we are brought to know God, that we have come to God, the judge of all. That involves God in His supremacy.

FCH Would you say a word as to verse 46, “Not that any one has seen the Father, except he who is of God, he has seen the Father”?

SMcC Well, it alludes to what we were saying, that the Father has remained in the inscrutableness of Deity. He has not come into a form such as we see in the Lord Jesus in manhood, but the Lord revealed the Father as He says Himself. We are dependent on the Lord as to our knowledge of the Father.

AHG Referring back to the way the Lord is presented in the gospel of John, would you say that all He is in His own Person is involved in the title “the Son of God”?

SMcC Well, I would rather say in the title “the Son”. “The Son of God” is what He is more as representative of God; “the Son” is the appellation that particularly alludes to His personal greatness and deity.

GAL Does not chapter 5 show that the Son is both Son of God and Son of man?

SMcC Well, exactly, so that the Person is in mind.

AHG What would be the particular bearing of believing on the Son of God? That seems to be the great objective in this gospel, “these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20: 31), and then your scripture in chapter 9 brings us to that point.

SMcC Well, I think that is an important feature of the teaching, because in the Son of God the heart of God is brought near. In “the Word” we have the full unfolding of the mind of God; in “the Son of God” we have the heart of God brought near, because He expresses to us in a unique way divine love.

AJG Does it also convey the thought of supreme dignity in manhood?

SMcC It does. As representing God He has come in on God’s side; as Son of man He has come in on man’s side; but as Son of God He has come in on God’s side, to make God known.

GAL Does it not seem as though the title “the Christ” is the apostolic title for the Son of man? I mean, in the first of Ephesians, for instance, where all things are put under His feet, it is the Christ, is it not, and I was thinking of the scripture just quoted, “That ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”, that it compasses both glories.

SMcC Are you alluding to the fact that we do not get the Son of man in the epistles?

GAL Yes.

SMcC It is very interesting that the Son of man is so much mentioned in the gospels and is mentioned in the Acts, and we have a reference which bears on it in Hebrews, but generally the title is not employed in the epistles. I think “the Christ” represents, as you say, something on that line, that He is the answer to every human hope, whether it be in man generally, or whether it be in Israel, in regard to the whole scope of prophecy; the Christ is the answer to every human hope in the Gentile world and in Israel.

JSE Is that perhaps why Stephen is the only human being who employs the term Son of man, and he does it at the closing down of a limited arena and at the point of opening up an unlimited arena?

SMcC Yes, exactly. You mean in that sense the Son of man is standing linked with the widest and most extended range of things in regard of divine operations?

JSE I wondered if that was why the Spirit impelled Stephen to use that term at that juncture.

SMcC Yes, I am sure it is, because it is a transitional point. The metropolis is being transferred to heaven; it had long been here in Jerusalem, but it is being transferred to heaven, and heaven becomes the great centre of the vast extended operations involving the Gentile world where the assembly is to come peculiarly into view in Paul’s ministry.

PHH It is remarkable what you are saying about the term “the Christ”, and what Mr. L. has raised; in the end of Ephesians 1 the expression is used which belongs to the realm of the Son of man, does it not, “has put all things under his feet”? But I understand you to say that it is in the setting of the Christ. Is it as the Head of the assembly?

SMcC Yes, the anointed man - the Christ. Ephesians makes a good deal of “the Christ” - what He is as anointed and filling out the official position. Everything is headed up in the Christ in the body of that first chapter; it says in regard to what God purposes in Himself, “for the administration of the fulness of times; to head up all things in the Christ”. That involves the same thing as the all things being put under the Son of man.

PHH So later, “He wrought in the Christ in raising him from among the dead”, and then, “He has put all things under his feet” - so that this great sphere where everything is subordinated to the Son of man is now to be viewed relative to Christ and the assembly, and the assembly shares with Him in it?

SMcC That is it. So that John’s ministry in the epistle makes the difference between the Son of God and the Christ, that Jesus is the Christ. In his epistle he does not bring in the Son of man, but alludes to the Christ - which is more the official title, the One who has come in as the answer to every hope both in regard of the race and also in regard to Israel.

AWGT Do you want to go on to the next scripture?

SMcC Well, we might refer to how the man in the 9th of John comes to the knowledge of the Son of God; we are to see how knowledge comes to him. The Jews, I suppose, would rule him out, indeed they did, “They railed at him, and said, Thou art his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses”. And then later down, verse 34, “They answered and said to him, Thou hast been wholly born in sins, and thou teachest us?” That is, they are occupied with the man in an external way; they do not see the mystery linked with the works of God in the man, and the knowledge that he has acquired in regard to this Person that had come into his view.

AHG Would you say a word as to the word of Paul in Ephesians, “Until we all arrive at the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God”?

SMcC Well, do you not think that that is a prime matter, the knowledge of the Son of God? The fact that all the ministry is directed to that end shows what a prime matter it is; it is bound up with the full-grown man and the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ.

EJH Is not the work remarkable in the man’s soul, in that he had never seen the Lord with his natural sight, and yet according to the perfection of the work in him all this has been built into his soul so that he is ready for the communication of the title Son of God?

SMcC Yes, so that we are helped to see the way he arrived at knowledge, the way he was taught through different things, and it is a good example for us as we think of it. He comes under the divine hand, and what progress he makes in knowledge, as this chapter shows, apart from human resources, we might say, apart from external means, he learns well; he reaches the Son of God in his knowledge, who is the centre of another world.

CDL Referring to the matter of the Son involving His personality, as you were mentioning just now, is it not striking that you have all this reference to the knowledge of the Son of God, but as to the Son, no one knows the Son?

SMcC As to His Person, quite. It is well to keep in mind the inscrutability of the Person of Christ, that as to His Person and His abstract place in relation to Deity we do not know. We know how the thought of revelation comes into what He is in manhood as in Matthew 16 and Galatians 1, but that does not in any sense negate what the Lord says, that “no one knows the Son but the Father” (Matthew 11: 27).

JSE Does that not give some emphasis to the Father making use, if I may so say, of His supreme place in the economy to guard the personality of the One who has entered into a mediatorial set of circumstances?

SMcC It does. You are impressed with how divine Persons and Their glory are guarded. There is also the allusion to the Spirit in another relation as to anything that might be said derogatory to Him, how that is guarded; we are reminded thus of the great thought of what is cherubic in the realm of revelation, that which guards the glory of divine Persons.

JLF Would you say a word about the word in Hebrews 1: 8, “As to the Son, Thy throne, O God, is to the age of the age”?

SMcC Well, there is another allusion to the deity of the Son. Alluding to that Person in manhood, while the Son refers to His personal greatness, it is not a name or appellation that can be carried back to describe His relations in pre-incarnate Deity; it is an appellation which bears on Him in manhood, but referring to His personal greatness in manhood.

FCH In Matthew 11 and Luke 10 that statement by the Lord seems to be in the nature of a soliloquy or a musing, does it not? He is not speaking to the Father, and He is not speaking to His own, is He? But is it not a musing or soliloquy in regard of His own Person, how great it is?

SMcC Yes. You notice in Scripture that certain things are said in our hearing at times which are calculated to impress us with the realm that we are in, although God has come so near, and divine Persons as distinguished in Their operations in the economy are so near us; the impression is always left on our minds as to what is beyond us.