“MY GOD”
P. W. Hickmott
What struck us, among other things, on Lord’s day was the name of the Father as it would be on the lips of Jesus. That is something to think about, and as we grow in our measure in the knowledge of Christ I think it would mean more to us, what the name Father meant to Him.
He also says “My God”, and that has been drawn attention to by a man of God in those outstanding readings on ‘Divine Names’ (J.T. N.S. Vol.50, p.172). He said it on the cross; we can solemnly contemplate that moment when Jesus said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”— His God. Our brother has referred to our God; what a message it was—“I ascend to ... my God and your God”, John 20: 17. Paul could speak of “My God”—“My God shall abundantly supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” Philippians 4: 19. What that would be on Paul’s lips, his God. Then what would it be for us as we take up the name of the Father, or the name of God—what knowledge of God is there in us? Our concern would be whether we are growing in the knowledge of God. Is there a result from our experiences, particularly recent experiences, so that as any one of us takes these wonderful names on our lips a deepening knowledge is conveyed in them?
Is this knowledge growing with us as any one of us says, ‘Father’? It would not reach to Paul’s knowledge, and obviously it would not reach to the knowledge, so perfect, unique, and distinct, in Jesus, but it is open to us to grow in the knowledge of the Father, and to grow in the knowledge of God. We are only beginning, some of us, to reach into positive things, but Oh how much is open to us—the real, practical, and living knowledge of God, so that as we use these names they mean more and more to us.
I thought of this verse in Revelation 3 in particular; it is Christ’s God—“Him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God”. I could not attempt to say much about it, but would just draw attention to it. It is addressed to the overcomer in Philadelphia. This is open to us, without any pretentious claim to be Philadelphia, to be a pillar in the temple of Christ’s God. “And he shall go no more at all out”; I suppose it looks forward to finality in the Lord’s mind, but something of it can be anticipated and experienced by us. Many of us have surrendered so much that has been right, and gone off in an awful diversion, and the shame of it hardly leaves us, but think of going no more at all out. May we be preserved from any more departures from the truth, but rather would we not love to sense something of what is suggested in these verses? It involves the assembly, the temple of Christ’s God, being made a pillar in it, and not going out any more. Think of Jesus writing on us personally “the name of my God”. What an indelible matter that would be, the Lord’s own hand involved in this, writing on the Philadelphian overcomer the name of His God, “and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem”. It would involve more than we can say, something indelible written by Christ Himself that relates to the truth of the assembly; not any mere academic idea of it that we may think we have attained to, but something the Lord would come in and do personally to an overcomer—“the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven, from my God, and my new name”, It is something to think about in connection with this feature of overcoming, that here in this setting we have these three references to “my God”, to Christ’s God.
Well, may we be stimulated as to it, so that rather than being confined and narrowed in the scope of our thinking we may be enlarged as to this immense matter of having to do with Christ, and having to do with His God. May the Lord help us in it, for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Christchurch, N.Z.
18 September 1979