2. RELATIONS IN WHICH GOD IS KNOWN - GOD KNOWN IN CHRIST
[p. 406] 2. RELATIONS IN WHICH GOD IS KNOWN - GOD KNOWN IN CHRIST
John 14: 7 - 11; 2 Corinthians 5: 18, 19
JT Our subject now is God known in Christ. This morning it was God known in creation. He not only created the wonderful system of material things, but operates it; vegetable life, human life, and I suppose we may add angelic life. He operates in all, so that He not only places latent power in the soil to cause vegetable life, but He gives, we are told, to the grain of wheat a body as He has pleased (1 Corinthians 15: 38).
SP You are using the word operate in a wider sense than man uses it.
JT It is wider, and the operation of the universe is an immense thought. God “operates all things in all” (1 Corinthians 12: 6), referring no doubt, to His work in the ministry, but the principle also applies to the universe; coming down to the grain of wheat sown in the earth. There are two thoughts; latently there is power in the earth to produce vegetable life, but then God is actually operating. He gives it a body “as he has pleased”. We are told that He caused a gourd to grow to shelter Jonah at Nineveh, and caused a worm to smite it, bringing in animal life to destroy vegetable life. So that He creates good and evil in that sense. It brings the thought of God near to us; most of us think very little of this side of the truth, how God is operating all around us and in ourselves; “in him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17: 28). It is a present operation, and those of us who have taken it into account prove that God is near to us in a physical way; really performing miracles, although they are not obvious to most. He enables us to do what we could not do if left to [p. 407] ourselves.
JS Does God create evil for the showing forth of His power?
JT Yes, evil in the sense of one thing against another, like the worm destroying the gourd. They have to do with God’s discipline. He uses many things in creation and in our own bodies to affect us in a disciplinary way. On the other hand He uses His creation to help us physically. If we are ill, the point is that God Himself is doing it, it is not mere nature, it is God Himself. It brings God very near to us in our everyday life, in food, clothing and shelter. We are with God and He is with us. Our subject this afternoon is to see how He was in Christ. The Lord says, “He that has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14: 9).
CHH Would the word, “ye believe on God” indicate a state that would be initial to what He is about to unfold?
JT Quite so. He had become the object of faith. It is on Him, not in Him; both prepositions are used. “On” is that God has become, in a general sense, the object of faith to believers. The Lord is urging us to believe on Himself, in the same sense.
AR There is that in creation that calls attention to God, but God has come out in a Man.
JT Yes. “He that has seen me has seen the Father”. It is a very wonderful statement. The Lord stresses it by saying, “Am I so long a time with you, and thou has not known me, Philip? He that has seen me has seen the Father; and how sayest thou, Shew us the Father?” John 14: 9. So that in Jesus here below the Father was seen. It is now not simply what is in creation, although that stands, but there is now the revelation of God in Christ; it is what God is in love. The Lord is setting out what is seen. “He that has seen me”. “No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son,
[p. 408] who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1: 18). That is the other side of the matter. The declaration is general, but here it is what is to be seen in Jesus.
Rem He is “the expression of his substance” (Hebrews 1: 3). Is that to be seen?
JT The expression is there even if you do not see it. The point the Lord is making here in John is that he that has seen Him has seen the Father. It is what you see. The Lord would appeal to us as to what we have seen.
HH That is distinct from God being made known in the death of Christ. This is the life of Christ.
JT It is a question of what the Father is. There is that in the death of Christ which enters into it, but this is what the Father is here below, known in a living Person.
ANW “The only-begotten Son ... hath declared”. How does that differ from what may be seen?
JT Declaration is by the Son — more active. Here it is “He that hath seen me”. The declaration is active — a bringing out. According to chapter 14 the Father was there — to be seen in the Son; in His everyday life and ways — what He was doing and saying; all, we may say, was the Father.
HH Would it refer also to unbelievers? The Lord says to the Pharisees, “they have both seen and hated both me and my Father” (John 15: 24).
JT The Lord says, “seen and hated both me and my Father”. This, of course, constituted them sinners. The Father and the Son were before their eyes. What a testimony!
Ques What would be the outcome in my heart if I see Him as spoken of here?
JT That result was portrayed in the apostles and others; they were drawn to Him and He challenged [p. 409] them (John 6: 67 - 69). They were attracted to Him and would not leave Him. What attracted them was the Father too. Their love was begotten by the attractiveness both of the Father and the Son. It has a dual effect, what the Father is to us, and what the Son is to us. “They have both seen and hated both me and my Father”. In the believer the converse is true. We believe and love the Father and the Son.
WW He who honours the Son, honours the Father also.
APT The Lord says, “Children, have ye anything to eat?” (John 21: 5).
JT That is what the Lord Jesus was personally; that is not the Father. The Lord is father in the sense of exercising fatherly care. According to Isaiah 9: 6 He is the “Father of Eternity”. It does not mean the Father in Him, but that He Himself exercises fatherly care in the millennial age. There was fatherly affection for the disciples. It was seen in a lesser degree in Paul and John. In any elder there ought to be fatherly affections. That would not be the Father, but rather your own affection for the saints, for those that may be younger. So that when He says, “Children, have ye anything to eat?” that is the Lord Himself taking up a fatherly attitude towards them. At Emmaus He took the house-father’s place, (see J.N.D.’s note to Luke 24: 30). He would always do that amongst the disciples.
AR Would ‘Father of the age’ (note in New Translation to Isaiah 9: 6) be more what is seen publicly, whereas “the Father” in John relates to the family or what is inside?
JT Father is a family thought, only the Lord is bringing out here that the qualities of the Father had been brought within the range of the disciples, and were seen in Him.
AB Would “I will not leave you orphans” (John 14: 18), bear upon that?
JT That is Christ exercising fatherly qualities. That is not the Father as we are speaking of Him here. “There is one God, the Father” (1 Corinthians 8: 6). His qualities were seen in the Lord Jesus here below.
Ques Is this an advance on John 9: 35 - 38? The thought of belief comes in there and also seeing.
JT In John 9 it is a question of the Son. “Thou, dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Have you found Him and placed your faith in Him? Is He a definite Object for your faith? “Who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?” He is not questioning that the Son of God should be an object of faith. He says, “Who is he?” The Lord says, “Thou hast ... seen him”. The Lord would in such circumstances direct us back to incidents in which we have had to do with Him. This is needful if we are to progress in the knowledge of Himself. No incident in relation to Him is to be allowed to slip. They are all of value. Although it is not stated earlier that the man saw Him when he came back from the pool, he does not question the Lord’s remark that he had seen Him. What was transpiring now must be connected with what had happened at Siloam. The man had been speaking about the Lord to the neighbours and the Jews. All this comes into the question the Lord raised with him; it would bring up the whole matter in the man’s mind. He says, “I believe, Lord”. The Lord gives us to accumulate our history; in our relations with Him, nothing is to be forgotten.
SMcC “He that has seen me has seen the Father”. Is that stronger than representation?
JT It is that the Father was actually there. Of course, God is in christians. In a sense we should always be representatives of God, but believers cannot say that one who has seen them has [p. 411] seen the Father; no one but the Son could say that. It is not only that the Father was in Christ in a general sense, and in all the details of His life. The Father was in Him in a personal sense.
HH “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” John 14: 10.
JT The Lord goes on to say, “The words which I speak to you I do not speak from myself; but the Father who abides in me, he does the works”.
HH It is very interesting to note the word in italics in verse 11 — “Believe me” — it is emphatic.
JT “Am I so long a time with you, and thou hast not known me, Philip? He that has seen me has seen the Father”. The Father Himself was there. “In me” (verse 11), implies that He is a Person great enough for the Father to be in Him. They are equal; the passage teaches His equality with the Father and that the Father was abiding in Him.
McK. Is that seen in John 10: 30 where the Lord says, “I and the Father are one”?
JT That would be more unity. They are not one in the sense we are speaking of now. Oneness is unity. Here they are viewed as two Persons, One in the Other; the Father actually there. There is no suggestion of what is Unitarian; that there is only one divine Person, and the Father is one phase, and the Son another phase. That is bad doctrine. There are three Persons in the Deity. “God is one” (1 Timothy 2: 5), does not mean there is only one Being; there are three Beings, who are in infinite unity. In John 14 the Lord is saying that the Father Himself is actually here: He and I are so thoroughly alike that you see Him in Me. There are three Persons. Bad doctrine that has come down for centuries says, that there is only one Person in the Deity in three phases, The Lord [p. 412] says there are two Persons here before them, Himself and the Father.
JS What is set forth in the Person of the Son is seen here, and then the works He is doing. Would the declaration be bound up with that?
JT Yes, it is. “Declaration” is a word by itself, it refers to what was brought out. It is something He has done. It is not only what you see, but what you hear, that enters into the declaration. There is declaration and then the revelation. The revelation is the veil removed so that you can look at what is there. Declaration is something brought out universally. I may not see it clearly, but it is there; it is a fixed thing in the power of the Spirit. God is there. “The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared [him]”. The whole Deity is involved in the statement; “him” is not there in the original. It is left open. God is declared.
JS “No one has seen God at any time”. It is a statement of fact.
JT Manifestation is what can be seen. That is what we are speaking of. “God has been manifested in flesh, has been justified in the Spirit” (1 Timothy 3: 16). Manifestation was corroborated, or confirmed by the Spirit; and then, “has appeared to angels, ... has been believed on in the world, has been received up in glory”. Seeing and manifestation go together.
JS “Appeared to angels” would be in manhood here.
AR For what reason does the Lord Jesus say, “He that has seen me has seen the Father”?
JT It is to bring the reality of it home to Philip’s mind. They were so shallow. How unobservant we are in meetings, and how little we take in! The Lord says, “I go to prepare you a place ... and ye know the way”. Did they know? “Thomas says to him, Lord, we know not where thou goest,
[p. 413] and how can we know the way?” Thomas had not been taking in what was before his eyes, yet he had been with the Lord a long time. Then “Jesus says to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father unless by me”. Had they discerned that they had come to the Father in the Lord’s movements, in what they had been seeing and hearing? The Lord goes on to say, “If ye had known me, ye would have known also my Father, and henceforth ye know him and have seen him”. That is, you have had Me here all these months and years and you have not been naming what you saw. Why did they not ask the Lord long before, Lord, what is this? The Lord would have told them that it was the Father they could see. Now, the Spirit of God is here, and there are things that are the proof of it. How many of us observe them?
CAM The expression, ‘Thy death hath brought to light the Father’s heart’, is contrary to this thought.
JT We did not think it right to include that hymn in the new book, because the Father’s heart was brought to light before Christ’s death, when the Father said of the Lord Jesus, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”.
WGT God reconciling the world through Christ required the cross.
JT It did. We shall come to that in considering the divine economy. The Father is another matter. It is a question of that Person and how He had an abiding place here in another Person. Who could this Person be but One equal with Himself?
HH Does not divine love enter into what you are saying as to the Father and the Son?
JT Quite so. The Lord Jesus moved in and out amongst the disciples. The Father was here — not [p. 414] simply in heaven as in Matthew, but here in Him to be seen.
ANW Do you mean that as we watch the Lord, we are to distinguish between what might be called the features of the Son and what might be called the features of the Father?
JT There were the features of the Son, filial features in Christ. That would not be the Father, but nevertheless “He that has seen me has seen the Father”.
WB-w “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth” (John 1: 14). Thomas and Philip did not enter into that.
JT Clearly not. Although that is another matter; “an only-begotten with a father”, — two in relation with one Another as distinct Persons. That, I should say, would be wholly spiritual. No one could see the Father in a literal or separate personal sense. He is a Spirit, and to see the Son with the Father required spiritual intuition; it is an intensely spiritual statement. “(And we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth”. This is not what we have been speaking of, the Father seen in the Son. He is actually here, within the range of the disciples, not seen in His essential Being, but in the Son. This is what He is as seen in the qualities blended in the Person of the Son, in this way He is perfectly expressed.
SMcC Is there something distinctive about this that does not come into the present moment, unique to the Lord’s presence corporeally in the world, the Father being in Him in that way? Is there a difference now that He has gone on high?
JT Yes. The Lord Jesus will never be here again as He was then. What has come out remains;
[p. 415] the Father has been actually seen in the Son. It is not going on now, but the fact remains, and the Holy Spirit makes it good to us. We thus are to understand the qualities of the Father.
SMcC In glory shall we see the Father in the same way as He was seen in Christ here, as referred to in the scriptures before us?
JT Yes, only what came out in Christ here was in a contrary scene; in heaven all is perfect. But there is no other way to see the Father save in the Son. There is infinitude, truly beyond the creature, so that we are shut up to what is in Christ, and yet we know there are three Persons.
JW How do you understand verse 20: “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”?
JT That is a question of affections. That is, that He is in the Father’s affections, and we are in His affections, and He is in our affections. We know it now because the Holy Spirit is here; the Spirit would enable us to understand these thoughts.
AR Looking at one Person we see three Persons.
JT You are always conscious that there are Three. Of course you must always keep the Deity before you. We shall come to that in the economy. The Lord is here instructing His disciples that the Father was there before their eyes.
JRH I am “the truth” (verse 6); He Himself is the very thing. “He that has seen me has seen the Father”.
JT “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father unless by me”. You are conscious that He has brought you to the Father. On the other hand, He says, “No one can come to me except the Father who has sent me draw him” (John 6: 44). You are conscious of having to do with three Persons.
JRH [p. 416] Liberating and putting our spirits at rest in the presence of the Father.
JT Yes. We know the three Persons. We are baptised to the Name of the three Persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
CHH What is the meaning of “fulness”. “In him all the fulness ... was pleased to dwell”? Colossians 1: 19.
JT It conveys the thought of the Deity, as in Hebrews 1: 3 the word “greatness” involves Deity.
SMcC What has the Lord in mind when He says, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” (John 14: 10).
JT The basis of all that is affection; affection operating in divine Persons. The Son in the Father and the Father in the Son. There was nothing to interfere with, or modify that; either in Him, or in the Father. It all shows the infinite perfection of the Persons, and the love in unity that is operating. We are dealing with the greatest things, all hinging on the infinite perfection and unity of divine Persons. It would be very difficult to find any correspondence in creation. However much two persons may love each other, there would be some discrepancy, so that the one person is not in the other in fulness of satisfaction, there is some discrepancy in wife or husband, but not in divine Persons. Infinite love is always there.
SMcC You have said elsewhere the Father remains in the inscrutableness of the Deity. How does that fit in with this thought?
JT It would not alter it at all. He remains there in personal distinctness. Divine Persons are always Themselves; the Son in manhood is Himself, the Father in Deity is Himself; They are in each Other. There is no discrepancy. There is infinite affection operating in the two Persons. It is wonderful [p. 417] that all that is within the compass of a Man, and that Man known familiarly as among the disciples here. The more you think of it the more affected you will be.
HH Inscrutability is referred to in Matthew 11: 27. “No one knows the Son but the Father, nor does anyone know the Father, but the Son”.
JT Quite so. The Son is the Revealer of the Father, but the point in John 14 is to bring out that the Father was there.
WGT Does the first part of John 14: 10 signify His equality in Deity, and the latter part His relative position as Son in subjection?
JT That is right; in the latter relation the Father is doing the works in Him. We ought to seek, in restfulness before divine Persons, to see something of the infiniteness of affection, and equality, and of love operating which enables us to see that They are in each Other without discrepancy at all. The Son was here as Revealer, and the Father was seen there, so that He says, “He that has seen me has seen the Father”.
EP Divine Persons have affection between Themselves.
JT The three Persons love each Other. Surely that is a cardinal truth, and They are equal. Any One of the Persons is equal to the Other, viewed abstractly, and in their operations all is in infinite love.
John 13 to 17 would all enter into the moments before His death, and He prolongs what He has to say, because He wants them to know the Father. The Father is uppermost in His mind, and He is bringing the disciples into the knowledge of the Father. We have to apprehend what the Father is. He is there in that Person, the One sitting down at table and eating with [p. 418] the disciples.
WB-w Would that explain the word operating that you use? I have to understand Him operatively.
JT That is the thought. We are to let into our souls the sense of the equality of divine Persons abstractly; the perfection, and infinite love there, as between Themselves; then we shall see how the Son becomes Mediator. The operations are in the Son. John says, “without him not one thing received being”. The same thing remains now, the Son is doing things. The Son is the great Operator, but still the Father is brought into what the Son is doing. He says, “the Father who abides in me, he does the works”.
WB-w “The words which I speak to you I do not speak from myself” (verse 10). Is that operative?
JT Yes; the Son is operating in speaking. The Father enters into it, as I said. We are always in the presence of the three Persons.
CHH In Acts He charges them by the Holy Spirit, another Person.
ANW The verse quoted from Matthew indicates the Father is revealed, but the Son is not.
CAM Would it be right to say of each of the divine Persons, that they dwell “in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6: 16)?
JT Yes, in Their abstract relations. The Son is presented as inscrutable. No one knows Him, but the Father. The Father is revealed, but the fact that God is revealed according to what He is relatively, including fatherhood, does not imply that inscrutability as to Him has ceased, for no one has seen Him, nor can see Him.
SMcC In Ephesians 4: 6 “one God and Father of all, who is over all ... and in us all”. How is He [p. 419] in us?
JT That really belongs to our next reading, God in the economy into which He has come. However, it may be remarked that the passage treats of the three Persons. “One body and one Spirit, as ye have been also called in one hope of your calling;” and then “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”, another circle, a wider circle to which the lordship of Christ applies; then “one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all”. It is God as we have spoken of Him this morning, that is in mind, only it is added that He is in us; in christians.
WB-w Would this matter under consideration give us a better understanding of divine Persons, and make us more intelligent in our worship and in our prayer meetings?
JT Quite so. A brother wrote to me not long since saying that in some of the meetings he attended the Lord Jesus only was addressed in prayer. It is quite clear to me that the Father should have prominence in all our assembly meetings, except the part relating to the Lord’s supper. It is the Lord’s supper, not the Spirit’s or the Father’s. It belongs to the Lord. He is the centre of it, but as regards prayer and all other service we should make the Father pre-eminent.
HH I was going to ask a question as to the thought of absoluteness. Do you connect that with God only, or would you bring in the Father as well?
JT Father is a relative term. All the divine names we have are, I may say, relative. It is a question whether we have any absolute terms, I mean absolute in the sense that they do not convey relations in the Deity with other persons or things.
ANW Immediately we speak of God creating we think of His relation [p. 420] to things.
CHH In the realm of relationship the Lord Himself says, “my Father is greater than I” (John 14: 28).
JT That is a question of the economy again. The economy implies that one of the divine Persons remains in the form of Deity and represents it, whereas the others take the place of obedience. We are speaking now about the Father in Christ, which touches on the economy, but is not the full thought of it. What was here under human and angelic eyes in the incarnation, is our subject now.
“God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5: 19), touches on the economy too, but we shall benefit by just keeping to what was here in incarnation before the cross. It involved the cross, but Paul says that he received the ministry of reconciliation: “how that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”. I thought we would benefit by confining our remarks to how the Father was in Christ here below, as in John 14.
SMcC “All things are of the God who has reconciled us to himself” (2 Corinthians 5: 18). Does that contemplate the present economy?
JT It does. The thought there is to stress that new creation is by the God who has reconciled us. Then we have how He was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ. It is not, God is in Christ but was in Christ, “how that God was in Christ, reconciling”. I think we would profit by confining our remarks to this historic fact, how that the Father was in that Person, and in Him was reconciling the world. John 14 does not say that, but it runs into it. Paul’s reference in 2 Corinthians 5: 17 is more Luke than John. Luke had Paul in mind when he wrote his gospel. We are dealing with what is historic, “how that God was in Christ, reconciling the world”. In John 14 the Lord is telling the disciples that the Father is in Him, but Paul says He has “given to us [p. 421] the ministry of that reconciliation: how that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”. Luke would tell us that the incarnation meant that God was here reconciling the world, that is, He was here telling the universe that He was delighting in a Man, and He wanted every man to be like Him. He was providing the means of this, too — the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
JRH Would you say He was laying the great moral basis for the new creation?
JT Quite so. Think of this great fact. God was in Christ reconciling the world. It is the incarnation that is in mind. It all hinges on the fact of the incarnation, a Man here delightful to God and God present to bring all into that — through redemption.
SMcC In Luke 7: 16 they say, “God has visited his people” and in Luke 9:43, after He comes down from the mount, they were “astonished at the glorious greatness of God”.
JT That is what Luke stresses. In Luke 7, as you mentioned, we get the thing stated in beautiful detail. The point is that God was reconciling the world to Himself. The Lord was invited into the Pharisee’s house, and He sat down to eat, and the woman came in. Now, if we follow I think we shall grasp what is in mind. It was a question of what kind of woman was there; and the kind of person Simon was. The Lord says, “Simon, I have somewhat to say to thee ... . There were two debtors of a certain creditor: one owed five hundred denarii and the other fifty; but as they had nothing to pay, he forgave both of them”(Luke 7: 40 - 42).
That is what the apostle says here, “not reckoning to them their offences” (2 Corinthians 5: 19). God was in Christ. The woman came to see that Jesus had brought the active grace of God to her. She washed His feet with tears, wiped them with the hairs of [p. 422] her head, she anointed His feet with myrrh; in principle she is reconciled. That is the divine idea. She is taking on what is in that Person at the table; what is spread out to the whole universe. God has found an outlet in Christ. He is in Him “reconciling the world to himself”. We are to take on what is in Christ. God will be satisfied with nothing less. Paul says, “putting in us the word of that reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5: 19). It is a question of getting people to value Christ, what was in Christ as Man under God’s eye. God is proposing to bring the world to that. Simon was utterly out of accord with it.
JS John 3: 17 agrees perfectly with that, “that the world may be saved through him”.
JT Quite so. That is the love side, but here it is the Person, the Man under God’s eye. God says, He pleases Me, I am going to bring the whole universe into that. It is an historic fact. God was in Christ to bring all that about.
Rem “The words which I speak to you I do not speak from myself; but the Father who abides in me, he does the works” (John 14: 10), would be in line with Luke.
JT Quite so. When He stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth all were pleased with the words He spoke. If you were there you would like to be like Him and speak like Him. God says, that is what I want. I am in Christ to bring that about.
WGT Paul too is being used to bring in reconciliation.
JT You do get that. Paul is speaking about his own ministry, which he was then exercising, but he speaks in the past tense as calling attention to God being in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. This refers to the Lord here in the flesh. But Paul goes on to say, “and given to us the ministry of that reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5: 18). Reconciliation [p. 423] was there before, but it is now made clear by Paul’s ministry.
AHP It is not exactly by Him, but in Him, in the Lord personally.
JT You have both; in dealing with this truth there are two prepositions in the passage. “Who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ” (verse 18), that is instrumentality, but in verse 19, it is “how that God was in Christ”. That is God is in that position — in Christ — doing the reconciling Himself.
SMcC What particularly have you in mind in stressing what is historical?
JT Well, it is to bring out the incarnation, with redemption in view. The nucleus of all ministry is there. What God found in a Man here, and all ministry is to bring that about in us.
AR I suppose Mary represents it, she was sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus listening to His word (Luke 10: 39). Then we have the man sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind (Luke 8: 35).
JT Yes; they would illustrate what we are speaking of. Luke 7 is most important because of the non-imputation of trespasses. Simon’s sins were not imputed, “he forgave both of them” (Luke 7: 42). Then you would say, they are both forgiven, but are they? We must have state as well as objective truth. The woman represents the state. Who comes into the benefit of that? Only those in whom God wrought. That is, we must have faith.
JS The Lord compelled Simon to make a statement of fact against himself.
JT The final word is faith. The difference in regard of what we are saying between an unconverted man and myself is, that he has not faith, but I have, therefore forgiveness is mine, but not his. You must have faith for forgiveness. God would [p. 424] say, I have nothing in mind for you but Christ. This is My Son, I want you to be like Him. But this necessitated His death, hence it is said, “we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Romans 5: 10).
WB-w The passage, “God was in Christ, reconciling” (2 Corinthians 5: 19), is said to refer to His life, before His death.
JT You must have His death for the ministry, but historically God was there doing this thing. That is the basic thought, what God was doing then. Let us make all we can of the incarnation, of the three and a half years of testimony before the cross. Paul is telling the Corinthians, This is the ministry I have carried on amongst you and others. How God was in Christ reconciling the world, not how God is. As already said, there could not be reconciliation without Christ’s death. Paul was fitted of God to bring it out in its fulness, but the truth of reconciliation was included in the ministry of Christ.
JW “Jesus the Nazaraean, a man borne witness to by God to you by works of power and wonders and signs, which God wrought by him in your midst” (Acts 2: 22). That is a reference to the years of His ministry.
JT Luke shows that Paul’s ministry was confirmed basically in Christ in His ministry here.
JRH Paul says “putting in us the word of that reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5: 19). What does he mean?
JT You have two things there; the ministry of reconciliation and the word of it. The word of reconciliation, opens it up to you. You do not get it fully in the gospels. The gospels confirm the opening up of the truth in Paul’s ministry. The “word” refers to what Paul said and how he said it. This is seen in the epistle to the Romans especially, but also in 2 Corinthians, Colossians and Ephesians. Paul has about twenty salutations in his letter to the [p. 425] Romans. Why does he salute so many people there? He would show the kind of people God is pleased with.
WB-w He speaks of reconciliation in Romans 11: 15, — the world’s reconciliation. Does Paul use the word reconciliation in a different sense there?
JT It is applied to the world there only in a provisional way. God is not condemning them now, not charging them with offences. That is the idea of reconciliation, and that is the attitude of God toward the world now. The world in a gentile sense is in mind. The world is not yet under judgment. God’s attitude toward it is grace.
JW There was a movement from Jerusalem to Antioch. The disciples were first called christians at Antioch.
JT The word christians gives the idea that God was making headway there. They are like Christ. The word is oracular. It is God’s mind that they should be called that. The crowd had been listening for a whole year to Paul and Barnabas in the assembly, Acts 11: 26.