HOW TO ADDRESS THE FATHER
[p. 236] HOW TO ADDRESS THE FATHER
John 16:27; John 17:1; Luke 11:1, 2; 1 Corinthians 4:15; Genesis 17:1 - 6
I have in mind to speak about the Father as the Lord may help, to show how believers are led on to use the appellation “Father” intelligently and feelingly, with the affection proper to the relation; and, first, I may remark, dear brethren, that we have to learn everything from Christ, even to the smallest detail of our Christian knowledge, but especially how to speak to the Father. The Lord teaches us how to learn. He says in spirit by the prophet, that the Lord God had given him “the tongue of the instructed”, (Isaiah 50:4), which means the tongue of one learning, the tongue of a disciple, as you will see by the marginal reference in the chapter to which I refer. We are looked upon very much as learners. As believers we are regarded as instructed, not only as having acquired knowledge, but as having intuitive ability to learn; an important matter, because the natural mind is quite incapable of divine instruction.
In the work of God in a man or woman at conversion, there is introduced an element capable of instruction. The Lord said, “Ye must be born again”, John 3:7, that is, born anew throughout, so that an element is introduced, among many others, of ability to learn. Without this we may study and labour to learn, but we shall miss what is spiritual, and be obliged to have recourse to creeds and catechisms and formulas of service, which are devoid of life. It is the living that praise God, as Hezekiah learned: “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day”, Isaiah 38:19. They have ability to take part in divine service, knowing how to speak to God feelingly and yet intelligently, in the energy of love. They have learned from Christ. Here I may note that while the disciples called the Lord Jesus “the Teacher and the Lord”, John 13:13, He said, “the Lord and the Teacher”, (verse 14). He transposed the words, for aside from the recognition of the lordship of Christ, His authority, we do not come in for the teaching. It is subject ones who are taught; as Paul says to the Romans, “ye ... have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed”, (chapter 6:17). They obeyed not only the teaching substantially, but the form in which it was presented. We have to learn everything from Christ; and we learn now through the Spirit, and this involves even the “form” of teaching. Creeds do not follow those lines however well meant. The apostle Paul directed his son Timothy to have an outline of sound words, such as he had heard from him, and they were to be held in faith and love; not in mere routine, but “in faith and love”, (2 Timothy 1:13); thus we are instructed.
I stress this, because of the importance of teaching, not only as to what is essentially right, but what is right in form. Indeed, it was said approvingly of believers in the days of the apostles that “they persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles”, (Acts 2:42). There was an authority that was not to be questioned in the apostles’ doctrine, and they persevered in it. The use of the word “persevered” would indicate what great opposition there was, for the Sadducees, Pharisees, and learned men, would seek to turn the disciples away from what the apostles taught — but there was perseverance in it; and there is need of perseverance today, so that the teaching may be preserved as it has been delivered to us.
As I said, we have to learn from Christ how to speak to the Father. We have to learn everything from Him. Much that you find in Scripture, especially in Matthew, would lead us on the line of persistence and perseverance against opposition. The Lord went up to the mountain and sat down, and His disciples came to Him up on the mount. That implies that there was definite purpose [p. 238] to learn, and readiness to sacrifice to do it. “And he opened his mouth and taught”, Matthew 5:2. He taught: I do not know anything of much more importance, specially to young ones, than that we should understand that in the things of God, it is imperative to learn everything from Christ.
The apostles rightly called Him “Teacher”. Indeed, I think they called Him “Teacher” much more frequently than they called Him “Lord”, which would indicate that they were more apt to learn, than they were to be subject; but subjection must precede the spirit of learning. If I am not subject, I may be learning here and there, but I am missing much for I am not in the right spirit. They called Him “the Teacher and the Lord”, whereas He said “the Lord and the Teacher”.
Coming back to the thought of instruction, I wish briefly to suggest that we have in the two men of whom I have read — Abraham and Paul — the manner and principles that mark fatherhood; this is in view of our saying “Father” to Him who is supreme. If I grasp the thought of fatherhood, I shall then know how to address Him who is God and Father. You all remember that in 1 Corinthians 15:28 it is said that “when all things shall have been brought into subjection to him, then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him who put all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all”. The thought of subjection has been fully set out and it remains; the Lord Jesus will hold that position in grace. We see it throughout from the moment He became man; it was ever there in perfection; but we shall see it at the end without anything to dim our vision, a Man as he should be before God, and we shall see a Son as he is before God.
In Abraham we have two thoughts as to fatherhood; the first as set forth in his primary name which is Abram, signifying “high father” or “father of elevation”. That word elevation is an important word amongst Christians if they consider the meaning of it in a moral [p. 239] sense. It can only be found today where the Spirit of God is owned. There is no moral elevation elsewhere on earth. It emanates from God. He is the Most High — that is one of His names; it is a relative name like all the other names of God in Scripture; “Most High” implies great elevation. So in Luke we have “Glory to God in the highest”(Luke 2:14). The word “highest” there is plural, denoting the fulness of the thought, and possible varieties in it; but “Glory to God in the highest”(Luke 2:14). Is what the multitude of angels who appeared to the shepherds said. They were thinking of elevation; and so, throughout Luke you have this thought of “the highest”. We read of the multitude of the disciples speaking thus also; showing how they were learning.
In Luke 19 we have a multitude — not of angels but of men — celebrating the King who rode upon the colt into Jerusalem. It was an auspicious moment, and, as ever, opposition was there, for the Pharisees said, “Master, rebuke thy disciples”. Will the Lord rebuke His disciples at the behest of these opposers? No, He says, “If these shall be silent, the stones will cry out!”(Luke 19:39,40) It was not such praise as a crowd ordinarily would give, but in intelligence, for they were celebrating peace in heaven, and glory in the highest; they did not say peace on earth, as the angels did, they had come under the teaching of the Lord. Peace on earth was deferred, Christ being rejected; this the disciples evidently understood, and so they say “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest!”(Luke 19:38) In chapter 24, the Lord says to them — “tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high”, Luke 24:49.
I refer to all that because of the name Abram as so given at the first; there was in it the idea of moral elevation, and you cannot really have “Abraham” until you have “Abram”; that is to say, he is only thus morally suitable to increase the stock, for degradation must follow the introduction or bringing in of children, unless the moral elevation is already present. I speak [p. 240] practically; it is essential in fathers that there should be moral elevation, or their offspring will be degraded; not indeed such elevation as men claim in the social scale, but elevation according to God. It came out in the patriarch, and so God appeared to him when he was “ninety years old and nine”. Genesis 17. It will be noted that he had been fully tested, and God regards him according to His own knowledge of him, as He said later, “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him”. (Genesis 18:19). He was ninety years old and nine when the Lord appeared to him. One is assured there are fathers here; one has been speaking to mothers lately for there is great need of mothering, but there is also great need of fathering. If moral elevation is in evidence, there will be a divine appearing, or something akin to it, for God loves to confirm the fruits of His work in us, and to enlarge us. Indeed, Abraham signifies enlargement.
In this appearing God says to him “It is I”, Genesis 17:4. How condescending in the blessed God to come down and say to you or to me “It is I!” So in the passage in John 16, the Lord says, “The Father himself loveth you”. He would impress this upon us, that it is not only a question of sovereign love, but of qualities in us, for God loves to honour those qualities. We are loved because of the love that is begotten in our hearts by Jesus — “for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me”. So God could say to Abram “It is I”. In the same chapter we have the account that the Lord left off speaking with Abraham and went up from him, verse 22. In the next chapter we are told that the conversation ended, and Jehovah went His way, and Abraham returned to his place; but in chapter 17, this chapter of elevation and increase, Jehovah went up. That is the principle, it is going up; it is a question of what is up there. What an impression that would have left on Abraham, as Jehovah ceased to speak! And then what you find is that Abraham carried [p. 241] out to the letter the divine will. I speak of it because it enters very much into fatherhood as in the saints, and into how this is apprehended in God. All the men in His house were circumcised the selfsame day. Thus God left him and went up, leaving the great thought of moral elevation and multiplication, all to be based on the setting aside of the flesh and the recognition of the Spirit. There can be nothing for God apart from the Spirit. Circumcision has no force save in the presence of the almightiness of God, which is stressed in our chapter, and the almightiness of God for us is in the Spirit now. God down here in the Spirit is the power that worketh in us. So that as the will of God is carried out in circumcision, there will be fruitfulness for God, through the mighty power of His Spirit.
In chapter 18, Jehovah comes back in that beautiful and touching scene at Mamre. You see how the principle of fatherhood was working out, and how in due course the son came — Isaac came — God infallibly fulfilling His promise, and now Abraham is viewed as a father according to the mind of God, one who will “command his children and his household after him”, (verse 19).
In Paul we have the same thought carried out. It is a question of the will of God. There could be no fatherhood apart from God, apart from the maintenance of the will of God; so the apostle says “For though ye have ten thousand instructors” — Christendom is full of these. I have no doubt prophetically the allusion is to the multitude of so-called teachers that has marked the general profession — persons known reverentially as such. But what about the fathers? There are many fathers too, by name. The Lord would keep these things in their proper relation when He said “Call no man your father upon the earth”(Matthew 23:9) and even as to teaching they were not to be called Rabbi, for “one is your instructor, and all ye are brethren” (Matthew 23:8). He would thus keep the thought within its limits. But the fatherly quality is to be among us.
[p. 242] The Corinthians were laying themselves out for multiplicity of teachers. There was a great scramble for the title in those days evidently, as there is now. We have to be on our guard against it, dear brethren. “All ye are brethren”, Matthew 23:8. Of course a man is what he is, and if God gives him ability, the brethren will own it, but the relation of brother is greater than that of teacher. The brother will remain, but the teacher will end. So the apostle says, “though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you”. You see how the thought was there, authoritativeness bound up with the affections of a father. Authority is most easily accepted when it is in a father, and that is where God has placed it. I mean that is where He has placed authority, for the thing was seen in Paul’s ministry and believers came under his influence in this way — he was a father. So he says, “O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged”, (2 Corinthians 6:11). “I speak as unto my children”, 2 Corinthians 6:13. That is what they were, they could not deny it, they were his children in the faith. “Now for a recompense in the same ... be ye also enlarged. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers”, (verses 13 - 14). What counsel from a father! It is a word for fathers as to how to instruct their children lest they place them alongside unbelievers to their hurt. So he proceeds to point out what is destructive to Christians, and hence what a father in the true sense would prevent in the saints — evil association, alliances with the world in whatever form. Hence, he ends up the passage “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”, (verses 17 - 18). You see how Paul transfers the thought from himself to God. I cannot transpose a thought from myself to God, save as I have already [p. 243] obtained it from God. What goes back to God must emanate from God. Paul’s fatherhood amongst the saints emanated from God, and it went back to God.
That is the principle of circulation. From God to me and from me to God, so that the saints are marked by holiness and enlargement, separation marking them in their refusal of unholy alliances, and thus we come in for the Fatherhood of God even as to our circumstances down here. “I ... will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”, 2 Corinthians 6:18. What could we wish more, even in our ordinary affairs, than the Fatherhood of such a God, Jehovah Almighty!
Now I shall revert to what I was saying as to learning from Christ. In these two men, Abraham and Paul, I believe, we have set out the true principle of fatherhood, in moral elevation and authority in love. Then we are led on as the instructed, we are led on to speak to God as Father. And so in Luke, we have the idea of form, of how things should be done. The Lord was praying, we are told, “in a certain place”, showing that the idea of place enters it. One might say, What does that matter, but Luke by the Spirit says, “In a certain place”. I have to ask myself as to whether He could come to pray where I am specially responsible? And then I should enquire how He would do it. The Lord would have in mind the place and the manner in which we would pray. I have to think of that. The disciple said, “Lord, teach us to pray”. I mention this, though well known to most of us, because it enters into this stage of learning — how to speak to God as Father. This disciple evidently heard the Lord speaking, or saw Him — both things I suppose enter into this scripture; and one pauses here to consider the holiness of the ground occupied by this disciple at this time. The Lord is never said to have prayed with the disciples; He prayed by Himself and He also prayed within their vision and hearing, so that they might see Him or hear [p. 244] Him; and I believe if each of us were to see and hear what this disciple saw and heard at this particular place, we would also say “Lord, teach us to pray”. With no exception, we should feel that after all our prayers are very poor; the words may be suitable enough, but the manner, the feeling, the liberty that belonged to the Son of God here — we should feel that our prayers are very small indeed in the presence of it. I am not speaking for others only, I am speaking for myself also — as one thinks of all that was there, as John says, “we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”, John 1:14. Viewed thus He is ever alone, but He is ever to be contemplated and learned from.
The Lord immediately answers the disciple’s question, “When ye pray say. Father, thy name be hallowed” — that is to say, let it be detached from all things that would defile or detract from it. How important that is! “Thy name be hallowed”, and so in John 17, the Lord was labouring, as shown in John 13 to 17, to lead the disciples into the current of His mind. He was going to the Father, and He would lead them in that direction, even going as far as to say, “And in that day ye shall demand nothing of me”, (chapter 16:23). You will begin your conversation or your prayer with “Father”! You will ask Him direct. They were very slow, I believe, in getting on to that line, and we are slow too. So He goes on to say, “for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me”. Now that is to set your hearts — that is our hearts — free with His Father Himself. He loves us because we love Jesus, because we love the Son; “because”. He says, “ye have loved me and have believed that I came out from God”, (chapter 16:27). Apparently He could say this now; they were gradually coming to it, that He had come out from the Father. He had earlier said, “none of you asketh me. Whither goest thou”, (chapter 16:5). They were not thinking in that current. He had said, “If ye loved me ye would rejoice because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I”, (John 14:28). He was so insistent to lead them on to the line He was on, as going out of the world to the Father, and that they should have part with him there. “His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly”, (John 16:29), but that was because their minds were becoming cleared. That was the secret of it.
What an unfolding there was on that great occasion! The full knowledge of the Father was being unfolded to them. He says, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then. Show us the Father?” (John 14:9). The Father was there. It was not a question of His inscrutable form and essence, but of what He was in character as revealed in the Son before the eyes of the disciples.
That is the line at the moment — to lead us into the Way — the manner in which He said all these things; and now He lifts His eyes to heaven and says “Father”! Would Peter and John ever forget that? They would never forget the way the Lord said “Father”, and the way in which the Lord lifted up His eyes to heaven. That is what I had in mind, that we might see how He would lead us on to the Father, so as to know how to speak to Him. It is a question of instruction. It is true the Spirit in us cries “Abba, Father”, (Galatians 4:6). In Galatians you get the most initial thought, and in Romans 8 we cry “Abba, Father” by the Spirit, (verse 15); but all these instructions I am speaking of necessarily enter into it, so that we might have a right understanding of the Father, and a right way of speaking to Him.
I do not go on to chapter 20 of John because it is not necessary to go further in regard to what has been before us at this time. What I have sought to show is the way in which we are led on in the knowledge of [p. 246] the Father, as following in the current of the Lord’s own instructions to His own at the last Supper, according to John’s account: as Himself departing out of the world to the Father, He would lead them out of the world in their minds and affections to the Father.
You can understand how they would, after all the instruction He gave them, be affected as they saw Him lift up His eyes to heaven and speak to the Father. “Jesus spoke, and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said. Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee: as thou hast given him authority over all flesh, that as to all that thou hast given to him, he should give them life eternal. And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”. And again He goes on to say: “And now glorify me, thou Father, along with thyself, with the glory which I had along with thee before the world was”, John 17:1 - 3; John 17:5. What words these are! How they conduct us, as we are capable of being conducted, into that realm where He is, and where the Father is known!