EXTRACT – WHAT WE GET IN PRIVATE

We ought to think much of heaven as our present place, not only that we are going there. The more we accept that we are at the present moment citizens of heaven, the more we shall be characterised by what is heavenly. Publicly the Lord is rejected. What marks this section of the gospel is privacy: "having turned to the disciples privately", verse 23. The Lord said these things privately. What we get here we cannot get by the preaching or by the ministry of the word; it is a matter of what is personal and private. The Lord withdrew their hearts into the region of His own joy. There was a region of unalloyed joy to the Lord, and it formed His praises. On this occasion we are permitted to hear the Son speaking to the Father – what an immense interest to us! There is a holy character and sweetness about it that does not attach to anything else. There is a private scene too in John 17: the Lord is with His loved ones, and He opens His heart freely, and in their presence speaks to His Father. The trouble is that so many of us live on what is public or on what we hear ministered in the gospel or in teaching, but we do not get revelation that way. Here we have the region where the Father is acting; we have the activities of the Father and the Son. There is no other movement of any kind; we are outside the region of evil altogether. The Father is praised because He has hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes, so one would be sorry to be wise and prudent. There is the direct action of the Father and the Son in personal revelation. This is a blessed retreat. Even if we could do works of power there is something far better, the favour of having a personal revelation.

C.A. Coates ‘Outline of Luke’s Gospel’ p.124