John 15:15.
The revelation of God the Father awaited the coming of the Son into the world. In the Old Testament times God had been known as the Almighty and as Jehovah, but the relationships in the Godhead of Father, Sop and Holy Spirit could not then be disclosed. Malachi had written, "Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us?" But even if the prophet had God in his mind when he spoke of "father" it would only be in the sense of originator. It is more likely that he was thinking of their natural progenitor, Israel. Again, God said to David concerning Solomon, as a type of the Lord Jesus, "I will be to him for father, and he shall be to me for son"; but it must be plain to any intelligent reader that this has nothing to do with the revelation of God as Father; it is simply the expression of God's affection for Solomon and the assurance of His great interest in him.
When Jesus, at the age of twelve, said to His parents, "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business," it must have been an enigma to them, even as it says, "They understood not the saying which He spake unto them": but "His mother kept all these sayings in her heart"; and the time came when, having received, with His disciples, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of sonship, she would be able to cry with all His own, "Abba, Father," and enter into the meaning of what Jesus had said so long before.
Whatever John the Baptist, and his disciples, might learn from the voice that came from heaven declaring, "Thou art my beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased"; we now know that it was the Father's voice, as also when the voice from the excellent glory on the Holy Mount spoke, saying, "This is My beloved Son: hear Him." It was the Father's pleasure to declare the relationship in which Jesus stood to Him, even as it was the pleasure of the Son to make known the Father. It was when Jesus had been rejected. His mighty words having been refused as a testimony to Him by the cities of Galilee, that He said, "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him" (Matt. 11:27).
That the revelation of the Father was an entirely new thing is made perfectly plain in John's Gospel, where, in chapter 1 it is recorded, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1:18). Although God made himself known to Abraham as Almighty, and to Israel as Jehovah, God still remained in the thick darkness unrevealed, only the Son who dwells in the Father's bosom could make the Father known. When "Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel … saw the God of Israel" (Ex. 24:9-10); it was not as now revealed in Jesus, but in relation to the giving of the law.
This is the dwelling place of the Only-begotten Son. His own unique place, that which He alone has known from all eternity; and knowing the deep affections of the Father's heart, and all the thoughts belonging to the Father's love, the Son was competent to make Him known. If the Son dwells in the bosom of the Father it reveals to us that the Father has affections, and that the Son is enshrined in them. Though in this world, and having left all the glory connected with His place in heaven, He had not left His place in the bosom of the Father. His making God known is connected in this Scripture with His place in the Father's love; for it is as knowing eternally those deep affections that He can speak to men of the Father.
But the Son had not only come to tell of His own place with the Father, but to make known the thoughts of the Father, to tell out the Father's grace to men, and to unfold to His own the counsels of the Father for their eternal blessing in association with Himself and in relationship with the Father. In John's 1st Epistle he writes, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God." It was not until the Son came that they could take their place as God's children. The Old Testament saints were God's children, but they had not the knowledge of this blessed relationship; it could only be known when the Father's Name was made known by the Son, and to those who believed in His Name.
In the Synoptic Gospels there is recorded the declaration of the Father's love for His Son, and His pleasure in Him, at the waters of baptism, and from the glory mount; but in John's Gospel we read, "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand"; and "For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth" (John 3:35; John 5:20). All that the Father hath determined to do for the glory and pleasure of the Godhead He has entrusted to the Son in Manhood, and this expresses His love for and His confidence in His beloved Son.
There was everything in the Son to draw out the Father's love, not only in His eternal relationship with Him, but also in Manhood, even as Jesus said, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again" (John 10:17). He had come into the place of obedience and subjection to the Father to accomplish all His will, and how perfectly He had glorified Him in His every step.
But the affections of His own were drawn out to the Son also, and this brought them into a special place in the Father's affections, even as it is written, "For the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God" (John 16:27). This is not the sovereign love of God to sinners, but the complacent love of a Father for His children, who had given Him reason to love them because of their love for and faith in His Son.
We might naturally have thought that the Son of God would have spoken to this poor Samaritan woman of John 4 of the necessity for new birth, and to the learned teacher of Israel, Nicodemus, of the worship of God, but those divinely taught discern in the Lord's dealings with these the perfections of His wisdom and ways. Religious men, who worship God according to the flesh, must needs realise that God has set aside what is after the flesh, and only that which is spiritual is acceptable with Him. Man in the flesh, and all religious worship connected with him, have gone for ever from before God in the death of Christ; and any who desire to enter God's kingdom, and to be pleasing to Him in any way, must be born again. And it was from among such as the Woman of Sychar that God was procuring those who would worship Him in spirit and in truth.
It was this lonely woman who raised with the Lord the subject of worship, and very graciously. He takes it up with her. He did not repel her, but having exposed her to herself, and made her conscious that He knew every moment of her life, and the deepest recesses of her heart, He then accepts her leading thoughts on worship, and answers them so wonderfully for her instruction and for ours. She did not speak of worship to shield herself from the penetrating gaze of this heavenly Stranger, for although thoroughly exposed she could still remain in the presence of One who had brought the Father's grace near to her as well as truth. She was doubtless desirous of worshipping God, and was genuinely perplexed with the diverse claims of Jerusalem and Gerizim, in spite of all that she was and had been.
How astonishing, but yet enlightening for her soul, to learn that God was about to introduce something entirely new. Even Jerusalem, which the Lord still acknowledged as having His Father's House, would be set aside, but not in favour of any other earthly centre. The Jewish system had been set up by God, and many had worshipped God there in obedience to His commandment, and as seeking His glory; but the Samaritan worship was in ignorance of the true God. Although Jerusalem would be set aside for the time being, this would not be until the salvation of God had come in the Person of His Son, who, after the flesh, was a Jew.
The true worshippers would worship in the light of the revelation of the Father brought by the Son, and they would worship in spirit and in truth. All that belonged to the ritual of the Jewish economy had served its purpose; it was a religion in which Jehovah was dealing with man in the flesh; but now that the Son had come and made the Father known, worship consonant with that revelation was necessary to gratify the heart of God. Jehovah indeed had desired His people Israel to answer to His commandments, and He had pleasure in them when there was genuine faith in Him, but now what belonged to the natural senses, the material sacrifices, the priestly caste, the beautiful garments, the sweet music, the grand buildings, and everything pertaining to that order, all that appealed to the first man, was to be done away, and in its place was worship in spirit. Spiritual worship could only proceed from the spirit that was in communion with God, and such received the revelation of the Father brought by the Son.
Worship in truth is worship that springs from hearts that know God, and that know God as Father. It demands both the knowledge of the true God and also the state of heart that answers to the truth that has been received. The formal worship of Christendom, with its imitation of Judaism, is neither worship in spirit nor in truth. If God has set aside what He Himself gave to Israel, will He have any pleasure in what is a spurious imitation of it?
Worship in spirit is when our hearts outpour to God our adoration and praise as we realise who He is, what He is, and what He has done. True believers delight to worship God in this way; God Himself, as known in the Son, being before them. Each thought of Him bows the spirit in worship, thankfulness and holy delight. We know God in His nature of love, and as having received from Him the divine nature, we are able to apprehend what is pleasing to Him. Moreover, we have received the Holy Spirit, who is the divine power for worship, so that while worship is from our spirits it is worship by the Spirit of God (Phil. 3:3).
When the Jews complained about Jesus healing the lame man of Bethesda on the sabbath, His answer was, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" (John 5:17). The rest of God, after His work in the six days of Genesis 1, was rudely broken by the entry of sin into the world; but God began afresh to work with another world in view into which sin and Satan could not come, and in which He would rest for evermore. It was with this new creation scene before Him that the Son of God was found as a workman in this world. He had come to give effect to all that was in His Father's mind, and toiled with this before Him. How could the Father and the Son rest when the fair creation was marred by the foul stain of sin, when the world was filled with falsehood, violence and corruption, and hatred towards his creator marked the creature of God's hand?
The grace of the Father was manifested in all the works of the Son, His works being those which the Father gave Him to finish, and which bore witness that the Father had sent Him (verse 36). What had been wrought in the lame man indicated God's attitude to men, and was the precursor of "greater works" that would make the Jews marvel, "For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will" (verse 20, 21). It was impossible for the Son to act independently of the Father because of their essential unity in nature, being and purpose, and because the Son in Manhood had come to express all that the Father was in His nature and disposition in grace towards men.
The raising up of the dead by the Father clearly indicated that the new world for which He was working was a resurrection world, and His quickening of the dead manifested that He was giving a new kind of life to those who should inhabit the resurrection world. This new life was communicated by the Son, whose will it was to do His Father's will. How wonderful all this is! From the ruins of the first creation God is bringing, in new creation, that which will be for His complete satisfaction, and His eternal joy. We already have received from the Father the new nature and the new life, and soon we shall have the new bodies to enter His House above, and the eternal scene where all things are new.
God could have blasted His old creation works into oblivion, and started afresh with an altogether new order; but this could not have procured the mighty triumph of His grace that is already in evidence, and soon will be displayed before the whole universe, in those who once were sinners far from Him, rebels and at enmity with Him, but now brought nigh through the work of His Son, and able to respond to His thoughts of love in the nature His grace has given them, and in the eternal life in which they have been brought into relationship and communion with Him.
The attentive reader must be struck by the number of times the Name of the Father is found on the lips of the Son in John's Gospel, and the reason for this is clear. John is taken up by the Holy Spirit to bring before us the revelation of the Father in the Son. In John 14 the Lord said to Thomas, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me; if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him." Then answering Philip He said, "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 14:7-9). The Son expressed the Father in all that He was in Person, in all His words and in all His works. The Father is exactly what was seen and heard in Jesus.
Although in John's Gospel there is no account given of the Father's voice being heard when Jesus was baptized or when He was on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Lord refers to the former, it would seem, in John 5:37. "The Father Himself" had spoken from heaven calling attention to His "Beloved Son." What pleasure the presence of the Son on earth must have brought to the Father! Here, where every other man had dishonoured Him, was One who lived only for Him, bringing glory to His Name by the perfection of His obedience, the manifestation of His own life and nature, the display of His grace to men, and in choosing to suffer rather than deviate in the slightest degree from the path of His will. Is it any wonder that the Father testified from heaven as to whom Jesus was, and to the pleasure He found in Him in this world?
But the Father's voice was heard again, not now when Jesus is fulfilling all righteousness by being baptized, or when He is resplendent on the Holy Mount, but when the Son says, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy Name" (John 12:27-28). The cross lies heavily upon the Spirit of Jesus, who knows well all that it will mean for Him, but the one thing that controls Him while anticipating the dread hour that is before Him is the Father's glory. At all costs the Father's glory must be secured.
The voice from heaven, the Father's voice, answers with delight to the request of the Son with the words, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." In the resurrection of Lazarus the Son had glorified the Father's Name, for had not the Son turned to the Father as He was about to raise Lazarus, saying, "Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me … that they may believe that Thou hast sent me." And the Father would again glorify His Name in raising His Son from among the dead. He would not only be raised for the glory of the Father, but also by "the glory of the Father" (Romans 6:4).
After speaking to the woman of Sychar, the Lord in answer to the request of His disciples that He should eat said, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work" (John 4:34). Although it was the Son's divine prerogative to exercise His will, as having come into Manhood He took the place belonging to man, of subjection to His Father's will. He found His sustenance and pleasure in carrying out the will of His Father, and He had been just making known His Father's will in relation to worship. What joy there was for the Son in bringing the Father's grace to sinners, and what joy for the Father in beholding His Son making His will known and fulfilling it.
In chapter 6 the Lord says, "For I am come down from heaven, not that 1 should do my will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the will of Him that has sent me, that of all that He has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up in the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son, and believes on Him, should have life eternal; and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:38-40).
The Son had come down from heaven of His own volition, and yet He was the Sent One of the Father. It was the Son's will to come, but to do His Father's will. Not that there was anything different about the will of the Son and the will of the Father, but the Son had come to reveal the Father and to make known in everything what the Father desired to do. Only in the place of absolute subjection and obedience could the Father's will be manifested and accomplished, and the Son undertook to be found here in this place.
But the Father's will was bound up in the Son to whom He had committed all, and the Son would not fail in anything He had undertaken for the Father. Nothing given to the Son would be lost, and although it was not evident, even to the disciples, that all was in His hand, it would yet be evident to the whole creation when it was raised up with Him in the last day. The Son had not come to establish anything connected with man after the flesh, all that was to be set aside in His death, and all that the Father had given Him was to be brought on to the risen side of death. He had refused the kingdom from Satan, and was about to refuse it from those who only desired the present benefits of His power (6:15), but He would have it in resurrection from the hand of the Father, and be displayed in glory in the last day.
It was also the Father's will to bless men, those who discerned that Jesus was the Son of God, and believed in Him. Even in this world they would have eternal life, God's gift to them in the Son, and the Son would raise them up with all His own to have part with Him in the glory of His coming kingdom. He would lose nothing of all given to Him, and of those given to Him; and even before His death, He could say, "Of them which Thou gavest me have I lost none" (John 18:9). The will of the Father will assuredly be accomplished in all things, both now and for eternity.
It is surpassing wonderful that the Son should be found in circumstances where He receives from the Father that which belongs to Him in His own rights, but this was involved in His becoming Man. All things were created by the Son, yet, as Man, all things had been given into His hand by the Father (John 3:35). The Son is the originator of life, and in Him was life inherently, but as Man the Father hath given "to the Son to have life in Himself" (John 5:26); and the Father "hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is Son of Man" (John 5:27).
In John 6:37 it is written, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me," and this may refer both to the things that have been given to the Son and also to the men which the Father has given Him out of the world. Of the things the Father has given to Him the Son says to the Father in John 17:7, "Now they have known that all things whatsoever Thou hast given me are of Thee." And much of that wonderful prayer is concerned with the men the Father gave to the Son out of the world.
The sheep that the Son receives, in chapter 10, are given to Him by the Father, as is also the commandment which brings eternal life in the words He speaks; and the glory that He had acquired through His death, in which His own shall share, He is given by the Father (17:22). Even the glory that He had with the Father before the world was, He receives as Man risen from the dead from the Father, and though His own cannot have part in this, the Son desires that they might be with Him in the Father's House to behold that glory, the glory of His eternal sonship, which marks Him as the loved object of the Father in eternity.
But there is not only that which is given to the Son by the Father, but also what the Father gives to those who believe on His Son. Moses, as a servant of Jehovah, had told Israel of His provision for them in the manna, but Jehovah was the Giver; and the One who had fed Israel in the wilderness with angels' food was now giving to men the true Bread. This is the Father's gift to us, even His own Son, the One in whom life has been made available for us.
We never could have come to the Son to receive all the blessings that are in Him unless it were given to us of the Father (John 6:65). Our every blessing we owe to the Father's sovereign grace, to Him who has drawn us to the Son. Then in John 14:16, the Lord says to His disciples, "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever: even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive." How much we owe to the Father's grace in giving to us His own Son, His own Spirit as a Comforter, and all the heavenly grace that is found in His Son.
The Good Shepherd had been speaking of the blessings and privileges of His sheep. They heard His voice, He knew them, and they followed Him; inestimable privileges that belong to those whom the Father has given to the Son. Eternal life too was theirs, as the gift of the Son, who assures them that they will never perish. In the safe keeping of the Son, none would be able to pluck them out of His hand. The Son safeguarded the Sheep not only because they were His own, but because He had received them from the Father, even as He said to the Father in John 17:12. "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy Name: those that Thou gavest me I have kept."
Because He was leaving His own in the world, and going to the Father, the Lord says, "Holy Father, keep through Thine own Name those whom Thou hast given me" (John 17:11). The Father would certainly keep them; they were safe in His hand. How reassuring even for the feeblest to hear the Son say. "My Father which gave them me is greater than all; and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand" (John 10:29).
Not only are the sheep guarded by the almighty hand of the Father, but His hand provides for all their needs. The Son has come from the Father to tell us of His love for us, and He has gone into the Father's presence to prepare a place for us, and till He comes again to take us to be for ever with Him in the Father's House, the Father is watching over us, keeping us in the security of His hand, and meeting all our needs, both temporal and spiritual. It is a hand of power that is controlled by a heart of love, and that dispenses blessing from His infinite resources.
The disciples of the Lord Jesus were greatly favoured in being called His friends. Previously He had spoken of them as His sheep, and in resurrection He would call them His brethren, but now He says, "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what His Lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." Great as was the privilege of being servants of the Lord, this place of friendship was higher, for it brought them into nearness and intimacy with the Son of God, where He made known to them the most wonderful secrets possible for men to know.
Abraham was called the friend of God, for God disclosed to him something of His mind and will, telling him of His intentions regarding the destruction of the cities of the plain. Moses, on the mount with God, received from Him the pattern of the tabernacle, saw the glory of Jehovah, and learned something of His ways. Prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit to write of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow, but only to hear that their writings were for the instruction of a coming generation. Excelling the privileges of Abraham, of Moses and of the Prophets, the disciples learned in the company of Jesus the wonderful secrets of the Father's mind and will, and of the deep love of His heart: and this is the place into which divine grace has brought us. As the friends of the Son of God, in communion with Him and with the Father, we learn by the Spirit those same heavenly secrets disclosed by the Son, and also what the Spirit has brought to us in relation to the Son glorified at the Father's right hand in heaven.
In laying down His life the Son gave the Father a fresh reason for loving Him, not only in the perfection of His obedience, but because His death secured all the Father's will and counsels. The foundation of all that the Father desired to accomplish must be in redemption, but the resurrection of the Son was necessary to give effect to all that redemption procured, therefore Jesus said, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again" (John 10:17). Men might be used of Satan to crucify the Son of God, but they could never have taken Him had He not allowed them to do so. This is evident when the mob came to take Him, and on Jesus saying, "I am," they "went backward, and fell to the ground" (John 18:6). His was a voluntary offering, John viewing His sacrifice as the Burnt Offering.
While He willingly gave Himself in death for the carrying out of the Father's will, there was another aspect in which the glory of the Son in the perfection of His obedience shines out. His death was a voluntary act, and yet an act of obedience to the Father's commandment, the voluntary act proving His divine glory and prerogative, the obedience the perfection of His place in Manhood.
The very action of giving up His life in obedience to the Father's commandment, which drew out the Father's love to the Son, also made known the Son's love for the Father, even as He said to His disciples, "But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence" (John 14:31). He was going where "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." In Him there was no will but the carrying out of the Father's commandment, nothing that Satan could work on, for He had no regard for Himself, only for His Father.
His whole course was one of perfect obedience, an obedience that kept Him in the deep sense of His Father's love, and if His own were to have the constant sense of His love they too must walk in obedience to His will. Of this the Lord speaks in John 15:10, "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love."
This obedience in the Son brought glory to the Father, and blessing to His own. The great of this world delight in presenting themselves as originators of thought and sayings, but it was not so with the Son of God. He said, "For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me commandment, what 1 should say, and what I should speak" (John 12:49). All His thoughts were the Father's, and even the very words in which His thoughts were couched were the Father's. He had no thought of glorifying Himself, but only of glorifying His Father.
But the words that He spoke contained the richest blessing for men, even life eternal. It was the Father's desire that men should have eternal life, and this life was manifested in the Son personally, for He is the "true God and eternal life"; but He was the perfect expression of His words, and His words, the Father's commandment, held eternal life for all who received them. How true His words, "I am altogether that which I also say unto you." His words expressed what He was in Person, the Eternal Life.
In chapter 2, the Lord had spoken of the temple at Jerusalem as "My Father's house" (John 2:16), but when He said, in John 14, "In my Father's house are many mansions," He was not referring to an earthly building which was so soon to be destroyed in divine judgment. The temple with its many chambers may have been a shadow of the Father's house with its many abodes, but the substance was altogether different in character to the shadow. The tabernacle was probably a shadow of the universe, the court representing the atmospheric heavens, the holy place telling of the starry heavens, and the third heavens, the immediate dwelling place of God being set forth in the Holiest of all; and the temple may also have been symbolic of the same three heavens.
The main point however for the Christian is that the Lord has gone into heaven to prepare a place for us. It is the prepared place in the Father's House that the Lord specially calls attention to. There will be many families named of the Father in the eternal day, each with its distinctive dwelling place, but there is a special place for those who are called "the church of the first-born (ones), which are written in heaven" (Heb. 12:23).
Father and Son have been working to bring in a new eternal scene, where God will rest in His love and in the blessing of those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. While the Son awaits the time to rapture His own to this blessed prepared place, there are those who wait with Him in the paradise of God, and those who wait for Him down here. Jesus will come Himself to take us to the place He has prepared, and it is to Himself He will take us, that we might be His companions before the face of the Father, and that the Father might have His children, His sons, at home with Himself.
Every step taken by the Son on earth had brought glory to the Father, as He said, "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4). Where every other man had brought dishonour to God the Son glorified Him in His perfect work, in all the desires of His heart, and in all His words. No doubt in this chapter the Lord is speaking in spirit beyond the cross, and anticipates the glory brought to His Father in a work completed to His eternal glory and satisfaction.
And even as He had glorified the Father in His life and in His death, the Son desired to glorify the Father from His place at His right hand. Therefore He said, "Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee" (John 17:1); and how blessed for us that the Son glorifies the Father in giving us eternal life, the life in which we have the knowledge of the Father and the Son, and the enjoyment of the divine love that God has given us in the new relationships into which His grace, through Christ's death, has brought us.
The Father is also glorified in the Son through His own in this day; and with this in view we are to ask in His Name (John 14:13). As we draw upon the divine resources that the Father has for us we shall be able to come out in the features of Christ, and carry out His will in service for Him. This is also indicated in John 15:8. "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." Fruit is the mature expression of the life of Jesus, the precious traits that, in their fulness and perfection in the Son, brought constant delight and glory to the Father. That same life is ours, and as we abide in the Son, and He abides in us, we shall be here for the Father's glory, giving Him pleasure, and bringing joy to our own hearts.
When the Lord Jesus healed the lame man of Bethesda "The Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God" (John 5:18). In His reply to the Jews the Lord said, "And ye have not His (The Father's) word abiding in you; for whom He hath sent, Him ye believe not" (John 5:38). It was so different with His disciples, of whom He said to the Father, "They have kept Thy word" (John 17:6).
The Father's word that had been refused by the Jews, who professed to be so zealous for the sabbath, was what the Son had spoken. This the Lord made clear to Judas (not Iscariot) when in answer to his question He said, "He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me" (John 14:24). The Father's word was communicated by the Son without admixture, in all its purity in the words He received from the Father; and the reception or refusal of these words decided the attitude to the Father and the Son.
What joy must have been brought to the heart of Jesus when His own received the Father's word from Him (John 17:14); a word which formed them after Christ, and drew upon them, as it had drawn upon the Son, the hatred of the world. It was the reception of the Father's word in their hearts that separated them from the world, and this the world could not abide. The more the Father's word has its place in our hearts the more shall we be apart practically from the world and its ways. The Lord goes on to speak of this where, in John 17:17, He says to the Father, "Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth." It is the desire of the Father and the Son to have us set apart for themselves in our sojourn through this world; and for this we need to be feeding upon the Father's word in communion with Him.
Especially in John's Gospel the Name of the Father is found often on the lips of the Son. What sorrow of heart must have been His when He said to the Jews, "I am come in my Father's Name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive" (John 5:43). With all their profession of religion, the Jews rejected the overtures of grace of the God they professed to serve in the refusal of the Son; and the day would come when they would accept as their guide the antichrist, the false prophet, the man of sin, whose only credentials were his own false claims and the support of the power of Satan.
The Son was sent by "The Living Father" (John 6:57), and this was the reason for His being found in this world. He had come from Him to bring life to men that they might be brought into communion with the Father as living in His life; and it was for those who had received this divine life that the Son prayed to the "Holy Father" (John 17:11), desiring that they might be kept by Him in the joy and blessedness of known relationship with Him, during the time of the Son's absence from them.
Only in the Son could be found the knowledge of the "Righteous Father" (John 17:25), for the world knew Him not. But the disciples, who had received the Father's word knew that the Father had sent the Son; and to them the Son had declared the Name of the righteous Father, who would bring His own into the richest blessing in association with the Son and in relationship with Himself. This would be when, in resurrection, the Son would be able to send the message to His own saving, "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (John 20:17).
How greatly favoured are the saints of this period of divine revelation. All connected with the former revelations are before us in the Holy Scriptures for our learning, and now we have all that the Son has made known of the things of the Father. We can understand now, as the disciples could not when the Lord said to them after speaking of the revealing of the Father, "For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them" (Luke 10:24).
1 John opens with the beginning of Christianity in the Person of the Son of God in incarnation. John's Gospel opens with the Son in eternity as The Word, but this epistle presents the Son as The Word of Life in time, as Man upon earth. The Manhood of Jesus was real, just as real as His Godhead: for in Him there was the fulness of Godhead and the perfection of Manhood. Human ears had heard the Son speaking, human eyes had seen Him, the hands of the disciples had handled Him, and their minds had contemplated Him. He had come down from heaven that men might know God, and know Him as perfectly revealed in all the love and grace of His heart.
In the Son in Manhood there was manifested that which the Spirit of God calls "the life." It was a life altogether different from anything that had been seen before in this world, and was expressed in Him who is called "The Word of Life." This divine life was heard in His words, seen in His movements and expressed in His Person. He had come from heaven where the life belonged, and He had come from the Father with whom the life was, and to His disciples the Son of God manifested a life that brought to them the knowledge of the love of God and the knowledge of the Father.
This eternal life was with the Father, and belonged to relationships and affections that were heavenly and spiritual, and that only the Son could reveal, for He alone knew the affections of the Father's heart. The life was with the Father in eternity, for it is eternal life, but it was brought by the Son into the time scene not only that it might be manifested, but also that it might become the life of those who believed in Him. It is now the life of the children of God, those who believe in the Son and in believing have the right to take their place as the children of God.
The disciples, who had companied with Jesus, had the special privilege of bearing witness to what they had seen and heard in Jesus here; and John writes to the children of God that they might have fellowship with the apostles in the enjoyment of what they had been privileged to see, hear and bear witness to. Fellowship was not limited to communion with the apostles, but was also with the Father and the Son.
No doubt the apostles had their own peculiar part in fellowship with the Father and the Son in the promulgation of their witness, but with them we too can commune with the Father and the Son in the enjoyment of the eternal life into which God in His grace has brought us. The spirit delights to speak with the Son of the Father, and to the Father of the Son; and how our souls rejoice when we speak to each other of the Father and the Son, and sing together the praises of God in the Spirit. This brings to the heart a heavenly joy; and the apostle wrote in order that our joy might be full.
Failure in our lives robs us of the joys of divine communion, and to restore us to communion the Lord Jesus has set Himself apart on high as our Advocate. Advocacy may not be limited to restoration, but it is an integral part of it. The work of the Lord indicated in the feet washing of John 13 is without doubt part of the Lord's present ministry of Advocacy. It is commonly known that Advocate is the same word as Comforter in John 14. The Holy Spirit is our Comforter in relation to things down here, but the Lord Jesus is our Advocate as caring for our affairs in heaven.
Sin is never viewed as a necessity for the Christian, but as a possibility; and if we sin our communion is broken. For restoration there must be conviction, self-judgment and confession; and confession brings with it forgiveness and cleansing which are necessary for restoration. We cannot be in communion with the Father with guilt on the conscience and defilement on the spirit; and even when there is not the sense of guilt the defilement is there. It is then the Lord as Advocate comes to our help, making us conscious of our guilt and defilement so that there might follow self-judgment, confession and restoration.
Our Advocate is Jesus Christ the righteous, our subsisting righteousness in the presence of God. There is no question of a fresh application of the blood of Christ, the One whose blood was once shed lives in the presence of God, all the efficacy of the once accomplished propitiation abiding in Him before the face of the Father. The cleansing we need is the washing of water by the word. The water applied to the disciples' feet in John 13 was because of where they were in a defiling world, not necessarily because of any particular failure: but the same cleansing and refreshing water that keeps us clean also restores when we get defiled. The linen towel that ministered comfort is no doubt also used by our Advocate on high to bring solace to the restored.
Every babe in the family of God knows the Father. The knowledge of the Father is not viewed as advanced Christian attainment, but as inherent in the believer on the Son of God, that is as having the eternal life that belongs to faith. The Father could not be known until the Son came. Great as were the privileges of Abraham, of Moses, of David, and other Old Testament saints, this was not one of them; nor does it only belong to the fathers and the young men of God's family; it belongs also to the babes, the youngest in the divine circle into which God's sovereign grace has brought us.
The knowledge of the Father belongs to the children of God, and none could know the relationship of children to a Father until the Father was revealed by the Son. Those who believe in the Name of the Son of God have the right to take the place of children of God (John 1:12); and those who believe are children as born of God. The saints of earlier days were born of God, and so had His nature, but without the knowledge of the Father there could not be the knowledge of the relationship of children.
Although the babes in God's family knew the Father, they were in danger of being affected by antichristian teachings; and although the young men had overcome the wicked one, they were in danger of being seduced by the world. The world, which had been in deadly opposition to the Son of God had been overcome by Him (John 16:33), and He desires His own to be kept from a system marked by lust and pride. If the world was a danger for the young men it would also be for the babes.
What will keep the world out of the heart is the knowledge of the Father's love there, and responsive love to Him. True love to the Father, who has so richly blessed us, would surely keep us from associations that are inconsistent with His holy nature and the heavenly things He has given to us in His Son. We cannot love the world and the Father at the same time: the two are diametrically opposed. Man's world appeals to the sinful nature that God has condemned in the cross; it gratifies the desires of the flesh, and appeals to the vanity of fallen human nature. 1 John 5:3-5 shows how we get the victory over the world, as does Galatians 6:14, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."
In warning the babes against the many antichrists, the apostle writes, "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father … If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father; and this is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life" (1 John 2:23-25). Any who deny that Jesus is the Son of God are not of God; they cannot have the Father without the Son. The Jews denied that Jesus was the Christ; the antichristian form of evil is the denial of the Father and the Son.
The truth of Christianity is the revelation of the Father in the Son, and this is what has come to us from the beginning through the apostles. Doctrines that deny either the deity of the Son or His true Manhood are the denial of Christianity, and are antichristian. Our safeguard is the truth as brought by the apostles, and in abiding in it we shall abide in the Son and in the Father, and in doing so enjoy the eternal life which consists in the knowledge of the Father, the only true God and Jesus Christ, His Sent One. Those who deny the Son have not eternal life; the wrath of God abides on them.
The relationship of children to Him, which the Father has given us, is the expression of the greatness of His love for us. We could not possibly be nearer or dearer to the Father. This is an altogether new relationship for men to be in with God, and belongs to the new order that He has brought into being. After Adam's fall, God started with a fresh work that sin could not mar, and He began with a new family having a new life and a new nature. The works of the righteous Abel evinced that he belonged to this new family, even though he could not then know the full blessedness of the new place into which God's grace had brought him.
As God's children we have the nature and life manifested in their perfection in Jesus here below. But the world had not the perception to discern in Jesus the Son of God; and therefore does not know God's children who have the same life as Jesus. The day is coming when the world will see God's children like Jesus, even in the day of His appearing. Then we shall not only be with Him in the display of His glory, but we shall see Him as He is in His eternal glory in the Father's House, the glory that belongs to Him as having been loved by the Father before the world's foundation.
After the Lord Jesus had spent two days with the Samaritans, many, in addition to those who believed on Him through the words of the woman who had met Jesus at the well, believed on Him, and they said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world" (John 4:42). In 1 John 4:13-14, we learn that it is the gift of the Spirit that enables us to testify "that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world."
This is not simply apostolic, though the apostles knew this in a special way; but the Spirit through which we know "that we dwell in Him, and He in us," also gives us to know the mind of the Father in sending the Son. Jewish prejudice would have claimed the Messiah for Israel alone, but the grace of God that took Christ to Samaria's well and city has brought God's salvation to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Jehovah might send Messiah to Israel, but when the Father in His grace sends His Son it is to bring salvation to all men. For all eternity we shall bless the Father for His sovereign grace which has saved us, and given us the knowledge that the Saviour is available to all men.