How very wonderful it is that God has revealed Himself to us in the Person of the Son, and has also given us His thoughts of His well-Beloved. In the types of the Old Testament there are beautiful foreshadowings of the relationships and features of the Son of God, but all the types, precious as they are, are but dim shadows of the substance found in Christ. Isaac was a type of the Lord Jesus as the only-begotten Son, as when God said to Abraham, "Take now thy son, thine only Isaac, whom thou lovest" (Gen. 22:2). Of Isaac, Abraham's servant said, "Unto him hath he (his father) given all that he hath" (Gen 24:36); a lovely foreshadowing of John 3:35, "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand."
The Father's love for the Son is expressed in what He has given to Him, and its measure is the "all things" that He has given into His hand. Nothing has been withheld, for the Son could say to His disciples, "All things that the Father hath are mine" (John 16:15). How delightful it must have been for the Son to have everything that belonged to the Father entrusted to His keeping. Everything belonged to the Son in the unity of the Godhead with the Father, but as Man the Father had entrusted all His interests to the Son, for the Son had come into the world, not to do His own will, but the will of the Father who had sent Him. Everything that the Father had purposed was given to the Son to fulfil, and all the resources of the Father had been given to the Son to carry out His will.
All things had been created by the Son (John 1:3); all things were His both as creator and as one with the Father; but as Man all things were given into His hand, all things were shown to Him (John 5:20), and He had heard all things from the Father (John 15:15). In Hebrews 2:8 we read of all things being put under the feet of Jesus as Son of Man, and as the Man of God's counsels, in Ephesians 1, all things are not only under His feet, but under His headship. In these we learn of the glory of the Person of the Son, of the Father's pleasure in Him, of God's thoughts of Man in Christ, and of God's delight in what Christ has done to secure His glory.
Solomon, like Isaac and others, was a type of the Lord Jesus as Son of God. In Hebrews1 there is a quotation from 1 Chronicles 22, where God says to David concerning Solomon, "He shall be my son, and I his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever" (1 Chr. 22:10). Only in Christ could this promise be completely fulfilled, as is seen in Psalm 2, when the Lord Jesus is viewed as God's anointed, and God's King. It was no doubt the knowledge of this Psalm that brought from Nathaniel the confession, "Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel"; and from Martha, "I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world." While not reaching to the height of His glory as the only-begotten Son of the Father's bosom, this Scripture shows that the kingdom of Israel belonged to the Son.
In the second Psalm Jehovah says, "Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." On earth, the Lord Jesus refused the kingdoms of the world from the hand of Satan, and in John 6:15 He refused Israel's throne from the hands of men; but He will yet receive the kingdom of Israel, and all the kingdoms of the world from the hand of His Father, as belonging to the "all things" given into His hand.
Although all things were put into His hand by the Father, the Son would not act independently of Him. Such was the nature of the relationship between the Father and the Son that Jesus said, "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do; for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise" (John 5:19). It is absolutely impossible for the Son to act independently of the Father, because of their unity in the fulness of the Godhead, and because of their eternal bond of affection.
If the Father's love for the Son had been expressed in giving all things into His hand, it was also expressed in showing "Him all things that Himself doeth." All the mighty works of power wrought by the Son were received from His Father, even as He said, "For the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me" (John 5:20, 36).
Every work of power, wrought by the Son, was for the glory of God, and to accomplish His Father's will. Before He fed the multitude with loaves and fishes, He gave thanks, manifesting that He was not acting in independence of His Father, even if all things were in His hand. It was the same at the grave of Lazarus: though acting in every detail for the Father's glory, and in the consciousness of all that the Father had given Him, before He raised Lazarus, "Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me; and I knew that Thou hearest me always; but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent me" (John 6:11; John 11:41-42).
The raising of Lazarus was one of the "greater works" to which the Lord referred in John 5:20. Raising the dead and quickening them belonged to the Father, but "The Son quickeneth whom He will." This divine power belonged to the Son inherently, but as come into Manhood He received all as Man from the hand of the Father, so that He might give effect to the Father's will, in all things, as the Sent One of the Father. All was done with reference to the Father: if He quickens whom He will, it is because He has no other will than the Father's. Yet this very obedience in all things, and His inability to act independently of the Father was the proof that He was a divine Person in Manhood.
Not only while on earth was all in the hand of the Son, but when the time for judgment comes it will be found that "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." Men have taken the occasion of the Son's coming into manhood to deny His divine glory, but the Father has answered this in decreeing that the Son will be the judge of all; He "hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man."
As the Word, it is written of the Son, "In Him was life" (John 1:4). Life is in the Son intrinsically because He is God; nor did it cease to be in Him thus when He became Man, but, having come into Manhood, He could say, "As the Father has life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself." Life was given to Him as Man that He might carry out all that the Father had given into His hand.
The Father in the Son sought those who should worship Him in spirit and in truth. Only in the life received from the Son of God could men truly worship God. Was not this procuring of worshippers for the Father one of the all things given into the hand of the Son? The worshippers of the Father are also the sheep of whom the Son said, "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:28). All that the Father has given into the hand of the Son is secure, whether His sheep, or things relating to His path on earth or belonging to His present session on high.
Resurrection is also in the hand of the Son, for the day is coming "in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." The Father has entrusted a great work to the Son, and He will complete it to His entire satisfaction. When His works on earth had been completed He could say to the Father, "I have finished the work which Thou gayest me to do"; and on the cross He said, "It is finished." Soon He will come to finish the work necessary to bring in the millennium, then complete all that will introduce the eternal state.
In John 6:37-40 we learn of what is in the hand of the Son. Verse 37 speaks of the things that shall come to Him, for the word "all" is neuter, but it also tells of the persons that come. All the things given into the hand of the Son will assuredly come to Him. When He was here, it might appear as if all were not in His hand; but all would assuredly be His, nothing would be lost, and all would be raised up in the last day. Not only would Israel's throne be His, but also all the kingdoms of this world. He will soon be manifested as having authority over all flesh, with life, judgment and resurrection power in His hand.
Those who will share the glory of the Son have a special word in verse 40, "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." How wonderful are the blessings given to those who perceive in Jesus the Son of God, and who believe in Him. Even while awaiting the resurrection morning they have life eternal, the life in which we enjoy communion with the Father and the Son, and so foretaste something of the joys of the coming day. But our full portion will be with Christ in the last day, the day when He shall manifestly possess all things given into His hand by the Father.
The disciples were not only secure in the hand of the Son, they were loved by Him, and "having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end" (John 13:1). In love the Lord was preparing the disciples for the time of His absence from them, and "knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands" He stooped to wash the disciples feet, taking into the hands that held "all things" the way-worn feet of those He loved. His hand sufficed to hold "all things," among them His sheep in perfect security, but when He stooped in love to care for His disciples, we read of His hands.
It was the desire of the Father and the Son to bring the disciples into nearness and intimacy with them, therefore did Jesus say, "I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" (John 15:15). Again, in chapter John 17:7-8, the Lord said, "Now they have known that all things that Thou hast given me are of Thee; for the words which Thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received them, and have known truly that I came out from Thee, and have believed that Thou sentest me." What words are these that were spoken by the Son! They contain the revelation of God, and of all that the Father has given to the Son, and their reception by the disciples gives divine certainty to the soul as to the origin of all that is found in the Son.
Everything is in the hand of the Son in His present place at the Father's right hand, and the Holy Spirit has come to bear witness concerning it, even as Jesus said, "All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." Even as Abraham's servant brought from the treasury of Isaac "jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and … precious things" (Gen. 24:53), so the Holy Spirit has come from where the True Isaac is, to show to us all the things that the Father has given into His hand.
It is not only in John's Gospel that we learn of all things being given to the Son, for, as recorded in Matthew 11, when Israel's door was closed against the Lord, He answered, "I thank Thee, O Father … All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and 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." It was a small thing that He should be given the work of restoring Israel to Jehovah; something far greater was committed to Him by the Father; He was to have a kingdom embracing all the kingdoms of the world, and for this all things had been delivered to Him of His Father.
Now, on high, with "authority over all flesh," the Son is communicating eternal life to all that the Father has given to Him, but soon He will exercise authority publicly before the whole universe, and will subdue "all things" before delivering up the kingdom "to God, even the Father … that God may be all in all."
In this day, while the Son of God is still rejected by Israel, and by the world, the saints have been brought into the divine secret that "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand": and it is our delight to ponder all that God has revealed to us of this wonderful secret; but the time is drawing nigh when there will be the display of the glory of the Father in the Person of the Son, and then the world will know that the One they rejected is none other than the Son of God, the creator of all things, and the Man into whose hands the Father committed all things.
Wm. C. Reid.