What a remarkable change came over Saul of Tarsus after he saw the Lord Jesus on his way to Damascus! Before that day, according to himself, he had been “a blasphemer and persecutor, and an insolent overbearing man” (1 Tim. 1:13). After his memorable interview with the risen and glorified Christ in heaven, he was transformed into a meek and lowly follower of the rejected Saviour; and at the call of Christ became a devoted and tireless servant of the One he had persecuted in His saints. At the very beginning of his Christian career he preached that Jesus was the Son of God (Acts 9:20), for the greatness and glory of Jesus held his heart from that day forth. All the attractions of the religious world that had so powerfully affected him lost their hold upon him, and the things that had appeared so valuable to his cultured mind he now reckoned as worthless; indeed they were only fit to be treated as filth, for they would hinder his attaining the only thing of real value to him now, “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus” his Lord.
How surpassingly excellent is the knowledge of the Christ of God! Wherever the Christian views Him there is that which draws out the affections to Him, and bows the heart in wonder and worship. In this world we may contemplate Him carrying out His Father’s will, ever obedient to His word, and seeking only His glory. On the cross, accomplishing the great work of redemption, He enters into the depths of divine judgment to secure all that lay in the purpose and counsels of God. Now glorified in heaven as Son of Man and Son of God, He is carrying out the Father’s good pleasure, and ministering to those He will so soon bring to glory. Every trait of Manhood according to God is perfectly blended and expressed in Him now in heaven, even as when in humiliation and sorrow He trod the earth. All the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily as Man in God’s presence, to supply that which is needed for the accomplishing of God’s will in the vast universe, even as all the fulness was pleased to dwell in Him upon the earth in view of reconciling all things to the Godhead. What a wonderful field of knowledge there is for us in the Christ of God!
There is however, knowledge concerning the Son that cannot be ours, even as the Lord said to His disciples, “No man knows the Son, but the Father” (Matt. 11:27; Luke 10:22). Who but the Father could know the Son in the inscrutable mystery surrounding His Being and Person, and in the eternal relationships in which He ever was and is with the Father? The Son, though Man on earth, and Man for ever in wondrous grace, is yet God, dwelling in the unapproachable light, whom no man has seen, nor can see. This is beyond the apprehension of the creature; yet faith accepts in all simplicity what is divinely revealed concerning these holy mysteries, adoring and worshipping the glorious, Eternal Son, and the Father He has revealed.
But how wonderful it is that while there is that which is unknowable concerning the Son that there is that which we can know, and in the closest intimacy and affection. It was the same blessed Person who dwells in the unapproachable light who brought the disciples into companionship with Him as He walked through this world, and who said to them, “Ye are they who have continued with me in my temptations.” The apostle John could speak of himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved, and knew the intimacy of His affections when lying in His bosom; yet, when he beheld Him in His glory, he has to say, “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead” (Rev. 1:17).
All Christians have not the same knowledge of the Son of God, for it was only to the fathers in the divine family that the apostle John could say, “I write to you fathers, because ye have known Him (that is) from the beginning.” Every babe in God’s family knows the Father, but it is only with maturity in the truth of Christianity that we come to know the Son of God as “Him that is from the beginning.” This knowledge is acquired through intimacy in communion with the blessed Lord. The fathers had found in the Son of God come in flesh everything that was to be known of God: the revelation of God in His nature, the manifestation of the Father’s Name, the unveiling of His counsels of love which centre in His Son, and all His thoughts for the blessing of His own.
When John wrote the second time to the fathers, it is but to repeat what he had already written. He has nothing to add for those who had found in the incarnate Word the source of all divine knowledge. All that can be known of God is found in Him who said, “He that has seen me has seen the Father.” The babes were liable to be affected by the doctrines of the antichristian teachers if they did not heed God’s voice in their hearts through the divine Unction of the Spirit, and pay heed to the Word of God; the young men were in danger of being enticed by the attractions of the world if they were not occupied with the Father’s love; but the fathers had matured in exercise of soul, communing with the Father and the Son in relation to the wonderful revelations of Christianity in Jesus, and they were not likely to be affected by the teachings of the enemy or ensnared by the world.
There is also the “full-knowledge of the Son of God” to which God will bring His saints, and which He desires to be ours now as passing through this world (Eph. 4:13). So that we might have this divine knowledge of the Son of God the exalted Christ has given gifts to men, “for the perfecting of the saints; with a view to the work of the ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ.” This knowledge is a great safeguard from the errors that pervade Christendom, and to which immature Christians are exposed. So many true believers make little progress in the things of God: they are content with the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins, and that they will get to heaven in the end through the work of the Lord Jesus. They never seem to realise that God desires that they should enter into His thoughts of His beloved Son, and that this knowledge will not only bring joy and blessing to them, but will also preserve them from the seductions of a watchful foe.
The full-knowledge of the Son of God is in marked contrast with the limited knowledge of the Son of God which the faithful remnant of Israel gleaned from the Old Testament Scriptures concerning their Messiah. Both Nathaniel and Martha, when speaking to Jesus, confessed Him as Son of God according to the Second Psalm, where Jesus was spoken of prophetically as Jehovah’s King. Now, the Spirit of God has presented the Son of God in His glory, at God’s right hand, as the centre of God’s counsels, and as the Head over all things to the church.
Paul never forgot what he learned that day on the way to Damascus of the Son of God. Not only did he find pleasure in making Him known, both in his preaching, and in his ministry to the saints of God, but it was his constant, deep desire to grow in the knowledge of the Son of God, even as he expressed it in his letter to the Philippian saints, “That I may know Him” (Phil. 3:10). The apostle was getting towards the close of his active service for Christ when he penned these words. He had long known Christ as His Saviour and Lord, he had been caught up to paradise and received the most wonderful revelations, more wonderful than any other man had ever received, while still on earth, and the absorbing object of his heart was still Christ in the glory: it was Christ he wanted to know; more and more of Him who so loved him that He gave Himself for him.
Is this the true desire of our hearts? Have we come to the knowledge of the Son of God as the One in whom all God’s thoughts centre, as the One who fills and satisfies the heart of God? The day is speedily coming when Christ shall fill the vision of His own for all eternity, and we shall find our constant satisfaction and joy in Him. While we wait for that blissful day, may it be the unfeigned desire of our hearts to know Him, who has given Himself for us that we might be His companions in heaven and companionable to Him even down here.
R. 12.12.59