Reading: Matt. 11:27; Luke
10:22.
We shall refer to some other
passages besides these, but I would just stay to draw your
attention again to the fact that so many of the things about
which we are speaking in connection with the meaning of the
Lord's life come within the category of things which are
definitely stated to be secrets. You will probably have noticed
that feature as we have gone on, and that is why I am speaking of
those things as the secret sources. They are so often declared to
be things which are not open to all: they are hidden; they lie
beneath, and cannot be apprehended on natural grounds. Now here
is another matter which is definitely in that realm. It tells of
something of which no ordinary man has understanding.
"No one knoweth the Son,
save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son,
and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him".
With that reminder let us turn
to John's Gospel: Chapter 1:18,34; 3:18,34-36; 5:20,22; 9:35-36;
11:4; 17:1; Colossians 2:2.
Many more passages of like
character could be added, but perhaps these are sufficient to
provide a basis upon which to proceed.
As in the case of each of the
other matters which we have mentioned, we at once turn to observe
what this relationship meant to the Lord Jesus, how it was to Him
as the background of everything. It gave meaning and value to all
utterances, all acts, all experiences, to everything for the
present and for the future. How frequently He spoke of Himself in
the terms of Sonship, and of the Father in personal relationship
with Himself. This forms a very strong and very full basis for
His life, and He drew upon it continually. We might say that it
meant everything to Him throughout His life.
Before we go further in
meditating upon that we must say a word about the two titles
which He bore in Sonship. We are familiar with them - The Son of
Man! The Son of God! The point at which these two titles or
designations deviate has not to do with the Person but the work.
It is very important to recognise that. We may not, and we
cannot, divide the Person. That is what Paul means by "the
mystery of God, even Christ", and we may dwell for a
lifetime upon that mystery without being able to solve it. The
Person of the Lord Jesus has been the battleground from the
beginning, and probably always will be while time shall last.
More heresies and errors have sprung from man's attempt at
solving that mystery and setting it out clearly for human
apprehension than from any other source. It is always extremely
delicate, if not dangerous, ground to try to handle the Person of
Christ.
So the titles do not in any way
make two Persons, divide the Person, but they represent two
realms and aspects of work, and therefore of truth, relative to
the Person. We know what those realms are, and what those
respective works are. As Son of Man He is Representative of man
by vital union with man. As Son of God He is expressive of God by
oneness with the very Person of God. That is technical and
largely theological. It represents the two sides of the Person in
practical expression, for practical purposes, that is, as to His
office and His work.
The Son of
Man
We must safeguard
the title "Son of Man", lest we mentally, and perhaps
unconsciously, bring it to a lower level and into a lesser realm
than it should occupy; for even the title, "Son of
Man", goes far beyond the thought of the human birth. Along
with the revelation that He was born of a virgin, we have this
clear statement: "The Son of man which is in heaven"
(John 3:13). That carries the designation higher than earth, and
gives to it a Divine meaning and a Divine value. Unless we
recognise that we get into a terrible morass of confusion over
the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus. Men have said, for example,
that the theory of the virgin birth breaks down because it would
relate all sin to man, and rule the whole question of sin out of
woman. You see how utterly futile such talking is, and how it
misses the mark. We must recognise that Christ was not born of a
virgin on any natural basis; under any such foolish conceit as
that woman is sinless and man sinful, and thereby a virgin birth
would secure His sinlessness. By the Holy Ghost there was a
cutting in between all that Mary inherited and what Christ was.
Many such theological,
doctrinal, and technical questions arise over the Person of
Christ. My point is that even the title Son of Man, makes Him
different from the rest of men in a Divine sense, and that while
Son of Man, and vitally related to man, He is other than the rest
of men.
The Son of
God
Then a word about the other
title. There is a phrase which occurs in John's Gospel, namely,
"only begotten Son". Unless you know and remember one
thing that title is likely to get you into confusion. If you read
on through the New Testament you will find that others are
begotten of God. John himself in his letters speaks much about
that, about the sons begotten of God. How then is Christ the only
begotten Son? You must remember that these words were penned long
after most of the New Testament had been written and circulated.
By the time these words were written there were multitudes of
sons begotten of God, and yet the Apostle wrote deliberately, and
with precision, of "the only begotten Son". It cannot,
therefore, be just a question of time that is here in point, that
Christ was the first, and being the first for a time was the only
begotten of God. That would bring Him on to the level of all the
others, and rule out a certain distinctiveness. The explanation
lies elsewhere, for this word does not mean that Christ was the
only one who was begotten of God. It does not especially relate
to the begetting at all, but to the kind begotten. It could be
quite accurately translated into our language, the uniquely, or
singularly begotten. It really means that there was never another
like this One. He is the only such One, this begotten of God. The
emphasis is not upon the begetting, but upon the "only"
- the only begotten, the uniquely begotten. It is a very
interesting word. We shall not stop to study it, but you would
find, if you were to follow that word through, that very often it
is seen to occupy a place of endearment, as of one standing in a
special relationship in endearment, because of the nature of that
one. In the Hebrew the same word is sometimes translated "darling"
and is on occasion applied to Christ: "I will not leave my
darling in Sheol". The Lord Jesus, Whom the Father sent into
the world, is named under a term of endearment in John 3:16. The
whole force of John 3:16 centres in the fact that the love of God
is there seen in uttermost sacrifice as He takes the final step
of sending Christ.
It is not that God was not in a
position to beget multitudes of sons, or that God had simply
confined Himself to begetting one; the term is used because of
what that Son was. God has never begotten another like Him, and
has never intended so doing. Christ is unique in His relationship
with God. He stands alone. God summed up all things in Him, that
is, God never intended to put anything of Himself in another as
belonging to that other, as inherently in that other. If ever we
receive of God's fulness it will only be in Christ, not in
ourselves. He has bound up everything with Christ, and in that
way Christ is unique. He stands alone; the fulness and the
finality of God. All things are sealed up in Him.
This touches upon the crucial
nature of the fall. In Adam we have one whom God created, and the
first Adam was called the son of God (Luke 3:38); not in the same
sense, but as being God's offspring, one into whom God had
breathed the breath of lives. But Adam's sin was this, that while
he was conditioned by a dependent relationship, and was to have
all things as in God by filial fear, obedience, and love, he
yielded to the temptation to take things out of that
relationship, and to have them in himself. The temptation was
presented thus: You shall be as God! What you now have
only by dependence and obedience you can have as your own
personal right and prerogative and possession! That led to the
fall. From that time God never places in another that which is of
Himself to belong to that other as a part of his own being; but
He has placed all that belongs to Him in Christ and locked it up,
and no one can have anything except in Christ. "God hath
given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that
hath the Son hath the life". It is in this sense, which
could be enlarged upon so much more if it were our purpose to do
so, that Christ is the only begotten, the uniquely begotten, the
singularly begotten Son.
It is just there that things
have gone astray, and the false teaching has come in to the
effect that we are all sons as Christ was a Son, and that the
result of the process of things in us will be our deification.
That has been the Devil's lie from the beginning. There will be
no sonship in ourselves in exactly the same way as that in which
Christ is the only begotten. He stands alone. We will mention our
side presently.
Having said that general word
about the two titles of Christ relative to His Sonship, and
repeating that the two titles are Divine, we seek, with reference
to the Lord Jesus, to summarize the whole subject in a few
definite points.
We note then in the first place
-
The Strength
and Dignity Derived from Sonship
There was a strength and
dignity derived by the Lord Jesus from this union, this
relationship. You cannot fail to see this as you read the account
of His life here on earth. From His relationship to the Father,
of which He was quite aware, the relationship of Son to Father,
and Father to Son, He derived a wonderful strength and dignity.
This relationship was a secret which others neither knew nor
recognised. The claim to it they would not tolerate, and they
even sought to slay Him when He Himself made reference to it. But
to Him, that He was the Son and that God was His Father meant
everything at all times. To break that down, to bring the Lord
Jesus into the realm of questioning, to coerce or persuade Him
into putting that relationship to the test, was the Devil's aim.
To have given heed would have been, on the part of the Son, to
have entertained doubt of all that was most sure, to have acted
presumptuously, to have gone back upon an absolute surrender. The
Devil's object was to get Him on to the ground of demonstrating
something which to His own heart was beyond demonstration and
needed not to be demonstrated, to lure Him out to put this thing
to the proof in times of stress. "Tempted at all points like
as we..." said the Apostle.
You know what such temptation
is. As one who rejoices in the knowledge that God is your Father,
you know what this means to you in the best moments of your life.
But suppose you are hungry, weak, worn out, and in direct, naked
conflict with the Devil and powers of darkness, while around you
there is a sinister atmosphere of evil, and for the time being it
is as though you were, in a spiritual sense, in the wilderness
with the wild beasts; you know the suggestions which the enemy
makes at such a time, the insinuations as to the Father, and as
to your sonship, your relationship. "Tempted in all points
like as we..." But the Lord Jesus did not yield to the
suggestion, the insinuation. He did not yield to the pressure to
subject that relationship to any kind of test. He stood on it,
and won on the ground of His secret knowledge of it. He put back
His own soul, and refused to allow it to govern Him. He stood in
His spirit upon God's fact and won through. It was to Him the
strength by which He won. He knew God's fact to be true, and
stood to it.
That gave Him a wonderful
strength, a wonderful dignity. Some of His language, if it were
the language of an ordinary man, would be accounted terrible as
He speaks to the leaders of religious life and thought; men
occupying high places in religious things, and says to them: "Ye
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free"
(John 8:32). And again, "If therefore the Son shall make you
free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). They immediately
rose up and said: "We were never in bondage to any
man", "we are Abraham's seed". The Lord Jesus at
once proceeded to point out how great their bondage was. The
dignity of the position! "If the Son shall make you free..."
It puts Him in a higher place than all the rest, and invests Him
with a dignity, an ascendency, a moral supremacy. We simply
state the fact, which is patent and clear to all who read. He
rested so much upon the fact that He was the Son of God and drew
His strength from it.
Standing on that ground means
strength. We may gain confirmation of the fact if we glance again
at the Old Testament for a moment. What tremendous strength and
dignity and executive ability came to Nehemiah through his
recognition of the fact that God had given him a mandate, and
that he was a man appointed of God to his work. How much this
meant to him when his enemies set their traps for him, and by
every means sought to bring him out of his position and to
frustrate the work. When at last, amidst all their threatenings,
one counselled him to take refuge in the House of God, his reply
was, "Should such a one as I flee?" Those were no words
of personal conceit, personal importance; they betokened a man
whom God had commissioned and who was assured of His support. In
the infinitely fuller way the Lord Jesus was able to stand His
ground because of the Divine relationship which meant the Divine
backing.
Oh, for some of this assurance.
It is a great thing to know that God has sent you, and that God
is with you, that you are under a Divine mandate, related to God.
A tremendous strength should be drawn from such a fact. It should
always prove a secret source of strength and dignity.
The Position
and Vocation Connected with Sonship
This is the second thing.
Notice some of the statements that are made: "The Father
judgeth no man, but he hath committed all judgment unto the
Son" (John 5:22). "The Father loveth the Son and
showeth him all things that himself doeth" (verse 20). What
a position! "The servant abideth not in the house for ever:
the son abideth ever" (John 8:35). "If therefore the
Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (verse
36). What a position! The writer of the letter to the Hebrews
uses this phrase: "Christ as a Son over God's house".
Sonship carries with it position, and sonship carries with it
Divine vocation "Because He is the Son of Man"!
That was the Lord's own way of expressing it, and of explaining
the prerogatives which were put into His hands. A tremendously
influential position!
As Son He was related to, or
connected with, a great Divine purpose. This conferred upon Him
the dignity of being related in Sonship to what God had
determined from everlasting. He was in that. There is a great
deal of strength to be derived from the relationship, from the
fact that you are bound up with some great thing which is of
universal and eternal value and significance, and that this is
what marks you out in your relationship to God. If only the
Lord's people realised that they are not merely saved for
saving's sake, but in order that by that initial step they should
come into a place of tremendous value and importance in
connection with an eternal purpose of God, how much it would
mean. Relatively the place may seem small because it is only a
part of a whole, but no part of such a whole as that is
unimportant. The smallest place is of tremendous significance if
it is a part of a whole, and the whole can never be a whole
without its parts. In the case of the Lord Jesus, of course, the
entire purpose was resting upon Him, and He knew it. There was a
secret strength derived from what He was here, from that with
which He was related, the position into which He was brought by
the Father.
The third thing is -
Assurance as
to the Ultimate Issues Inherent in Sonship
Do you notice how this carries
you into the far future. The Lord Jesus never at any time said
anything which would imply that after a certain period He would
finish His work and that for Him that would mark the end; He
would go the way of all flesh, His work would be done, His life
over. You find Him, though knowing quite well the Cross lay at a
certain point in His progress, always speaking of that which lay
in the far future. Crucifixion, death, burial, all this might be,
yet with tremendous meaning and connection His gaze is seen to be
ever fixed on things that were far beyond. The Cross with all its
meaning and significance was, after all, an incident. That will
pass and the work will go on. A work has been started, and the
Cross will not interrupt it. It is an essential incident on the
way, an indispensible factor, but, after all, something that will
be passed through, and the work will be consummated and the end
realised! It was Sonship which gave Him that assurance of the
ultimate issue of everything. Will He suffer? Yes, He knows He
will suffer. He will be delivered into the hands of wicked men
and be crucified. Yes, He knows it, and states it. Will He die
and be buried? Yes, He knows it right well. But with it all the
issues are certain; they are secured, they are tremendous.
Nothing, neither men nor devils, independently or combined, can
frustrate the ends, can curtail the work, can prevent the issues.
This Sonship is not merely a thing of this earth. It is not
something which is but for a time in its relationship and values.
This Sonship is eternal. It is abiding in all its meaning, in all
its intention. And the issues are secured by the nature of
Sonship. Sonship is a thing indestructible. Other relationships
might cease, but not this one. The relationship is not something
in itself, but something with a mighty, universal purpose. He has
a marvellous assurance springing secretly out of this Sonship
with regard to the issue of everything.
The Lord foretells that He will
be delivered into the hands of wicked men, who will crucify Him.
But He does not stop there; He goes on to say that the third day
He will rise again. That is Sonship. You cannot keep Sonship in
the grave. Though Sonship were to go down a thousand times into
the grave it will not stay there. If the sons of God are
crucified ten thousand times they will rise again. Sonship is
certain of survival, whatever men and demons do. It gives the
assurance that in the end we shall stand triumphant. It carries
with it the issues. It is an uplifting thing to see Christ as He
is presented at the opening of the book of the Revelation.
"I am the Living One". That is triumph. "I became
dead"; not, They killed me! "I became dead".
That is a prerogative of Sonship. "No man taketh it from me,
I lay it down of myself". "I have authority to lay it
down, and I have authority to take it again" (John 10:18).
"This commandment received I from my Father". There is
no triumph of men or devils about that. "I am the Living
One". "I became dead". "Behold I am alive
unto the ages of the ages and have the keys of death". But
He knew it would be so. Sonship secured that. The assurance of
the ultimate issue inherent in Sonship carried Him, with a
certainty, on through everything into the undying eternity.
The Father's
Fulness Included in Sonship
That has been said already.
"The Father put all things into his hands".
Paul gives us a wonderful unveiling of the "all
things". Take that phrase in Paul's letters only, and see to
what it leads. All is in Christ. In Him all the Divine fulness
dwells. "The Father hath committed all things unto the Son".
The Father's fulness is included in Sonship.
The
Believer's Election to Sonship
Now let us briefly consider the
matter of our connection with all that we have said. These things
which were true in the case of Christ are made available to us in
resurrection-union, resurrection-life. We know quite well that to
be begotten of God is the very first step in a true relationship
with Him. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath begotten us again unto a living hope by
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter
1:3). Though not in the same way as that in which Christ is the
Son, yet in resurrection God has given us the Spirit of His Son,
which is the Spirit of Sonship. By sharing His risen life we are
brought in a related way into all that is true of Christ; the
relationship is brought about. "Born of the Spirit",
"Born from above", "Which were born of God",
such are the designations of the Scriptures. We are related on
resurrection-ground.
Where that is true, "the
Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children
of God..." In what should that result? As in the case of the
Lord Jesus it should result in strength and dignity arising out
of the witness of the Spirit within that we are the children of
God. I do not know that we dwell enough upon what this means,
upon the fact, the reality of the relationship. I think if we
were sometimes to tell ourselves that we are not just Christians,
not just believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, not just adherents
to the Christian faith, but children of God, possessing His own
life by resurrection-union with His Son, we should derive
strength and dignity from that. It ought to bring a sense of
pride, not personal but moral; a spiritual elevation.
Our union with Christ means
also that the position and vocation of Christ is to be shared by
us, that the purpose with which He is related, and which is bound
up with Him as the Son, is the purpose into which we are called.
I want you to remember that wherever you read of predestination
it is always in connection with Sonship, not with salvation.
Sonship occasioned predestination. God never predestinated some
to be saved and others not to be saved. God predestinated unto
Sonship. That is something more than salvation. Salvation brings
us into the purpose of God, into relation with His foreknowledge,
foreordaining, predestinating. This, let me repeat, is related to
an eternal purpose. It is vocation, and position that are bound
up with Sonship. A child is one born. A son is one adopted on the
ground of majority, maturity. We are not elected to childhood, to
salvation. We are elected to Sonship, maturity. It is with
reference to that we have to give diligence to make our election
sure, to go on to full growth. It is possible to miss the full
purpose of God, even though you remain saved. You can be a child,
and yet never come to the position and maturity of a son.
Position and vocation are bound up with Sonship, that is,
proceeding to full growth. But we are called according to
His purpose. We are in union with Christ, related to this
tremendous vocation of the Son of God through all the ages to be.
We are chosen in union with Him to occupy a
tremendously high position.
Is it necessary to apply what
was said about assurance as to the ultimate issues? We ought to
derive secret strength from this. If I were a servant, a
bondslave, the position would be so different, but being a son
how certain are the issues. We may be pressed down; we may be
crushed for a time; we may appear to be overwhelmed; it may seem
that men ride over our heads and the enemy gains the advantage
for the time being, but the fact bound up with our Sonship is
that the issues are secured in absolute triumph, and that we
shall stand at last in complete victory, because of Sonship. It
is an unquenchable and indestructible thing. If all "the
sons of God" sang together and shouted for joy in the
heavenly realm before this world was (Job 38:7), we may be quite
sure that all who now are the sons of God will shout and sing for
joy when this world is no more. The sons will! God will
have His sons, despite what the Devil may do.
I want you to remember that all
this hangs upon resurrection-union. There was a special
attestation of Sonship in resurrection. It was typically set
forth at the baptism of the Lord Jesus, when on His coming up out
of the waters heaven was opened, and a voice said: "This is
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". Paul tells us,
at the beginning of the Roman letter, that He was set forth as
the Son of God by the resurrection from among the dead; a special
attestation on the ground of resurrection. That is where we come
in, on the ground of resurrection. The nature of our relationship
is that of resurrection-union. The resurrection life of the Lord
Himself is the basis of Sonship, and that is why Sonship is
indestructible. It is not an official relationship. It is oneness
in an incorruptible life, in a life that is abiding. It is a
grand thing to think that Sonship is based upon something which
neither earth, nor hell, nor all the antagonisms of this universe
can ever destroy though they released their full strength upon
it.
What do we come into? Not into
something which is still open to speculation, to chance. No! We
come into Sonship just at the point where that which is the
ground of Sonship, even resurrection-life, has triumphed over all
the ultimate antagonistic forces of the universe. That becomes
the basis of Sonship. What an assurance, what a hope, what a
possibility is in resurrection life, what a position!
I wonder if you have got hold
of that. That is the tremendous thing about our relationship with
God in Christ, that it comes about at the point of His
resurrection. How did God bring about the supreme attestation of
His Sonship? Why, Satan, with all his myriads, with all the power
at his command, spiritual and human, was allowed to converge upon
Christ. Every evil, deadly, iniquitous force in this universe
came upon Him. All the power of death - to know even a little of
that power is terrible enough - all the power of death lighted
upon Him, with all the power of sin, and all the malice of evil
men, to cast Him out of His own world. It looked as though they
had done it. Darkness covered the face of the deep. He is dead
and buried, and they have triumphed! All the powers of darkness
are there in their unholy convocation, they are all in it. Then
God intervened "God raised him". What does that mean?
That there is not a force in this universe which has power to
bring God's Son to an end, to destroy that life. "God raised
him from the dead". That means that all these forces have
been exhausted, and then utterly worsted, God raised Him! That is
Sonship. That is the nature of Divine life. It is more than all
the combined forces of this universe. "Declared to be the
Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by the
resurrection of the dead". Then He gives us that life; that
tested, tried life; that life which had been subjected to every
evil force in this universe, and had proved more than them all,
and that is the basis of Sonship.
You see the possibilities that
are ours in having that life as members of Christ. What it means
as to position! What it means as to power! What it means as to
the eventualities, the issues! What it means as to vocation! That
is not a thing of time. That is not a thing of the earth. That
life is eternal, universal, infinite. It is that life which is
the basis of all, which makes all this possible. We are not
speaking of life apart from the Person. "God sent forth the
Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father".
The Spirit of Sonship! We see, then, the values of
resurrection-union, and all is the outworking of the value of His
own relationship with the Father.