The Trinity of God

… Matthew's Gospel, chapter 28, verse 16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. Now perhaps we might sing the other three verses of that opening hymn, 401. I was asked a good question today. How early do I know the scripture or the subject that I'm going to speak about? Those of you who serve the Lord by speaking to other people about him, no doubt have the same experience. Sometimes, well in advance of the occasion, when words are needed, you get a clear impression about what you need to be reading and speaking about. Other times, you're almost or perhaps even on the platform at the desk before you realize what you have to say. Hopefully, it never gets to the point where you've actually got down before you realize what you should have been talking about. I had an inclination, fed by the expression of a general need in many parts, that we should pay increasing attention to what we do when we are together and why we do it. In other words, does scripture justify the way we meet, the basis on which we meet, what governs our activities while we are together? And I was meditating along those lines until I got a clear impression that that would be starting at the wrong end. If the Lord will, starting at what I judge to be the proper end, if the Lord hasn't come and when the dust settles after this visit, if he'd like me to come again, I'd be glad to do so at any mutually convenient date. But tonight, I feel it right to start at the proper end, God's end. And if you want a heading for what I want to talk about, I suppose you could say, I want to make a beginning in addressing the subject of Christianity proper. Or another way, the fullness of the Christian revelation. I read from Matthew 28, and to those of you who search the scriptures daily, you will have already been mulling over in your mind that Matthew's gospel has a Jewish flavour. It has a dispensational flavour, and you might think, well, we don't quite get Christian teaching in its fullness in the gospel by Matthew. Amen to that, I fully agree. But it seems to me significant that even in this particular gospel, which is enlightening the Jews as to the fact that the promised Messiah has come, that he would be rejected, having presented himself to the nation, he would be refused, set it not, he would ultimately be crucified, and he would be raised again from among the dead, and at the end, in this commission that is given to the disciples at the end of the gospel, they are told to go out baptising from all the nations, and this is the character of the truth to which they have to baptise those that they baptise. So I just want to take this little phrase, this almost a formula if you like, Go therefore, verse 19, teach all nations, baptising them, we have to be careful as to our prepositions, if you consider all your concordances, and Greek New Testaments, and all these aids you have at your disposal, you'll probably find that the commission is to go teaching, baptising, unto the name, unto the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Now what does that mean? I know this with care, another subject that suggested itself to mine was the subject of baptism, another very important subject. I don't know why brethren get so upset at the very idea of even considering the subject of baptism, why there's so much heat and so little light about the subject of baptism. It's not my subject this week, but here I think it's significant. In introducing the subject of baptism in Matthew's Gospel, it's with a view to being brought within the scope of the fullness of the Christian revelation, and the fullness of the Christian revelation is the revelation of divine persons, the fullness of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Now take that away, meditate upon it, I only want to pick that out of Matthew's Gospel, that if we are to consider the fullness of the Christian revelation, you and I, simple believers on the Lord Jesus, have been brought into the understanding and apprehension, we'll come back to these words, something that has never been revealed in its fullness before. Until Christ came, until he died and rose again, until he ascended where he was before and sent the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, it was not possible to be brought within the scope of the Christian revelation, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Christianity is a fuller, deeper, wider, better revelation of God than there could ever possibly have been before. And we get just an inkling of this, in the scope of this baptismal formula, unto the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. If you ever read it again, baptism is not the subject. In the book of Acts, for instance, there are those who are baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. No difficulty. We are brought under the authority of the Lord. We recognise the authority under which we are placed, baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus, unto the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Now, would you quickly turn on, please? We must keep moving. 2nd Timothy, chapter 1. At the listening end, I've always found general comments like this helpful to me. I hope they're helpful to some of you. 2nd Timothy, chapter 1, and verse 9. Who, that is, from the previous verse, God. God hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Another very full verse. Notice the order. He starts off, God has saved us. He's starting at our end, and he talks about the blessing that is ours. He's looking at it from the side of our need. Now, this is the way we enter into the truth of God. When we first trust the Savior, we are not concerned, we are not aware about things like the counsel of God, or even the kingdom of God, or even the church of God. What we are concerned about is our sins, and getting saved. And that's right. So that's settled. Nothing else can be sorted out. And he starts at the end of our needs. He says, God has saved us. And then, wonder of wonders, we find that we are ushered into a sphere of blessing that until we are saved, we have no idea about at all. So he goes on, and he says, God has saved us, and called us with a holy calling. Or, when we trust Jesus as our Savior, we are ushered into a wealth of blessing that until we are saved, and indwelt by the Spirit, we haven't the capacity to understand. We can know nothing about it. But we move on from our needs and blessings, and we are brought into the wonder of the calling of God. There's something much more deeper about the call of God than merely singling us out, drawing us out from our hiding place, and our believing the gospel. When we get the term call, or calling in scripture, it tells us that God has conferred upon us a dignity. He has called us into relationship with himself. Now, see the movement from being saved, and attending to our needs, and being drawn on to a realization of all that God has in mind for us, because we have been made right with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that's one way. And then he pauses and says, not according to our works, never could be, but, and then he says something marvelous, but according to his own purpose and grace. Now, I want to suggest to you now that he's turned the thinking process round. Once we are in the family, once we are in relationship with God, he can then draw the veil aside, and help us to understand things we would never have dreamed of before. And so he then says, right, I've drawn you in from your side on to my side, and he says, I want to tell you that really what happened was that I started moving first, God says to it, and then eventually you were brought within the compass of the blessing that God has brought from himself. And so he begins here, he takes it the other way round, he says, according to his own purpose. Maybe a fad of mine. I don't get too upset when brethren talk about the purposes of God. But when you read scripture, you'll find it's always spoken of in the singular, the purpose of God. God has a singular purpose. We'll find out something about it, I trust, as the week progresses. But notice that God has a purpose. The purpose. His purpose. Start somewhere round about Proverbs 15, and go through your concordance, and check every reference to the purpose of God, and you'll satisfy your mind that in the purpose of God, our attention is drawn to that which God has ever had in mind. In other words, we're not now starting as the verse started, with things from our end meeting our need, we are now starting from God's side, and we are introduced into this majestic consideration of the purpose of God. As I say, go back to Proverbs 15, work your way right through scripture, and you'll find that the purpose of God, spoken of in the singular, tells us that God has ever had something dear to his heart, ever in his own mind, and this has been progressively revealed, stage by stage. Having said that, he then says his own purpose and grace. Now, if we on our side of our needs were to be drawn into this wonderful sphere of blessing, it could never be by any works of righteousness that we could do, it can only be by the grace of God. God's goodness towards us, this free unmerited favor, hammer home in our minds that however long we live, however faithful we might mature to be, we could never deserve blessing of any sort by what we do. Blessing is always a result of the grace of God. And so he takes account of this, if his purpose, which he has ever purposed, was to be brought to pass, and we were to be brought within the scope of it, it could only be by the free grace of God. And he says this is so far reaching that if you want to begin where God begins, you have to begin before the world began. Another interesting study is wherever the blessing of the church of the living God in association with our Lord Jesus Christ is referred to in scripture, it is always referred as having its beginning before the world began, or before the foundation of the world. If we get a phrase like from the beginning of the world, or from the foundation of the world, we'll find I'm sure that it refers usually to the blessing of the nation of Israel and not the blessing of the church of Christ. Well, here we have it. At the beginning of the verse, we have salvation and calling, our need, and then that which is conferred upon us afterwards. End of the verse, speaking from God's side, purpose, and then grace. Now what's the distinction that needs to be drawn? Something to look for in scripture always. There are two major streams in the teaching of scripture. One is from God's side coming down towards us, and that is the stream of revelation. There is another stream in scripture which starts with the meeting of our need and being drawn up to a realization of what God has done. Now that line is the line of apprehension. So we need these two streams. Scriptures don't always take things in the same way, and it's worth noticing that sometimes it's on the revelation of God from himself and down to meeting our need, and then we are drawn up on the line of apprehension and we are brought to a proper understanding of what God has ever had in mind. Now that's all I want to take about, take out of 2 Timothy 1 verse 9, this distinction between revelation and apprehension. We look at another scripture, 1 John 1. As you're finding that, I will only add that if one good comparison is between revelation and apprehension, another good distinction is between revelation and response. Now it's when God reveals himself, tells us about himself, and gives us an apprehension of himself that it's then that the response begins to flow. Or you might say, well, I felt a response in my spirit as soon as I trusted Christ as Savior, and rightly so. But perhaps the first revelation that God gave us of himself was as a Savior God, and that in itself brought about a response of thanksgiving, something which we will never lose. So put these things together, revelation down from God to us, apprehension, our moving upwards and inwards and a sense of the goodness of God and that bringing about the response. Now 1 John 1 verse 1. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life for the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the father and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ and these things rightly unto you that your joy may be whole. I was talking with a friend in his home a couple of years ago. He didn't have his Bible at hand. I was sitting with mine and talking about these verses. He said, let me see your Bible. I passed it to him. He said, let me see your Bible. He said, let me see your Bible. I passed it to him. He said, let me see your Bible. I passed it to him. He looked at it and he winced and handed it back. He said, I can't read it. It's all scribbles. Is your Bible all scribbles? Might be scribbles to other people, mightn't it? But they're treasures when they're your scribbles, aren't they? I trust this is not scribbled. It's too precious a document to scribble on. But I did one day go right through noticing the words that are significant, noticing, for instance, that the word love comes in 51 times, the word no 40 times, abide 23, life 17, truth 15, manifest or manifested 10, and so on. It's not a bad thing, you know, to get the feel of a teaching of a book of the Bible by noticing the key words, the words that are repeated, the things that run like threads and give you an understanding of what the writer is about. Well, certainly, like the gospel, where, for instance, the first seven chapters are all about life and chapters 8 to 12 are all about light and then verse chapter 13 onwards is all about love. In John's epistle, we get these same themes like a reinforced mesh going right through life and light and love. Matthew 28, the scope of the Christian revelation Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. John's epistle, you say, Oh, now I know why he wrote it. Verse 4 says, These things write we unto you that your joy may be full. Go through the epistle, you'll find he gives not just one or two, he gives 11 reasons why he wrote it. He had good cause to write it. He says, These things write we unto you and then he gives a reason and another and another. The first one he gives is that your joy may be full. Now again, God wants us to be happy Christians. He wants us to be full of joy. And the way he encourages us to be full of joy is to enter into an understanding of the fullness of the Christian revelation. It is not a merely academic, intellectual matter to study the detail of Scripture to see what God is teaching us in the various books of the Bible. And here, in verse 3 he says, Now this is all about. Christianity is about fellowship. Fellowship with one another is a great matter. But higher and fuller than what we enjoy with each other, we are drawn into this wonderful fellowship with the Father and with the Son. And if the Lord will, we'll hope to come to something of that. But I'm still on this matter of revelation and apprehension and that's why I've read the verses at this stage. Notice in verse 1, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen. Faith cometh by hearing. Hearing by the word of God. This is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Our first knowledge is being acquainted with the gospel. I know that we may well have the first contact with the gospel through the eyes reading Scripture. We may well have it spoken in our hearing. But this word hearing, and again we borrow from Romans, faith cometh by hearing, it's being made aware of our need, God's desire to bless us, and trusting God that the way that he provides is the only way into blessing. Now, this is summed up relative to the sense of hearing. Being made to understand the truth of God, first as to our sinfulness, as to our need of salvation, and that by trusting Christ we can receive that salvation. Now, this is attributed to the sense of hearing, and it would include, I'm sure, reading the word of God. But then he says, having heard, having believed, you see, you perceive, you understand things that you could never have done in your unconverted days. And he attributes this to the sense of sight. He said, first we heard, we believed, and then we were brought, we were given eyes to see things that we could never have seen before. Now again, you're a step ahead of me, aren't you? You're saying, oh yes, this is the line of apprehension. And so it is, beginning with our need, how our resistance is broken down, and we are drawn on to trust the Savior. And then, having heard, we are brought within the scope of the revelation which we have seen. But now, having entered into that, again it's turned around. Once we begin to learn a little bit about it, verse three says, now we, not we Christians, we apostles here, that special apostolic band who are given the privilege and responsibility of taking their place in the early days of the Christian church announcing the glad tidings. And he says, now, he said, having been drawn into it, having had our responsibilities met, he says, we now are able to tackle things because we are beginning to see things from God's side. And so he turns it around very neatly and he says, that which we have seen and heard, having been brought into the apprehension of it, he says, it's a wonderful thing that we are now in an understanding of the revelation of God, what God has shown us of himself and from himself in the person of Christ and this is what fire them in their service for the Lord. So heard and seen apprehension, seen and heard revelation. Revelation chapter 22. Verse 13. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. The Lord Jesus speaking. But even if we hadn't noticed that, let us consider this threefold statement. Good thing to check right through the book of Revelation. Half a dozen times or more, we get one, two, or three of these phrases put together. Not always in the same order, but here Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Now I want to make a suggestion about this to take away and meditate. There'll not be much more than just to mention it. Alpha and Omega, even with my limited education, I am aware that Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, the language in which the New Testament was originally written. It's about language. It's about speaking. It's about communication. And this verse tells me that the Lord Jesus, my Savior, he is the sum and substance of all that God has to say. Marvelous thing. If there is a Christian revelation, if I'm to be drawn in to an understanding of who God is and what God is and what he's about, it can only be through the revelation that God has given of himself in Christ, the sum and substance of all that God has to say. The beginning and the end, not now a matter of speaking, more a matter of doing. Or John's Gospel says, if I paraphrase it in words that are consistent with this thought, it's John's Gospel that tells us that everything that had a beginning owes its beginning to him who was in the beginning, which you can take as a paraphrase of the opening statement of John's Gospel. First Corinthians 15, we read, then come at the end. Lovely thought to me. If the first recorded act in time was an act of insubjection by Adam and Eve, the last event in time will be an act of perfect subjection and submission. When the Son as such hands over the kingdom to the Father as such, that God as such might be all in all. Not only is the Lord Jesus the sum and substance of all that God has to say, the Lord Jesus is also the sum and the substance of everything that was worthwhile that God has done, is doing and will ever do. He is the beginning and the end. If Alpha and Omega is about language and speaking, if the beginning and the end is about doing and acting, the first and the last is about being. Not just existence, but being, which I think is a fuller word. All your thoughts have moved on, I'm sure. The Lord Jesus is not only the sum and substance of all that God has to say and all that God has to do, he is the sum and substance of the being of God because he is God. Tremendous things, aren't they? Bound up in these three little phrases, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, the first and the last. Now, just briefly, and perhaps there is time, we'll demonstrate this from Scripture. Would you turn, please, to Hebrews chapter 1. In each case, bear in mind that we are concerned with how the revelation of God has come to us, how God has revealed himself, manifested himself to man, and how we are brought into an understanding of it and brought into the enjoyment of it. And the immediate proposition is only in the person of Christ. Hebrews 1, verse 1. God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who, being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. God has spoken. Previously, recorded in the Old Testament, summarized, I suppose, in the first two and a half chapters of Romans, God has, stage by stage, progressively made known himself in a fuller and deeper way. First of all partially, then a little more and a little more, but only in the person of the Son can God make himself fully known. He's told the story progressively. He has spoken more and more fully every stage of the declaration of who he is. But it says here, having spoken at sundry times divers manners unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by or in his Son. There are three major treatises, there are three major dissertations, three major statements about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, the personal glory of the Lord Jesus. As we come to them, John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1. My suggestion tonight is that each has its own emphasis. Without repeating what's been said already, I would say that Hebrews 1 is about the speaking of God. Oh yes, you get seven of his titles, if you like, seven expressions of the way that he's shown his glory in verses 2 and 3. We get this statement about his more excellent name in verse 4. But the heart of the statement is taking the first verse of verse 1 and the first phrase of verse 2. God has spoken. We can know about God now because God has spoken. Previous to the incoming into the world of the Son of God, people knew something about God. He had said something about himself. But only with the incoming into the world of God the Son could God be fully declared to be what he is, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And so here, I would suggest that the epistle to the Hebrews, in particular these first four verses, are an expansion of what is involved in saying that the Lord Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the sum and the substance of all that God has to say. Colossians 1, another of these three delightful chapters. We shall read only verses 12 and 13. Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us unto the kingdom of his dear Son, we might say, hath translated us unto the kingdom of the Son of the Father's love. Another major revelation of the personal glory of the Lord Jesus. I suppose, while John and Paul have their distinctive lines, here is one where their lines merge or coalesce. The only begotten, the only begotten Son in John's writings, I would say, is as close as you can get to what Paul says here, the Son of the Father's love. Nice to see, while they have distinctive flavors to their ministry, they agree on important matters like this. Now what follows is a list of the things that have been done by the one who announces himself in Revelation 22 as the beginning and the end. Now the phrase, the beginning, even comes in this chapter, verse 18. Who is the beginning? Oh, but it's full of his offices. He's the redeemer. He's the creator. He's the sustainer. He is the beginning. He is the reconciler. All these things he does and it's in the doing of them that he is revealing the fact that he is the beginning and the end of all that God has to do. If God has anything to say, the fullness of that saying is in the person and through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. If God has anything to do, it is in the person and through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I leave that for your further meditation and go back to John, Gospel chapter 1. I read the verses then make a brief comment. I'll read straight through as they need to be read, verses 1, 14, and 18. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. If Hebrews 1 is about speaking, when the Lord Jesus speaks, it's God speaking because he is God. When the Lord Jesus is acting, it is God's acting because he is God. And here, when we get, it's all about the expression of the being of God, Christ himself, the Son, can express who and what God is because he is God. Not only the Alpha and Omega, not only also the beginning and the end, he is also the first and the last. I was browsing this morning through a very, very worthwhile treatise on the verbs that are used in the beginning of John's Gospel by a very good friend of mine, now with the Lord, who spent his later years in Otley. Lovely book. If you haven't got it, get it. If you have got it, read it. And if you have read it, read it again. The Heart of Christianity. And attention is drawn then to the fact that some things are said to have being in the sense that they've always had being. They never began to be. Scripture is careful to God in case we are deluded into thinking that the Father began to be then, or the Son began to be then, or the Spirit began to be. They had existence. They had being in eternity. How could God have an eternal purpose unless there was a God to have that purpose? And John's Gospel concentrates on the fact that everything that came into being, that's the other verb, everything that came into being had a commencement of existence. In other words, all created things, they all came into being as a result of the work of one who had eternal being. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. Wonderful thing. One more thing before we close. This matter of first and last. The language that's used in John's Gospel is extremely wide and edifying. What it says about the Lord Jesus and it's relative, relevant to this matter of being first and last is this. The Lord Jesus Christ turned here in John's Gospel the word and that word, that term, means expression of what is there and taking it the first stage we can say that the Lord Jesus is the only one competent to express God because he is God. Now these are good phrases, they are worth meditating upon. But it's even fuller than that. Not only does he express God, he is himself the expression of what he is expressing. In other words, he is the personal embodiment, we might say, he is the epitome of expression of the being of God. We don't get hold of these things in five minutes, do we? Starting with that wonderful to us expression, God has saved us. Little by little, we are brought into an understanding of the truth of God. And wonder of wonders, very early in our Christian meditations of the word of God being indwelt by the Spirit, we can distinguish such things as God speaking, God doing, and God being. And these phrases, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, first and last, exemplified, I suggest, in Hebrews 1, Colossians 1, and John 1, give us a little bit of understanding, help us along the way in our apprehension, and then we find that it draws us up into the revelation of God as he really is, in the fullness revelation of himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We cannot look at all these things in one meditation, can we? We'll have to leave it there. I trust we'll all pray about it, and then if the Lord will, we'll come together again tomorrow evening. But let us now, for the moment, sing our closing hymn, number 485. Amen. …

… Gospel by John, chapter 5. John 5, verse 17, Jesus answered the Jews, My father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore 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 equally with God. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, 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. We'll leave that chapter there and move on to chapter 17. Verse 1, These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee, as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Chapter 4, verse 19. The woman said unto Jesus, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. We have sought, as time has permitted, to see what we can gather into our garner in three brief sessions, an impression of what God has done from himself and for himself, to reveal himself as he has in Christianity. So much might be said, and could be said, that would be worthwhile. We have to be careful we don't cloud the issue with too much detail. So we have taken account of the fact that, as Hebrews 1.1 tells us, that over the centuries before Christ came into the world, God had progressively, stage by stage, shown, declared, and revealed more and more of himself, and yet still keeping something back. We considered that with every revelation that God made of himself, that there were those on earth who were prepared and brought into a knowledge of that revelation, and they gained an apprehension, which was the other word we use, God revealing himself in a downward direction to men, man reaching up, being led into an apprehension of what God was revealing about himself. And we'll come back to that. But now, with the incoming into the world of God the Son, God manifested in flesh, God has now revealed himself, manifested himself, declared himself, in a fuller way than ever would have been possible. All previous revelations were partial. Many of the revelations were transient for a time. None were permanent, none were eternal, none were absolutely full. But then, having looked briefly at John 1, Colossians 1, and Hebrews 1, we saw that in the person of the Son, who is God in person, that God has revealed himself in the fullest possible manner. This means that in our day, a greater apprehension of God can be entered into, and it also means that there can be a greater response to God. Response to God, in any day, is commensurate with the revelation God has given of himself, and the apprehension of God that man has been brought into it. So that tends, seems to be the sequence, revelation, apprehension, and then response. We moved on from there to consider that if there were to be people on earth who entered into the apprehension of God's revelation of himself, seeing that they weren't fit in themselves as sinners, their sins must be dealt with, redemption must be secured, and for that, it meant that the Son, who came into the world to reveal God, had to go out of the world in that terrible way by the death of the cross. That left a gap. The one who had revealed God fully and entirely in his own person, and by what he did, had to go back to where he was before. And as we read and referred to last night, when the hour had come when he should depart out of the world unto the Father, that he gathered his own around himself, and in those sweet chapters 14 to 16 of the Gospel by John, the Lord revealed to the disciples this further secret, that now that he was going out of the world, and they were going to be bereft of his personal presence, they would feel that very keenly, he reassured them that another comforter, he had been their comforter until now, another comforter was coming into the world, sent by the Father, yes, sent by the Son, coming himself the Spirit, because he wanted to, and as with everything else that's important in Christianity, the fruit of the concerted work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so we moved on to consider that this adequate, equal, equal caliber comforter would come into the world as he did on the day of Pentecost. There would be that small apostolic band who would act for God in making known the revelation of God, and the agent that they would use would be the Word of God. And I think that brings us to where we were at the end of the meeting last night. The persons of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, acting in concert for the glory of God, the holy apostles, with the Word of God, first of all oracularly and orally, by word of mouth, from them, and then when the canon of Scripture was committed to writing, preserved down the ages, so as the Lord prayed, as the Son prayed for us, chapter 17, verse 20, praying not only for the apostles, but for us, who would henceforth believe on the name of the Son. And that is where we find ourselves now. The object of the activities of the persons of the Godhead, with the apostolic witness in our hands, the apostles' doctrine, and the Holy Spirit making these things good in our souls. So we are now poised, the revelation has been made, redemption has been secured, we are indwelt by the Spirit, those whom Christ has secured for God by his work upon the cross, and we are now able to enter, just a little, by way of response to all the revelation that God has made of himself. Now I read chapter 5, verses 17 to 19, as a link between what we've had and that which we are moving on to. It may seem a difficulty to read words like, the Father sent the Son, to read words like, I do always the will of him that sent me. As we read, the Son can do nothing from himself. I want to make a statement for brevity, and I commend in particular the writings of John, the Gospel and the three epistles in particular, to verify, Berean-wise, what I say. Verify that what I say is scriptural. Be no help to you, in fact it would be dangerous if what I say is outside the bounds of Scripture. I will use my words, but you check against the words of Scripture. I consider I am on good ground, scriptural ground, when I say that personally the Son is equal with the Father. But that, administratively, the Son is subject to the Father. Notice I say subject. I don't say inferior, although I'm not afraid of that word. You know in Hebrews 2, where we read that the Lord became, for a little while, or in a little way, lower than the angels, exactly that could well be translated, that he became, for a little while, inferior to the angels. Those of you who use French translations will find the word there. What does that mean? Personally, the angels do him homage. Personally, he is vastly superior to the angels. But in the hierarchy of beings, notice I'm saying beings, not creatures, the Lord is the creator, never became a creature. He became man, which is not the same. Well, man, as an order of being, is lower on the scale of beings than angels. And so, positionally, in the position that he took in manhood, it does no disservice to his personal glory to say that he became, for a little while, inferior, positionally in brackets, to the angels. Personally, far higher than a creature angel could ever be. So, if we are going to quibble about words, let us make sure we understand what meaning we convey by the words. The Lord Jesus never became a creature. All things that have being came into being in virtue of his being. Colossians says, all things that have being, or their being, and continuous in being, in virtue of his being. All things subsist by him, as the text says. But while, personally, he has the ultimate glory, and none could be higher, Philippians 2, among other places say, that as to the position he took in becoming man, he entered into a condition where he could die. In Godhead, in deity, he could never die. He is the eternally existing one. But for our sakes, and for the revelation of God, he entered into manhood with the ultimate intention of going out of the world, when the full revelation had been made, going out of the world by death, the death of the cross. But while he was here, John's Gospel highlights it. It delighted him ever to demonstrate that in holy manhood, he was subject to the Father. He deferred to the Father administratively, I would say. You choose a better word, if you will. So, he was subject. He was subordinate, if you like. We no longer have bosses and slaves, have we? We have superordinates and subordinates. Most of us, in professional life, are superordinate to some and subordinate to others. Life gets complicated. When the Lord Jesus entered into manhood, he entered into a condition where it was proper that in manhood he was subject, not personally inferior, but administratively subject, subordinate to the Father while he was here upon earth. And it was in becoming man that he not only became our kinsman with a view to dying for us and securing salvation for us, but he entered into a condition which we would recognise and we would understand the revelation of God that he was making, unless the word became flesh. Those who lived on earth at the time could never have understood the fullness of the revelation that God was giving of himself. But, as we read, when the fullness of the time was come, when the time was right, when the time was ripe, as we might say, that God revealed himself in the fullest possible way in the person of the Son who came into manhood for the express purpose of revealing God as he had never ever done before. In chapter 17, I've been in Bible readings on chapter 17, where the brethren have never got beyond the first four words. I'm sure it wouldn't happen at all. These words speak Jesus, and debate continued for a long time, as it were, the words that have already been spoken in chapter 16 are the words that are about to be spoken in verse 17. Use your spiritual judgment. Seems to me to follow on after what we speak of as the last words of the Lord Jesus to his own, from the beginning of chapter 13, really, up to the end of verse 16, he gave his last account. He gave his last advice and counsel and instruction to the disciples, and it says these words, having been spoken by Jesus, I would say, he lifted up his eyes to heaven. Now, here's a break. Until then, he had been speaking to men on earth, his own, in the upper room. He's now going to address himself in personal communion and prayer to his Father in heaven, and it's a suitable pause point, isn't it? That having been on earth, and speaking to men on earth, he lifts up his eyes to heaven, and commences this period of communion with the personal Appalachian Father. I can easily see from Scripture. Scripture makes it plain that when God is fully revealed, in a fuller, more comprehensive way than he has ever revealed himself before, it is not under the name of Elohim, not under any of the compounds of the name El, not under Jehovah or any of the compound names of Jehovah, but the fullest possible revelation is under this name, this special name of Father. Now, I have just a little difficulty there, I suppose. You see, my earthly father died when I was two. I wouldn't think most people would consider my memory was so much worse than average. It interests me, it intrigues me, when I see my grandson of two years age running about, he knows his mummy, he knows his daddy, he knows his granny, he knows his grandad, and if they were all taken away, it seems very difficult for me to imagine that in later life he wouldn't remember them at all. Whether it's something what we call that it's a kindness of God, that certain unpleasant experiences are blotted out of our memories, I don't know. The fact remains, at the age of my grandson, who seems to know people so well he'd never forget them, at such a point in normal life, my father died, and I have no recollection at all. Other than looking at a photograph, I can't remember what he looked like, the sound of his voice, what he did, how he did things, and why. I can't remember any conversations, so I have no basis of comparison. Most of you, I suppose, have known, and most of you may well still have, earthly, natural fathers, and you have that bond of father and child, father and son, father and daughter. And I suppose, well I'm sure, that God has put us in natural relationships, as a picture of eternal, spiritual, heavenly relationships. I have on my shelves a book, like many other books on my shelf, I haven't yet read it. It's called The Natural Law in the Spiritual World. Sure, it's a good book, I hope to find out someday. But I find the title a little bit off-putting. It says, The Natural Law in the Spiritual World, as though the primary world was the natural world, and that God has based spiritual values, and spiritual relationships, on what we already understand in the natural sphere, as if God has said, well, I'll copy what we already know, and they'll quickly transfer from the natural to the spiritual. Now, scriptures tell me that God's primary world is the spiritual world, and that really, if there is a copy, it's the natural which is the copy of the spiritual. God has implanted, in nature, which he designed, created, formed, and made, things which are intended to be a picture, which illustrate for us, to help us to understand, the true realities, spiritual, heavenly, eternal realities. I think I'm on good ground in that, because we get pictures in the Old Testament, which chronologically came first, but we well understand, don't we, that the types and the figures, and the allegories, in the Old Testament, are secondary, and they look forward, and point, and illustrate deeper, fuller, spiritual truths. Well, in the same way, these relationships, in which we subsist, because God has put us in them, are intended to give us a little glimpse of the fuller, deeper, spiritual truth. As I say, compared with many of you, I suppose I'll start with a disadvantage. Another friend of mine enjoyed his father's company, as a little boy, a toddler, a boy, growing up, but I was most impressed once, when this friend said to me, you know, he said, one regret I do have in life, is that my father died, just as I was getting to know him as a person. I suppose some of you can identify with that. It's one thing to be a baby in daddy's arms. It's another thing to be a toddler, running along, trying to keep up with him, while you hold his hand. It's another thing to be guided through boyhood, and as an early youth, but when you attain your majority, and become a mature person in your own right, it's another matter again, isn't it, to enter into a fuller, deeper, adult relationship, son with a father, if we might say, man to man. Well, this friend of mine, who many of you know, says it is his regret that he lost his father, just as he was getting to know him as a person. In my early days amongst brethren, I noticed that one mature believer, one of my early spiritual mentors, had a very neat way of avoiding hard questions. I'm not suggesting you practice this on a Thursday night. If he got a question he couldn't understand, or wasn't confident about the answer, he would say, well you know, that's one of those things that's better felt than tellt. I'm sure you've heard that before. But once he, I suppose he was hoist on his own petard, because he got a difficult question, and as often he said, well that's one of those things that's better felt than tellt. And another of his friends said, that may be so, but now's the time to tell it. The revelation of God as father. The knowledge of God as father. I could well say to you, you could well say amen if I said it's better felt than tellt. But having read these scriptures, you might well say to me, that may be so, but tonight you have the responsibility, now is the time to tellt. For that reason, I read the opening verses of John 17. This is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Many are the attempts to define eternal life by its very nature, beyond the power of finite mind to do in any satisfactory way. We have on our shelves, most of us, attempts at such definitions. I think it satisfies me as a start, as a start to say, a glimmer of light about eternal life is to understand that eternal life involves the knowledge and the enjoyment of the ever-subsisting relationship of the father and the son. John's writings tells us about the father, because it is about the revelation that the son gave. Perhaps another safe God is worthwhile. Now, you hear verses and without knowing them, by memory, you say, ah, that's a Pauline statement, it'd be in one of Paul's epistles. Or you might hear another remark, you say, oh, that's one of John's statements. And of course, we are not always right, are we? This morning, I was thinking of a verse, and it was this. No man knoweth the son but the father, and no man knoweth the father but the son, and he to whom the son will reveal him. In my haste, I said, oh, that's bound to be John's Gospel, and it sounds like John chapter 5. Couldn't find it. Not wanting to weaken and use the concordance, I browsed through the Gospel of John, failed to find it, gave up, got the concordance off the shelf, and realized, to my surprise, it's in Matthew, and it's in Luke, but it's not in John. But it's one of these cases where, to use the Bible term, the branches go over the wall. Notice what it says. No man knoweth the son but the father, no qualification given. Goes on to say, no one knoweth the father but the son, and he to whom the son will reveal him. Why is that? If personally they are equal, if administratively the father is superordinate to the son, the son is subject, subordinate to the father, why is it that there's a qualification about the son, the person of the son, and yet there is the extension to the statement about the father, no one knoweth the father but the son, and he to whom the son reveals him. Well before I give my answer to that, I'll take you back to the offerings. The offering, where we get the phrase, it is most holy, where the holiness of the offering and what it stands for, is emphasized more than any, is the meal offering. The one that speaks in a special way of the perfect life on earth of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he is not in deity but in the perfection of his subject manhood. Now I think that's a help. In that area where men, clever intellectual religious men, might be most inclined to read into it a personal inferiority relative to the son, God takes special care to safeguard his purity and holiness. I think in that verse in Matthew and in Luke, when it gives no qualification about the knowledge of the son, that there is in things about the son that no one but the father could ever know, and leaves it there, I think that's in case we get unduly familiar because he came in lowly grace and lived here in this world. He came expressly to reveal the father and therefore it says no one knows the father but the son and he to whom the son shall reveal him. Philip was it said show us the father. The son said have you been so long with me and you don't know the father. Knowledge of the father involves getting to know the son better and better as the days go by. As my friend said he would have liked to have known his father as an adult son knows his father, I think I'm beginning to see that that purity, that holiness, that fullness of that relationship of the son with the father ever in the bosom of the father, that is the character of the relationship and the character of the revelation that God has given of himself that by the increase of ever deepening knowledge of the son that the son conducts us into. Without the gospel by John, without John's writings, without the Apostles doctrine, without the knowledge of God, there may be many who would consider knowledge of a father as being limited to preserving care, being looked after, having every kind of resource needed to make things convenient and congenial in life. No doubt that's involved. Now as the Lord said not a hair falls from your head without your father in heaven knowing it. Oh yes these things are true but when we talk of the knowledge of the father that the son has brought within the scope of our understanding it's more than creature care that's involved. It's an entrance into an understanding and enjoyment of that subsisting eternal relationship, a relationship of sublime love between the father and the son. I'll leave that there for your meditations and I will move to chapter 4. Apprehension takes account of the revelation. The response is commensurate with the revelation. So then if worship was possible in the Old Testament and it was, the fullness of worship could never have been enjoyed in Old Testament times because God had not revealed himself in the fullest possible way. In a positive way, God now having fully revealed himself as father in the person of the son, there is open to us now a fuller, deeper response to God as father than could ever otherwise have been possible. Now we have to be careful not to adopt a formula. In my early days I remember leaving a prayer meeting and one of the brethren said to me, wonderful prayer meeting tonight everyone addressed the father. Now as a comparative novice I could well have informed, got the impression from that remark, oh it's a good thing. It's a sign of development and growth, sign of maturity. Don't pray to the Lord, pray to the father and that's the thing to do. Join an elite club who know that the best thing you can do is pray to the father. I would be most reluctant to give anyone else that sort of impression. But the Lord himself, the son himself said the highest note, the highest tone of worship is the worship of the father. I'm glad that scripture says that men should honour the son as they honour the father and therefore it is valid, it is sublime, it is right to worship the son. But worship, the Lord said, reaches its peak when there is the worship of God as the father. Now you'll have to listen very carefully to what I'm going to say in a few minutes time because I may well be misunderstood. But before I get to that point, in chapter 4 notice three things. Verse 23, well verse 21, the woman says, you Jews say Jerusalem is the place to worship. We Samaritans, the word isn't used here but it was right, they said Mount Gerizim. Syke as well is under the shadow of Mount Gerizim. Those of you who may be going shortly, perhaps you'll stand at Syke as well and you'll be able to see Mount Gerizim. The woman asked the question, what is right? Which place is right? Gerizim as for the Samaritans or Jerusalem as for Jews from the day of Solomon's temple I suppose. The Lord said it's not the place, it's the person. And he goes on, the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers trace through the Gospel of John the things that are true. They're not false, they're not incomplete, they are not transient, they are not spurious, they are final, they are full, they are permanent, they are true. These are some of the contrasts that come to mind when we say the things in John's Gospel that are declared to be true. Now the true worship, the final full worship, which is only possible now because God has given a full permanent revelation of himself as Father, only because there's been a true revelation can there be true worship. And he says the true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Now notice that, in spirit and in truth. The Jews worshipped in a sensual way, things pertaining to the natural senses, things you can see and hear and touch and feel and taste and smell, things connected with the natural senses. Hebrews 12 develops that. It was a sensual worship. Christianity, the worship of the Father is a spiritual worship. The other word that's used, and in truth. The Samaritan worship was a spurious worship, it wasn't true. So in contrast with Judaism, the worship of the Father is spiritual. In contrast with Samaritan worship, the true worship of the Father is indeed just that, it's a true worship. Notice how the Lord transfers the thought from what is spurious to what is true, from what is sensual or fleshly to what is spirit. For the Father seeketh such to worship him. A poser. I have been at perhaps or to maybe three remembrances of the Lord in the Lord's Supper in this room over the years. I can't remember much about what the brethren said except I was delighted to be with you on each occasion. I'm not speaking of pottery, I'm speaking my knowledge of believers in many places. It is rare, listen carefully to what I say, it is rare. It almost never happens that we worship the Father. Oh you see, we worship the Father every week and we worship the Father in our homes. I wonder. It was the excellent example of a very intelligent brother that brought me to this distinction. I leave it with you. There is a difference between speaking of God as our Father and speaking of God as the Father. Of course, as soon as I say that you begin to agree with me, don't you? When we worship in spirit and in truth, very often, mostly, we offer worship to our Father, don't we? I wonder if we should be careful in what we say, well we should of course. I wonder, without contriving it, I wonder if in our souls we get to this point, that we get beyond the blessedness of our relationship with him and consider what he is in himself, not so much our Father but as the Father. I can only remember in practice one brother, maybe two, who with intent addresses worship to God the Father rather than God our Father. And I find that there are 52 hymns out of 500 addressed to the Father. There are 92 hymns in this excellent book about the Father. Perhaps that's one reason why it's such a good hymn book. If you are attracted to other hymn books, if you use other hymn books, it would be a good idea to see how many of them are about God as Father, this fullness of the revelation of God, and how many of them by way of response are suitable vehicles for worship to the Father. We've heard it. In verse 5, that which is entirely personal to the Son, a glory as we speak of it, that we can neither behold nor share. In verse 22, the Son prays for a glory that's been given to his own, and it's a glory that we shall be both behold and share. And when we come to verse 24, we read of a glory that we can behold but never share. These are important distinctions. Notice then in verse 1, Father, glorify thy Son. All the way through, Father, Son, Father, Son. And when we come to verse 24, with which we must end, how many times we can say this, if there was no other chapter, if there was no other verse, it's sufficient to encourage us to understand that between the Father and the Son, there has been, there is, there ever shall be, the enjoyment of an eternally subsisting relationship without beginning or end. Notice what the prayer says. Thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. Who is speaking? The Son. Who is he speaking to? The Father. So, the prayer in verse, or the statement in verse 24, Thou the Father lovest me, the Son, before the foundation of the world. Simple but sublime statement. I trust we are encouraged, not only on the immediate study, but to search out these terms that are used about the Lord Jesus, and to say how much blessing there is in following them through. There is a little hymn we often sing. We're going to sing it now. Hymn number 23. I wonder if it'll mean just that little bit more to us now, when we sing it, to say, tis Jesus the first and the last, whose spirit shall guide us safe home. We'll praise him for all that is past, and trust him for all that's to come. Number 22. …

… ...to you, the first of which is John's Gospel, chapter 14 and verse 1. John 14, verse 1. The Lord Jesus speaking, Let not your heart be troubled. We believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. Verse 8. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, 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? Verse 16. 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, because it saith him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. Verse 26. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Chapter 15, verse 26. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me, and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. Chapter 16, verse 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you. Verse 12. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. Chapter 17, verse 5. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they are, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. Verse 15. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. Thank you for your patience. Last night was the first of three sessions looking at what I was bold enough to call Christianity proper, or the fullness of the Christian revelation. Necessarily, with only three sessions available for the moment, it was necessary to paint with a very broad brush, and to lay down essential principles, and there wasn't a lot of time for detail. It will be the same again tonight. Last night we started from the point that in our original need, we needed consolation and assurance that something had been done for us that we couldn't do for ourselves, namely that our sins might be dealt with. We needed, we had to have our needs attended to, and we took account of the fact that in Scripture, some portions begin with our need, and having had our needs attended to, we are drawn on to an appreciation of all the good things that God has in mind for those whose sins are forgiven you. A growing up in the knowledge of God. Other scriptures, we noticed, start with God himself, the truth about God, what he has in mind, and then it comes in a descending order of the greatness and the goodness of God who stoops down to meet us in our need. And we used words of English to distinguish between God's revelation of himself, starting from himself, and our apprehension of an a growing ascending way of what he has done for himself and for our blessing. And this took us into the realm, necessarily, of considering that if God is to be glorified, and man is to be blessed, the only one who could meet both the claims of God, and satisfy the heart of God, and meet our every need, is the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son. And we spent some time considering the qualifications of the Lord Jesus in being the only one competent to act for God and on our behalf, and we took account of those phrases that come in a recurring way in the book of Revelation, speaking of the Lord Jesus as the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. And as an amplification of those phrases, we took Hebrews 1, relative to the Alpha and Omega, that he's the only one who's fully competent to speak for God, because he is God. We took Colossians 1, as an amplification of the term, the Beginning and the End, he's the only one that's fully competent to act for God, because he is God. And then we looked at John, warned briefly, that he is the only one who is competent to express God, because in his own being, he is God. Now there's a wealth of truth in those few sentences, and that was where we paused at the end of the meeting. John's writings fill out in a large way the truth that was suggested in a few phrases last night. But we need to move on, and having satisfied ourselves that if what God has in mind reaches its fulfilment, it can only be in the person and through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's beloved Son, we then have to move on into the kind of scripture that we looked at tonight. Christ having come, the Son having become incarnate, the Word having become flesh, was with his disciples for that period of about the three and a half years of his public ministry, and they learned to love him. Of course they did. They learned to rely upon him for everything. He asked them the question once, didn't he? Lacked he anything? A good one-word answer, nothing. They lacked nothing while he was with them. But the time came when it was necessary for him to leave them, and this is where we pick up the text in John 14. He tells them, and there's no time to expound all these verses, but he says to them, now look, you believe in God. You've never seen him. He's the object for your faith. He's in heaven, you're on earth. You know what it is to trust in a God that you can't see. And he says, I have to go back there, and you're going to have to trust me in the same way that you already trust him. You'll be able to see me no longer, I'll no longer be on earth, and he adds the great personal comforting touch, I will go away, I will go and I will come again and receive you unto myself. Just pause there. How long is it since, with a well-known text like this, we hear it as from his personal lips, addressed personally to me as an individual, to you as an individual. Irrespective of how many others there will be involved in the blessing, it's as pertinent, it's as personal as the Lord puts it here. He says to each of us who trust him, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. The Lord intends that we don't consider this as a group matter or an assembly matter, but it's something addressed to each of us as an individual, the assurance that he knows us personally, he loves us personally, he'll come for each of us as individuals and take us to be with himself. But of course there are other implications of that. If the one in whom God has expressed himself, if the one in whom the will of God is to be brought into full effect, if having come into the world, having become man for that express purpose, is the will of God to be put to one side, is the blessing to be dissipated, is everything to end in disorder, because the one in whom all the promises of God are yea and amen has to go away again from the world, well these questions arise. And of course the Lord Jesus takes these matters up. So if we turn to verse 16, he says, I will pray the Father and he will give you another comforter. Canst thou speak Greek? I haven't enough trouble with English, never mind a foreign language. But those who can understand Greek, tell me. Common knowledge to all of us who have Bible dictionaries, expository dictionaries of New Testament words, lexicons, there they are on the shelves. And they tell us that there's something absolutely special in what the Lord says. There may well be several words that are translated other or another in the New Testament, but there are two very special words. One means another of exactly the same kind, and a different word means just that, another of a completely different kind. No time to go into the second one. But what an encouragement, what a confirmation, what a blessing to the disciples, what instruction for us to understand what's involved when the Lord said, I have to go away. But don't worry, someone's coming to take my place who is of the same quality, the same calibre, someone who can take my place because he's one with me. A tribute among other things to the co-equality and the co-deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit of which he was speaking. He said, oh, he said, it's expedient for you that I go away. And he said, because of that, he says, then I will send another comforter that he may abide with you forever. As long as there is a need, as long as we need help, as long as there is something to do on our behalf, as long as there is something to understand at which I haven't arrived yet, the Holy Spirit will be available indwellingly. Marvellous promise, isn't it? Never to be superseded, never to be removed, never to fail, always to be available, always taking the place with me that the Lord Jesus personally and physically took with the disciples in the days of his flesh. And that's what he's saying here. Now, when we, and we must keep moving, when we get towards the end of the chapter, I am aware these are very well-known concepts, but I intend to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. In verse 26, notice it says, the comforter, well, let's just pause there. When the Bible was written or when it was translated into our language in a comprehensive, assured manner, the word comfort not only mean providing sympathy and care to meet every need, but it was a double-barrelled word, wasn't it? And it additionally meant to make strong. All the disciples needed to be made strong. They'd been strong when he was with them, not in themselves, but in him. And when he was going away, he said, the way that I have strengthened you and supported you and provided every resource that you could ever require, he says the Holy Spirit is going to take that same role. And then in chapter 40, he says, whom the Father will send. Chapter 15, he says, whom I will send. And in chapter 16, when he is come of his own volition. That's an important thing. I haven't got to the end of my studies yet, but so far I've found upwards towards a hundred occasions in the New Testament where something important needs to be done. And the importance of the job to be done, and the assurance that it's been done effectively, is that the work is attributed to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Now, this is not just a neat thing. This is not just something for the academic mind to notice and enjoy. Everything that's important for God and for us, everything that's concerned with the fulfilment of the will of God, and everything that's necessary for our blessing, has this consolidated foundation addressed upon the work of the Father, and the work of the Son, and the work of the Holy Spirit. Let's just go back to last night briefly. Until Christ came into the world, the Word became flesh. God had been powerful on behalf of his people of the day. He had acted on behalf of them, and for them, and he revealed himself in the names of himself that he made known to them. All those names, all those revelations, were partial. They were less than complete. Only in the coming into the world of God the Son was the full revelation of God brought to light, and it is when the full revelation of God is brought to light that we see the role of the Father, the role of the Son, and the role of the Holy Spirit. When we get down to it and examine scripture, we find that either God as such, or the Father as such, is the source of whatever needs to be done. The Lord Jesus the Son is the active agent on behalf of the Godhead, and the Holy Spirit is the power by which and by whom the work is done. Now here, the coming into the world to take the place, an equal place, with what the Son had previously done in person, it is attributed to the work of the Father, the work of the Son, and the work of the Holy Ghost. Something to look for. If you want to satisfy yourself that something that's being recorded in scripture is an important concept, you check and you'll find that somewhere in the New Testament it will be attributed to the Father as such, to the Son as such, and the Holy Spirit as such. And so it is here. Now then, we must move quickly on. Time goes. We'll move just now for the moment to chapter 17. Verse 5. The Son praying to the Father. A neat point, but excuse me, once more. Some use the term, the Lord's Prayer, about what some of us, I suppose, would prefer to call the In fact, some, who like to be precise, would say, that's not the Lord's Prayer on the Sermon on the Mount. The Lord's Prayer is in John 17. Some of my friends who are present, if I dare to say that, soon as the meeting was finished, they'd come to me and said, well, you know, quite rightly, don't you think that the prayer in John 17 is not so much the Lord's Prayer as the Son's Prayer? And of course, I would agree with you. Isn't it worthy of note that the way that God is spoken of, the way the Lord Jesus is spoken of, is not so much the Lord's Prayer as the Son's Prayer? The way that God is spoken of, the way the Lord Jesus is spoken of, the way the Holy Spirit is spoken of in Scripture is significant. The right term, the right emphasis, whether it's a personal name or an official title, these things don't come by chance. As we read in Corinthians, the words that the Holy Ghost teaches are exceedingly important. Well, in this Son's Prayer, as is clear in the text, the Son mentions his Father's name at the beginning. He says, Father, the hour is come. Gets a bit further down in verse 5, he says, Father, speaking in that personal way about personal matters. When he gets to verse 11, thinking of his disciples in a wicked world, he prays, Holy Father. And then when he thinks of the wicked world in which the disciples and their successor would have to live, he then in verse 25 prays, O righteous Father. The terms are precise. They are significant. The Holy Spirit selects them with care in recording the substance and the detail of what the Lord has to say. Now, in these verses, 6 to 19, he prays specially for that holy apostolic bind, that nucleus that would be used of God to inaugurate in the power of the Spirit the preaching of the Gospel on the day of Pentecost and to supervise God's witness on earth in those vital formative early years of the Church. And so the Son, before he departs out of the world to be with the Father, he prays specially for them. Now, let us see how the revelation of God has moved on. If God was to be known, it must be personally in the Son. The Son came into the world. He revealed God. He declared God. He made God known. And then if any others were to be brought within the scope of the blessing, it was necessary for him to depart out of the world unto the Father by way of the cross in order that the work might be completed that would be the basis on which others might be brought into relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ himself. That would leave a gap that was to be filled by the Holy Ghost, another comforter of the same calibre, of the same sort, co-equal with the Son. But he was to come not manifested in flesh, not incarnate. The Son became incarnate. The Word became flesh. That is never said of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit would indwell this little nucleus from which the Church would grow and grow and continue to develop until the rupture, well, until that promise of the Lord at the beginning of chapter 14 would be fulfilled in what scripture speaks of as the catching away. If the witness was to continue, if the revelation of God was to be made known, there must be living people on the earth indwelt by that other comforter whom he would empower to act for God and to make God known by way of witness. And this was the holy apostolic band. Well, in case we feel out of it and say, well, they died about 18 to 1900 years ago now, what about now? We can be thankful that in the Son's prayer in chapter 17 that the mood changes in verse 20. Up to verse 19, the Lord, the Son is praying for those the Father had given him as that wonderful band who trusted him, who followed him, who obeyed him, who served under him as long as he was with them. But when we get to verse 20, we get, neither pray I for these alone. Up till then, he had been praying for those alone. But now he says, I pray also for them who shall believe on me through their word. That includes you and me, if we've trusted the Saviour. In the mercy of God, the Holy Spirit, who moved holy men of old to record God's thoughts, not only in overall thought, but in the very word, using human vessels, so that having preserved it down the ages, we still have in our hands substantially that what we consider to be the canon of Holy Scripture, the teaching of God, committed to a form that we can have in our own language, and so by reading it and believing it, again, we've had this week, haven't we? Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, and this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you. And the marvel is that having done that, we are included in those for whom the Lord Jesus, God the Son, was praying this wonderful prayer. Let me just read it again, and let us exult in the fact that when the Lord Jesus was praying to the Father these words, he was praying for you and me in person. I pray for them also who shall believe on me through the Apostles' words. Isn't that marvellous? A prayer uttered out of the communion of the Son with the Father, the one whom he fully revealed that he prayed that prayer for you and for me. What a dignity it puts upon us that the Lord Jesus singled us out, that we in our day, believing in God through the Apostolic Witness, that we should be the subjects of such a prayer. Now that's really why I read those verses. Now back again to chapter 17. Verse 14. I have given them thy word. Verse 17. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. Verse 19. For their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Now that's a special use of the term sanctification. Sanctification, setting apart for the service of God. The Lord here says, I sanctify myself. Now this is what we would speak of as a positional sanctification. The Lord Jesus was about to set himself apart from earth to go to heaven to take up a new position of exaltation and he was doing it on their behalf. And as he says in chapter 16, he says to the disciples, and it applies to us as well, it was expedient for them and for us that he went away, that he sanctified himself, set himself apart from earth, took up heavenly glory, sending the Holy Spirit to dwell within us that we might be brought into all truth. Now notice again those words that I've read. I have given them thy word. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. It's been true in every age and dispensation. The longest psalm, Psalm 119, almost every verse has a reference to the word of God, the statutes of God, the testimonies of God, the commandments of God. Perhaps there are 10 separate words or thereabouts which are used. Different facets of the word of God. The interesting thing there is, well the vital thing there is, that that longest psalm which has such a consistent thread running through it of devotion to and obedience to the word of God is the psalm which is split up into 22 sections of 8 verses each. And each of those sections begins with a certain letter of the alphabet. And it was a 22 letter alphabet, so if you like it covers what we would say it covers the A to Z of holy living. And it's significant surely that for those who live right according to God are those who are governed by the word of God. No need to quote examples, it's in every verse of that psalm. And here with a new age about to dawn, the age of Christianity, the age of the fullest possible revelation of God in the person of the Son, consequent upon the death, resurrection, exaltation of the Lord Jesus and the descent of the Spirit, that he says the agent that will be used to bring them into an understanding of what God has revealed of himself is in the precious written word. Now again going over familiar ground but it's worth going over once again. The Lord's words give sufficient testimony to what is obvious. We need all the scripture of truth. And while we need all the scripture of truth, it all has its place. In particular we need all the New Testament. I have my favourite little bits, my favourite books, my favourite chapters, my favourite verses, my favourite phrases, and I'm sure we all have. But we need the reminder that if we are to be well-rounded in the spiritual and moral sense that we need all the scripture. Notice the way the Lord Jesus emphasises this. In chapter 14 and verse 26 he says, The Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. In case I didn't pinpoint it sufficiently, look at the way the verse starts. The Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name. Let's work the other way. If it's important, all the persons of the Godhead will be involved. We start, take it the other way now. If I happen to notice that in a verse, in a paragraph, in a chapter, in verses close together, that all three persons of the Godhead are referred to, it should trigger off in my mind the response, there's something important, something I need to learn. And here, the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, the Father, in the name of the Son, he shall teach you all things, and here in particular, bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I said unto you. This gospel closes with a reminder that everything that Jesus did and said was recorded, the whole world would not contain all the books that might be written. The Holy Spirit has been selective, choosing those things that the Lord did and the Lord said that are of particular importance in the revelation of God and making us mature Christians. And in this verse, what is highlighted is that bringing all things to your remembrance whatsoever I said unto you. It's a happy thing, isn't it, that in the order in which these verses come to us, we get first of all this indirect reference to the fact that we need the gospels. Bringing to our remembrance whatsoever the Lord Jesus said unto us. Chapter 15, verse 26, notice again the activities of the Godhead in concert. Verse 26, the Comforter whom I, the Son, will send from the Father. Notice again, the Father is the source, the Son is the active executor or agent, the Holy Spirit is the power by which and by whom the Godhead acts. The result of that will be he shall testify of me, ye also shall bear witness a neat summary of what we find in the book of Acts, isn't it? Then in chapter 16, verse 13, when he, the Spirit of truth is come, oh you say we don't get a reference to all the persons of the Godhead. Well, let your thoughts go on to verses 14, he shall glorify me, he shall receive of mine. Verse 15, all things that the Father hath. Then verse 13, the Spirit of truth. It's no accident. It's no mere academic consideration. It's important to notice when the Godhead are acting in concert. Perhaps you grammarians will tell me that I should have said when the Godhead is acting in concert. Three persons in Godhead acting as one and here we have it once again. Well, here in chapter 16, verse 13, he will guide you into all truth. How often I hear the phrase which sounds all right but doesn't really bear examination. It sounds all right, don't give me doctrine, give me Christ. If you want Christ, you'll need the doctrine of Christ as John's epistle says. But the Lord here says we need the truth. We don't only need the gospels, precious as they are, we don't only need the record of the early days of the church, the early Christian witness, as in the book of Acts. We also need to be guided into all truth and the way that we are guided into all truth is as we meditate upon the New Testament epistles. And it says he will guide you into all truth. He shall not speak of himself. Well, we have to treat the prepositions in the New Testament with care, haven't we? These little words of and from and with and so on. If we examine a translation which attempts to translate literally and faithfully, it doesn't take us long to find out that here and also in chapter five, where the Lord says a similar phrase of himself, the son said, I do nothing of myself. And here the Holy Spirit is spoken of as he shall not speak of himself. More accurately, in both cases, it should be the preposition from, not of. Quite clearly, the Holy Spirit does speak about himself. In these chapters, the Holy Spirit places on record what the Lord Jesus said about the Holy Spirit. So it cannot mean that. But what it does mean is that neither the son nor the spirit act independently of the Godhead, that the Godhead is at one acting in concert for the glory of God, the blessing of man. And as far as this week's study is concerned, as to the making known of God, the revelation of the heart of God. So here he will guide you into all truth. And then I suppose when he says he will show you things to come, the prophetic element of the epistles, particularly the second epistles, and also the book of Revelation, the whole of the New Testament is covered. And the things that are foretold and prefigured in the Old Testament, I'm sure, are still included. Second Timothy, you know, we are told that Timothy was well acquainted with the Old Testament, which was the scriptures of that day. But then Timothy was also advised that when the New Testament was brought into being, it would have the same character. It was the word of God, God's word speaking to the soul, to be made good in the power of the spirit. And then I like this overall term in which the section finishes, verse 14, he shall glorify me. Old Testament, New Testament, Gospels, Acts, Epistles, prophetic portions, devotional portions, doctrinal portions, all come under this grand work of the Holy Spirit, he shall glorify me. The Son incarnate was here to glorify the Father, his special role, to make the true excellence of the Father fully known. The Holy Spirit came into the world to make the true excellence of God the Son fully known and appreciated. Again, the revelation has been made, has been given, coming down from God's side, that we, on the line of apprehension, might learn it, might grow into it, might develop in the understanding, in the enjoyment of it, with this intent that the Holy Spirit is ever worthy of the work of the Godhead. May the grace of Christ our Saviour and the Father's boundless love, with the Holy Spirit's favour, rest upon us from above. Number 17. His touching, sensitive love for every one of us, which causes this kind of response, how sweet the name of Jesus sounds! In a believer's ear, it soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, and drives away his fear. Even in such a little hymn of Christian experience as this, 54, we get these words, our life, our Lord, our life, our way, our end. He set out, in the epistle to the Colossians, as the object of all the one who is ever in mind in all the activities of God. And he who is the beginning and the end, in eternal terms, is also our object while we live here. Our Lord, our life, our way, our end, accept the praise we bring. …