“I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it” (John 17:2626And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (John 17:26)). These words were spoken to the Father by Christ respecting the saints. They tell us that the great business of the Lord was to acquaint saints with the Father, that such had already been His business, and that He purposed that this should be His business still.
This is full of blessing. To think that the Son would nourish and enlarge in us the sense and understanding of the Father’s love, and that He would use His diligence to give our hearts that joy! We are often slow to learn, and Christ has to put forth energy to teach us such a lesson. But so it is. Our slow learning of this only magnifies His grace, for He is still teaching us the same lesson.
The Father Made Known
Chapters 1416 of John show us Christ declaring the Father. He has opened His own house to us, having made it a many-mansioned home for our reception. He then tells the disciples that through Him the Father had already been revealing Himself to them. There was unbelief in the disciples, but the Lord goes on with His lesson in spite of this. He tells them that while He was away, He purposed to glorify the Father in their works and their experience. He tells them that the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, would come as the Spirit of the Father. The keeping of His Word would secure to their souls the presence and fellowship of the Father.
In all these truly blessed ways, He declares the Father to us and uses Himself only as the witness or servant of such a revelation. His own personal glory is implied in such a service, but that is not His object—the declaration of the Father is. The friendship he introduces them to with Himself has respect to the Father, because it was the Father’s secrets He was communicating to them in the confidence of friendship. Finally, at the close of chapter 15, He presents the world simply in the character of having hated the Father.
He does all this to make good the word, “I have declared unto them Thy name!” Further, He anticipates the Holy Spirit’s coming down, but in constant mention of the Father. When the Spirit came down, they should ask the Father and receive from Him, that their joy as children, knowing a Father’s love and blessing, might be full. Beyond all this, He tells them that His prayers for them were not to be understood as though they and the Father were somewhat distant from each other, but that rather they must assure themselves that the Father’s love rested immediately on them.
In chapter 17, through the prayer of the Lord Jesus we see the return message from us to the Father, that we have by faith received these tidings of love and grace. The Son has brought a message of love to us from the Father, and if He now reports to the Father that we have received the message, this will be the most welcome answer to Him. More than this, the receiving of this message will be the surest separation from the world, for the world has refused to know the Father.
Communion With the Father
Thus we see that in John, chapters 1417, the Lord purposes to put us into communion with the Father. He fills our souls with thoughts of the Father — past recollections, present exercises of spirit, and prospects—all are connected with the Father. The Father’s house will receive us by and by. They would do greater works because He was going to the Father, and their fruitfulness would arise from the Father’s being the husbandman. The Comforter would be sent to them from the Father, but the world would hate them because it knew not the Father. The Father Himself loved them, and they would enter into and enjoy that relationship.
In chapter 13 the Lord’s purpose is to put our souls in communion with Himself in heaven. He shows Himself in heaven, as the very home of love and glory, because He was to be restored to the Father there and to have all things put into His hand by God there. Thus He seeks to put us into communion with Himself as He is now in heaven, while in chapters 1417 He seeks to put us, as we have observed, into communion with the Father. May the blessed sense of our relationship with the Father and the Son fill and satisfy our souls.
J. G. Bellett, adapted from
The Bible Treasury, Vol. 7, p. 65