God Fully Revealed In The Son

by S. J. HILL | Category: General | Aug 1943

Our subject has in review the words in John 1. 8 No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.

We are not to understand from this that God had not revealed Himself to men in any measure but that only certain things had been made known; and the principal and those that affect us in particular, were not revealed

Man has at no time been left in ignorance of God and what was revealed involved him in responsibility to make response in harmony with the testimony, little or much which he had received So Romans I., speaking specifically of early times in man's history, says, "The invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made even His everlasting power and divinity There is the witness to God in the heavens, particularly in the sun and the moon as in Psalm 19. God is also declared in His providences in springtime and harvest, which ought to produce thanksgiving.

We pass on to another revelation of a very different character which primarily was given to a chosen nation to Israel. This revelation of the holy law of God, which in itself was a wonderful unveiling of His Person and character, was given to demonstrate to man his inherent sinfulness and that he could have no standing before God in creature self-sufficiency.

This great revelation very clearly had in view the need of a Saviour for man, and an implied promise that such .a Saviour would be provided.

Other evidence might be given to show that from time to time God spoke to men through prophets and so it is clear that men generally were not wholly in the dark as to God unless they wilfully refused to retain Him in their knowledge But very much of knowledge was not revealed, and that of the choicest and best A suitable channel for conveying such knowledge was necessary A man of God might be suitable in certain cases but the divine nature and glory of the revelation required a channel of equal divinity and glory, and there was only One who could meet the case.

At last we come to the fulness of time, for God will not bear with a lawless world for ever, and very many things demanded a settlement. Man had proved himself to be not only weak but wicked, and a Judge as well as a Saviour was required.

We pass by the ostensible occasion for the coming of the Son of God, which was to establish the kingdom of God, though we must allude to that fact a little later. It was clear that a great moral need must be met and until that was done much blessing must he withheld from men, for the outstanding fact, fully demonstrated, was demanding a settlement. It was clear and undeniable that man, without exception, was involved in the ruin of sin, and being a sinner needed propitiation to be made. While God passed over the sins of believing ones in the past the penalty had still to be met and the Sacrifice had not been provided, except indeed in the purpose of God. At last He came! From whence? The answer is, From heaven. God the Father sent Him. It was this great fact, so much insisted, upon by the Lord (see John 6.38, 41, 42, 50, 51, 58) which was the stumbling-block of the unbelieving Jews in the days of His flesh, and the same is true to-day. Men laud Christ to the skies but, with all their fine-spun phrases, He is, to many who do so, still regarded as being only a Man, the Son of a carpenter. Yet He was indeed the Sent One of God, the One to whom all testimony pointed and for whom all believing ones waited. Did not the Lord Jesus tell God out in His life, words and actions whilst here below? He could say, " I live by the Father " and "The Father abiding in Me doeth His works." We may be ready to see God acting in Him in raising the dead, but the same was equally true when He took the little children in His arms, or when He had compassion on the sorrowing widow of Nain and said, "Weep not," giving back to her her only son; and we may not overlook the outstanding words when, at the grave of Lazarus, "Jesus wept." His tears were not tears of impotence, but were of true sympathy. Life's experiences are made up of little things (" little " at least to the stranger), but with God nothing is too great, nothing too small. The sparrow belong to His care and He clothes resplendently the grass of the field. All this the Lord told forth, for the Father was in Him.

Before we pass from this, we should refer to the fact that the impression of the Lord's lowly birth, life, death and resurrection, wheresoever received, has changed the minds of men immeasurably, and God has become to them a new God, so different from their perverted knowledge of earlier time. The twin truth, "God is light" and "God is love," has been seen in Him.

We know that the facts that "God is light" and "God is love" were ever true, but these required to be demonstrated, and further more the old condemning law (for the law could only condemn and never justify) required to be fulfilled by the Law in order that we might be brought under grace and lie able to say,

"Free from the law, 0 happy condition!

Christ, in His death, set us free.

Had the life of the Lord stood alone His mission to earth would have been incomplete and a failure, and although God might have been told out in certain particulars beyond what we get in the Old Testament, yet He could not have been told out fully, for let it be observed that we have no succeeding dispensation to this, in which God can complete the telling-out; it was limited to the sojourn of Christ in the world as Man. We have said that in the Lord's coming to earth we have proclaimed the imminence of the kingdom. This is witnessed to in John the Baptist's ministry, yet, wonderful to say, when the attitude of Israel showed that the kingdom could not then be set up, then was the moment chosen by the Lord for His entry into Jerusalem as the King of Israel. Shall we despise this as though it were the expiring of a defeated cause? True, there was no great army; no blare of martial music; no prancing war horses, but that one lone, despised Man-the true King, but uncrowned, riding on, in lowly pomp to die. The disciples had jot got up this as a performance. Nay! their true loyalty and love to the Lord urged them almost unconsciously to act as they did, and thus to fulfil the will of God (John 12. 16). But how woeful the part of Israel! They said,

We have no king but Caesar."

The Lord was nearing the end, and as that end loomed in sight, the pressure increased. Nothing less than, " I delight to do Thy will, 0 My God" could supply the needed Sacrifice. Shall we note His words in John 12. 28-28, spoken very shortly before the cross, when the Lord appreciated the greatness of the sacrifice and weighed losses and gains? He knew He must die in order to accomplish His Father's will. He knew that He had taught His disciples again and again that they must hate the present life in view of the life to come, and He had in mind the grain of wheat which in order to bear fruit must die, but beyond all lesser consideration that of fulfilling the Father's will and glorifying His name carried all before it.

Doubtless this is slightly earlier than what we have set out so affectingly in Luke 22.42-44, but it is the same in substance-the conclusion being, "Father, glorify Thy Name" .

But we may not overlook the Father's part in giving His Son. In that superlative picture in Genesis 22. we have in particular the Father's initial act. With what intensity of meaning He said to Abraham, "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering." Was Abraham the only one whose heart was touched? Of God it is written "He had vet one a beloved Son He sent Him "(Mark 12 6)

The perfect oneness manifested by Father and Son is delightfully suggested by the words of Genesis 22.6, They went both of them together."

And now we have nearly reached the consummation, but before proceeding it is all important to see that the work must be completed and that everything depends upon the last act. And breakdown (though while possible with men is not possible with God) would make the perfect demonstration of God in Christ imperfect.

We are graciously permitted to have the great tragedy presented to our hearing and vision though the vital act of propitiation is in secret, which none but God saw We think of the words Yea the death of the cross " of all its shame from the human standpoint and its curse from the divine standpoint as we read Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3 13) We hear the words " I

thirst" ; the Lord's grace to the repentant malefactor at His side, "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise," thus in 'the very act of death plucking a sinner from the doom of the second death; His kindly care and provision for His mother in her distress as the sword was piercing through her soul (Luke 2.85). All this and more beside we are permitted to hear. Later, the darkness enveloped the land and the Lord entered into those supreme sufferings at the hand of God. We may not too curiously peer into these things, for we remember the word, so applicable to this case,-"And there shall be no man in the tent of meeting when he goeth in to make atonement in the holy place" (Leviticus 16.17), but the end was reached; atonement was made; sin was put away; the Father and the Son alone; the Son submitting to the imposition of human guilt, and dying, the Just for the unjust; the Father Himself binding Him, laying Him on the altar, and there was no victim to take His place. Wondrous mystery of righteousness and love! But we are permitted to hear this word from the Lord, as we judge, toward the end of His sufferings,-" My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and the answer is supplied by Himself,-" But Thou art holy" (Psalm 22.8). So the Father and the Son dealt with the dread fact of sin and put it away; words easily uttered but as to their meaning known only to God. Finally, there bursts forth the glad, triumphal shout,-" It is finished" .

This is the consummation, the Father has now been told out. The assertions, ever true to faith, "God is light " and " God is love" have been demonstrated. It means that there can be no further out-telling. We may, in the ages to come go Oh to learn its fulness of meaning, which we may explore though we shall never reach the limit, for limit there is none. This, we judge, is involved in the simple statement,-" He hath declared Him."

S. J. HILL | Aug 1943
General