The highest knowledge of all is obtained through our Lord Jesus Christ alone! Advanced religious thought and modernism deny this! While they profess to reverence Him in measure, they refuse the honour which essentially belongs to Him as the Revealer of the Father.
Salvation and redemption are in Him alone—this is both a divinely revealed and proven fact. It is proclaimed in the gospel of God, it is proved in the experience of multitudes of true believers. The actual bodily resurrection of Christ, after His sacrifice for sin had been completed, and His exaltation to the right hand of God’s throne are facts, but it is equally true that the knowledge of God the Father is through Him alone, notwithstanding popular discourses on the universal Fatherhood of God. The Son said, “Neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” And none can know the Father apart from Him.
They were exceedingly proud and self-satisfied religious reasoners to whom He once said, “Ye neither know Me, nor My Father: if ye had known Me, Ye should have known My Father also. These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple” (John 8:19-20). The fact is, there was no true knowledge of the Father as such in the world until He was made known by the Son. He never uttered one word which would mislead any soul; and it was to guide into the way of eternal blessedness Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man comes to the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).
When speaking to the religionists already mentioned, He uncovered the source of unbelief, deceitful perversity, and practice: “Ye are of your father the devil,” the Lord said to them, “the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it (John 14:44). And their conduct towards Himself soon confirmed His solemn judgment of them, for “Then took they up stones to cast at Him!” But leaving the temple, He passed from their midst. War against the truth is waged in various ways, and often with the greatest acumen where boasted attainments are reached, and the benefits of religion and civilization are reaped outwardly, but where the knowledge of God the Father through the Son alone is not desired. The Gospel of John is the part of the inspired Word which specially makes this known.
If it be true, however, that none know the Father save the Son, and He to whom the Son is pleased to reveal Him, how inestimable is the favour divinely granted to those who have this knowledge, which surpasses all else. Such may not boast in themselves, but they may be profoundly thankful to the Lord for His grace! Such have learned their sinfulness and need before a holy God. They have found forgiveness and salvation through the finished work of Christ. They came weary and heavy laden to Jesus; and, learning of Him, rest and enlightenment became theirs. It was THE FATHER who had drawn them to the Son, and revealed to them that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, though they understood not at the time; and it is THE SON who revealed the Father to them, according to His own divine pleasure. Born of God, even the babes in this favoured family now know the Father (1 John 2:13); and in this they grow, increasing as they are preserved from the love of the world.
The love of the Father and the love of the world are shown to be incompatible in 1 John 2:15; while the first verse of the next chapter invites us to behold the wonderful love of the Father, which has put us in family relationship to Him—in eternal relationship as the children of God! Therefore, it is said, “The world knows us not, because it knew Him not.” We may be known as neighbours, relations, businessmen, etc.; the world, however, is not capable of taking cognizance of this precious relationship with the Father; but the Spirit gives us the cry in our hearts, “ABBA, FATHER.”
Some of us once prayed religiously (with a sense of distance in our souls) to the almighty God; now, in the nearness of children, we may address Him as God our Father.
“Father, Thy Name our souls would bless,
As children taught by grace.”
Speaking to the Father concerning His own, Jesus said, “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.” The Father loved the Son before the world was, and this love is the portion of those to whom God is known as Father. Blessed be His Name.