Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

5. The Deity of the Lord Jesus

In the history of the church on earth no greater theologian than Athanasius ever arose to champion the truth of God against error, yet great and faithful as he was, he confessed that “whenever he forced his understanding to meditate on the Divinity (Deity) of the Logos (the Word) his toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that the more he thought the less he comprehended; and the more he wrote, the less capable was he of expressing his thoughts” (Gibbon). We do not wonder at that when we consider the immeasurable greatness of the Subject and the limited capacity of man’s understanding.

This inability of the human mind by its own effort to discover and know God was clearly recognised by men of intelligence in ancient times. Zophar the Naamathite challenged Job as to it, when he asked, “Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?” (Job 11:7). And Agur the son of Jakeh appealed to Ithiel (whose name meant, There is a God) for help when he confessed his ignorance of God. “I have neither learned wisdom,” said he, “nor have I the knowledge of the holy. Who has ascended up into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists; Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established the ends of the earth? What is His name and what is His Son’s name, if thou canst tell?” As far as we know Ithiel had no answer to that appeal.

The modern mind is not more capable in itself of grasping the things of God than were these great men of old, for “It is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.” And if the things of God are outside man’s range how infinitely above him must God Himself — the Father and His Son — be! And yet we must know Him; the awakened soul is conscious that all its blessing lies in the knowledge of God, and pants for this knowledge as the hart pants for the water brooks.

When “the Word became flesh” and dwelt among men, He revealed the great secret as to how God was to be known when He said, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight” (Matthew 11:25-26). These words from the lips of the Lord Himself, declare that the knowledge of God cannot be gained by laborious and brain-wearying investigation, no matter how sincere the labour may be, but only by revelation; they strike at the root of the pride of the human intellect and prick the bubble of those who “vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds” reject the revelation and think to find out God by their own searching; they shut out the reasonings and imaginations of the self-confident mind, which always, alas, since man is fallen, and “alienated in his mind by wicked works” exalts itself against the true knowledge of God (Colossians 2:18; 1:21; 2 Corinthians 10:5). And they show that there are two sides to the fact of revelation. There is activity on God’s part and receptivity on ours. God is revealed, and the babes receive the revelation; the light shines and there are eyes that admit it; the truth is declared, but it is also believed; God must speak and men must hear, for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” And we are as dependent upon God for the babe-nature and the opened eyes and the believing heart, and the listening ears, as we are for the revelation that these perceive, appreciate and appropriate.

In Old Testament times there were certain limited revelations of God’s attributes and ways. The heavens declared the glory of His power, and the firmament showed His handiwork. The law given at Sinai announced the uprightness of His kingdom and the justice of His throne. He showed Himself often in His providential care for men and as the covenant-keeping God; and proclaimed His name, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.” But these partial revelations, rays from the eternal splendour, only served to make those who received them cry out for a fuller, a complete knowledge of His heart and nature, as when Moses said, “Show me Thy glory” (Exodus 33) and David pleaded, “O send out Thy light and Thy truth; let them lead me, let them bring me to Thy holy hill and to Thy tabernacles” (Psalm 43). Those soul longings have been answered in a manner that neither Moses nor David could have conceived; the glory has appeared and the light and the truth have come in the Son of God, for “God who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in times past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last times spoken to us by His Son (lit, in Son) … Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3). “No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). And the Son in whom God has spoken and who has declared what God is in His very nature and has glorified Him on the earth, said. “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12), and “I am the truth” (John 14:6).

We are dependent upon the Holy Scripture for all our knowledge of this full revelation, for we were not on earth when the Son of God dwelt among men, but we are thankful indeed, that the Father sent forth the Holy Spirit to inspire and guide the men who companied with Him, to bear an infallible witness to what they heard and saw. “That which we have heard,” wrote one of them, “which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life … declare we to you” (1 John 1:1-3). There is a peculiar dignity and authority about the Scriptures. It could not be other wise, since they are the words of the living and almighty God. For instance, they do not set out to prove that God is, they state the fact and show the effect of His presence and power, and they tell us that it is only the fool — the man void of all understand — that says in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). They open with that majestic statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But the New Testament is more than the equal of the Old, in this dignity and authority. It does not set out to prove that the One we know as Jesus is God, equally with the Father and the Holy Ghost. It states the fact and shows the effect of it. So that the Gospel, which I think may be justly called the greatest book in the New Testament, opens with the sublime statement, “In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God: and the Word was God.”

The “beginning” of Genesis signifies the moment when the voice of God called the worlds into being, and the pendulum of Time began to swing, but the opening words of John’s Gospel carries us further back than that and tell us that when the first creatorial word was uttered the Word was there. Whatever may have been the activities of the Godhead anterior to creation, He had His part in them, for then He was with God, His delight and companion (Proverbs 8), and He was God, God’s equal, “His Fellow,” in all things purposed and done — “In His existence, eternal, in His nature, divine; in His person, distinct” (J.N.D.) “All things were made by Him.” His was the voice that commanded and it was done; that creative life-giving energy which abides only in God, wrought with divine power and wisdom through Him; “and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Two, other passages in the New Testament definitely and fully predicate the creation of all things to Him. In one of them, words are taken up from the Old Testament (Ps. 102) as having been addressed to Him by God Himself, “And Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the works of Thy hand: they shall perish; but Thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as a garment; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years fail not.” This ascription to Him, who creates for His own purpose and dissolves what He has created when it has served that purpose, but who abides, unchanging and eternal in His person and being, occurs in an Epistle addressed to Hebrew Christians, that they might be properly impressed with the glory of their Lord and the greatness of the salvation that they had in Him. The other passage was written to Gentile believers and tells us “By Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions or principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him, and for Him; and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Col. 1). Jew and Gentile, alike must recognise and acknowledge His glory, and none who believe, whether Jew or Gentile, must have any doubt as to the greatness of the One whom they have confessed as Lord and Saviour, and in whose hand lies their destiny. He is God the Creator: as to power almighty; as to wisdom infinite; as to authority, supreme; as to being, eternal.

The opening of the Gospel according to John could not be plainer in its statements than it is, and they are framed by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to meet every opposition to the truth that might arise in the human heart; and interest is awakened by these statements as to whether any on earth would believe and confess the truth of them as they were known and confessed in heaven, and we may be sure that heaven was engrossed in this same question. As we pass from page to page of the Gospel, we see a ray of the light break first into one heart and then into another; here a man and there a woman is brought to bow in worship at the feet of the Sovereign Lord of all, and so to tacitly confess that He is indeed God; but it is not until the end of the Gospel is reached, (chapter 21 is a beautiful postscript to it) that His disciples behold Him and own Him in His full glory. It was on that second “first day of the week” when the disciples were gathered together, and Thomas the unbeliever with them; in disposition and temper he was a veritable materialist and had declared that he would believe nothing that he could not see and handle — that Jesus stood in the midst, and showed to the astonished eyes of His obstinate follower the wounds that He had sustained and which remained in His incorruptible body. It was enough for Thomas; he was an infidel no longer, but falling down before His Master, he voiced the faith and adoration of all his brethren, in those true and memorable words, “My LORD AND MY GOD.”

If the Lord Jesus had not been what Thomas confessed Him to be, but only a good and true man He would have rebuked him for uttering foolish words, for it would have been an unspeakable wickedness for one man to accept from another man that adoration which only belongs to God; but He did accept it because it was His right, and He went further and declared the blessedness of all those throughout the ages who should perceive His glory and confess it and render like homage to Him: saying, “Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen yet have believed.” In this great and convincing incident we see how the end of the Gospel answers to the opening words of it.

The place that the Lord Jesus, the Son of the Father, has in the thoughts and affections of the Father and the Holy Ghost is instructive. I will quote certain passages from the Gospel of John which show that He was the worthy and adequate Object of the Father’s love when on earth and the One for whose glory the Holy Ghost labours now. “We beheld His glory, the glory, as of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14); “the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18); “The Father loved the Son, and has given all things into His hands” (John 3:35); “The Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that Himself does” (John 5:20); “The living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father” (John 6:57); “The Father has not left Me alone” (John 7:29); “Therefore doth My Father love Me because I lay down My life” (John 10:17); “I and My Father are One” (John 10:30). And that we might know that this love that the Father had for Him and the delight that He had in Him were not confined to His life on earth, but that they were eternal in their duration, we hear His words, “Father … Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).

But now that He has gone back to the Father we learn that the Holy Ghost has come from thence to bear witness to Him. As the Father once looked down upon Him, so now the Holy Ghost looks up to Him, and would turn the eyes of all His disciples in the same direction. We read, “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 to you” (John 14:26). “But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me” (John 15:26). “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 to you. All things that the Father has are Mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine, and shall show it to you.” (John 16:13-15).

The revelation of God is complete, and we know God now as Father, Son and Holy Ghost: three Persons yet one God. It was this that came into full manifestation when Jesus was here, for “in Him all the fullness [of the Godhead] was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19, see also 2:10. Darby’s New Translation) and “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16).

The Father is the source of all blessing for men.

The Son has brought the blessing to men.

The Holy Ghost makes the blessing good in men

And each person in the Godhead is engaged in making the revelation a reality in the souls of men for we read, “No man knows the Father save THE SON and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27).

“Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood has not revealed this to thee, but MY FATHER which is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17).

“God has revealed them to us by HIS SPIRIT: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10).

The Holy Spirit dwells within the believer. A power commensurate with the love that moved the Father to send the Son, and works in the hearts of those who have humbly yielded to the Lord, so that they are not now groping in darkness, or wearying themselves in a vain search after God by human effort, for the true light is shining and “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.” “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding that we should know Him that is true and we are in Him that is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:20-21. New Translation)