THE REVELATION OF GOD – 5

 

The churches of Christ Greet You (Romans 16:16)

 

The Bible Reveals Jesus - 2

What do you think of this text: “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matthew 11:27). Jesus received everything from His Father. Our knowledge of the Father depends upon our knowledge of the Son, and our knowledge of the Son depends upon our knowledge of the Father. In other words, we can only approach the Father as the Son reveals Him, and we cannot accept one and reject the other. As a Son, Jesus was the manifestation, revela­tion, or reproduction of the Father. The New Testa­ment sustains this proposition fully and clearly. Each passage comes to us as a revelation of God.

 

We will let Jesus speak for Himself: "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, 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? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very work's sake” (John 14:8‑11). Again, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matt. 11:27). "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared him” (John 1:18).

 

“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. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth; and He will show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel” (John 5:19-20). "Not that any man hath seen the Father, save He which is of God, He hath seen the Father” (John 6:46). "As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father” (John 10:15). “He that receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me” (John 13:20). "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in Him” (John 10:37-38). "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father” (John 15:24). "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" (1 John 1:2). "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

 

Everything depends upon a clear conception of the person of Jesus Christ. Was He a manifestation of God, or was He the manifestation of God? He was with God "before the world was” (John 17:5), and therefore He knew all things. Paul says: “All things were created by him and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col. 1:16-17). John says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). He further informs us that "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (verse 14). Is God invisible? "Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). Do you find it hard to see God? If so, look unto Jesus (Heb. 12:2). "For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). Is God without “parts or passion?” Jesus is "the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person” (Heb. 1:3), and is "in the form of God and equal with God (Phil. 2:6)." We do not offer any interpretation of these passages; will you receive them as they are? They are undeniably a reflection of what the apostles believed. We prefer their company to the speculations of men, for we can not go astray if we cling to Jesus and to the testimony of those who were “eye‑witnesses of His Majesty."

 

As before proven, God, on the account of our sins, could not approach us in the glory of His person and power; hence, "the Word became flesh," and God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19), and sinful humanity could live, think and act in His presence. Suppose Jesus had come to earth as God came down on Mount Sinai, would the world have been attracted to Him? Certainly not; for God had said ‑ and His word is irrevocable ‑ that “There shall no man see me and live." Jesus Christ had a human face, but behind that face was the face of God. He had a body like ours, but within that body, human, frail and weak as it was, dwelled the fullness, glory, and power of Him on whose uncovered face we cannot, dare not, look.

 

God was just as good, as sympathetic, as merciful, as ready to save, before Jesus came as afterward; but men could not approach near enough to His presence to learn this, hence He approached man by "humbling himself " in a body subject to death like ours. God had saved men in all ages; but Jesus Christ was the Savior Himself. God had manifested His wisdom in all things, but Jesus Christ was wisdom itself. God had manifested His power in creating and preserving the world, but Jesus Christ was, and is, and evermore shall be, the center of all power. God had manifested His goodness to all men, but Jesus Christ was goodness itself.                   


God had manifested His truth, His life, His way, but Jesus Christ was the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). God had manifested His holiness in all His dealings with men, but Jesus Christ was holiness itself. God had manifested His mercy to the penitent souls of all the ages, but Jesus Christ was mercy itself. God had manifested His sympathy for a world in darkness, in ways past our numbering, but Jesus Christ was sympathy itself. God had manifested His love in all things, but Jesus Christ was the Son of His love (Col. 1:13), love itself. Everything that God had revealed in other ages (Eph. 3:5) was exhibited in its fullness, glory and perfection in Jesus Christ.

 

If you have Him, it matters not how poor you are, all things are yours (1 Cor. 3:21‑23). If you have not, you are a pauper in the sight of heaven (Rev. 3:17). Jesus Christ came in order to make His Father known, and He revealed, through the medium of a human body, the eternal existence, the unfathomable wisdom, the inexhaustible power, the infinite resources, the universal presence, the unlimited knowledge, the boundless sympathy, the independent personality, the perfect holiness, the continual goodness, the unceas­ing mercy, and the everlasting love of God. Are you searching after wisdom, power, truth, or salvation? If so, look to Jesus, the Emmanuel, the "God with us," for He is the concentration, the embodiment, the perfection, the revelation, the manifestation, the center of everything grand, pure, and elevating, both in the human and in the Divine. What the Father was, Jesus was; and what they were in ages past, they will be forever. This settles the question of our salvation. God cannot save us ‑ He has no plan to save us - outside of the person and power of His Son.

 

If I could come to you today with assurances that you could not doubt, that I had been with God, in His immediate presence, for two hundred years, would you believe me? You know you would. Jesus was with the Father before the world was. Will you hear Him? Do you ask us why He came to earth? Answer: To show us the Father; to show us the eternal Spirit through His body of flesh; to reveal the truth, to open the road to heaven. We will sit at His feet and listen as He speaks of the past, the present, and the future. There are no mysteries before His eyes, for He is God in a human body, yet the friend of publi­cans and sinners (Matt. 9:11). He knew all history, and was therefore a competent witness concerning the teaching of the Old Testament. How the centuries buried under the wrecks of time revive under His mighty touch! The saints of other times become real persons before our enraptured eyes, and the sinners who insulted God and despised the truth send up wall of despair that ought to be a warning to us all.

 

Whatever uncertainties may have surrounded the history of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, Jonah, Isaiah and Jeremiah, are forever destroyed by the endorsement of the Son of the Highest, "God with us." The Law, the Prophets and the Psalms received His unqualified endorsement, and the man who believes in Him can see the truth of the Old Testament as no unbeliever ever did or ever will see it. You cannot accept Jesus and reject Moses. Jesus came from God centuries after Moses died, and as He was present at the creation His endorsement of Moses settles the matter for all time. The question there­fore, is not simply concerning the reliability of Moses, but, is Jesus Christ the Son of God?

 

Paul declares that we see Jesus (Heb. 2:9). How, where, and when do we see Him? As the people saw Him while He lived on earth? Certainly not! We can and do believe those who did see Him. We see Him in His words, in His miracles, in His love, in His sufferings, in His power. Do you think we could do this without the knowledge of the Bible? When you read or hear the Sermon on the Mount, do you not see Him? When you read the great commission, do you not see Him as He commands His apostles to go and teach the nations? He put a spirit and power into the command to go that can never die. What keeps this commission alive? Jesus Christ is in it. Do you deny it?


Why does the Bible live? Why is it always new? Why does it seem fresher and newer every day to the patient and earnest student? Why does it outlive all other books? Why does its popu­larity increase with the years? Why does it occupy a place in the faith and hope of the world that no other book can approach? Why has it more loving and devoted friends, and more malignant and bitter ene­mies than any other book? Why is it that no man ever began to doubt when he sat at his mother's knee and listened to the reading of the Bible? Why is it that every man is willing to trust the man who loves and obeys the truth? Why is the man who reads, understands, and obeys the Bible more conscientious and more submissive to the ways of Providence than men who do not? The only answer we can give is that Jesus Christ, the manifestation of God, fills the book, and therefore fills every part of it ‑ every fact, every command, every promise. To my mind, this explains the apostolic declaration, "Christ in you the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). 

 

Our minds can grasp a person easier than an abstract truth; hence Jesus is the truth, and when we know Him we know the truth, all truth (John 8:31‑36). Why do professing Christians reject the commandments of Christ? Because of unbelief, “the sin that does so easily beset us” (Heb. 12:1). They do not see Him in His word. Why do men refuse to submit to the terms of pardon, and through them receive the evidence of pardon? Answer: Because they refuse to see Jesus in His promises. Why do men appeal to heaven and ask the Holy Spirit to come and regenerate them? Because they do not believe the apostle when he says the Gospel is "the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). Why are the words of Jesus life (John 6:63)? Because God is in them, Jesus Christ is in them, the Holy Spirit is in them. Could they contain more? Are not they all power? The "engrafted word" is able to save us (James 1:12), which is another way of saying, God is able to save us, Jesus Christ is able to save us, the Holy Spirit is able to save us, for the word of truth is the revelation of God, of Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit.

 

When a man is filled with the TRUTH God dwells in him (1 Cor. 3:16), Jesus Christ dwells him (Col. 1:27), and the Holy Spirit dwells in him (Eph. 5:18). If a man rejects the truth, he rejects God, he rejects the Son of God, and he rejects the Spirit of God, for the Bible is no less than the revelation of God. No system of theology that rejects the Holy Spirit's mission through the truth can be in harmony with the will of God. A theory that does not exalt the personality of Jesus Christ in our salvation is false and deceptive. We cannot approach the Father, excepting through His Son, and we cannot approach Him excepting through the "obedience of faith" (Rom. 1:5; 16:26), for He is the author of salvation to the obedient (Heb. 5: 8-9), but to no one else. We can not obey Him unless we learn His will, and we can not learn His will out­side of the Bible. It submits to our consideration the full and perfect revelation of a perfect and everlasting God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You cannot find God, the Savior, or the Holy Spirit, outside of its revelations.

 

How can I know that I have the Father and the Son, and therefore the Holy Spirit? There is a Divine and infallible assurance. "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). "Whoso­ever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and Son” (2 John 9). Here is something we can understand; some­thing on which we can rest. God dwells in us through the truth, through the "doctrine of Christ."

Do you desire salvation? Do you desire a personal and ever‑present Savior who knows every hope, fear, and pain you endure? Jesus Christ came to earth in order that you might be saved; that you might be rich in faith and hope and love. His way is the way ‑ the only way. Will you receive Him? How can you turn away? He calls; calls today; calls now. Will you hear Him, believe Him, accept Him, serve Him, and love Him all your remaining days? If you will, there is no power in the universe that can shut you out of heaven; and at last on the other shore, in the city of pearly gates and jasper walls, you will unite with the millions of earth who have conquered every foe, in singing all praise, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever” (Rev. 1:5-6).


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