The Father's Name

“I am come in my Father’s name.” — JOHN v. 43.

YT^jT^ OW much there is in a name! A palace lay wrapt in r — 2. i mysterious slumber. The king asleep on his throne; his counsellors strewn in various attitudes on the highly-polished floors, each grasping tightly the symbols of his office, but all beneath the spell; the maidens twined in various attitudes by fountain and loom, which for many a year had stood unused. And what was needed to awaken all that sleep-bound palace, save the speaking of one word, the right word, the word which should untie the mystic spell? Many essayed to speak it, but in vain. Yea, themselves succumbed to the charm they failed to loose. And all around them crept the briar-rose. Until one came, before whose tread the thorns were changed to myrtles, and the thickset hedge to honeysuckle. He spoke the word which broke the spell of slumber, and again filled the silent palace with the hum of many voices and the stir of life.

It is a parable. And yet it is a truth. It is true, to a limited extent, in the case of individual hearts and lives, wrapt in lethargy until one voice shall speak t-hat single word which shall arouse to animation, and kindle the glow of life and love. But it is a true picture also of the moral condition of the world. The hearts and consciences of the majority of mankind were drugged in fatal stupor, waiting through the ages spell-bound and torpid. Many a philosopher and teacher, reverend and grave, essayed to awaken the ear and heart of men; but all failed, till One came for whom all were waiting, though they knew it not, and He spake the great word which broke the silence of centuries, and shed life on death, light on darkness, love on despair. Do you ask what that word was? I answer: it was the name so constantly applied by our Saviour to God — Father.

But, after all, a name may mean comparatively little. It may tell us something of the person who bears it, but not much. Call a man Jacob, or Moses, or Peter, and we infer that he is crafty in character; or was drawn out of a watery grave; or has a rock-like nature, in the clefts of which weaker men may hide. Yet, at the best, it is only a spar from a ship; a brick from a house; a flower from a garden. And the man is labelled, but not known.

So the Son of God was not content to speak of God as the Father; that name had been guessed in the previous centuries. Did not David sing that God pitied us, as a father pities his children? Did not Isaiah address God, saying, “Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us “? It was not quite a new name, though it was spoken with new force, and reminted as it passed through those gentle holy lips. But our Lord spent his life in showing how much that name “Father” connoted, or meant, when it was applied to God.

To understand this, let us imagine two young men standing together in some gathering of men for the interests of art or science or literature. Presently the attention of all is directed towards one standing to speak, who wins breathless hearing by his face and voice, “Who is that?” whispers one to the other. “He is my father,” is the proud reply. But how little do the words mean to his companion! Then, as the two pass out together, the son begins to explain to his friend how much, in this case, lies behind that title, “father.” It may mean so little. It may mean nothing more than the progenitor of life. But in this case it means brother, friend, teacher, adviser, all that men love and revere in one. So Jesus Christ was not satisfied to say that God was a Father. He set Himself to show what sort of Father He was; and what heights, and depths, and breadths, and lengths of meaning lay hidden in that one sweet, tender, though common and oft-spoken, word.

This is what He meant when He said, “I am come in my Father’s name.”

Men are apt to speak lightly to one another about the Fatherhood of God, and to ignore the ministry of Jesus in explaining what that phrase involves. But in ignoring Him, they trample under foot the one torch which can illumine the sculptured glories of this wondrous title, Father. “No man knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (Matt. xi. 27). We can only know the Fatherhood of God through the teachings of Jesus; just as we only know the Lord Jesus through the teachings of the Holy Ghost, who makes Him real and present and precious. And, in fact, the man who talks of God the Father, and rejects Christ, proves that he knows nothing of the Father. “If God,” said He on one occasion, “were your Father, ye would love Me; for I proceeded forth, and came from God” (John viii. 42).

Many will read these words who do not know God as Father. They cannot look up into his face, and say, with a child’s lisp, Abba. They are Christians; but they lack the consciousness of this benignant side of the character of God. He is rather the Judge, the Almighty, the Supreme. Such have need to know what Jesus meant when He said, “I am come in my Father’s name.” They have need to drink in the meaning of those words, with which our Lord summed up his earthly ministry to his own, “I have manifested thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world” (xvii. 6). They have need to learn the whole force of that promise with which our Lord forecast his posthumous ministry, and with which He closed his intercessory prayer, “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” (xvii. 26).

L The Manner in which our Lord declared his Father’s Name during his Earthly Life. — Someft’mes it was by contrast. — Y{.& would recal some trivial instance of a father’s love and pity in giving bread, or fish, or eggs, to some suppliant child. And when his audience were listening with rapt attention, whilst tears glistened in the eyes of some, He turned quickly on them, and said, “God is just like that, only as much more delicate, and tender, and responsive, as his ways are higher than your ways.” It seems as if the Lord loves us to rise heaven waids from the commonplaces of our homes, and as each tiny incident transpires, to say to ourselves, “This is a little snatch of the love of God; a clue to the labyrinth of his infinite nature; a glimpse through an aperture, small as a pin prick, into his very heart Yea, our heavenly Father would do much more than this.” And the Apostle Paul brings out the same idea, when he tells us that every fatherhood gets its meaning and value from God, as torches lit from the sun (Eph. iii. 15).

Sometimes it was directly. — He would point to sparrows lying for sale in the market, of which two were sold for a farthing, and five for two farthings, one being thrown into the bargain, and He would say, “You see how little men think of one sparrow; but it cannot fall to the ground without your Father.” Admire, said He, your Father’s taste; He clothed these flowers. Mark, said He, your Father’s care; He provides for these birds, winging their flight overhead. Behold, said He, this little child; its angel beholds my Father’s face.

Here are some of the direct statements He made: The Father is perfect in his forgiving love (Matt. v. 48); He knows what things ye need (vi. 8); He is merciful, and longs to give you the kingdom (Luke vi. 36); He sees in secret, and will most certainly reward (Matt. ‘. 4); He is the Husbandman of souls (John XV. i); his hand is great enough to hold all his sheep, and to keep them safely (x. 29). Living in the heart of God, and between the heart of God and man. He was continually telling men what He saw there (viii. 38).

It was also by his life. — His life was one long denial of his intrinsic glory; as we are called upon to deny our fallen evil selves. And why? Why did He refuse to speak his own words, to do his own deeds, to follow the promptings of his own will? (xii. 49, 50; v. 19; vi. 38; viii. 28). The reason is to be found in his intense desire that the Father should shine through his human life; that the glory of God might be thrown on the canvas of mortal flesh; that the Deity might be translated into the familiar speech of men. So, when Philip asked Him to show the Father, He answered him in amazement, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (xiv. 9). In his life, and especially in his death, Jesus showed what meaning was hidden in his Father’s name. To understand these things is to see stars invisible to the naked eye, and to drink draughts further up the stream than is granted to others.

And there is here a deep lesson, too; whatever the name Father was to Jesus, that the name Jesus should be to us. It is in that name we pray. Through that name the Comforter descends. By that name we are called. On that name Relieving we have life. And we are chosen vessels to bear it. We have not only to hold it fast; we are called upon to declare it. By lip and life, by precept and example, by what we say and what we are, we are called upon to lift up treasure after treasure from the unsearchable riches concealed in the sweet name Jesus, until the appetites of men are whetted with a strong zest, and they are attracted to Him; as the Queen of Sheba was to Solomon by the report which reached her in her own land. “The Name” was the common epithet for Christianity in its earnest days (Acts ii., iii., iv., R.v.).

II. The Effect of Christ’s Declaration to his Father’s Naime. — // dosed his mouth in self-vindication. — He stood there in that Jewish court charged with Sabbath-breaking. There were many grounds on which He might have based his claim to be exonerated of any heinous crime; but He forbore to use them. He expressly refused to establish his right to act on his own motion, or the prompting of his own will. “If I bear witness of Myself, my witness is not true” (3i It would almost appear that He thought that He would have been false to his mission, if He had spoken a word on his own behalf

It stayed Him from summoning witnesses. — He could have summoned into that court John from the dungeon, where he was lying; and the Jews would hardly have been able to refuse his testimony {32). He could have summoned the long lines of healed ones, who had been the subjects of his miraculous power (36). He could have summoned page after page, and hne after line of the writings of Moses (46). But He only touched on these things very lightly; as if He mentioned the names of his witnesses, and then refused to subpoena them. And this was his dread, that the attention of men should be diverted from his Father to Himself. And as He took every opportunity to reveal his Father, so here, with no thought of Himself, He set Himself to his wonted task. In utter self-oblivion, in distinct refusal to come in his own name, in passionate eagerness that men should understand the great ocean, God, by this creek which had run up into a human life, He said, “I am come in my Father’s name.”

But in doing this. He has set up the best vindication of Himself. He refused to vindicate Himself; but his vindication of God is the strongest proof that He had been from all eternity in the bosom of the Father He lived to reveal God; but in doing so He best revealed Himself. He refused honour from all but from God alone; and such honour has come to Him, that heaven rings with the acclaim, “Worthy art Thou to receive... honour.”

So it is ever. If you love your life, you lose it. If you lose your life for his sake, you find it. We are too careful of our reputation and standing and honour, and what men say and think. Oh for that divine self-forgetfulness, that self-efTacement, that self-oblivion, which finds its one all-sufficient aim in making men think better of Christ, without realizing that there is a backward reflex result in the vindication of the faithful servant. Anything which reflects light shows that it is itself polished.

III. Christ’s Posthumous Revelation of the Father’s Name. — Notice these wondrous words: “The time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father” (xvi. 25). And again, “I will declare it” (xvii. 26). These passages can only point onto his post-resurrection ministry, when, through the Holy Spirit, He continued the teaching which in his earthly life He had commenced (Acts i. 2). It is of this ministry, also, that He speaks by the mouth of his servant, saying: “I will declare thy name unto my brethren; in the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto Thee” (Psa. xxii. 22; Heb. ii. 12).

Whenever in a congregation of the saints, there is an outburst of genuine song, you may detect the voice of Jesus singing with them, and identifying Himself with it. And He still teaches us by mystic influences and infallible tokens the deeper meaning of the Fatherhood of God, leading us, not to anything outside the boards of the Bible, but to a deeper appreciation of what is there. So also He will do for ever.

O souls of men, do ye not long to know the Father, to hear his voice, to feel his touch, to be canopied by his love, so that all life may be a residence in his home? It is gloriously possible, if you are really born again, for only such have the right to call God, Father, after this inner sense (i. 12); and if you are willing to let the Master teach you some of those things which are prepared for the lovers of God, and which He reveals by his Spirit.

And as we know more of the meaning of God’s Fatherhood, we shall experience more of the love of God, and of the indwelling of the Lord Jesus. In his own emphatic words He has taught us that the amount of the one will be the measure of the other; ///a, “the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”