The Righteous Father Known and Loved

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 14, 1877,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"O righteous Father, the world has not known You. But Ihave known You,
and these have known that You have sent Me. And Ihave declared unto
them Your name, and will declare it; that the love with which You have
loved Me may be in them, and I in them." John 17:25,26.

THESE are the last sentences of our Lord's most wonderful prayer. May
they not be regarded as the flower and crown of the whole intercession?
Minds usually burn and glow and reach their highest fervor as they
proceed and it will not be wrong to conceive of the Savior as having
here reached the climax of His pleading, the summit of His
supplication. He has kept the best wine until now and brings forth His
richest sentences last. How, then, shall our slender ability attain to
"the height of this great argument"?

It is far beyond our little skill to draw forth all the sweets which
lie within these words like ointment in a box of alabaster. For their
full consideration, a lifetime would be too brief and the mind of the
most Grace-taught Believer too feeble! Here are great deeps which
neither reason nor thought can fathom nor experience fully know. Only
the scholars of the New Jerusalem who have, for ages, studied the
manifold wisdom of God in the glorious work of redemption and, perhaps
not even they, would be able to discover all that the Savior meant by
these most simple but yet most pregnant words.

John's Gospel is always easy for the child to read, but it is always
hard for the man to understand. And these two verses, which are almost
entirely made up of words of one syllable, contain mysteries which
baffle the most enlightened understanding. When I consider what they
veil, I am constrained to cry out, "O the depths!" I can only hope to
present to you a few grains of gold which have been washed down by the
streams of meditation–I cannot take you to the secret mines from which
the treasures have been borne. It shall need your own experience and
the personal teaching of the Holy Spirit for you to know the height and
depth of the Truths of Gods spoken here. And even then it shall require
death and resurrection and a sight of the Eternal Glory to qualify you
wholly to comprehend them!

There are two things in the text manifest to every careful reader.
There is, first, a knowledge which is exceedingly peculiar and
inestimably precious–"O righteous Father, the world has not known You.
But I have known You, and these have known that You have sent Me." In
connection with this knowledge you will observe that there is a great
Teacher who first knows for Himself that which He teaches–"I have
known You." And then He communicates His knowledge– "And I have
declared unto them Your name, and will declare it." That fruitful theme
shall furnish the first topic of our meditation. May the Holy Spirit
lead us into it.

The second part of the text is not knowledge–it is that to which all
Divine knowledge is intended to lead, namely, love. The 26th verse
speaks of wonderful discoveries of a love of infinite excellence–"That
the love with which You have loved Me may be in them." And you notice
that in order to bring that love home to us, there is a Divine
Indweller who goes with it, and without whom it could not be! As a
Teacher is required to bring us the choice knowledge, so an Indweller
is necessary to infuse into us the infinite love–"And I in them."
Jesus must teach us or we shall not know the Father. He must dwell in
us or we shall not rejoice in His love.

Thus our first subject is Divine knowledge and the Divine Instructor.
Our second subject is indwelling love and the indwelling Lord. The two
are one! The blessed Person of our Lord Jesus is so connected with both
and so unites both that the subject is one! To know God in Christ Jesus
is to love Him–and to be loved of Him is the cause of our being made
to know Him! When Jesus declares the Father's name, we both know and
love. And when we see the Father in the Son we are filled both with
instruction and affection.

I. Our text speaks of A KNOWLEDGE OF INFINITE VALUE AND ITS TEACHER.
What is that knowledge? Jesus tells us in verse 26–"I have declared
unto them Your name." God has made man and, naturally, man ought to
know his Maker. The creature should acquaint itself with its Creator.
The subject should know the name of his King. But by reason of the
blindness of our heart, through the depravity engendered by the Fall
and, also, by reason of each man's personal sin, there is none that
understands, there is none that seeks after God.

Whatever else fallen man desires to know (and by nature he is always
ready to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil), yet he desires
not to know his God, but says to Him, "Depart from us. We desire not
the knowledge of Your ways." Yet it is evident that a man can never be
in a proper state till he knows his God and is at peace with Him. A man
who is totally ignorant of God must be in a dark state of mind–and
since he loves that darkness–it is plain that his mind is biased
against good. His willful ignorance of God proves his enmity to Him.
While man is opposed to God he cannot be happy, holy, or safe. How can
he be, when he fights against One who is perfect holiness and love?

Our Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, in coming to save us, makes it a part
of His office to reveal the Father to us. He brings us the knowledge of
the Glory of God, for it shines in His own face. "God was manifest in
the flesh." Man must know God in order to be saved and, therefore, the
Lord Jesus of old promised in the 22nd Psalm, "I will declare Your name
unto My brethren," and here, in our text, He confesses, "I have
declared unto them Your name, and will declare it." By the term,
"name," He means the existence of God, the Nature of God, the Character
of God, the work of God, the Revelation of God, for the word, "name" is
a peculiarly expressive word in Scripture and comprehends all that by
which a person is properly described. In this case it comprehends the
whole of God and our Lord Jesus Christ has come to make God known to us
to the fullest.

He says, "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father, also."
This should suggest to each of us a searching question, Do I know the
Lord? If you do not, it is quite certain that our Lord's Words apply to
you, "you must be born again." Without a knowledge of God, you bear
evidence that you are still in Nature's darkness and in the natural
alienation of your spirit. You belong to that world which lies in the
Wicked One, of which our Lord said, "O righteous Father, the world has
not known You." O that by the teaching of the Holy Spirit you may yet
know the Father!

In verse 25 there is a testing name given to God, a name by which we
may decide whether we know the name of the Lord or not. What is that? I
call your particular attention to it, for my whole subject turns upon
it. It is this–"O righteous Father." I know of no other place in
Scripture where God is called by that name. In this prayer Jesus had
not addressed His Father by that title before. He had spoken of Him as,
"Father," and also as, "Holy Father," but here, alone, it is–"O
righteous Father." I say that the knowledge of this name may serve as a
test as to whether you truly and spiritually know God, or have only a
notional and outward idea of Him. If you know Him aright, you know and
understand what is comprehended under those two simple words which are
so remarkable when found in combination– "righteous Father.''

He is "righteous''–having the attributes of a Judge and Ruler. He is
just, impartial, by no means sparing the guilty. He is "Father"–near
of kin, loving, tender, forgiving. In His Character and in His dealings
with His people He blends the two as they were never combined before!
How can the judge and the father be found in one? When guilty men are
concerned, how can both characters be carried out to the fullest? How
is it possible? There is but one answer and that is found in the
Sacrifice of Jesus which has joined the two in one! In the Atonement of
our Lord Jesus "mercy and truth are met together–righteousness and
peace have kissed each other." In the sacred Substitution we see
declared how God is "righteous," and yet, "Father"–in the sublime
transactions of Calvary He manifests all the love of a tender Father's
heart and all the justice of an impartial Ruler's sword!

This is the knowledge which our Lord has come to declare among the men
whom He has chosen out of the world. And He assures us, first, that
this is peculiar knowledge. "O righteous Father, the world has not
known You." The heathen world knew nothing of a righteous Father–it
scarcely knew God as Father–though here and there a line of a heathen
poet might speak of men as the offspring of God, the true idea of
Divine Fatherhood was unknown to sages and philosophers. As to the
righteousness of God, they had but clouded notions. A future judgment
and a system of rewards and punishments they saw by the light of
natural conscience. But true righteousness in the governing of the
universe they had not discovered–they knew not because they did not
wish to know.

Their gods were generally monsters of iniquity. As to righteousness and
love being combined, they imagined no such thing! The idea of a god who
should be at once sternly righteous and yet infinitely tender had not
occurred to them. How could it? Being themselves unrighteous, they
sought not after a righteous God! He was not at all in their thoughts.
Being themselves cruel and loveless, they could not discover a Deity
whose name is Love. All the wisdom of antiquity went to fabricate gods
of quite another kind. The world, by wisdom, knew not the God who is
called "righteous Father." It is more humbling to have to add that the
Christian world does not know God as a "righteous Father," either, but
persists in forsaking this grand, glorious and Scriptural view of Him.

Mark you, I draw a very grave distinction between the Christian Church
and the Christian world! The Christian world is a conglomeration of
good and evil–the embodiment of the unreal and unspiritual which,
nevertheless, desires to bear the Christian name. It is the world
pretending to be the friend of Christ and you know how hollow is the
pretense. The Christian Church, made up of the men taught of God and
born of the Spirit, is another matter! There we have something very
different, for these know the righteous Father. Skeptics labeled as,
"thinkers," reject the evangelical idea of God and the Atonement which
that idea involves. Worldly wisdom talks of "the universal fatherhood
of God," and babbles forever about that mere dream, that fiction of
folly against which the Bible is a plain and pointed protest.

Universal Fatherhood, indeed, when our Lord Jesus said, "If God were
your Father you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God.
You are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father you
will do." Is it not described as a special wonder of love that we
should be called the sons of God? (1 John 3:1.) Did not the Holy Spirit
say by His servant John, "In this the children of God are manifest, and
the children of the devil; whoever does not righteousness is not of
God, neither he that loves not his brother"? The philosophic Christian
world knows an effeminate, indiscriminate fatherhood, but not, "the
righteous Father." It will not bow before the majesty of His justice.

According to the tenor of its teaching, sin is a misfortune,
transgression a mere trifle, and the souls that suffer for willful
guilt are objects to be pitied, rather than to be blamed! The world's
"thinkers" are continually drawing upon our feelings to make us pity
those who are punished–but they have little to say in order to make us
hate the evil which deserved the doom. Sin, according to them, does
not, of itself, demand punishment, but penalties are to be exacted or
remitted for the general good, if, indeed, they are to be executed at
all! All necessary and inevitable connection between guilt and its
punishment is denied. They dare to call justice, revenge, and speak of
atonement as if were a compensation for private annoyance.

The Christian world does not seem to have learned the Truth that "a God
all mercy were a God unjust," and that a God unjust would soon be
discovered to be a God without love–in fact, no God whatever.
"Righteous Father!" This is the peculiar Revelation which is received
by those who have been taught of the Holy Spirit–and to this day Jesus
Christ may say, "O righteous Father, the world has not known You." Men
kick against the doctrine of the Atonement, they quarrel with
Substitution, they are fierce in their sarcasms against the mention of
the precious blood of Christ and sneer superciliously at those who hold
fast the old Truths of God. They stumble at this stumbling stone and
strive evermore to overthrow this rock of the Truth of God! And yet,
depend upon it, this is the test question by which we shall know
whether a man knows God aright or knows Him not!

There is much in this knowledge which renders it very distinctive, for
it reveals the condition of the mind which receives it. A man who knows
God as, "righteous Father," shows that he has some knowledge of
himself. He has perceived the sin within his nature and it has burdened
him. The righteousness of God has appeared to him in its threatening
form and he had been bowed before it under a sense of his guilt. You
can see, too, that the man also knows something of his Savior. He has
evidently seen the Son, or else he would not know the Father, for of
old Jesus said, "No man comes unto the Father but by Me." He has seen
God's great Gift to man and learned His boundless love!

His knowledge of the "righteous Father" shows that his heart has
submitted itself to the justice of God. He has been in the place where
David stood when he said, "Against You, You only, have I sinned and
done this evil in Your sight; that You might be justified when You
speak, and be clear when You judge." He has evidently bared his back to
the lash of punishment and felt that he deserved all the blows which it
could lay upon him. Inasmuch as it knows the Lord as a "righteous
Father" you can see that the heart has learned to trust God, for no man
calls Him, Father, in spirit and in truth till first he possesses a
living faith and some kindling of Divine love. Submission and trust
compose a condition of

character which is peculiar to a renewed soul, but will surely be found
in a man if he is, indeed, saved, for it is the mark of being saved
from self-justification and from the hatred bred by despair.

When we see in a man an unconditional submission to the justice of God
and yet a trustful hopefulness in His boundless love, we may be sure
that he is a renewed man. He cries, "You are righteous, O my God, and
if You destroy me, I can say nothing. But, Father, You will not destroy
me, for I perceive that you are Love. Though I see You grasp Your sword
of fire, yet do I trust You, for I still believe You to be gracious and
loving." The knowledge described in the text is not only peculiar to
those who are taught of God, but it reveals peculiarities in them which
Grace has implanted there. They believe because they are Christ's sheep
and know His voice. The life within them receives the living Truth of
God. They would not have come to know the "righteous Father" unless
there had been a change in their character worked by the Spirit of
God–and that once done, they know Him as of necessity.

I would next say that this knowledge is eminently consolatory. It is
but little that I know, but I feel that I would cheerfully part with it
all so long as I may be allowed to retain the knowledge contained in
these two words, "righteous Father." This is my life, my light, my
love, my delight, my Heaven! If all the productions of wit and wisdom
throughout all past ages could be as effectually consumed as the
Alexandrian library when it was burned to ashes. If man did but retain
the knowledge of these two words, "righteous Father," he might be
content to see the whole mass pass away in smoke! To know the only true
God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent, is the climax, the essence, the
sum total of wisdom! I said that it was consolatory and so it is to the
last degree. For a man to know that God is his Father is delightful
beyond measure!

To feel that God forgives him as the father forgave the prodigal. To
know that He has received him into His heart and home as the father did
his once lost boy is unspeakably delightful! But when we further learn
that all this is done without the violation of justice–that all this
deed of Grace is done righteously–and so done that even Justice
demands it should be done, then are we full of wondering love! Beloved,
God is as just in loving His sinful people as He could have been in
manifesting His displeasure towards them! He is as just in forgiving as
He could have been in punishing–and this is the glory of the whole
matter! This being understood, we see our position in Christ Jesus to
be unassailable. We see that Justice cannot punish us, for Jesus has
borne our penalty! It cannot demand more at our hands, for our great
Substitute has rendered to it the full tale of obedience. In Christ
Jesus, God is just and yet our Justifier! We are so safe that we begin
to challenge opposition and cry, "Who shall lay anything to the charge
of God's elect?" We take up a triumphant note and sing with exceeding
joy, "If God is for us, who can be against us!" If God is righteous and
yet my Father, then I am saved and saved in such a way that the
attributes of God are glorified by my salvation and, therefore, I am
most securely and certainly saved! Why should I not rejoice?

One more fact about this knowledge of God as a "righteous Father"–it
is a knowledge which causes its possessor to enjoy much fellowship with
Jesus. Notice how our Lord puts it. "O righteous Father, the world has
not known You. But I have known You, and these have known that You have
sent Me." "I have known You." Ah, yes, of old the Son of God knew the
glorious Character of the Godhead! Being Himself God, He knew that
justice was an essential attribute of Deity, which never, never could
be tarnished or made to yield a hair's breadth! And He knew, also, that
God is Love and that His love would never cease to be His special glory
and delight! He knew of old that, speaking after the manner of men,
these two attributes were each resolved to suffer no eclipse. He knew
that each of them must keep its place.

God must be just, and must be a Father. Consequently, when dealing with
sinners, He must smite and He must spare. Our Lord saw how these two
necessities stood like the eternal hills and how our doom seemed to
roll between–and it was He who condescended, for our sakes, to bring
these two together by His own endurance of justice and manifestation of
love. He determined to take upon Himself our Nature and bear our sin
which was the cause of the quarrel! And then, by enduring the
punishment of our sins, He magnified justice–and to an equal degree
glorified love. He came, He saw and solved the difficulty–and now the
Judge is as righteous as if He were not love and the Father is as
loving as if righteousness had never been offended! This grand
Character of God as "righteous Father" was so dear to our Lord and so
much admired by Him that He died to maintain and vindicate it! And when
you and I come to know it, I am sure we so much delight in it that we
feel we would sooner die than give up this Truth of God!

This great Revelation of God is not a dogma that may or may not be
accepted–it must be so! I do, in my soul, believe this Truth of God to
be an article of a standing or of a falling of a Christian Church. If
you put away the doctrine

of the Substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ, you have disemboweled the
Gospel and torn from it, its very heart! Angels need no longer sing
glory to God in the highest and peace on earth if it is not true the
union of the Divine Glory and human salvation is found in Jesus! The
glad news dwindles down very lamentably if the Atonement is denied! But
it cannot be disproved–God is just and yet the Justifier of him that
believes! Christ has died that this Truth of God may be clear and His
people live to declare it and feel that it were worth a thousand
martyrdoms to maintain it! Herein we have fellowship with Christ, for
He knows the "righteous Father" and rejoices in Him–and we know the
"righteous Father," too, in Christ–and love and bless Him and wonder
at Him every day more and more.

Thus I have, to the best of my power, described the invaluable
knowledge. May we all be taught of the Lord and all know Him, from the
least to the greatest.

Now, this knowledge comes to us by a Teacher. That Teacher is spoken of
in verse twenty-six. "I have declared unto them Your name, and will
declare it." Our Beloved Lord has most fitly declared to us this name
of "righteous Father," for He, Himself, knows it as none other can know
it! And He here confesses this intimate knowledge, saying, "but I have
known You." "No man knows the Father save the Son" and the Son knows
the rectitude of the Father's government and the love of the Father's
heart beyond all others. Is He not Himself, "very God of very God"? And
does He not perceive this wondrous union of the two ranges of
attributes in the Person of the Father with a clearness of vision which
no one else possesses? Fit is it, therefore, that He should declare to
us what He has seen and known of the Father.

He declared the "righteous Father" in His life, for in His life He
incarnated Truth and Grace. Jesus Christ on earth was without sin in
thought, in word and in deed. Point me to a sin He ever committed,
inculcated, or excused. Righteousness was about Him as the atmosphere
which He breathed. Well did the Psalmist say of Him, "You love
righteousness and hate wickedness." And yet what love there was in Him
and pity for the wandering sheep! He mingled with sinners and yet was
separate from sinners. He touched their diseases and healed them and
yet was not defiled by their impurities. He took their infirmities upon
Himself and yet in Him, personally, there was no trace of sin. Our Lord
was so righteous that you perceived at once that He was not of this
world–and yet He was so lovingly human that He was altogether a Man
among men.

He was not at all separated from them in the way in which John the
Baptist was, who "came neither eating nor drinking." Nor was He divided
from His fellows, as many a man of genius has been, by eccentric modes
of thought. He was man's Brother and his Physician, his Friend and his
Savior! When you want to know the Father's righteousness and love, read
the history of Jesus Christ–no, know the Lord Jesus, Himself and you
know the Father! His death, however, most gloriously illustrated this
beyond everything else. Behold, He dies that the "righteous Father" may
be seen! He has taken upon Himself man's sin and He is brought to the
place where man must answer for his sin. He is silent before His
accusers. He is condemned and numbered with the transgressors.

Now He must die the sinner's death. Look, He is nailed to the Cross and
now God, Himself, forsakes Him, for He has laid the guilt of man upon
Him and, therefore, cannot be present to make His spirit glad. The
deserted Savior cries, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" and
well He might, when His own Father in righteousness turned His face
from Him! Beloved, when Jesus Christ died there was a greater display
of the righteousness and the fatherhood of God than could have been
possible by any other means! Then the mystery was made plain and the
depth opened up to its very bottom! O Lord our God, what an abyss of
adorable goodness have You thus laid bare before us!–

"How our hearts tremble at Your love immense! In love immense,
inviolably just! You, rather than Your justice should be stained, Did
stain the Cross with blood of your own Son."

And now, today, it is the business of our Lord to continue to reveal
the righteous fatherhood of God and He does so by the work of His Holy
Spirit. Do you not remember when He revealed it to you? When you were
bowed down with grief on account of sin? When you longed to be
reconciled to God but could not see how, then the Spirit of God came to
you and pointed you to the full Atonement made, to the utmost ransom
paid and you clapped your hands for very joy as you perceived that God
could be your Father and receive you as His child and yet His
righteousness need not suffer the slightest decrease! That Spirit of
God working on the behalf of Christ is still declaring this among the
nations! As the years roll on He is opening the eyes of the blind and
bringing His own chosen, one by one, to behold the Glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ! And then they can say, "O righteous Father, I
know You and rejoice in You."

To each one of us who are saved, Jesus is declaring this "righteous
Father" more and more. I hope I know more of this than I did 20 years
ago. Brothers and Sisters, don't you, too? I trust that every day we
see a little more of the righteous fatherhood of God and shall continue
to do so, world without end! We shall, as we grow in Grace, look
further and further into the wondrous mystery of the justice which was
satisfied and the love which furnished the satisfaction! Beloved, it
shall be a part of our Lord's joy, even in eternity, to still declare
to us the name of God, the "righteous Father." Will it not be our joy
to sit at His feet and learn of Him? Is He not a blessed Teacher? Has
He not been very patient with us? Blessed be His name for all His care
and patience towards us. He has taught us much and means to teach us
more. Let us bend a listening ear and bow a willing heart while, from
day to day, He shall continue to declare unto us the "righteous
Father."

Now, if at any time I should seem to preach the doctrine of the
Substitution of Christ too often and if you should say, "He is harping
upon the old string," I shall not hesitate to quote my Master's words
and say, "I have declared unto them Your name, and will declare it."
This Truth of God is one that needs continual declaration! It should be
sounded often in the Christian's ears to keep alive His sense of
obligation to the Wisdom which devised and the Love which carried out
the plan of our salvation to the glory of the "righteous Father."

II. But now, secondly, this heavenly knowledge is not given to us for
its own sake alone. Even the high and blessed Revelation of the
"righteous Father" is not made to us that we may know it and end in
knowing. Our Lord says, "I have declared unto them Your name, and will
declare it, that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them,
and I in them." The objective of the knowledge bestowed upon us is the
infusion of a LOVE UNRIVALLED IN VALUE and extraordinary to the last
degree! Let us speak upon it. First, notice that this discovery of love
which is spoken of in the 26th verse is an inward discovery of
it–"That the love with which You have loved Me may be in them." It was
always on them, for the Father has always loved His people–but here it
is spoken of as, "in them."

What does that mean? I think it means that they may know it, be
persuaded of it, believe it and enjoy it–that they, through knowing
the righteous name, may come to perceive the love of God towards them.
Do you not see the connection? Jesus Christ our Lord dies for us that
God may be righteous and yet may save us! Is it not clear as a
pikestaff to you that God loves His people with a very wonderful love
when He gives His own Son to die and satisfy justice on their behalf?
Nothing can prove that love so clearly. Nothing can bring it home so
forcibly as the sacrificial death of the Only Begotten. Therefore does
Christ declare the blessed name of the "righteous Father," in order
that it may come home to you with an unconquerable power that the
Father loves you and loves you beyond conception, seeing that not even
His dear Son was so loved as to be spared, but He must die that you
might live and that the justice of God might be satisfied on your
account!

There is no way of knowing the love of God like knowing the "righteous
Father" and the Atonement which that Character necessitated. "Hereby
perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us." You
may say, "I see His love in every flower that blooms and every breeze
that blows." It is true, but it is the same love, after all, which He
has towards a horse or a cow–for do not flowers bloom and breezes blow
for them? "We see the love of God," say some, "in giving us meat to eat
and raiment to put on." So do I, but this, also, is the same love which
He bears to ravens and to lilies, for does He not feed the one and
clothe the other? I need something more by way of love than this. "I
see God's love," says one, "in Christ's coming to teach us and make us
better." No doubt you do, and so do I, but I do not feel it one half so
forcibly as when I gaze upon Calvary and see the innocent Victim
bleeding for my crimes. "Herein is love!"

When the Divine Father gives up His best Beloved for guilty man, we may
well say, "Behold how He loved him!" Come and see this spectacle of
love! It is none other than the Lord of Heaven who must die to
vindicate the jealous purity of the Divine government! Is He God's only
begotten Son and must He bear man's guilt? Miracle of miracles! Must
the spotless Son bear human guilt? He must! He did! Tell it and let
Heaven be astonished, still, though it has heard the wonder nearly
2,000 years! Upon Him who never sinned the Lord has laid our
iniquities! Bearing that guilt, must He suffer? He must. If God loves
His people, His Son must suffer in their place–must suffer shame, must
suffer desertion, must suffer death. What? Must He die? Incarnate Deity
be put to death? A felon's death? Can this be? It has been! It is
finished! Such was the love of God that "He spared not His only
begotten Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all." Be astonished, O
heavens, forever and ever, that love could accomplish such a feat as
this!

Now, then, Christ has come on purpose to declare the name of God that
the love of God may be perceived by us, its power felt, its Glory
recognized, its greatness wondered at, its infinitude delighted in. But
now notice, and here is the very heart of our subject, that this love
was of a most extraordinary kind. "That the love with which You have
loved Me may be in them." What is the love with which God loved His
Son? Come, you philosophers and divines! Come, you who have learned to
blend imagination with cool judgment–come and think this over–the
love with which the Father loved His Son! Believer, He loves you as He
loves His best Beloved! He is His only begotten Son–Son in a very
mysterious manner–for we cannot understand that Divine filiation in
which the Father is eternal and the Son also eternal.

He loves you as He loves such a Son. There is more than sonship, there
is natural unity of Essence, for the Father and Son are one God! And
how the one God loves, how the Father loves, the Son, I know not,
except that I know there can be no limit to such love. It must be
altogether boundless and unspeakable! Now, if you fully know the
righteous fatherhood of God, as Christ would have you know it, you will
learn that God loved you as He loved His Son. Do you not see that it is
so? If He had not loved you as He loved the Son, He would have spared
His Son! Is not that clear? If He had not loved you as He loved His
Son, He would have said to His Son, "Son, You shall never leave Heaven
for that polluted planet. You shall never descend to poverty and
suffering. You shall never have Your hands and feet pierced. You shall
never be despised and spit upon and put to a cruel death."

But because He loved us as He loved His Son, He gave His Son! Does not
that fact warm your hearts? Does it not burn like coals of juniper
within your bosoms? "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift"! No,
that is not all. We learn from the verse which precedes our text that
the Father loved our Lord eternally–"For You loved Me before the
foundation of the world." Perceive, then, that God has also loved you,
dear child of His, from before the foundation of the world! Before you
had a being, His prescient eye foresaw your existence and you were the
object of His love! How or why, I cannot tell you, but He loved you and
He still loves you as He loves His Son! May the power of that love be
felt in Your heart, now! It was a love of complacency and delight!

Remember those words of the Lord which He spoke concerning His Son in
the day of His Baptism and at two other occasions when the heavens
opened–"This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Always
draw a distinction between the love of benevolence, with which God
loves all His creatures, and the love of complacency which is reserved
for His own. He calls His Church His Hephzibah, "My delight is in her."
He says not so of the world! God never said concerning any wicked man,
"This is my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," for He is not
pleased with him, but angry with him every day! But concerning all
those who know the "righteous Father" it is the prayer of Christ that
the love with which the Father loves Him may be in them–and by that He
means that they may feel that the Lord has, in them, a father's
content.

Do try, if you can, to realize this high privilege. It is true, O
Believer, that God, the infinite Father, takes pleasure in you! It is
true, but it is very surprising! Often have I turned over that Word in
the Song where the Bridegroom says to the bride, "You are all fair, My
love. There is no spot on you." How can this be? Why, we are all spots!
Yet does the Eternal Father view us in Christ! And in Him He takes
delight in us as a father does in his children. "My delights were with
the sons of men." "He shall rest in His love, He shall rejoice over you
with singing." When you know God as "righteous," and yet, "Father,"
then shall you see that, inasmuch as the righteous way of salvation has
put away all sin by laying it upon Christ, there is no reason why the
Lord should be angry with us! And inasmuch as the righteousness of
Christ is imputed to us, there is a legal reason why He should be
satisfied with His people. And inasmuch as we have become one with
Christ, there is good cause why He should take a delight in us, even
for His Son's sake!

God the Father loves His Son infinitely! How could He do less? Without
beginning has He loved Him and without an end will He love Him and,
also, without change, without limit and without degree! In the same way
does He love His people, whose hope is fixed in Him as the "righteous
Father." This love, wherever it reigns in the heart, creates a return
love to God. You cannot really know all this and enjoy it without
feeling, "My God, I love You in return." And that high and noble
passion works to the cleansing of the soul and the purging out of
sin–and so it becomes a sanctifying influence by which a Christian is
made to be "holiness unto the Lord."

To close–this love within the soul comes through an Indweller. Observe
the last words of the text, "That the love with which You have loved Me
may be in them, and I in them." What does this mean? I cannot tell you
all it means. Let

us skim the surface just for a minute. It means this. The Holy Spirit
is the representative of Christ now upon earth and if ever the love of
God the Father is to be known by any one of us, the Lord Jesus, by the
Spirit, must be in us. Without the Spirit of God actually resident in
us we cannot know the righteous Father! We are as blind and dead men
until He quickens and illuminates us–all the letter-teaching in the
world will benefit us nothing–we must be born again!

My dear Hearers, there may be some of you to whom all my talk, this
morning, must seem very strange. You cannot see anything in it. Let the
fact cause you to suspect that you must be in the dark. When even the
love of God to His people becomes a dry theme to you, it looks
suspicious! Surely you have no part nor lot in it, or else you would
relish a discourse upon it! The reason why you do not comprehend it is
because you have not the Spirit of Christ–and if you have not the
Spirit of Christ, you are none of His. May this convince you of your
condition and may you be led to seek Christ and find everlasting life.

But when the text says that Christ is in His people, it means, besides
the indwelling of the Spirit, that Christ is in us! He is in us by
faith, for we have taken Christ Jesus as the great atoning Sacrifice to
be our sole and only confidence. Therefore He is in us, trusted and
loved, fed upon and believed in. If He is so, then it is quite clear
that we know the "righteous Father!" And when we know the "righteous
Father," then it follows that we must have some discoveries of His
great love to us. Are you trusting Christ? Is Jesus, in you, the hope
of Glory? Do you trust in Him, alone? If so, go and drink to the
fullest, the sweetness of the text and let no man say you cannot!
Christ is in you, moreover, by a real and vital union with you. You are
in Him as a branch is in the vine and He is in you as the sap is in the
branch.

You are in Him as a member is in the body and He is in you as the life
is in all the members. We know that Jesus quickens us and because He
lives, we live, also. From now on we are one with Christ! It must be
so, because if God did not see us in Christ, He could not regard us
with complacency or, in other words, love us as He loves His Son! If He
did not, in looking upon a man, see the love and the Nature of His Only
Begotten in Him, how could He love him? He views us as part and parcel
of His own dear Son and so His delight is in us!

Beloved, the Lord sees, in addition to all this, something of a
likeness to Christ in us, worked by His Spirit, for if Jesus is,
indeed, in us, we shall grow to be like He and shall manifest somewhat
of His spirit and Nature. The more we have of likeness to Jesus, the
more will it be evident that the love of God is in us and is working in
us, "to will and to do of His own good pleasure." May God grant that
what I have spoken so feebly may, nevertheless, be sweetly enjoyed by
you, for I am persuaded that in the text there lies many a banquet for
saints that hunger and thirst after righteousness– and a depth of
mystical teaching which it shall be well for you to search into with
all your powers. God bless you, my Beloved, for Christ's sake. Amen.
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