“For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.” John 5:20
June 14, 2023
One concept from our psychologized culture is bound up in the question, “What if your father didn’t love you?” Some say “You can’t really appreciate God as Father if you had a poor relationship with your human father.” This idea needs the light of Scripture and a grasp of God the Father’s love for the Son. The intra-Trinitarian love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father provides important truths in how our love is to be expressed to one another. This does not suggest that the primary theological value of the Father and Son eternal love is limited to a better understanding of human relationships. But it does help us to know how our relationship with Jesus Christ opens up a treasure chest of thought about what it means to have been created in the image of God and knowing Christ. D.A. Carson opens a door we need to think our way through; “This intra-Trinitarian love of God not only marks off Christian monotheism from all other monotheisms, but is bound up in surprising with revelation and redemption” (The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God). The Son gave unqualified obedience to His Father and showed His dependence upon His Father. This ensures that His revelation to us is perfect. Sink your teeth into that. Jesus was no mere brilliant ethical scholar, He had uninterrupted communion with the Father. The Father and the Son are one. That’s why their work is one. Our redemption in Christ Jesus is not merely one of a celestial office task delegated by the Father to the Son. Eternal life comes from the Son. Also, all judgment has been given to Jesus Christ. By this the Son is highly honored. All this does not remove us from the presenting question regarding the absence of a human father’s love. We will move further into that in the next morning minute.
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“We are never nearer Christ than when we find ourselves lost in a holy amazement at His unspeakable love.” John Owen