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In this message we shall continue to be on the person of God.
In Ephesians 1:3 Paul speaks of God as “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Since Jesus Christ is God, why does Paul speak of the God of Jesus Christ? How can God be His God? Furthermore, Paul mentions the Father of Jesus Christ. How can Christ, being God, have a Father? God is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of Man, and God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God. According to His humanity, God is His God; and according to His divinity, God is His Father.
Paul’s praise to the God of the New Testament in Ephesians 1:3 is deep and profound. It encompasses the entire New Testament economy. Here we have not only creation, indicated by the title “God,” but also incarnation, indicated by the title “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The first revelation of God in the Bible is in creation, for the Bible opens with the words, “In the beginning God created.…” Following creation is the incarnation. One day God the Creator became incarnated. The Word that was with God and was God became flesh (John 1:1, 14) to be a man. When God Himself became a man, the God who created all things became His God. “The God of our Lord Jesus Christ” indicates that the Lord Jesus was a man. If He were only God, God could never be His God. In order for God to be His God, He had to become a man. For this, incarnation was needed. The God whom the Jews worship is only the God of creation, not the God of incarnation. We today worship not only the God of creation but also the God of incarnation. In incarnation the God of creation became the very God of the Man Jesus. At the same time, God is also the Father of Christ as the Son of God. In Christ’s humanity, God is His God; in His divinity God is His Father.
Furthermore, as the title “God” refers to creation, so the title “Father” should refer to the impartation of life. This took place in the Lord’s resurrection. On the day of His resurrection His word to Mary in John 20:17 indicates that God is not only His Father, but also His believers’ Father. It is through His resurrection that God the Father becomes His believers’ Father. This is the Father’s impartation of life to His many children.
In Ephesians 1:17 Paul goes on to speak of “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.” In verse 3 Paul speaks of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, putting God and the Father together. But here he mentions Them separately, saying, “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.” In incarnation the Lord Jesus Christ, God Himself (Phil. 2:6), became a man. As a man, He is related to God’s creation; therefore, God the Creator is His God. The incarnation brought God the Creator into man, God’s creature. The title “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ” implies that God the Creator has come into man. Whenever we speak of God in this way, we imply that God is no longer merely the Creator outside of His creature, man, but that He has been brought into humanity. We, the fallen creatures, have been redeemed. Incarnation indicates that God is for our enjoyment. We can enjoy God because He has come into humanity for our redemption. Divinity becomes our enjoyment in Jesus.
By His work of creation God became the Creator. After creation He took the step of incarnation, thereby coming into His creature, man. By and in incarnation the Creator and the creature became one. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was the uniting of God and man. Through crucifixion the Lord accomplished redemption. As a result, we, the fallen creatures, were redeemed. The Jews, however, have no concept of God’s incarnation and redemption. But we Christians have God in creation, incarnation, and redemption. How much more we have than the Jews!
In John 20:17 the Lord told Mary to say to His brothers, “I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.” This indicates that the Lord as a resurrected man takes God as His God and the Father as His Father. Furthermore, this verse reveals that His Father and God has become His believers’ Father and God.
Why did the Lord tell Mary that He was ascending to the Father and to God? On the one hand, the Lord is the Son of God; therefore, He would see the Father in the person of the Son. On the other hand, He is still the Son of Man; therefore, He would see God in the person of man. We His believers, also are men on the one hand and sons of God on the other. Because we are men, God is God to us. Because we are the sons of God, God is also the Father to us. Because we are now both men and sons of God, we have both God and the Father.
All the believers as human beings have become brothers to the Lord and sons to the Father through the Lord’s resurrection, because they have received the same life as He. Through His life-imparting death and resurrection the Lord has made His believers one with Him. Therefore, His Father is also His believers’ Father, and His God is also their God. In His resurrection they have both the Father’s life and God’s nature, just as He does. In making them His brothers He has imparted the Father’s life and God’s nature into them. In making His Father and His God theirs He has brought them into His position — the Son’s position — before the Father and God. Thus, in life and in nature inwardly and in position outwardly they are the same as He.
John 20:17 Ephesians 1:3, 17; and Revelation 1:6 were all written after the Lord’s ascension. We have seen that in John 20:17 the Lord was about to ascend to His Father and God and that in Ephesians 1:3 and 17 Paul speaks of the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. Furthermore, Revelation 1:6 says that Christ has “made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father.” As in John 20:17 and Ephesians 1:3 and 17, “His God” refers to the Lord’s relationship as a man to God, and “His Father” refers to His relationship as the Son to the Father. Therefore, the New Testament emphasizes the fact that the God who created us and redeemed us, and who is imparting and dispensing Himself into us, is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Bible glory is God expressed. Whenever God is expressed, that is glory. But whenever God is hidden, concealed, there is no glory expressed. When God is seen, there is glory. You can never see God without seeing His glory. While the unseen God is God, the seen God is glory. God’s glory was seen as the children of Israel journeyed from Egypt to the good land (Exo. 13:21). During the day God was seen as the cloud, and during the night He was seen as the pillar of fire — that was glory. In the Gospel of John we read that the Word was God, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and that we all beheld His glory (John 1:1, 14). John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” There is glory in the declaration of God. When we see God, we see glory.
In Acts 7:2, as Stephen was testifying before the Sanhedrin, he said, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham.…” The glory here might have been visible glory, as when the cloud and the fire appeared to Israel (Exo. 16:10; 24:16-17; Lev. 9:23; Num. 14:10; 16:19; 20:6; Deut. 5:24) and filled the tabernacle and temple (Exo. 40:35; 1 Kings 8:11). It was the God of such glory who appeared to Abraham and called him. His glory was a great attraction to Abraham. It separated, sanctified, him from the world unto God (Exo. 29:43), and it was a great encouragement and strength which enabled him to follow God (Gen. 12:1, 4).
Stephen’s word about the God of glory fits in with God’s New Testament economy. In his second Epistle Peter tells us that God has called us by His glory and to His glory (2 Pet. 1:3). Because we were called by the glory of God our Savior (2 Pet. 1:1), we eventually received the Lord Jesus, realizing that He is better than anything and anyone else.
The God of glory called Abraham, and Abraham was attracted and caught by that glory. The principle is the same with us today. We all have been caught by the Lord in His glory. We have been captured by His glory. One day the God of glory came to us through the preaching of the gospel, and we were attracted and convinced and began to appreciate Him. During that time, the God of glory transfused some element of His being into us, and we believed in Him spontaneously. To be attracted by the God of glory means that God transfused Himself into His called ones without their realizing it or being conscious of it. This can be compared to radium treatment practiced in modem medicine. The patient is placed under the X ray, unconscious of the beams that are penetrating him. We may say that God is the strongest “radium.” If we stay with Him for a period of time, He will transfuse Himself into us. This transfusion will cause infusion, saturation, and permeation. Once God has transfused Himself into us, we cannot escape; we must believe in Him.
In Ephesians 1:17 Paul uses the term “the Father of glory.” As we have pointed out, glory is God expressed. Hence, the Father of glory is God expressed through His many sons. The title “Father” implies regeneration, and the word “glory” implies expression. Therefore, the title “Father of glory” implies regeneration and expression. We have been regenerated by God, and we are His expression.
We have already been regenerated, but in the future we shall be glorified and express God’s glory (Rom. 8:30). The regeneration of many sons and the expression of God are the consummation of the divine economy. Through His crucifixion the Lord Jesus accomplished redemption for us. As a result, we, the fallen creatures, have been redeemed. Then we were regenerated to become sons of God the Father so that we may express Him. On the day we are glorified, God will be fully expressed from within us. In this way we shall become His expression in full.
Hebrews 2:10 says that God is leading many sons into glory. The last step of God’s great salvation is to bring His many sons into glory. Romans 8 tells us that God’s work of grace upon us began with His foreknowing through His predestination, calling, and justification and will end with His glorification (vv. 29-30). Romans 8 tells us that the whole creation eagerly expects the revelation, the glorification, of the sons of God, hoping that the creation itself will enter into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (vv. 19-20). This will be accomplished by the Lord’s coming back (Phil. 3:21), at which time we shall appear with Him in glory (Col. 3:4). This is our hope (Col. 1:27). This glorification of the sons of God, as the goal of God’s salvation, will last through the millennial kingdom and will be manifested in fullness in the New Jerusalem for eternity (Rev. 21:11, 23).
Ephesians 3:14 and 15 say, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, of whom every family in the heavens and on the earth is named.” Here Paul does not refer to God but to the Father. The Father in verse 14 is used in a broad sense, signifying not only the Father of the household of faith (Gal. 6:10), but the Father of every family in the heavens and on the earth. The Father is the source not only of the regenerated believers, but also of the God-created mankind (Luke 3:38), of the God-created Israel (Isa. 63:16; 64:8), and of the God-created angels (Job 1:6). The Jews’ concept was that God was Father only to them. Hence, Paul prayed to the Father of all the families in the heavens and on the earth according to his revelation, not as the Jews, who prayed only to the Father of Israel according to the Jewish concept.
The Greek word rendered “family” in Ephesians 3:15 may also be translated “fatherhood,” implying a family. Since God is the source of the angelic family in the heavens and all the human families on earth, so it is of God that every family in the heavens and on earth is named, just as producers give names to their products and fathers give names to their children.
Luke 3:38 indicates that, through creation, God is the Father of mankind, for in this verse Adam is called “the son of God.” This does not mean that Adam was born of God and possessed the life of God. Adam was created by God (Gen. 5:1-2), and God was his origin. Based upon this, he was supposed to be the son of God, even as the heathen poets considered all mankind to be the offspring of God (Acts 17:28). They were only created by God, not regenerated of Him. This is absolutely and intrinsically different from the believers in Christ being the sons of God. They have been born, regenerated, of God and possess God’s life and nature (John 1:12-13; 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:4).
In Acts 17:28 Paul says, “For in Him we live and move and are, as even some poets among you have said, For we also are His offspring.” The words “in Him we live and move and are” denote that man’s life and existence and even his actions are of God. This does not mean that man has God’s life and lives, exists, and acts in God as do the believers in Christ, who are born of God, possess His life and nature, and live, exist, and act in God’s person.
All men are God’s offspring in the sense that Adam was called a son of God. Because God is the Creator, the source, of all men, He is the Father of them all (Mal. 2:10) in a natural sense, not in the spiritual sense, as He is the Father of all the believers (Gal. 4:6), who are regenerated by Him in their spirit (1 Pet. 1:3; John 3:5-6).
In Matthew 11:27c the Lord Jesus says that no one knows “the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” The Greek word translated “know” here indicates full knowledge, not mere objective acquaintance. Concerning the Son, only the Father has such knowledge; and concerning the Father, only the Son has such knowledge. Hence, to know the Father requires the Son’s revelation (John 17:6, 26). The Greek word rendered “wills” in Matthew 11:27 means to deliberately exercise the will through counsel.
In John 17:6 the Lord Jesus said to the Father, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world.” The name referred to here is the very name Father. The names God and Jehovah were adequately revealed to man in the Old Testament, but not the name Father, though it is slightly mentioned in Isaiah 9:6; 63:16; and 64:8. In Old Testament times God’s people mainly knew that God was Elohim, that is, God, and Jehovah, that is, the ever-existing One, but they knew very little about the title Father. The Son came and worked in the Father’s name (John 5:43; 10:25) to manifest the Father to the men whom the Father gave Him and to make the Father’s name known to them (John 17:26), the name which reveals the Father as the source of life (John 5:26), for the propagation and multiplication of life, of whom many sons are born (John 1:12-13) for His expression. Hence, the Father’s name, revealed by the Son, is very much related to the divine life. We can know the Father in the way of the divine life only through the Son’s unveiling of Him.
As the Father of all families both in the heavens and on earth (Eph. 3:14-15), God is the source of all. All things are out of Him. Romans 11:36 says, “Out of Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” In the past, all things were out of Him; in the present, all things are through Him; and in the future, all things will be to Him. All things came into being out of God in the past, all things exist through Him in the present, and all things will be to Him in the future. All things are of Him, through Him, and for Him.
First Corinthians 8:6 says, “There is one God, the Father, of whom are all things.” This verse tells us again that God who is the Father is the source of all things. Here the Father refers not to God as the Father of the regenerated believers but to Him as the source of all things. This is proved by the words “of whom are all things.” All things are out of God as the source; hence, God is called the Father. Not only is He the believers’ Father in regeneration, but He is the Father of all created things in creation, for all things have come out of Him.
Hebrews 2:10 tells us that God, who is leading many sons into glory, is the One “for whom are all things and through whom are all things.” In order to lead many sons into glory, God needs the heavens, the earth, and all things. All things which God created for the accomplishment of His purpose exist through Him in the present, and will be for Him in the future. It is God who maintains all things in the universe so that they may serve His purpose.
In Hebrews 12:9 God is called the Father of spirits: “Furthermore, we have had the fathers of our flesh as discipliners and we respected them; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?” Here “the Father of spirits” is contrasted with “the fathers of our flesh.” In natural birth, we were born of our father in our flesh. Hence, they are the fathers of our flesh. In regeneration we are born of God (John 1:13) in our spirit (John 3:6). Hence, He is the Father of our spirits.
