The Son and the Father.
It is remarkable that Jesus almost always used the term "Father" when he spoke of God. And he used the term so constantly that it may even be treated as the key-note of the revelation which he brought. He came to earth in order to bring to men "good news of God;" and the good news may be gathered up into a sentence, "He is your Father. You ought to be anxious about standing in right relations with your Father." It is easy to show how that will open out into an answer to the questions, "How can we get back into right relations? And how can we keep in right relations?" Jesus says, "I am the Truth about the Father; I am the Way back to the Father; I am the Model Life of the Son with the Father." "No man cometh unto the Father but by me." Then we see the meaning and point of the closing verses of the chapter. Jesus really says, "Come unto me, and I will teach you how to be a son with his Father; and you will find that is rest to your souls."
I. THE RELATIONS OF THE SON AND THE FATHER. It would be to miss the point altogether to bring in ideas concerning what is called the "eternal Sonship." Our Lord is not thinking of his abstract and absolute Divine relationships. He was a Man; as a Man he was a Son; he was a model Son, a firstborn Son. His Sonship was a headship, a leadership; after him come a multitude of sons who, with him, call God their Father. In the expressions our Lord uses we can find two things characteristic of the relations between the Son and the Father; and representative-of the proper relations between every son and the Father.
1. Intimacy. "Truly our fellowship is with the Father." Observe, however, that our Lord speaks of it as a present intimacy, fullest confidence, mutual confidence, between the Father and the Son, though the Son was a Man in earthly spheres.
2. Trust. The Father fully gave all the earth-concerns, the redemptive earth-concerns, into the hands of his Sou. In this, too, representing the trust he still puts in all who are sons in his Son.
II. THE COMPETENCY OF THE SON TO REVEAL THE FATHER. "The Son will reveal him." This will open out simply by showing how Jesus reveals
But it needs to be seen that Christ reveals the Father by what he was, even more than by what he said or did.—R.T.