Thoeolgical Research--Part 4

What is the Christian’s greatest blessing in time? It is exploring the truth that has been committed to our trust. Christians neglect it to their own peril. It takes two to tell a truth—one to speak it and one to be spoken to.

In beginning our next lesson on John 17, read verses 6-26. There are four great divisions that we are now covering—preservation, sanctification, unification, and glorification. Remember that we are studying Christ’s prayer. Verse 6 concerns Divine election. There are seven references to Divine election in this portion of Scripture.

A definite knowledge of doctrine is absolutely necessary in the system of Christianity. In His closed meeting with His disciples in John 14:16-20, Christ said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”

There is no evidence of salvation until a person is influenced by doctrine. It has been said that professed infidels are not the only unbelievers. I do not worship the God of Christians if I do not worship God in Christ, and I cannot worship God in Christ without knowing what is meant by God being in Christ. How can a person rest on Christ’s death on his behalf if he does not know what is meant by Christ being the Son of God? Christ assured the disciples in their closed meeting, before His death on the cross, when He said in John 17:3, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

The Holy Spirit is the Divine Teacher during the absence of Christ. Christ assured the disciples that (1) He would open up a “way” for them; (2) He would “instruct” them in that way; and (3) He would “enable” them to walk in that way. Therefore, a definite knowledge of doctrine is absolutely necessary in the system of Christianity. Christ’s life in us produces fruit through us. Living in Christ involves loving one another. Separation to Christ means separation from the world. Furthermore, true peace has the whole Trinity for its author. God the Father is the God of peace—“for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints” (I Cor. 14:33). God the Son is the purchaser of peace—“and through Him [Christ] to reconcile all things to Himself having made peace through the blood of His cross…” (Col. 1:20). Peace is the fruit of the Spirit—“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Gal. 5:22, 23).

John 17 is the most remarkable portion of Scripture in the Bible. The disciples could not be invited to the prayer meeting. All that is said is written for the present time. It is because of Christ’s intercession that believers have such assurance of security. Christ lived and preached for thirty-three years. He died once on the cross in one mighty act of propitiation; but He has been interceding for His sheep for two thousand years. His prayer was brief, yet comprehensive. A good example has been left for His sheep. Therefore, God measures prayers not by their length but by their depth. There were no superlative adjectives when Christ addressed the Father. He used the adjective “Holy” one time, and it was used in the correct place. He asks the Father to keep the believers from abounding evil, and the antidote for evil is the “holiness of God.” When He speaks of the fact that the world does not know God and has rejected Him as revealed in the Son of God, He employs the term “righteous Father.” Therefore, while the world in its unrighteousness rejected Him as revealed in the Son of God, the “righteous Father” would be righteous in His providence, as well as in His final judgment.

There are three important unions—(1) one of essence in the Godhead, (2) one of the Divine and human natures in Jesus Christ, and (3) one of Jesus Christ and His sheep. The second must be understood in order to give the proper exegesis of the chapter. God, absolutely considered, cannot pray. A person, absolutely human, cannot mediate between God and man. Thus, those who believe in the peccability of Jesus Christ deny that Jesus Christ is Mediator. This places them in the same category with those who deny the Trinity. Those who believe that Jesus Christ represents one person with three manifestations are called “oneness.” They believe the “Son” of Luke 1:35 is the “Flesh” and teach that “a Divine Person does not need help—only man needs help.” Those who advocate this view should be called on to answer the following question—Did the first Person, who is Jesus to them, pray to the second manifestation or the third manifestation?

In John 17:1-5, there is no union between God and man immediately without an intervening agent. II Corinthians 5:18 and 19 says, “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” In God’s purpose, every chosen person will be born, live, and die at God’s appointed time. In Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 2a, Solomon said, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—A time to give birth and a time to die….”

Before someone gets too excited about the statement that we read in II Corinthians 5:19, “...God was in Christ reconciling the world [kosmos] to Himself…,” take a look at John 1:10. The noun kosmos is used in three different ways in this verse—“He was in the world [kosmos of habitation], and the world [kosmos of humanity that came by Him] was made through Him, and the world [kosmos of depravity] did not know Him.” In verse 11, John states, “He came to His own [by creation], and those who were His own [by creation] did not receive Him.”

Let us expand a little on these verses before we leave them. The ordered kosmos has become the disordered (fallen) kosmos. Christ was in the disordered kosmos, because the ordered kosmos, which was brought into existence through Jesus Christ, had become disordered in the fall. Men who are of this disordered kosmos did not and do not recognize the Lord Jesus Christ.

Although Christ came to His own things, His own people did not receive Him. However, His own coming produced a twofold result—rejection and reception. Both receiving and believing are from God. Thus, everything God gives is received, and everything received is given.

John 1:12 speaks of conversion, and verse 13 refers to regeneration. Verse 12 says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” John 1:13 tells us who it was that enabled those who received and believed—“who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Compare John 3:3, 5, 8; I John 5:1; 2:29.) Therefore, one is born of God to the things of God. No one becomes something that he is already.

Christ’s petition was twofold in John 17:1-5—He desired to be glorified by the Father—“…Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You…Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” The glorification was first to be “by” the Father, and secondly, to be glorified “with” the Father.

Christ’s earthly “Holy of Holies” was a foretaste of the heavenly “Holy of Holies,” just as the transfiguration was a foretaste of the kingdom (Matt. 17:1-13). Furthermore, He knew that the hour “has come” (perfect active indicative of the verb erchomai, completed action with continuing results). Every hour of life is important, but there is one hour for which all the preceding hours prepare. All the hours of Christ’s life in time were parts of the whole, but there was one climactic hour. The hour of Calvary overshadowed all the others. It is the one history remembers the most. Furthermore, it is the one hour that consummated His work.

Christ’s destiny was foreseen; therefore, He knew and spoke of His life and death as preordained. There was nothing accidental, nothing that could be attributed to the wild uncertainties of chance in either His death or its results. Christ’s time in the flesh was numbered to the hour. The Victim was ready to be offered. In Romans 8:32, Paul said, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?”

Having fulfilled all righteousness in His life, Christ would now fulfill it in His death as the Substitute and Surety for His people, the elect. What is glory? It is the manifested presence of God. Christ was now asking for God’s manifested presence in His death, resurrection, and ascension. Glory is not only the manifestation of God’s presence, but Christ is the manifestation of the Godhead.

Christ was given authority for the completing of a special purpose. The object of giving all authority to Christ was in order that He may give eternal live to all the ones the Father permanently gave to Christ. It is not enough that hindrances are removed. The elect must be qualified to enjoy life in time and to enter the eternal kingdom. Therefore, Jesus Christ takes away sin, conquers death, gives the new heart, slays enmity, and subdues the flesh until death is swallowed up in victory.

___________________________________
The NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE—UPDATED EDITION is the source of all Scripture quotations in this message, unless otherwise noted.