GOD Revealed as FATHER

John 17:4

I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do”…. (Read ALL of John 17)

What Work did Jesus do?

It was to bring man from ignorance of the truth of God, from which only evil can spring. The name of God is a condensed statement of the character of God. In the patriarchal age, “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in the Law of Moses, “The great I Am”, the Eternal, self-subsisting One. Jesus, then, came to make known to us the Name of God, as Father, Son, and Spirit.

Our Lord, then, made known to His disciples the fuller and greater name of God, of which Christians are to adhere.  He testified to Himself as the Son sent by the Father on high.  The Father, in turn, testified to Jesus as His Son in spoken audible Word, in the Transfiguration, in Miracles performed, and in the Resurrection. This Name, was refused by the Jews, even to their blaspheming both the Son and the Holy Spirit, but was accepted by the twelve. That NAME which we as Christians own, and without owning it, there is no Christian.

His Work included an ETERNAL LIFE Work.

This ‘eternal life’ is not meant mere ‘endless existence;’ for that will belong to the wicked also. Nor does the term “eternal life that is free from eternal death” alone describe the fullness of that Work.  In NT Scripture, “eternal life” means initially the right state of spirit, as a consequence of acceptance of the Son of God as atonement for sin, before God. Eternal Life is a gift accompanying that Justification belief, a much better state of existence, eternally in Him. This initial state of eternal existence is possessed by all believers.

But the ETERNAL LIFE EXISTENCE IN VIEW FOR these DISCIPLES and those who believe on Him through them, is: THE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST IS ETERNAL GLORY that is IN THE HOLY STATE OF SALVATION OF THE SOUL! [Verses 21-23] The even FAR FAR GREATER ETERNAL EXISTENCE, that holds the promise OF CLOSE PROXIMITY TO GOD in oneness!

Saved, and then possessor of the embryo of eternal life,  he is a new creature in the making, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed (passing) away; behold, all things are become (becoming) new.” [2 Corinthians 5:17]

“….Keep them… Father” …was in the prayer of John 17. ‘Keep’ them in two ways. 1) From the evil of the World, from the evil without, and 2) sanctify them, lead them into all the Truth, is to keep them from the evil within. For the world is the kingdom of the devil, And he, being the father of lies, weaves a web of darkness and deception as he presents the World to us in false imaginations and false values of things temporal, the fleeting pleasures of this World. He rules over men in filling them full of corrupting lusts.  The Father keeps His own as they accept His Son’s testimony, chastisement, and suffer them not to be tempted above that they are able. The more Truth seen and accepted by the saved, the further he separates from the devil and his deceits. The less he feels at home in its environment, as he places his affections on high.

Christians should know this as a gradual process worked out by the indwelling Power of the Holy Spirit applying His Divine influence upon the heart, who is listening to His appointed teachers, faithfully studying and applying the Words of Truth, centered around He Who declared Himself, “the Truth”, Jesus the Christ. Christians, in general, are not advancing. Why is that? Because in most of our Churches, the teachers know little and can only teach little and most of what they teach is centered around the initial Work of Justification by faith and little is understood about the sanctifying faith in the NT Name of God, (FATHER), so very little distinction is found between the majority of Christians and the World.

The more TRUTH/THE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST we accept, the greater is our separation from the world.

Knowledge of TRUTH/JESUS’ WORDS AND ACTIONS AND COMMANDS is only to be learned from studying Scripture with revelation of the Holy Spirit.

The World hates the Truth, as it convicts them of their contrariness to God. Religion has perverted the Truth, with, “Hath God really said?” The World has designed a false gospel that appeals to those who WERE fast escaping the World. [JUDE]

Any perversion of the Truth received takes away the Knowledge of the Father. For example, many discount the Bible in that they say it is fallible, made by man, full of error, thus taking away from its convicting power.  Many, including Christians, think not of Jesus in the light of Him being the only Begotten Son of God, but as a good or great man, a great teacher, even a prophet, but they do not recognize Him as the Holy Son of God, that existed with Him before Creation was created, sent by God to reveal Him as The Father. It is only by the Son and receiving each portion of Truth revealed by Him of the Father may we draw closer in sanctification and become less and less like the World. So if Satan can mix the Truth with error of any kind, to that degree we fall short of the inheritance promised exclusively in the Name of The Father. That inheritance of the unity held forth by the Son of God in the 17^th Chapter of John. (This is not to say that an inheritance of a inferior type, with less atonement, in another Name of God might not be attained.)

Jesus is ‘the truth;’ none comes to the Father but through Him.

‘Love not the world, neither the things that are of the world.  If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.’  It does not say, ‘there can be no love of God as Creator.’

Here we may distinguish between the Covenants and their perspective Atonements; their perspective sanctifications (that is finally to separate from evil the heart and life). God sent the Son to reveal God in the Name of Father in Grace and Truth, Mercy and Love. Is there the entire doing away with the influence of the Name of God in knowledge of Him in the OC because He has been revealed as the Father in the NC? No. KNOWLEDGE of God and the effect of receiving that knowledge is still the key to knowing God, and that on what level He has been perceived could yet be effective, but effective only to the degree or level of Truth that Word reflects. Jesus the Christ is the fullness of KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. One may love God as the Creator and have no further sanctifying knowledge of Him as Father. It is only through the Son of God, Jesus the Christ, that we may know Him as Father God.

What is being said is there is power in the knowledge of God to effect one’s attitude and possibly behavior, but the greater degree of sanctity of holiness of unity that can bring one into the oneness and close proximity to God can only be found in the KNOWLEDGE OF TRUTH found in the revealing of God in His Name as Father by the Son of God, Jesus The Christ. For there is appointed no other way unto the FATHER, therefore no other way into close proximity with God than through Jesus Christ.

Now sanctification is spoken of as the Father’s work in John 17 through the Word.  Under Moses, it was spoken of as something within their own reach.  ‘Sanctify yourselves!’ That does not mean there can be no sanctifying power in the knowledge of God through the OC oracles of God alone.  But the 17^th chapter of John reveals that the WORDS OF JESUS CHRIST ONLY MAY BRING US INTO THE KNOWLEDGE AND UNITY OF WHICH THE FATHER HAS NOW APPOINTED TO THOSE WHO WILL RECEIVE THE TESTIMONY AND ACTIONS OF JESUS ALONG WITH THAT GREATER SANCTIFYING POWER.

God, in the OC, was declared Holy Almighty God, and this Holiness was reflective of that Holiness, but here in the 17^th chapter of John, He is declared Holy Father and Righteous Father. That equates to a grandeur  Holiness, not with justness only in order that He might be rightly feared but Holiness expanded additionally in love, in mercy and grace, that Holiness that those who KNOW Him in as Father. This holiness is that “be ye holy as the Father is Holy”. And expression of His Holiness that goes beyond Justice and encompasses Grace and Mercy. A holiness that goes beyond the external cleansing of the flesh to the inward workings of the heart. The holiness sanctification/separation of old in the fear of God was the purification of the flesh by water, blood, oil, circumcision, etc… in order to bring them out from the influence of the Gentile abominations. But now this holiness is affected in the spirit and conscience, by the receiving of the Truth. Truth (the Words and actions of Jesus Christ) received sanctifies; because it is His holy testament or will, bequeathing a power to a greater degree of sanctification unto holiness, as His Atonement and Words are directed towards the Soul, its conscience, for its separation, its ultimate “saving”, that which because of the lack of efficacy, the Words of the OC could not affect successfully beyond the cleansing of the flesh.

Truth in Jesus Christ’s Word leads out from principles and practices, the evil of which, but for those NC truths accepted, would not have been seen, or abandoned. Thus one overly influenced in compliance to the OC are held in its restraints, as the OC Words are limited to the cleansing of the flesh, and makes it near impossible to purge the soul through the conscience into the sanctifying holiness of the NC. It is a serious matter to be confronted by the Words of Jesus Christ as a Believer and to refuse them. As this rejection of light is acceptance of darkness and leads back into the power of our flesh over our spirit. Light rejected is darkness received. Where light is rejected, spiritual growth is checked. Truth makes Holy, where error and rejection of Truth makes unholy.

But what if the soul feeds on religious error? It is more and more led to dislike the Truth, and the God which the NT Scripture most clearly describes, along with the hopes which it presents to the NC Believer. Truth applied makes holy. Error makes unholy, and as God’s Truth leads the renewed man to love God and his brethren, so error received raises up barriers of enmity and contempt between them.

The Father has given to Jesus the glory, and to it we are called: to obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus, that is to be the state of the faithful soul who sought Him earnestly in the truth and upon His Return, then men will thus learn the superiority of the call to Brideship. 

Do not fall into the usual mistake of supposing, that all the saved belong to the Bride, and that all the saved have the same standing and privileges. The New Testament comprises a better will than that of Moses. ‘I appoint unto you, as My Father hath appointed to Me, a kingdom.’ A kingdom greater than that promise of the land of Caanan, that of a Kingdom in the first heaven. And as Israel had stations of greater and lesser honor in the priests, in Levites, in the country, and in the city of Jerusalem, and in Temple, and in holies and the holiest of holies, so shall it be in the NT inheritance, greater and lesser honors of state and station, according to Truth perceived and enacted on by we, the saved.

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