The passage we have now read is a very remarkable portion of Scripture, for two reasons. On the one hand, it forms a suitable conclusion to our Lord's long parting address to His discij)les. It was meet and right that such a solemn sermon should have a solemn ending. On the other hand it contains the most general and unanimous profession of belief that we ever find the Apostles making : — " Now are we sure that Thou know- est all things :....by this we believe that thou earnest forth from God."
That there are things hard to be understood in the passage it would be useless to deny. But there lie on its surface three plain and profitable lessons, to which we may usefully confine our attention.
We learn, for one thing, that dear knowledge of God the Father is one of the foundations of the Christian religion. Our Lord says to His disciples, "The time Cometh when I shall show you plainly of the Father." He does not say, we should mark, " I will show you plainly about myself." It is the Father whom He promises to show.
The wisdom of this remarkable saying is very deep. There are few subjects of which men know so little in reality as the character and attributes of God the Father. It is not for nothing that it is written, " No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal Him." (Matt. xi. 27.) '* The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." (John i. 18.) Thou- sands fancy they know the Father because they think of Him as great, and almighty, and all-hearing, and wise, and eternal, but they think no further. To think of Him as just and yet the justifier of the sinner who believes in Jesus, — as the God who sent His Son to suffer and die,— as God in Christ reconciling the world