We are not warranted in affirming that the child meant all that the man afterwards meant by the claim to be the Son of God; nor are we any more warranted in denying that He did.
ST. LUKE — 9
I30 ALWAYS AT WORK
We know too little about the mysteries of His growth to venture on definite statements of either kind. Our sounding lines are not long enough to touch bottom in this great word from the lips of a boy of twelve ; but this is clear, that as He grew into self- consciousness, there came with it the growing consciousness of His Sonship to His Father in Heaven.
3. Jesus never speaks of His holding the same relationship as His disciples to God the Father. He never speaks to His disciples of " our God," or of " our Father," but of " your Father," and " my Father " ; of " your God," and " my God " ; implying that His relationship as Son is of a higher, diviner order than the relationship of the disciples as children of God. You may reply, that in the Lord's Prayer He says " Our Father." Yes, but He had said before, " When ye pray, say, Our Father." He puts the words into the mouths of His disciples, and does not intimate that He uses them Himself when He prays, or that He uses them conjointly with His disciples. Although known as the Lord's Prayer, it is a prayer which He could not offer. It contains a petition for forgiveness of sins, which only sinners could offer ; and He, being sinless, could not join in the petition.
4. But Jesus said to the disciples " When ye pray, say. Father." For to us also there is a better life than the life of nature, and the Fatherhood into which Christ introduces us means that through faith in Him, and the entrance into our spirits of the Spirit of adoption, we receive a life derived from, and kindred with, the life of the Giver, and that we are bound not only to Him by the cords of love, but also to our parents by the ties of family affection. Sonship is the deepest thought about the Christian life. It was an entirely new thought when Jesus spoke to His disciples of their Father in heaven. It was a thrilling novelty when Paul bade servile worshippers realize that they were no longer slaves, but sons, and, as such, heirs of God. It was the rapture of pointing to a new star flaming out, as it were, that swelled in John's exclamation : " Beloved, now are we the sons of God."
"When ye pray, say. Father." When you are worried, remember that God is your Father. When you ask God for blessings, remember how willing parents are to give good things to their children. God is both willing and able to give us every
ST. LUKE II. 49 131
good thing, for everything belongs to God. And because every- thing belongs to God, Jesus treated everything with reverence. He would not allow men to swear by heaven or the earth or Jerusalem or their own head, for all these belonged to His Heavenly Father. He drove the traders from the Temple because they were desecrating the Temple of His Father. He cheered the hearts of His disciples by reminding them that the house of many mansions belongs to the Heavenly Father. All people were dear to Jesus because all of them were the children of God. Bee^orars and lepers and blind men and bad men, the most loathsome and forsaken of men were dear to His heart because they belonged to His Father in Heaven. To be worthy of His Father was His constant ambition and unfailing delight. " My meat," He said, " is to do his will and to finish his work."
^ The idea that God is a loving, righteous Father, who has created me to be His child, capable of knowing Him and learning to sympathize with Him in love and goodness, and so to be partaker of His blessedness, and who is educating me for this inwardly and outwardly at every moment, is an idea which com- mends itself to me as light ; and I find also that practically it is fruitful and good. There is no proof of this, except in our own human consciousness ; but, also, there is no real proof against it, and I am compelled to regard it as eternal truth.^
^ God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where He wishes us to be employed ; and that employment is truly "our Father's business." He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do ; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him if we are not happy ourselves.^
II.
Surrender.
*'Imust."
1. All through Christ's life there runs, and occasionally comes into utterance, the sense of a Divine necessity laid upon Him ;
^ Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, ii. 256. 2 Ruskin, Ethics of the Dust ( Works, xvii. 290).