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LOVE
LOVE
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i8u]K€, if not to be restricted to the giving to the death, may be taken, in view of 3'^, of. l'^", to include this reference) ; and the result will be the consummation of the gracious puri)Ose which ani- mated the Fatiier in the gi^'ing of the Son. The cross will become the centre of attraction. Through it Christ will draw all men unto Him (12^"- S=* 11", cf. 10^^''), and gain the victory over the prince of this world (12^M- Thus will the love which impelled the Father to the sacrifice of the Son gain the end it seeks to attain, man's deliverance from the destruction which threatens him, and participation in the blessing of everlasting life (3^^*- 6^).
Such is the aspect under which the love of God is presented in the Fourth (Tospel. It is in the Person of Christ that we have the full and complete revela- tion of that love. He is Gods love incarnate. The Prologue gives the keynote to the whole Gospel. Christ is the Word become flesh, the perfect revelation in human personality of the Divine nature. He is the only-begotten Son (or only-begotten God, if we adopt the reading deos instead of vios), who has declared the Father to us (P*). With God in the beginning (v.-). He was made flesh, and dwelt among us (v."). The glory that we behold in Him is a full revelation of the Divine glory, for His relation to the Father is that of an only son who receives the whole of his fathers inheritance {ib.). And that glory is the glory of one who reflected in His own person the Divine love, who was full of grace and truth (ib.), and of whose fulness we have received, in ever increasing measure, participating in the giace which flowed from Him.
3. The mutual love of God and Christ. — The words ' Father ' and ' Son ' as applied by Christ to God and man in their relations to one another have, as we have seen, an ethical significance. It is by His love that God proves Himself the Father. It is by exhibiting a love like to that which God displays that man becomes the son of God (Mt 5''^). The terms do not lose their ethical content when used to describe the relation in which God and Christ stand to one another. The God whom Christ revealed to men as 'the Father' He had known first of all as His own Father. Such He had felt Him to be from His cliildliood (Lk 2^"). So He addressed Him in praver (Mt ll-^'-, Mk 14^, Lk 23«) ; so He spoke of Him to others (:\It lO^-'- 11-" 1819-3-', Lk 22--'). He knew Himself to be in a special sense the object of the Divine love. He had been anointed of the Spirit for the performance of the work for which He was sent (Mk P", Lk 4'*"-i), and endowed with a power wiiereby He might triumph over every hostile influence (Lk 10'^ 11*). In a remarkable utterance (Lk 10-'-, Mt 1 1-') Christ describes the intimate relationship in whicli the Father and He stand to one another, 'AH things are delivered to me of my Father ; and no man knoweth who the Son is " but the Father ; and who the Fatiier is but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.' The mutual know- ledge which Father and Son have of one another is based ujion that mutual love indicated liy the terms Father and Son. Christ claims to be able to reveal (4od in His character of Father (rts ea-nu 6 irarrip) as no one else, for none can have such knowledge of the Father's love as the Son, who knows Himself to be in the supreme degree the object of that love(Mk V'^), and can say of Himself that all things are delisered unto Him of His Father, i.e. all things necessary for the fulfilment of the Father's gracious purpose. And the Fatiier can reveal Himself thus to tiie Son because of the love with which that Son responds to His love, and the meekness and submission with which He surrenders Himself to tlie Father's will (Mt 11=^, Mk 14^). It is evident that in this striking word
of Christ's regarding the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son, the words 'Father' and ' Son ' are not mere names to denote the persons concerned, but are used to suggest that mutual love upon which the knowledge is ba^ed. And indeed all through the Synoptic Gospels there is always a suggestion of this relationship of mutual love in the manner in which tiod and Christ are spoken of as Father and Son. Whether, when Christ is spoken of in the Synoptics as the Son of God, there is more than this ethical relation- ship implied, is a question upon which there is diflerence of opinion. But it is admitted, even by those who attach a deeper significance to the designation, that, in the first instance at anj- rate, it has an ethical content, and that, when Christ is called the Son of God, whatever more may be implied, so much in any case is suggested, that on the one hand He is the supreme object of the Father's love, and that on the other He exhibits in His Person in its perfection that loving obedience whereby man may become the son of God.