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Someone has said (perhaps tongue in cheek), “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Another person said, “If ignorance is bliss, I am happy and getting happier all the time!” Of course, nothing could be further from the truth than to believe the rule that the lack of knowledge cannot harm. In fact, ignorance of certain facts can result in everything from physical pain to spiritual death. Today’s message deals with a text in which some of the participants were ignorant of an important fact; ignorance of that fact was and is an omission with eternal consequences.

“Then they said to Him, 'Who are You?' And Jesus said to them, 'Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him.' They did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father.” (John 8.25-27). The word translated understand in this passage is the Greek word ginosko; it simply means to know. In other words, “They did not know that He spoke to them of the Father.” We will examine what it means to miss this critical piece of knowledge.

First, it means that we miss the concept of the Godhead. There was a Father and there was a Som. There was the One who sent and there was the One sent. These two entities (the Father and the Son; the sender and the sent) are not the same identical entity; they are forms of the same essence, but not the same entity.

Secondly, it means that one could not know the biblical relationship of the Father to the Son. For instance, it would be impossible to confess in a meaningful way the following: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God.” If the Son was not in some way distinct from the Father, then whose will did the Son execute when He came to earth and died on the cross? Failing to see the distinction between the Sender and the Sent is a failure to understand the fact that Jesus executed perfectly the will of another when He came to earth and competed His mission here.

Failure to understand that the Father sent the Son misses one of the critical points of Jesus’ ministry. One of Jesus’ fundamental purposes here was to demonstrate through His own life and ministry the nature of the Father. Concerning the work of Jesus and the Father, John looked back on the life of the Teacher and said that Jesus had “declared Him.” (John 1.18). The word declared in this verse translates the Greek word, exegeomai, meaning to fully explain and expose to view. Jesus came to fully expose the Father to mankind’s view and to explain Him.

On the night of Jesus betrayal Jesus said to Philip, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” (John 14.9-11).

If one would know the Father, he must know the Son. The Son reveals the Father. It is simply an impossibility to know the true character and nature of the Father without an unbiased and uninhibited view of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. That was the plan from the beginning. The Father and the Son are inextricably linked in time and eternity. They did not understand, but thankfully we can!

Questions:

1. Are the Father and the Son one entity? Are they of the same essence?

2. In what manner did Jesus “declare” the Father to the world?

3. What is meant by the fact that Jesus dwells in the Father and the Father dwells in Jesus?

4. Is it possible to fully grasp the Father without a full understanding of Jesus? Why or why not?

"Bible verse and quote" from Jan Couns

Bible and Quote - February 25 - March 1