Thursday, August 30, 2018

The Intimacy of God

All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Luke 10:22).

After telling His disciples to rejoice that their names were enrolled in heaven, Jesus prayed to His Father and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children” (Luke 10:21). This does not mean God hides the truth from educated people and reveals it only to uneducated people. Rather, it is a moral knowledge that is in view. Those who are wise in their own eyes will not see the truth, while those who come as humble little children will be given the truth.

Then Jesus says that all things have been delivered to Him by the Father. The gift of the victory of the Gospel is something the Father has bestowed on the Son. The only reason we are in the kingdom is that we are the Father’s gift to His beloved Son so that the Son might see the travail of His soul and be satisfied (Isaiah 53:11).

Jesus goes on to say only the Father really knows the Son, and only the Son really knows the Father. This does not mean God is not revealed to all men, because the Bible makes it clear that men do indeed know God, though they do not want Him in their thoughts. But no one knows God the Father fully or intimately except God the Son.

The word know here implies intimacy. When the Bible says that Adam knew his wife and she conceived, it is not using some clever euphemism to try and tread softly around the embarrassing subject of sex. Rather, the Bible uses the word know to give a context of profound intimacy to the marital relationship, including the act of marriage. In the same way, Jesus is saying that the fullness of relational intimacy, of “knowing” in the deepest sense, exists between the Father and the Son. Then Jesus says the Son reveals that intimate relationship to us as well.

It is amazing to realize that in Christ we have the possibility of developing intimacy with God the Father. It is even more amazing that God delights in our fellowship. Identify in your own life obstacles or hurdles that prevent you from delighting God with your fellowship. Choose one of those obstacles and work to eliminate it from your life.