God the Father and the Son¹

A Sermon by Jonathan Ranken Anderson

John 17:3. And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.

The attitude of the Divine Redeemer at the time He uttered these words was deeply solemn. He stood in the presence of His Father; and looking back into the ancient councils of peace established from before the foundation of the world, He pleaded the gift which was then made to Him of power over all flesh, that He might give eternal life to as many as the Father had given Him. In virtue of this grant, and the fulfilment of the work with which it was connected, He prays that, at the hand of the Father, He might receive that glory which corresponded to the nature of that work, and was necessary to effect its purpose.

How wonderful that Jesus should ask for this glory, in order to employ the power conferred on Him to bestow eternal life on His people! For this purpose, He must rise from the dead, ascend into heaven, sit down at the right hand of God, have His work accepted, the Spirit given to Him, and heaven with all its mansions opened to Him and committed to His disposal.

We are now called to look at the nature of the gift which Christ was empowered to bestow. And for the employment of this power, He prayed that He might be glorified. To discover more clearly the truth in this matter, it is proposed to consider: (1.) The objects of the knowledge here spoken of; (2.) The nature of the knowledge; (3.) Its excellence; (4) Its bestowment.

1. Let us look at the objects of the knowledge spoken of in the text. These are twofold: the Father, the only true God; and Jesus Christ, the sent of the Father. First, we have the Father, the only true God. (1) We are called to think of and acknowledge the personality of the Father. He is the Person whom the Lord addresses in the beginning of the chapter. He is the Person of whom He speaks in the passage immediately under consideration. To deny the distinct personality of the Father is to involve the whole subject in inextricable confusion. I ask you to observe that it is not enough to own that the title, Father, is applied to the living and true God. That is admitted by all who are not avowed atheists, whatever may be their opinion on the peculiar truths of Christianity. But that is not the view which is presented here, and on which we here insist; but that in the glorious Godhead there is a distinct Person or subsistence, to whom the title Father properly and exclusively belongs.

¹Taken with editing from Days in Kirkfield. It is the first in a series of sermons on John 17:3 in Kirkfield Chapel, Glasgow, during a time of revival. These are Anderson’s notes, but they are not complete.

(2.) We have to think of the Father in essential and eternal union with the Son and the Holy Ghost. To deny the distinct personality of the Father is heresy; to question the unity of His essence with that of the Son and the Holy Ghost is polytheism². He who does not believe that the Father is a Person in the Godhead, distinct from the Son and the Holy Ghost, has not received what is a fundamental principle of the Christian faith. But he who conceives of the Father as subsisting separately from the Son and the Holy Ghost, is removed from the foundation of truth altogether and involved in dangerous error: “There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one”.

(3.) We have to think of the Father as, in all economical³ relations and acts, the representative of the Trinity in unity. We do not, at present, stop to inquire into the foundation of this truth; it is sufficient for our purpose simply to advert to the fact and to ask you to pay special attention to it, for it is to this point that our previous remarks have tended. And it is in it we find the immediate link of connection with the truths which yet lie before us for consideration, We should not have rightly apprehended the meaning of the title Father, as here employed by the Lord, unless we had attended to His distinct personality and, at the same time, to the unity of His nature with the Son and the Holy Ghost.

But along with these views must be combined the fact to which we now call your attention, that in all Divine dispensations, the Father sustains the majesty and maintains the authority of Godhead. To understand this doctrine, let it be remembered that the essential nature of God, as subsisting in a Trinity of persons, is the proper source of all His counsels and works, and the primary foundation of all the worship which is due to Him. I have frequently had occasion to remark that, in order to lay a basis for intelligent worship, this glorious Being must be revealed to men. Now this revelation of Godhead is made in the person of the Father, and hence we say that He is the representative of the Three-One God: “To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things”.

The text instructs us that the Father is the only true God. And here it is we see the bearing and uses of the observations which have already been made. For Socinians have argued that neither the Lord Jesus Christ nor the Holy Ghost is a divine person, because the Father is said to be the only true God; and orthodox divines have felt some difficulty in rescuing the passage from the hands of these bold and heartless perverters of the Word of God. But I trust it has been shown that there is not the slightest ground for the Socinian

²The false idea that there is more than one God.

³Relations and acts within the Godhead.

interpretation, because the Lord Jesus speaks of the Father in His economical character: that is, in the relation in which He appears and acts in the economy of grace; and does not refer directly to His absolute and essential nature. In that character, we repeat, He is to be considered as the representative of the Three-One God, and therefore is most fitly denominated the only true God.

[1.] He is God. In opening up the meaning of this august title, we have to think of Him as a most pure Spirit; infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. The title is indeed applied to many objects that can lay no claim whatever to any one, far less to all, of these glorious attributes. And we in our blindness and degradation are, alas, too ready to allow their claims, and to render to them a homage to which they are not entitled. But no being has properly a claim to the title of God, in its full and absolute sense, but He who has now been described. For “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth”.

[2.] To get farther insight into the meaning of this title we must think of Him as embracing in His counsels all things that are, that have been, and that shall be. The truth here declared flows necessarily from the description which has been given of His being and perfections, for if anything can possibly occur without His knowledge, He is not infinite in wisdom; if anything can be done beside His purpose, He is not irresistible in power; if anything can take place short of, or in addition to, His plans, He is not absolute in perfection. But Scripture clearly testifies that He is over all, that He works all in all, that He does according to His will.

[3.] In the idea of God, must be included those relations which He has established between Himself and His creatures:

[1] He is the Creator of all things. To bring anything out of nothing is the prerogative of God; yet this is what is done in the work of creation. “He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” This point, of course, has to do with us, for “it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves”. What rank folly, what insolent presumption it is, for creatures to deny their Creator! Yet who of us can say we are guiltless in this matter? Of the rock that begat us we have been unmindful and have failed to inquire, Where is God our Maker?

[2] He is the Lawgiver. He that made us also gives His law to us, and righteously requires our absolute subjection. Now it pleased Him – and had He not a right to do what He would with His own – to place the human family under laws, in the form of a covenant, and to constitute our first parent the head and representative of his posterity? God required from him

perfect obedience with the promise of life, forbidding disobedience under the penalty of death.

We do not form a just notion of God as Lawgiver (and He is not God that is not the absolute and universal Lawgiver) unless we advert to this view. Therefore those who discard the Word of God as the rule of their faith, or who expunge from their creed the doctrine of the covenant of works, must be held guilty of practical atheism. For it is of no avail that men acknowledge the general principle that God may give laws to His creatures, and yet deny the particular form in which it has pleased Him to give them. To be sure, they contend that the Scriptures do not reveal that He has given the law in the form called the covenant of works. But when the matter is closely investigated, it turns out that, even if it were revealed in the manner which they themselves desire, they would not receive it. The fact, however, remains sure amidst all the opposition which men offer to it: that “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”.

[3] He is the Judge. In the capacity of Judge, He applies His law to the character and actions of men; and according as they are found innocent or guilty, He approves or condemns, rewards or punishes. Now it belongs exclusively to God thus to judge the world, for no other being possesses the qualifications, and no other can claim the right to do so: “For God is judge Himself”.

[4] He is the Author of salvation. We cannot enter here into a full view of what is meant by salvation. Suffice it to say that it consists in the deliverance of men from the condemnation, guilt and power of sin and their restoration to the favour, image and enjoyment of God. Now this is specially the work of God – if possible, it is more so than the creation of the heavens and the earth, the government and judgement of angels and men. And whatever men may think and say to the contrary, we now have no adequate view of God if we leave out of account this grand and distinguishing characteristic. To attempt therefore to save themselves, or to apply to any creature for salvation is, on the part of men, a more daring invasion of God’s prerogative than if they were to attempt to create a world, or to summon the various orders of creatures to answer to their tribunal, or to attempt to control and guide them by their enactments: “Salvation belongeth unto the Lord”; “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else”.

[4.] The title, God, suggests to us further the idea of His being the chief end of all things. The observations already made are sufficient to show that He is the Alpha of all things, that is, the fountain of all creation, the governor

of all creatures, and the judge of all actions. But to complete our survey of this glorious theme, we must add that, as all things flow from Him, so all things tend to Him and serve to show forth His praise. Amidst the innumerable objects in the universe and the uninterrupted stream of events that fill up the revolutions of time and the endless complexity of things, nothing is made, nothing happens in vain, or for any ultimate end, short of honouring God. Vast as is the distance between heaven and hell, and awful as is the difference between their inhabitants, to this they all tend, though with very different principles and feelings. The happiness of the one and the misery of the other are designed separately to manifest forth the glory of Him “who was, and is, and is to come”. “He hath made all things for Himself.” “For Thy pleasure they are and were created.”

[1] He is the true God, By this He is distinguished from the idols which sinful men have made and worshipped; for they are false gods, lying vanities which cannot profit. Some of them have never had an existence, but in the foul imaginations and corrupt hearts of those who made them. Others of them have existed as creatures till, by the madness of men, they were exalted to the rank of gods. But all of them have had their pretensions to Divine honours founded on falsehood, maintained by deceit, and employed to the wickedest purposes. But the Father is the true God, having really in and of Himself that being, and those attributes, which are denoted by that sacred name.

In thick darkness indeed, even believers may have no apprehension of the reality of His being; and though He is near to them, they may exclaim, O that we knew where we might find Him! But their unbelief, thick and gloomy as it may be, no more affects the truth of His existence than does the smoke of a furnace affect the existence of the sun in the heavens. The smoke may for a time obscure its light and intercept its rays, but as soon as it passes away, it shines forth with its natural lustre. Just so with the dark and distressed soul: the clouds that rise from your unbelieving heart may, for a time, hide from your view the glory of that truth which is in the very being of God; but soon the shadows shall flee away, and you will see Him whom you seek in His own light; for He “is the true God, He is the living God, and an everlasting King”.

[2] The perfections that adorn His nature are true perfections. The descriptions that are given of the great ones of the earth are sometimes little more than a string of high-sounding words which dazzle for a moment but express no solid or real excellence. Through the power of unbelief and corruption, the people of God are sometimes unable to realise, with any clearness and power, the glory of His character. They yield to the force of present impress-

ions or, carried away by Satan’s temptations, they entertain hard thoughts of God, or feel the entire subject like a dreary waste in which scarcely a blade of grass appears to relieve the eye. In these trying circumstances, the soul seems to see nothing in Him that is lovely, excellent and desirable; and faith has a hard struggle to stay alive against the influence of the senses.

But in this way, the Lord puts it to His people whether they judge Him truly glorious, so glorious that He cannot be affected by anything that happens – no, not even by His own dealings with the soul. These dealings may be very strange; the soul may look at them with surprise and confusion, but His character is still the same. He is still the true God, and therefore His people are called to trust in Him, even when He hides His face from them. “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.”

I might go through all the other particulars that were listed and show that truth – pure, perfect, infinite truth belongs to them all and to every view in which God’s character can be contemplated.

[3] He is the only true God. We have seen that in the world “there be gods many, and lords many”. Numerous and varied as are the idols that have been formed, the hellish ingenuity from which they all spring is not yet exhausted. But though the minds of men should fabricate gods as fast as their thoughts follow one another, they never can produce a real god. They are still the offspring of falsehood and possess a character in keeping with their birth.

In His Divine majesty, the Three-One God represented in covenant by the person of the Father stands quite alone. There is none equal to Him, none like to Him, none to compare with Him. In the eternity that is past, He was the only true God, for even creatures did not exist, to dispute His supremacy. In this apostate world of ours, His glory is forgotten, His authority trampled upon, and His very being denied; yet the day is coming when before all that have been engaged in this controversy, or have been witnesses of it, He will appear in His ineffable beauty and excellence; and by the hosannas of heaven, and the horrors of hell, He will be proclaimed the only true God. “I am.” “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me.”

Second, the other object of knowledge spoken of in the text is Jesus Christ, the sent of the Father. (1) He is Jesus. This title points out His person. In His Person He is altogether unique. There is none like Him in heaven or in earth, and yet He is intimately related to both. He is at once God and man. In His own proper nature, He is God – the Son of God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” In the fullness of time, however, He assumed

into personal union with Himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” The account which Matthew gives of the incarnation, serves to illustrate this great truth and to establish the correctness of the view that has been taken of the title Jesus.

We might dwell upon the wonderful properties that meet in the person of the God-man. We might meditate upon the excellences that pertain essentially to His divinity, and the grace that shines in His humanity. We might think of the near relation which He bears to the Father as His only begotten Son, and the close connection He holds with His people, as the elder Brother of the family: bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. We might reflect on the infinite love which He bears to the Father, and the tender regard He has to His people; and we might for hours linger in our thoughts on the admirable fitness He possesses to be Mediator between these two extremes: the glorious God and sinful men, the righteous Judge and guilty rebels, the Holy One of Israel and heirs of hell. But we must forbear, for of a truth “great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh”.

(2). He is Christ: that is, the anointed. This has respect to His official character. The glorious person called Jesus – Son of God and Son of man – was from eternity designated the Mediator of the new covenant. In this capacity, He was to stand between the Father, the only true God, and the people that had, in His love, been chosen to salvation out of the fallen race of Adam. It was then the Father said, “I have found David My servant:” “I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people”. But from the nature of the case, He could not be actually set apart and anointed to His office, until He assumed the nature in which His mediatorial work was to be executed. We are accordingly taught to believe that, from the moment of conception, the human nature of the Lord – or rather the Lord in His human nature – was anointed with the Holy Ghost and was thereby preserved absolutely pure from all possible pollution; was adorned with all the graces in which He so conspicuously shines; and was sustained, strengthened and comforted, amidst the unparalleled trials and sufferings through which He had to pass.

The anointing of the Holy Ghost, thus begun, was carried forward as He advanced in His course. In virtue of that, He grew in wisdom as He grew in stature, and in favour with God and man. He seems to have had a special anointing at His baptism, when He solemnly entered His public ministry. The Spirit accordingly descended and abode upon Him then, and thus the prophecy was fulfilled: “With My holy oil have I anointed Him”. His faithful

forerunner accordingly testified, “I knew Him not: but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God.” By this means, He was endowed with those wonderful gifts which He exercised in the course of His public ministry, by which He was evidently shown to be the anointed of the Lord. The Apostle Peter speaks of “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among [the Jews] by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by Him”.

The full anointing, however, did not take place until He entered into His kingdom, ascended the mediatorial throne, and assumed the reins of universal government: “Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness: therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows”. The Apostle Peter also refers to this fact when he says, “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear”. “Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captivity captive: Thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.”

What was the office to which He was thus set apart? It is of a threefold nature, answering the design for which it was undertaken – prophetic, priestly, kingly. The title Christ, Messiah, or Anointed is therefore fitted to call up to our minds this threefold view of the Redeemer’s character; and we fail to enter into the meaning which it bears unless we have this view before our minds. But it is not merely offices which He holds; He performs the functions that are proper to each.

Thoughts on Prayer

Thomas Boston

In whose name are we to pray?¹ In the name of Christ: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it” (Jn 14:13-14). This is to plead the merits of Jesus Christ. We must come to God in the name of

¹This is the first of two extracts, taken with editing from sermons on prayer to be found in volume 11 of Boston’s Works. The first discourse, as printed, is described as the substance of two sermons preached in Ettrick in 1727 on 1 Thessalonians 5:17: “Pray without ceasing”. Rev Roderick Macleod comments that “Boston stresses often and strongly that prayer cannot be acceptable unless it is made in the name of the Lord and Saviour”, which is true in both of these extracts.

Christ, laying all the stress upon His merits. All things go by favour in the court of heaven; the Father hears us for the Son’s sake.

We must, in praying to God, pray for Christ’s sake, as the only procuring cause of the success of our prayers:² “Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of Thy servant, and His supplications, and cause Thy face to shine upon Thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake” (Dan 9:17). Going to God in prayer, we must as it were, put off our own persons, as not worth noticing in the sight of God and put on the Lord Jesus Christ; come and receive the blessing in the elder Brother’s clothes, having all our hope from the Lord’s looking on the face of His Anointed. This is the main thing in the text, a relying on the Lord Jesus for the success of our prayers in heaven. . . . Praying to God for Christ’s sake presupposes that:

1. Sinners in themselves are quite unacceptable in heaven, even in their religious duties. Not only is this true of the wicked (Prov 15:8), but even the saints considered in themselves (Is 64:6). The reason is plain. God is holy; we are impure and defiled. There is such a rank smell of sinful pollution about us that the opening of a sinner’s mouth in prayer is like the opening of a grave with a long-buried corpse (Rom 3:13). It is so strong that we cannot sweeten ourselves. The loathsome saviour of the sins of the best saints cannot be mastered by any sweet saviour of their duties, but only by the sweet saviour of the sacrifice of Christ (2 Cor 2:15, with Eph 5:2).

2. Christ is most acceptable there. He is the darling of heaven, the prime favourite there: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17). He is acceptable there as God, the only begotten of the Father from eternity; but that is not all. He is acceptable as God-man, Mediator, who has in our flesh fulfilled His Father’s will, by His obedience and death: Christ “hath given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling saviour” (Eph 5:2). And He is acceptable to the Father:

(1.) In Himself (Mt 3:17). The Father is well pleased with His Person, and delights in Him, as the brightness of His own glory, and His own express image. He is well pleased with Christ’s undertaking the work of redemption and His management of that work; He is pleased with Christ’s holy birth, righteous life, and complete satisfaction; so pleased with His humbling Himself that God “hath highly exalted Him” (Phil 2:9).

(2.) The Father is so well pleased with Christ, that He accepts sinners for His sake: “He hath made us accepted in the Beloved”. For His sake rebel sinners are accepted to peace and favour; criminals to eternal life; their per-

²Boston returns to this doctrine of prayer later, in a discourse from which this is an extract, where he gives the substance of some sermons preached in Ettrick in 1728, on John 16:23: “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you”.

formances, mixed with much sinful imperfection, are accepted as pleasing in His sight. The sweet smell of His sacrifice so masters the rank savour of sin about them, that they are for His sake brought into His presence and brought near. The Father does not refuse Him any request: “I knew that Thou hearest Me always” (Jn 11:42).

(3.) Sinners are warranted to come to the throne of grace in His name: “We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:15-16). It is sinners of mankind, not of the angels: “Verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham” (Heb 2:16). Whatever our case is, He will act for us to the uttermost (Heb 7:25). He is an Advocate that will take our most desperate causes in hand, carry them through – in a way agreeable to justice: “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 Jn 2:1). The petitions put into His hand cannot miscarry.