If you are reading this before you read the preceding post…stop. You need to read the introduction first.
In order to bring the Bride into the fellowship and life of the Trinity, Jesus came to manifest the Father. At the end of his first epistle, John writes, “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little Children, keep yourself from idols.”[1] John explains that his audience did not know God. He had spent the preceding chapters elucidating the life of Christ and the Father as one in the same, and that the only way to receive the life of the Father is through Christ. Here, he concludes his letter by re-emphasizing they could look to Christ to know and understand the Father, for Christ manifested Him. The book ends with instruction for his audience to keep themselves from idols. In context, the idol John seems to refuse was that of a false understanding of God. They once viewed God contrary to His identity, and as a result did not know life. John pushes that Jesus’ representation of the Father is true as opposed to that which they once thought and the idol they created in their heart. Now, Christ made plain the real character and life of the Father to the Bride.
One of the Father’s primary characteristics displayed by Jesus was His selflessness. Throughout His ministry, Jesus repeatedly emphasized that He perfectly represented the Father. He stated, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.”[2] Here, Jesus declares that His primary purpose was not to show His own identity, but rather reveal His Father’s identity. He laid down His own ideas, responses, and personality to move as the Father moved, respond as the Father responded, and speak what His Father spoke in order for those who watched to see His Father plainly. Jesus possessed all wisdom and knew the way to freedom and wholeness, but instead of saying it as He would, He did what the Father did. This action declares the selflessness of the Father. Jesus did all to reveal and glorify the Father, and thus one plainly sees that the Father’s character is to glorify and reveal His Son’s character. It is as if the Father had experienced the humility of Jesus for eternity passed and simply wanted to display it. Where Jesus came in the flesh to glorify the Father, the Father sent Him in order to glorify His Son’s selflessness. Jesus states this more plainly in His Passover prayer, “Father the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.”[3] Jesus understood that the character of the Father was to glorify others. In wanting this aspect of His Father’s glory to be manifest, He asked to be glorified for the purpose of revealing that His Father loves to glorify Him. Thus the Son revealed the Father’s selflessness.
In revealing the selflessness of God, Jesus wanted man intimately acquainted with the Father as the servant of all. It was the night Jesus gave Himself over to the Sanhedrin. He already finished the meal His forefathers had partaken of for centuries in remembrance of the blood of the lamb that saved and the God who brought them out of Egypt. This lamb painted a picture of Himself. This meal always pointed to His sacrifice. It was in this context that Jesus again displayed the character of the One who had parted the Red Sea.
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands…rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.[4]
This demonstration shows Jesus responding to exaltation by serving. Jesus knew the Father gave Him everything, even before He died on the cross. In response to this, Jesus laid aside His garments. This perfectly parallels Philippians 2 where He fully knows His position as the second person of the Trinity and responds by “taking on the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men.”[5] From the place of honor, Jesus took the place of a servant. In view of the fact that He manifested His Father, the Father clearly takes the place of a servant also. The Father was glorified through His Son, and from this place of honor and through the hands of Jesus, the Father washed the disciple’s feet. Paul the apostle supports the servant hood of the Father when he wrote, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name.”[6] As the Son served the Father in the manifestation of His character, the Father served His Son’s name.
Jesus’ invitation for the Bride to enter into eternal life again exemplifies the character of His glorious Father. Jesus defines life when He prays, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”[7] The vibrancy of life that Jesus experienced from before the foundation of the world was fellowship with His Father. The patterns, the natural reactions, the rigors of eternal dwelling in the Trinity remained the fullness of life for Him. Again, the Trinitarian expression of fellowship was the continual selfless exaltation of the other members. Jesus knew this intimately. He could hang on the cross in obedience to His Father because He knew how His Father would respond. He did not need to defend Himself before those mocking, for the Father had never failed to extol Him. He could wait in the grave for days until His Father raised Him, for They had eternal history of the Father’s consistency in responding with more than simple affirmation, but rather exalting Him to the highest place. This is fellowship. This is life. This is what the Bride is invited into. For eternity the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwelt in the eternal life of fellowship. Though fully satisfied in each other, the extent of the Father’s selflessness is displayed in not wanting to keep this eternal life strictly between the Trinity. Rather, He would prefer to include someone else. He wanted someone else to serve. He wanted someone else to glorify His Son as He did. He wanted someone else to enjoy the fullness of life. He wanted to bring man in. The night before Jesus was crucified, He prays, “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us…”[8] The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are so selfless and so love to serve and esteem others as better than themselves that not only were they willing, but they desired for a fourth party’s involvement and influence in this life.
Eternal life is more than life that will last forever. It is life that has already lasted forever. When God told Adam that he would die if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He was talking about eternal life. In disobeying by eating the fruit, he would cease to serve and submit to God, thus removing himself from the way the Trinity lived – the continual service and submission to one another and the response of serving again. It was not simply the submitting to God that the Father longed for. Rather, He longed to include man in the circle of life. As a result of the death, now when He asked man to serve, they saw Him as a demanding, selfish God who viewed His people as pawns and slaves– like Zeus and Allah. Mankind does not, and cannot outside of the blood of Jesus, see the command to pick up the cross as anything more than being controlled. However, every time He asks us to obey, every time there is an opportunity to serve, it is an invitation to be included and experience the love expressed in the Trinity.
[1] 1 John 5:20-21
[2] John 5:19
[3] John 17:1
[4] John 13:3-4
[5] Philippians 2:7
[6] Philippians 2:9
[7] John 17:3
[8] John 17:21
