Coming Forth from the Father
Introductory Remarks: coming forth from the Father
"Giving thanks unto the Father Who has . . . translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." Colossians 1: 12, 13. Note: Most of the quotations of Scripture in the Papers are taken from J. N. Darby's New Translation
The series of papers which follow were written in the humble attempt to consider afresh what scripture teaches concerning the Eternal Sonship of our Lord Jesus Christ. This doctrine has been recently denied, and the denial of a cherished belief regarding One Whom we love and revere and adore touches our deepest sensibilities, and stirs our whole being to defence.
The first impulse of our renewed nature is to resent such a denial as a deadly affront to the glory of the Essential Being of our Blessed Lord, and to reject the implication as one of the many phases of anti-Christian doctrine against which we are warned. And, indeed, an unhesitating refusal to entertain for even a moment anything derogatory to the Son of God is an effective safeguard for the simple saints; by turning at once from what appears to be evil, they are preserved from error and its defilement.
But, in the second place, while there is safety in being simple as to evil, the apostle exhorts us to be wise also concerning that which is good (Rom. 16: 19). And we remember that to this end the scriptures alone are able to make us "wise unto salvation" from the erroneous teachings of men. For this reason, special reference has been made to this authority in these papers, particularly to those words of our Lord and to that witness of the Spirit, which bear upon the pre-incarnate Sonship.
It has been sought to avoid mere carnal contention, and to weigh every written word of God in a spirit of meekness and godly fear, and to receive these profound unfoldings as in the presence of Him to Whose Person they refer. It is always a salutary experience for our souls when the bold challenges of the enemy drive us to the feet of our Lord for instruction. When Hezekiah received the letter of the king of Assyria reproaching the living God, he sought the presence of Jehovah of hosts, and the Lord heard and answered his prayer for guidance and deliverance (Isa. 37).
The modern challenge of reproach is that the names of God revealed in the New Testament — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — do not apply to Him in the Godhead or Deity. It is said, for example, with reference to these names of the Trinity: "To insist that this order, and the relation of the Persons to One Another, including the names attaching to Them thus seen, are the same as existed in the pre-incarnate absolute (this word is used as the converse of relative) conditions of Deity, is to force or disregard scripture, and is intruding into things we have not seen."
The gist of this long sentence is that in the pre-incarnate "conditions" of Deity there was, according to their view of scripture, no relationships of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is implied that these relations, expressed in the threefold Name (Matt. 28: 19), are associated with the incarnation of our Lord, and that it was then that He became the Son. This latter part of the threefold denial we now wish to examine in the light of scripture.
Coming Forth from the Father
What did our Lord Himself say with regard to His own appearance in this world? Not many of His utterances relate to His pre-incarnate state; but to those that do, we must pay the utmost heed, yet seeking in them to find food for the heart rather than material for the intellect. One word of His, which declared that He was the Son before His entrance into the world, would be sufficient to establish the truth for us, regardless of all human reasoning to the contrary.
In the closing sentences of His farewell instructions to His disciples on the night of His betrayal, the Lord made reference to His coming into the world, and also to His departure out of it. He had come from a Person to a place, and was leaving that place to return to that Person. He named the Person — the Father; and the place — the world. His words were: "I came out from the Father and have come into the world; again I leave the world and go to the Father" (John 16: 28).
Here we have the fact of the incarnation, viewed from its divine side and described as coming into the world. The Son is speaking of what He Himself is inwardly cognizant, or Self-conscious, as it is sometimes expressed. So, on another occasion, the Lord said to the Pharisees, "I know whence I came and whither I go" (John 8: 14). Now, to "His own," He declares more explicitly whence He came, but not from a place: "I came forth from beside the Father." Then He adds that He was going away to the same Person from Whom He came out — the Father.
It is evidently implied in these words that the relationship of Father subsisted before He (the Son) came out from Him. And the same pre-incarnate relationship stands revealed in the Lord's frequent saying that the Father sent Him (the Son); see John 5: 30, 37; John 6: 29; John 8: 16, 18; John 10: 36; John 12: 49; John 14: 24. The sense of these passages, without forcing their meaning, is plain and unmistakable that the Lord came forth from the One Who was the Father, and came into the world; and that He was sent into the world by the One of Whom He speaks both as "the Father" and as "My Father" (John 10: 29; John 14: 28; John 20: 17, 21).
The relationship, then, of Father and Son existed before the great errand of the Son was undertaken in incarnation. So, illustratively, Jesse was father and David was son before the latter appeared in the camp of Israel with his present of food (1 Sam. xvii). How the gift was enhanced in value because the bearer from Bethlehem was, not the servant but, the son of the giver!
But in describing His incarnation by the words, "I came out (exerkomai) from the Father" more is taught than the separate existence of the Two Persons and that the Father was known to Him as Father before that coming. The name, Father, is not a mere abstract term, but a name pregnant with the deepest and most precious spiritual meaning. Coming forth from the side of the Father, the Son came into the world enjoying the full communion of the Father's deep affection, the Father's secret will, the Father's eternal counsel. As He said, "I and the Father are One" (John 10: 30).