If Jesus is God, why did He say that the Father is the only true God in John 17:3?

What an illustrious testimony to the true, proper, intrinsic deity of Christ! It is all the stronger because, like many more, it is indirect. Who but a person consciously God in the highest sense could adopt not merely the unhesitating assumption of such language as "Before Abraham was, I am," or, "I and my Father are one," but the no less real, though hidden, claim to Godhead which lies under the very words which unbelief so eagerly seizes against Him? Where would be the sense of any other man (and man He surely was and is) saying, "My Father is greater than I"? A strange piece of information in the mouth (I will not say of a Socrates or a Bacon merely, but) of a Moses or a Daniel, a Peter or a Paul; but in Him, how suitable and even needful, yet only so because He was truly God and equal with the Father, as He was man, the sent One, and so the Father was greater than He! Take again that striking declaration in John 17:3, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Of course He was man, He deigned to be born of woman, else unbelief would have no ground of argument on that score. But what mere man ever dared, save the vilest imposter, calmly to class himself with God, yea, to speak of the knowledge of the only true God, and of Him, as life everlasting?

17 Now if we compare John 17:3, we shall see the amazing force of that expression, and the meaning of this: "This is life eternal, that they should know thee, the only true God [that is the Father], and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." That they may know thee, τόν — that one, or Him, who is the only true God, contrasted with gods many and false gods, and Him whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ. How does He give them this eternal life, this knowledge? I answer, By their being planted in Himself: "he that hath the Son hath life": but they are thus in Him that is true, and consequently, being in Him that is true — that is, in His Son — they dwell in God and God in them. They know the Father, who Himself is the only true God; and they know Jesus Christ whom the Father hath sent, and none else can know Him. Being in Christ and knowing His love, we are in the true God, and so know the Father as being in the Son, and we know Jesus Christ.

The words, "The only true God," in verse 3, are a supplementary clause. The Lord is addressing the Father, and the passage might read without it: it comes in to show that, in the revelation of the Father, God had gained His true and proper place in the soul of man. We hear of gods many, and lords many, and where Polytheism was common Jehovah was spoken of as a tribal God. To us there is one God, the Father. It can in no way clash with the truth of the Trinity. When we remember that the Father remains in His own absolute Godhead, as distinct from the Son and the Spirit, who Both have come forth, we can understand why the word "God" is used most of Him. We can see, too, that so long as He remained behind the veil, God could not be known. The Son has made Him known, in Trinity, and we who live in the full sunshine of the Father's love, rejoice in the knowledge of the true God.

But in making the Father known a good deal is plainly implied. In that wonderful prayer of our Lord, recorded in John 17, we find Him definitely addressing His Father. When He expressed the desire for His own that they might know “THEE, the only true God,” we find the words, “the only true God” are added to show in a world of heathen gods who the THEE is, that is addressed. The THEE is the Father. Now who knows the Father?

Eternal life is said to have been “With the Father” (1 John 1:2). This, I do not doubt, goes back before incarnation, as “In the beginning was the word” does also. But while this is clear, it is also just as clear that in revelation it is not only with the Father in the person of the Son, but in others who possess that life it is not disconnected from the Father, but is said to be possessed in “Fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1). It is not found in connection with the Almighty, or with Jehovah, or even with the Most High, but only with the Father. No name but that of Father carries with it eternal life. I am speaking from Scripture. If it is connected with any other revealed name of God let it be pointed out, but not reasoned out. The Lord Jesus addressing the Father in that wonderful prayer recorded in John 17, says, “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” Yes, but it is said that it is not the Father here, but the only true God. But who is the only true God in this dispensation? A Jew who only knew Jehovah as such could not now be said to know the only true God. The only true God for us today is the Father revealed in the Son. Hence it is, not only the only true God, but Jesus Christ Thy sent One. God is revealed in this dispensation as Father, and no one can know God in any other character, or by any other name than the character or name in which He is pleased to come to light.

What is the Name of the only true God? The Name of the only true God is the Father. The blessed Son and the Spirit are one with Him. The Son eternally begotten, the Spirit eternally proceeding. But the Name of the only true God is the Father. This is confirmed in 1 Corinthians: "though there be that are called gods... But to us there is but one God, the Father" (1 Cor. 8: 5-6). The disciples are given, and all those who were to believe on their Lord were to be given, this wonderful life in the power of which they can know the only true God.

I want to dwell on this word "true." What does it mean that He is the only true God? Was not Jehovah the true God? Was not El Shaddai the true God? Was not the most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, the true God? In one sense they were all Names for the one true God but in another sense the Father is the Name of the only true God because only, and this is one of the tremendous things that we have tried to see, only in the Name of the Father is God fully revealed. That is what the word "true" seems to mean. Whenever you have it in this Gospel especially, you have it plainly meaning the fulfilment as distinct from the promise. You have it meaning the perfect and complete as distinct from the partial. We begin with "the true Light." Well, John the Baptist was a light from God but he was not the true Light. It means that in a partial sense he was a light but in the full complete and final sense, Jesus is the One who could say, "I am the Light." There was "the bread of God." The manna was the bread of God was it not? Indeed it was but it was not the true Bread because it was entirely superseded when the Lord Jesus Christ came and said, I am "the true Bread." He said in chapter 15: "I am the true Vine." Well, several parts of the Old Testament are devoted to explaining in the most touching language how Israel was the vine or the vineyard. In Psalm 80 we have the story of how God cultivated it and so it would go on until the One came who He had made strong for Himself, and when He came He said, "I am the true Vine." Was not Israel the vine of God? Indeed they were, but the true Vine entirely superseded them in the sense of being equipped and able to bring forth fruit which would glorify the Father. So we have the meaning of the word "true" prepared for us beforehand by those examples. The deepest secrets of the heart and life of God were made known when the One came who spoke of His Father as the one true God. Eternal life is not an earthly thing because it really and certainly consists in the knowledge, not of Jehovah, not of Almighty God, not of the most High God, but it consists in the knowledge of the only true God, the Father. The knowledge of the Father is wrapped up with the real meaning of eternal life and the real possession of eternal life. But then it goes on to say, "that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Thy sent One." Now in such a context it must indeed have a wonderful meaning almost tantamount to expressing the very deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a concept which takes us right back to the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 6 the Lord said: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" and Isaiah says, "Here am I; send me." Isaiah became the first sent one; not the sent one of the Father, but he became the first sent one of Jehovah, the God of Israel. I would also allude to that beautiful passage in the eighth chapter of Isaiah when he was referring to the greatest message that he had brought from Jehovah to His people. It was a message to awaken them, a message to restore them to Himself that they might learn His mercy and His grace, but they refused it and so Isaiah said, "Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah" (the sent One) "that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah's son; Now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many." Even back in Isaiah's day there was something very special about his being the sent one and the waters of Shiloah flowed softly, with a sweet and loving voice of God's mercy and lovingkindnesss. How much more is the word full of meaning when it refers to the Father's sent One? In the Gospel of John 9 when the man who was born blind has clay put upon his eyes and the Lord Jesus Christ sends him to wash in the pool of Siloam (which means "sent"), it is the truth of the Sent One coming down here to be, as it were, as the water upon the earth. It was the means whereby sight was given to his blind eyes. So again and again we have this concept of the Father's Sent One. When we read later in this chapter 17, what is it that the disciples have believed, what is it that the world is going to believe, what is it the world is going to know? It is that the Father sent the Son. This is something supremely important for us to receive into our hearts and for us to meditate upon-it is eternal life. "That they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Thy sent One." You cannot get beyond this, that the Lord Jesus Christ is giving to those who the Father has given Him, eternal life. This is His present way of glorifying the Father because in that life is the knowledge of the Father, the only true God and Jesus Christ His sent One.

Our blessed Lord also spoke of Himself to Philadelphia as "THE TRUE." On earth He spoke of Himself as "the Truth" (John 14:6), for in Him all that God is in His nature of love, and in His disposition of grace towards men, was told out. Jesus was also "the true God," for He is God as well as perfect Man (1 John 5:20). The Son of God is the true God in contrast to all the false gods which are the works of men's hands, but He is also the true God as having brought God fully to light, for God is now seen in the Son as He truly is, and because of this it is also said of the Father in John 17:3 that He is "the only true God." Well did the Son of God say, "I and my Father are One" (John 10:30).

While we rejoice in all that we have in association with the Son of God, we are never to forget who He is in His own Person — the object of our adoration and worship — the true God. What is said of the Father in John 17:3 by the Son, is said here of the Son. This surely calls forth from our hearts the homage of which He is justly due; for we are called upon "to honour the Son" even as we honour the Father.

This leads to the explanation of "the eternal life" in question. Life for evermore, life to eternity, is the blessing commanded by Jehovah on the mountains of Zion (Ps. 133); and of the many Jews that sleep in the dust of the earth, some shall wake to everlasting life, as others to shame and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12). But both these Scriptures contemplate that great turning-point for the earth, the kingdom when it comes in manifest power and glory. The Lord speaks of life as given in Himself to faith now. "And this is the eternal life, that they know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, Jesus Christ." If it be distinguished from that which is to be enjoyed in the displayed kingdom by-and-by, it stands as to its character in the knowledge not of the Most High Possessor of heaven and earth, with the true Melchisedec a Priest on His throne, but of the Father and of His sent One, the only true God now plainly revealed in the Son, the one Mediator between God and man. If distinguished from the past, it is no longer the Creator-God giving promises to the fathers protected and lodging as under the shadow of the Almighty; nor yet the sons of Israel in relationship with the name of Jehovah, the moral governor of that chosen nation. But the children of God now possess the revelation of the Father and of Jesus Christ Whom He sent; and this knowledge is identified, not with promises nor government, but with "eternal life," as a present thing in Christ, the portion of every believer. A deeper blessing it is impossible for God to bestow or for man to receive; for it is exactly what characterised the Lord Himself, Who is the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. Only Christ could be said to be that life; we as believers are not, but we have it in Him; and as by faith alone it is received, so in faith it is exercised, sustained, and strengthened.

The knowledge of the Almighty is acquaintance with protecting power; of Jehovah, faithfulness to promise; of the Father, in the exercise of love, is eternal life. It is to know Himself in His own blessedness in relationship with the Son. Hence is added, "And Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." The Father and His love in sending (still the knowledge of Himself), and He also expression and accomplishment of this love in whom is that life. To be in relationship with these is the very essence and reality of eternal life, separated (in the power of the full knowledge of God in grace in this blessed relationship of Father and Son, and of love to us in sending Him) from all else. So thus one is with the true God, all idols away.