What did Jesus say about God?

To show the perfect suitableness of this, the Lord appeals to the fact that God is a Spirit. Since this is the essence of His being (not material at all), it surely follows that material forms of worship are nothing to Him: it is the spiritual reality that counts. Worship of the Father must be in spirit and in truth. Wonderful is the fact that the Son has revealed this.

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not, therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows" (vers. 29-31). The special, the minute care of our Father for His own children is drawn from this, that the very sparrow, though so despised and trivial a bird among men, yet cannot fall to the ground "without your Father." He might have said, Without God; but He said, Your Father — a father's love is concerned for his children.

Then we have the ruler, to whom our Lord shows that all was wrong where a soul is not brought to know that there is none good but God. Had he really known how good God is he would have soon seen God in Jesus. He saw nothing of the sort. He knew neither God nor good. He looked upon the Lord merely as good after a human fashion. If He was but a man there was no goodness in Him; it is only in God: God alone is good. If Jesus were not God, He was not good. The young ruler had no right, no just title to say, "Good Master", unless that master were God. This he saw not; and therefore, the Lord proves him, and searches the ground of his heart, and demonstrates that after all he valued the world more than God and eternal life. This he had never suspected in himself before. He loved his natural position; he loved to be a ruler, though a young one; he loved his possessions; he loved what he had of present advantages in the world. He really clave to all these things without knowing it himself. The Lord, therefore calls upon him to give them up, and follow Him. He thought there was no demand of goodness but what he was able to meet; but the trial was too much for him. Man was not good — God only. Jesus, who was God, had given up beyond all comparison more, yea, infinitely.

But if I merely look at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ as the necessary basis of divine righteousness, whilst it was also the fullest display of pity for me a guilty and needy sinner, this of itself would never settle my soul in perfect peace before God, still less would it give an adequate knowledge of Him. Therefore comes out another expression, repeating, it might seem, the same result, as in verses 13, 14, but really from a yet higher source; "for God," says the Son, "so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." There had not been a word about God's "love" before, any more than about "the world," in this discourse; it was purely the intervention of the Son of man, and this, of course, in view of what was absolutely necessary. Just as a man must be born anew to enter the kingdom, so He must be lifted up on the cross, if there was to be an efficacious work in righteousness for the sinner. But now there is far more; for that never could satisfy God's love, — who is most defectively known if there be no more than a "must be." Not so. Let me see what He is; let me know what He feels; let me have the witness of His own grace in Christ. Is it a boon wrung out from God? Far be the thought! Does He, is He, not love? Let me listen more to that which Jesus tells us, who knew as none but He could know or tell. Yea He, the Son, knew Him perfectly, and would make Him known as He is and feels even about the world. And so, therefore, He adds, crowning this blessed revelation in Himself of God's grace and truth, shown in His work as in His very person too, — crowning it, I say, with a declaration truly divine: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

The revelation of the Father is made that our “joy may be full,” and that in spite of the failure of men in the assemblies on earth, as well as in every other position in which they have been placed—but Jesus replied, “He that has seen Me has seen the Father.” It is vain to look elsewhere therefore, or for some advance on what has been made known in Him. We are limited to the Son for the knowledge of the Father, and in Him He is fully revealed.

Let us weigh well the 30th verse. "I and the Father are one." It is "I" and the (not my) Father, not the Eternal Son and the Father, not the Word and the Father, but "I"—the One who stood before them—and the Father are one; not one in Person, but, as the neuter is used, one in essence, and primarily here, from the context, one in power and care of the sheep.

Who could separate here His divine and His human natures? How could He use the word "I" if there was not absolutely in Him an indivisible and abiding union of both natures in one Person—" God and man, one Christ?"

But there are other words of profound import. "God is a Spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and truth." It is the nature of God which is here in question, not the relationship of grace which He now reveals in and by Christ. And this is not without the greatest importance for us. For He must be worshipped correspondingly, and He most fully provided for this, seeing that the new life we enjoy is by the Spirit and is spirit, not flesh (John 3:6), as, indeed, He begot us of His own will by the word of truth (James 1), and we are thus born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by God's living and abiding word (1 Peter 1:23). Assuredly we should walk and worship in the Spirit, if we live in the Spirit. He is given to us that we should judge and reject the first Adam, glorifying only the Second man, our Lord Jesus. Nay, more, as God is a Spirit, spiritual worship is all He accepts. His worshippers "must worship in spirit and truth." It is a moral necessity flowing from His nature — a nature fully revealed in Him Who is the image of the invisible God, and we should not be ignorant of it and its character who are born of Him as believers in Christ.

God is presented to them not as Jehovah, the Lawgiver, but as "your Father which is in heaven." That is to say, He is now presented in a new light. It is this that governs the teachings of the Lord here, for if we know Him in this new way, we discover Him to be marked by benevolence towards the unjust and the evil, and we are to be in our measure what He is. In the ministry of Jesus a new revelation of God was dawning, and it entailed a new standard of perfection. We are to come out practically as sons of our Father in heaven, for the perfection of a son is to be as the Father.

What is the power for worship? "We are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God" (Phil. 3:3, R.V.). "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24). You remember that our Lord in this memorable conversation with the poor, sinful Samaritan woman set aside both "this mountain" (Gerizim) and Jerusalem as places of worship. In their place he put nothing of earth; only spirit and truth was to mark all worship — it was to be according to the nature of God. This connects, therefore, with what we have already said as to the place of worship.

I think of Him in His mercy on the one hand, and in His judgment and wrath on the other, and I am not terrified before Him, for I see nothing even in the lake of fire inconsistent with His holy love. He has come to light in Jesus: there His heart is revealed, but from those lips from which rivers of grace flowed forth, there came the testimony of a judgment which in its severity turns the most terrible utterances that ever burned upon prophetic lip into tides of mercy. His enemies had to say “Never man spake like this Man,” and surely no one ever did, for no one knew what He knew. When He spoke, the breathings of the heart of God were heard, but mingled with it all the tempests of eternal wrath broke upon the ear. He brought everything to light. The heart of God, the heart of man, the heart of heaven, and the heart of hell. All is in the light now, and men everywhere are seen to be without excuse, and all will find Him justified when He speaks, and clear when He judges (Ps. 51:4).