Who is the one true God?
Jesus, praying to His Father on the last night before the cross, gives the shortest definition of eternal life ever spoken — and He fills it not with rules or rewards but with two Persons to be known. So the question of who the one true God is turns out to be the question of what life itself is.
The Name is Father
Commentators fix on the fact that the words are addressed to the Father, so the description belongs to Him.
J. S. BlackburnWhat 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).
Not one god among many
The word "only" is pointed. It is set against a world crowded with rival deities, and the second half of the verse tells us how that God is reached.
J. N. Darby"This is life eternal, that they should know You, the only true God [that is, the Father], and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." That they may know You — that One, or Him, who is the only true God, contrasted with gods many and false gods, and Him whom You have sent, Jesus Christ. How does He give them this eternal life, this knowledge? I answer, by their being planted in Himself: "he that has the Son has life."
The Son bears the same title
The Son is not left outside the description. Writing later, John uses the identical phrase of Christ Himself (1 John 5:20).
An Outline of Sound WordsHow great and glorious is the Person in whom we are before the face of the Father, an Object to fill the heart with delight at all times, but One who commands our worship and adoration, for He is "The true God." In addressing the Father, the Son speaks of Him as "The only true God," God fully revealed in Him, and setting aside everything that would claim the homage of the hearts of men. As one with the Father, the One in whom He is revealed is "The true God," for all that is to be known of the true God is found in Him.
Known by what He does for sinners
God has never asked to be identified by abstract greatness. He introduced Himself to Israel as the One who brought them out of Egypt, and He introduces Himself to us in the same way.
J. G. BellettThe true God is He who reveals Himself in redeeming grace and power; and, blessed truth, to know God is, accordingly, to know myself a sinner saved by grace.
Knowing Him, not knowing about Him
Everything hangs on the word "know" — and it is not the kind of knowing you can get from a textbook.
C. H. MackintoshIt is not life eternal to know theology or divinity. A man may sit down to the study of these, as he would to study law or medicine, astronomy or geology, and all the while know nothing of God, and therefore be without divine life, and perish in the end.
Scripture knows several names for God, and each one opens a different kind of acquaintance. Only one of them carries eternal life.
J. N. DarbyThe 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 You have sent." … To be in relationship with these is the very essence and reality of eternal life.
Everything else is an idol
John ends the same letter with a warning about idols, and writers read that warning far more widely than statues.
W. T. P. WolstonIt is not a question of an idol down here at all, but of having a thought of God that has not its perfect counterpart in Christ. Where is the true God seen? In the Man Christ Jesus. There are plenty of people who have idols — that is, who have not right thoughts of God. They have notions and thoughts about God for which there is no counterpart in Christ, and such have idols.
Summary
- One God. Against a world of gods many and lords many, Scripture names one — and the Name of the only true God is the Father, with the Son and the Spirit one with Him.
- One revealer. That God is not guessed at; He is made known in the Son, and all that is to be known of the true God is found in Him.
- One doorway. He gives this knowledge by planting us in Himself: whoever has the Son has life.
- One kind of knowing. Not theology studied like law or medicine, but acquaintance with the Father in the exercise of love — and that acquaintance is eternal life.
- One test. Any thought of God that has no counterpart in Christ is an idol, however respectable it looks.