Who is the one true God?

But then the Lord goes on, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (v. 3). Who is the Thee in this verse? He is the One whom the Son is addressing, THE FATHER, the only true God.

Then, having thus brought us to "His Son Jesus Christ," John says very pointedly, "This [or, He] is the true God, and eternal life." No stronger affirmation of His Deity could we have. Also He is the eternal life, and, as we have seen, the Source of it for us.

What a marvellous summary of the Epistle is this brief verse! The life has been manifested, and Him that is true made known in the coming of the Son of God. As the fruit of His coming we have received an understanding, so that we may be able to appreciate and receive all that has come to light. But then not only is "Him that is true" revealed, and we rendered capable of knowing Him, but we are in Him, by being in the One who has revealed Him. Apart from this we might have been merely wondering onlookers, without vital connection with God. But, thank God, that vital connection exists. And the One, in whom we are, is the true God and eternal life.

Our title at the head of this paper is one such. Yet there is abundance of teaching in the Holy Scriptures that God reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not three Gods, but a Triune God, though Scripture teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, yet one God indivisible.

Without a doubt, in this verse deity is attributed to the Father alone, and dominion as Lord to Jesus alone. It has however been very aptly remarked that, "The deity of Christ can no more be denied because the Father is here called 'one God,' than the dominion of the Father can be denied because the Son is called 'one Lord."' To this we may add — or the deity and dominion of the Spirit be denied, because He is not mentioned at all.

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.

"Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgements, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: that thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee; thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers has promised thee, in the land that flows with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord."

We have here presented to us that great cardinal truth which the nation of Israel was specially responsible to hold fast and confess, namely, the unity of the Godhead. This truth lay at the very foundation of the Jewish economy. It was the grand centre round which the people were to rally. So long as they maintained this, they were a happy, prosperous, fruitful people; but when it was let go, all was gone. It was their great national bulwark, and that which was to mark them off from all the nations of the east. They were called to confess this glorious truth in the face of an idolatrous world, with "its gods many, and lords many." It was Israel's high privilege and holy responsibility to bear a steady witness to the truth contained in that one weighty sentence, "The Lord our God is one Lord," in marked opposition to the false gods innumerable of the heathen around. Their father Abraham had been called out from the very midst of heathen idolatry, to be a witness to the one true and living God, to trust Him; to walk with Him; to lean on Him; and to obey Him.

In John 17, where we have the privilege of hearing the Son speak to the Father, the Lord refers to Himself as sent six times, and these are full of divine instruction for us. The first of these concerns the truth of eternal life, which the Lord had spoken of at the close of chapter 12: here He says, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” The Father sent the Son not only to save us, but to manifest eternal life, and to communicate it to us.

Eternal life, in this Scripture, is viewed as consisting in divine knowledge, the knowledge of the Father as the only true God, and of Jesus Christ, the Son, as sent by Him to make Him known. God revealed Himself to Abraham as The Almighty, and to Moses and Israel as Jehovah, but in the Son God has revealed Himself in the fulness of His love, as Father, in all that precious Name means, the living Father, the holy Father, the righteous Father. The Father is the only true God, the only One in whom we can trust implicitly, who is ever the same, and ever reliable. Twice over the Son said “He that sent me is true” (John 7:28; 8:26); and how deep must have been the grief of His soul to witness the unbelief of God’s earthly people in the grace and love of His Father. The Lord does not say That they might know the Son of God, but rather “Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” It was in the Person of Jesus, the Christ whom Israel had refused, that the eternal life was; even as John writes in his First Epistle, “He is the true God, and eternal life.”

How great and glorious is the Person in whom we are before the face of the Father, and 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.

So we must be careful in using the terms, first, second and third Persons in the Trinity, not to think there is any difference in importance. The Father is God; the Son is God; the Spirit is God—the Spirit equal in nature and substance to the Father and the Son. If the three Persons of the Godhead are each of them God, it does not follow that there are three Gods. That were impossible. There can be only one God, supreme and unique. Orthodox Christendom believes in three Persons in the Godhead, yet one God, indivisible and unique—the three Persons in the Godhead with one will, one purpose, each sharing to the full every thought and desire and purpose in the minds of the others. We may not, nay cannot, comprehend this. It is a mystery hidden in the Godhead, yet the Godhead is pleased to reveal Itself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Pagans may venerate many gods and lords, but to us they are nothing. We know but one God and one Lord. There is the Father, the Originator and Source of all, and we are for Him. There is the Lord Jesus, the great Administrator in the Godhead, and all things, ourselves included, are by Him. This being so we may utterly decline to recognise the idols of the heathen in any way, and so treat all meats as alike — whether offered to idols or not.