CHRIST HAS A LEGAL RIGHT TO THE PROPERTY OF THE FATHER. Because He has
1. A natural right to it, as He is God.
2. A federal right as Mediator, i.e., God the Father and God the Son are represented in Scripture as having agreed together in a covenant respecting the salvation of the human race. It was in this agreement that God the Father made over all the blessings that He had unto Jesus Christ.
3. A donative right as Saviour (Joh_3:35).
4. An acquisitive right as Conqueror. Suppose two individuals are combating for some property or privilege, and this is to belong to the individual who comes off victorious; you say of him afterwards, “he has acquired that.” Just so Christ came into the world to contend with sin and Satan for us, and He came off victorious.
5. A hereditary right as God’s Son and Heir (Heb_1:2.)
II. SOME OF THOSE “ALL THINGS” WHICH JESUS CHRIST IS SAID TO HAVE.
1. All the perfections of God. If, as is said, in 1Co_1:24, He is the power of God and the wisdom of God, then all the rest must be His.
2. The glory of the Father (Heb_1:3).
3. All the fulness of the Father (Col_1:19; Col_2:19).
III. IN WHAT SENSE ARE ALL THINGS CHRIST’S?
1. Substantially, not figuratively or nominally, but really.
2. Communicatively. Some persons may possess great and inestimable treasures, but they may not have the power of communicating them. But Christ possesses “all things” for the express purpose of communicating Joh_1:16). He has pardon for our sins, and we have received it;He has justification for our souls, and He has imputed it, &c.
3. Sufficiently (Psa_107:9).
4. Efficiently. It shall be really applied to the heart, and go to the extent which necessity requires. There may be many things that may be said to be sufficient and yet not efficient. Some of us may have enough for ourselves and others, but it is not efficient unless they partake of it.
5. Unchangeably.
6. Eternally. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.”
IV. FOR WHAT REASON IT IS SO ARRANGED THAT THE FATHER’S PROPERTY IS CHRIST’S.
1. The right and the property of no party is lost. The Father has the same property as the Son, and the Son has the same property as the Spirit.
2. Herein is seen the pleasure of the Father, the pleasure of the Son, and the pleasure of the Holy Spirit.
3. Here is God’s honour in choosing His people; Christ’s honour in redeeming them, and the Spirit’s honour in regenerating them. (T. B. Baker, M. A.)
The joint proprietorship of the Father and the children
I once heard a father tell, that when he removed his family to a new residence, where the accommodation was much more ample, and the substance much more rich and varied, his youngest son, yet a lisping infant, ran round every room, and scanned every article with ecstasy, calling out, in childish wonder at every new sight, “Is this ours, father? and is this ours?” The child did not say “yours,” and I observed that the father while he told the story was not offended with the freedom. You could read in his glistening eye that the infant’s confidence in appropriating as his own all that his father had, was an important element in his satisfaction. Such, I suppose, will be the surprise, and joy, and appropriating confidence, with which the child of our Father’s family will count all his own, when he is removed from the comparatively mean condition of things present, and enters the infinite of things to come. When the glories of heaven burst upon his view, he does not stand at a distance, like a stranger, saying, “O God, these are Thine.” He bounds forward to touch and taste every provision which those blessed mansions contain, exclaiming, as he looks in the Father’s face, “Father, this and this is ours.” The dear child is glad of all the Father’s riches, and the Father is gladder of His dear child. (W. Arnot.)
The revealing work of the Spirit
The Holy Spirit is given for the purpose of restoring to spiritual truth its natural and reasonable efficiency. It is as though we had our eyes fixed on a book in the deep gloom of twilight. We believe that the page reveals truth, we know the language in which it is written; but the light is so imperfect, that, though here and there we can distinguish a capital letter, and now and then decipher a word, yet we are unable to make out distinctly a single sentence. But let light now fall upon the page, and every word and every letter is instantly revealed, the thought of the writer beams upon our understanding, and the channel of communication between His mind and ours is, for the time, fully established. Very similar to this is the case before us. We read and we hear about God, the Judge of all, and Christ, the Redeemer of men, about sin and repentance, heaven and hell, the wages of guilt and the reward of holiness, and we care so little about them that the words hardly awaken a thought, or leave a trace upon our recollection. But let now the Holy Spirit show these things of Christ unto us, and they are at once invested with the terrors or the joys of a most solemn reality. (F. Wayland, D. D.)
