Love of a Father

The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand." (John 3:35)

 

The Gospel of John, in a special sense, emphasizes the love in the divine Trinity of the heavenly Father for the Son. The words "love" and "Father" and "Son" occur more in this book than in any other book of the Bible, and there are at least eight references to this love in John’s Gospel.

 

The first is in our text above, revealing that the Father has entrusted the care of the whole creation to the Son whom He loves. He has also shown Him everything in creation: "For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth" (John 5:20).

 

The Father also loved the Son because of His willingness to die for lost sinners. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again" (John 10:17).

 

Then in the upper room, as Christ prayed to His Father, it was revealed that this divine love had existed in eternity, and therefore must be both the root and the measure of all forms of true love ever since. "Father . . . thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24). Parental love, marital love, filial love, love of country--all types of genuine love--are derived ultimately from this eternal love of the Father for the Son.

 

And it is this love that can also be in us, if we will have it. "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. . . . If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love" (John 15:9-10).

 

It was thus He prayed (and still prays) for us: "That the world may know that thou . . . hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. . . . And . . . that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:23, 26).