In this message we shall consider further aspects of Christ’s person in the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies.
Christ is the One who in His reproducing resurrection declared the Father’s name to the brothers and praised Him in the midst of the church. This is prophesied in Psalm 22:22: “I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.” This verse is quoted in Hebrews 2:12, by which we see that it is a prophecy of Christ. The brothers mentioned in Psalm 22:22 are Christ’s many brothers brought forth through His resurrection. Therefore, this verse prophesies that in resurrection Christ would declare the Father’s name, the Father’s person, to the Lord’s brothers. We have seen that in resurrection Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was born to be God’s firstborn Son and that God’s chosen people were born with Him to be the many sons of God, Christ’s many brothers. Therefore, Christ’s resurrection was a corporate birth, the birth of the firstborn Son and His many brothers. According to Hebrews 2:12, the firstborn Son of God declared in the church the Father’s name to His brothers: “I will declare Your name to My brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing hymns of praise unto You.” Because the Father is the source of life and nature, to declare the name of the Father is to show the many brothers the source of life and nature. Although the Jewish people in ancient times knew God, they did not know the Father. They knew God as the Creator but not as the Father who begets. They knew God’s creating power, but they did not know the Father’s begetting life. Before Christ’s resurrection, not even His disciples knew the Father’s life and begetting ability. However, on the day of resurrection the Lord came to them to declare the Father in order to make them know the Father as the source of life.
According to John 20, the Lord Jesus visited His disciples in the evening on the day of His resurrection. But John does not say that He declared the Father to the disciples. This is mentioned prophetically in Psalm 22:22. According to this prophecy, after His resurrection Christ came to His disciples to make the Father known to them. The Father’s life and nature had become theirs, and His very being had been imparted to them. This is what it means to declare the Father’s name to the brothers. This declaration was not simply a matter of mentioning the name; rather, it was an impartation of all that the Father is—His life, nature, and being—into the disciples. It was from such a declaration that Peter came to realize that he was a partaker of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). We, the sons of God, have all become partakers of the divine nature. To us, God is no longer merely the creating God; He is also the begetting Father. He has begotten us. He has imparted His life, His nature, and even His being into our being. This is what it means for the resurrected Christ to declare the Father’s name to His brothers.
Psalm 22:22 prophesies not only that Christ will declare the Father’s name but also that He will praise the Father in the midst of the congregation: “In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.” In fulfillment of this prophecy, the second part of Hebrews 2:12 says, “In the midst of the church I will sing hymns of praise unto You.” Literally the Greek words rendered “I will sing hymns of praise unto You” mean “I will hymn You.” Here we have the firstborn Son’s praising of the Father from within the Father’s many sons in the church meetings. When we, the many sons of God, meet as the church and praise the Father, the firstborn Son praises the Father in our praises. It is not that He praises the Father apart from us and alone, but rather within us and with us through our praising. He sings hymns of praise to the Father in our singing.
In Psalm 22:22 and Hebrews 2:12 we see that after declaring the Father’s name, the Son sings hymns of praise to Him in the midst of the church. Throughout the centuries the firstborn Son has been singing hymns of praise unto the Father in the church. He does this in all of His brothers. Because He is in us, He sings praises unto the Father in our singing. His singing is in our singing. When we sing, He sings because He is within our singing. When we sing hymns to the Father from our spirit, Christ sings with us in our spirit. The church is one corporate Body with the firstborn Son of God. In the meetings of the church the firstborn Son, who dwells in His many brothers who compose the church, sings praise to the Father from within them. The more we, Christ’s brothers, sing praise to the Father, the more the Lord sings in our singing.