In His ministry the Lord Jesus revealed the Father to the disciples. Matthew 11:27 says, “No one knows the Son except the Father, neither does anyone know the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” This indicates that to know the Father requires the Son’s revelation. The Greek word for “wills” in verse 27 means to deliberately exercise the will through counsel. This the Lord did in revealing the Father to the disciples.
In His prayer to the Father before His crucifixion the Lord Jesus said, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world” (John 17:6). The name referred to here is the name Father. The names “God” and “Jehovah” were adequately revealed to man in the Old Testament, but not the name Father, though it is mentioned in Isaiah 9:6; 63:16; and 64:8. In Old Testament times God’s people mainly knew that God was Elohim, that is, God, and Jehovah, that is, the ever-existing One, but they did not know much about the title Father. God is His name for creation, and Jehovah is His name for the relationship between Himself and man. Eventually, the Son came and worked in the Father’s name (John 5:43; 10:25) to manifest the Father to the ones whom the Father gave Him and to make the Father’s name known to them, the name which reveals the Father as the source of life (5:26) for the propagation and multiplication of life, of whom many sons are born (1:12-13) to express the Father. Hence, the Father’s name is very much related to the divine life.
In John 17:26 the Lord Jesus went on to say in His prayer, “I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known.” The Son made the Father’s name known to the believers not by teaching but by imparting life into them. As believers in Christ, we have the Father’s life. Because we are the same in life and nature as the Father, it is easy for us to know Him. As the Son of the Father, the Lord Jesus came to impart life into us. Because the Father’s life has been imparted into us, spontaneously the Father is made known to us by life, not by teaching. In life we know the Father.
In His work the Lord Jesus was truly one with the Father. He lived the Father, He worked with the Father, He spoke the Father’s word, He did the Father’s will, and He expressed the Father. Everything the Lord Jesus did was for the expression of the Father and was the carrying out of the Father’s will. From this we see that while He was ministering on earth the Lord was absolutely one with the Father, expressing Him, and in this way He revealed the Father to the disciples.
First John 3:8 reveals that as He ministered on earth the Lord Jesus was undoing the works of the Devil: “For this the Son of God was manifested, that He might undo the works of the Devil.” The Greek word rendered “undo” may also be translated loose, dissolve, destroy. Also, the Greek word translated “for this” literally means unto this, that is, to this end, for this purpose. The Devil sins continually from ancient times and begets sinners to practice sin with him. Hence, for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might undo and destroy the Devil’s sinful deeds-that is, condemn, through death on the cross in the flesh (Rom. 8:3), sin initiated by him, the evil one; destroy the power of sin, the sinful nature of the Devil (Heb. 2:14); and take away both sin and sins.
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