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No.31.
The Chapel of Acknowledgment (1: 15 - 19).
The Father of Glory.
pp. 61 - 64
Having shown the reason for using the word "acknowledgment" in verse seventeen,
we now consider the prayer of the Apostle in detail. The prayer is addressed to "the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. 1: 17). It will be observed that the second prayer is
addressed to "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ". There are several occasions when the
two titles are used together, as in II Cor. 1: 3, which in the original is word for word with
that of Eph. 1: 3. At the resurrection it will be remembered, the Saviour said to Mary:
"Go to My brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father; and
to My God and your God" (John 20: 17).
Immediately after this we read that He Who said "My God" was Himself
acknowledged by Thomas with the same words! In the epistle to the Hebrews we have
another extraordinary use of the term.
"Unto the Son He saith, Thy throne O God is for ever and ever", yet in the very next
verse He Who is addressed as God is now said to have a God "Therefore God, even Thy
God hath anointed Thee . . . . . above Thy fellows" (Heb. 1: 8, 9). This same One has
already been called "Lord" and the work of creation attributed to Him. Evidently the
writers of Scripture saw no inconsistency in ascribing the title "God" to the Saviour, and
yet of speaking of the Father, as "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ". When the Lord took
upon Him the form of a servant and the fashion of a man, He stooped from the high status
of Creator, to the lowly status of creature. As such He acknowledged One Who sent
Him, One Whom He obeyed, One Whose doctrine He taught, One Whose will He
delighted to do. He acknowledged that His Father was greater than Himself, even when
He claimed that He and His Father were one. In the status of a true servant, and in the
fashion of a man, He must either have refused to acknowledge God which is
inconceivable, or He must have acknowledged God, which He most blessedly did. He
never said "Our Father", that He left for His followers. He went out of His way to say
"My Father and your Father", thus while one with them in the common humanity, He
was for ever separated from them by His essential Deity. The most solemn and awful
occasion when the Saviour used the words "My God" was on the cross, forsaken as the
bearer of our sin. He said "My God" on the cross. He said "My God" on the resurrection
morning, and the Apostle speaks of the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he speaks of
His ascended glory. There is therefore a definite reason for the introduction of this title.
God is God, whether man believes or does not believe. "Even from everlasting to
everlasting, Thou art God" (Psa. 90: 2). Yet on occasion He says "I will not be your
God" (Hos. 1: 9). It is evident therefore that when we read "The God OF", as we do in
Eph. 1: 17, there is something more intended than that God is, and that Christ was in the
form of a servant. Throughout the Scriptures we read "I am the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, the God of Jacob" by which we understand that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob