"No one is recognizing the Son except the Father, neither is anyone recognizing the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son should be intending to unveil Him,"

(Matt. 11:27).

The implied statement that the Son was intending to unveil the Father to certain ones, comes as near, perhaps, as any passage in the Circumcision scriptures, to being a promise of the present grace.  Yet this promise is implied in short measure, for nothing is said as to the fact that the Son, also was to be unveiled in the present grace.  Yet this is a fact, for God unveils His Son in Paul, (Gal. 1:16).  Being thus unveiled in the apostle to the nations, the Son also unveils the Father through the writings of the same apostle. 

Fundamentalists, in their fight against Modernists, imagine they are going the whole way, when they insist that Christ is the Son of God, having been conceived in the virgin, Mary, by the holy spirit, and that God is the Father of Christ, and of believers.  The passage which speaks of the Son in the fullest sense - Col. 1:13 - is obscured by a faulty rendering, "His dear Son."  The correct rendering is, "the Son of His love."  To speak of Christ as His dear Son, is but to repeat what believers already knew before Colossians was written, and what would be known today, even if Colossians had never been written.  

He is far more than His dear Son; He is the Son of His love.  This unveils to us the Son of God, long before He lived in flesh.  It takes us back to a time before the eons.  It points to a time when none except the Father and the Son existed - a time when the Son had just come out of the Father, as the Firstborn of every creature.  Furthermore, it calls attention to the tremendously important fact that the Son is the PRODUCT of God's love.  In other words, God's love, when it acted, brought forth the Son. 

Following this, the apostle informs us hurriedly, as if it were equally important, (which, indeed, it is), that in the Son of God's love, the universe in the heavens and on the earth is created, (verse 16).  Christ came out from God, (John 13:3), and when He thus came out as the product of God's love, the universe came out in Him.  Before anything that is now in the universe had a separate existence, it was all in the Son.  This is what is meant by the statement that the universe has been created in Him.   

And this is God's way of showing to discerning minds and hearts.  His love for the universe.  He loves it so much that he chooses the Son of His love as the Channel. through Which to bring it into existence.  Also it is His way of telling us how much value he attaches to the universe.  Would anyone say that God brought anything valueless into existence through the very Person Who is the product of His love?  

In this passage the Father is unveiled, although He is not here referred to as Father.  It is impossible to think of the Son without thinking of His Father, and it is certain that when we see that the Son is the Son of His love, and that the universe is created in Him, we will also see that the Father Who loves the Son also loves the universe.  This is brought out more forcibly when we read further that the universe is created THROUGH Him and FOR Him.  

Valuable as is the Fundamentalist position in opposition to the idea of the Modernist, the full unveiling of the Father and the Son to adoring hearts is far more important.  God is not simply the Father of Christ; He is the Father whose love produced Christ.  Christ is not simply the Son of God as regards His birth of the virgin; He is the Son of God's love, in Whom, through Whom and for Whom the universe is created, eons before His birth in Bethlehem.  

God, the Father, Who created the universe in, through and for the Son of His love, has never turned against the universe, even though it is stained by sin.  His great heart of love hungers for its return to Himself -  hungers for its love in response to His own.  That He loves it not one whit less than He loves the Son, is shown by the fact that He gives the Son to shed His blood on the cross, to reconcile the universe to Himself, (making peace through the blood of His cross), through Him, whether of earth or in the heavens."  

In regard to this verse, Fundamentalists cling to the antiquated rendering, "all things," instead of "the universe," and speak of inanimate things being reconciled to God.  In the very nature of the case, no being that is not estranged, can be reconciled.  Common sense dictates that it has reference to every estranged creature in the heavens and on earth.  Although the "tragedy of Golgotha" was enacted on earth, yet the benefits of the blood of the cross reaches into every place in the universe wherever there is estrangement.  Sin is by no means limited to the human family.  

The unveiling, of the Father and the Son, as we find it in the messages of the apostle to the nations, show a Father Who loves the universe, and a Son who is reconciling the universe to the Father.  No one had this vision at the time our Lord uttered the words of the text quoted at the beginning of this editorial.  

The unveiling shows every knee, celestial, terrestrial and subterranean bowing in the name of Jesus, and every tongue acclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord, and doing it for the glory of God, the Father, (Phil. 2:10,11).  The fact that they do it for the glory of God, the Father, proves that it is a scene following the reconciliation of the universe through the blood of the cross.  Thus is unveiled to us a Father who succeeds, through the Son of His love, in winning the spontaneous and joyful love of His universe.  

If anything I have said in this editorial is understood as censuring Fundamentalists, I shall regret it.  As a matter of fact, it is not God's plan that all His saints shall see this great truth at present.  If it were, they would see it.  Just as He needed blindness in the days when Christ was on the earth, so He needs it today.  There is no promise that all saints shall enjoy this truth now.  

Christendom sees enough to make them active in a certain form of worship, and God is accomplishing good through them, just as He is accomplishing good through social orders, secret orders, and civil governments.  These are needed to keep the human family from going into a state of non-civilization.  

In the passage in which my text is found, we see that God had deliberately hidden certain things from certain people, and had revealed them to others.  This meant what man would call failure in the ministry of Christ, but He acquiesced in it, because it became a delight in front of God.  He delights no less in the blindness today that results in people working for the up building of civilization instead of seeing these truths that take one's mind far away from man's governments, and fasten it on things above where Christ is seated.  

But He is pleased, and delighted, to have some who know the fullness of the Father and the Son to the extent that they are acquainted with the height, depth, length and breath of love, (Eph. 3:18).  This is not acquired by human power.  It comes by special power from God.  It teaches that love is as high as the heavens, as deep as the subterranean world, and as long and as broad as the universe.  Those to whom God gives this power in accord with His glorious riches, are staunch through His spirit in the inner man, Christ is dwelling in their hearts through the faith, and they are rooted and grounded in love, (Eph. 3:16,17).  This does not simply mean that they love God and Christ.  This is true of all saints.  It means that their every emotion toward God is with an understanding of the fact that He is love to the extent that He will, through Christ win the love of the universe.  

There is a hope on the part of many believers in Universal Reconciliation, that it will soon "sweep the world like fire."  They are doomed to disappointment.  Blindness will increase.  There will be occasional "converts" to the truth, but not in such numbers as to be phenomenal.  There were those in the days of the earthly ministry of our Lord who thought the same.  As it did not materialize, they began to chafe.  In the midst of their toil with Him, they became heavily burdened because they were connected with a cause that was a failure, when measured by human standards.  Christ did not scold them.  Instead, He lovingly invited them: "Hither to me, all who are toiling and laden, and I will be giving you rest.  Lift my yoke upon and be learning from Me, seeing that I am meek and humble in heart, and you shall be finding rest to your souls."  

If you will carefully read what Paul says concerning his struggles, you will see that we are doomed to as great a failure.  The popularity of Christendom today is not for those who are recognizing the Father and the Son.  If you are tired and laden because you are connected with a cause that is regarded with disdain or mild toleration, by your neighbors, accept the yoke and rejoice that you are given to see that which God hides from many others.  Man has never had a more precious privilege than that of suffering for the truth of God. 

It is our privilege to pray that all saints may have this vision, and also to work as if we expected full success.  This is the way of Paul, as shown in his epistles.  But let us be submissive to God's plan.