John 17 provides a marvelous record of Jesus’ praying to the Father. Jesus explicitly speaks six times of the Father’s sending Him (17:3, 8, 18, 21, 23, 25):

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

He defines eternal life in terms that include knowing that He is the God-sent Christ (17:3). He speaks of His own disciples’ believing (17:8) and knowing (17:25) that the Father sent Him.

Concerning the world, He first parallels His sending His disciples into the world with the Father’s sending Him into the world (17:18). He then adds two explicit statements that make known His praying to the Father that the world would believe (17:21) and know (17:23) that the Father has sent Him and has loved them, as He has loved Jesus (17:23).

In these statements, Jesus teaches that it is through the unity of the believers in the Father and the Son that the world will believe and know that message. His greatest concern, however, is not the unity of the believers as an end in itself; that unity is for the higher purpose of a worldwide proper knowledge of His being sent by the Father and of the Father’s love for the world, even as He has loved Jesus.

Jesus’ prayer to the Father greatly highlights His agency as the God-sent One. For Jesus’ prayer to be answered fully as He desires, our doctrine and practice must make known to the world His agency.

Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

The book of Jonah reveals the great mercy of God through its record about Jonah and God’s dealings with him because of his unwillingness to deliver His message to the wicked city of Nineveh. Jonah was unwilling to deliver God’s message because He knew the merciful character of God and did not want the Ninehevites to receive mercy (Jon. 4:1-3). By subjecting Jonah to great affliction, God finally brought him to willingness to deliver that message to them. After Jonah did so, God dealt with him about his ungodly lack of compassion.

In the final scene of the book, God rebukes Jonah for his displeasure at His sparing the Ninevehites. He first points out how Jonah had pity on a plant when it perished, even though he had not labored for it or made it to grow (4:9-10). In the final words of the book, He then rebukes him by saying, “And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?” (Jon. 4:11).

This great verse reveals the heart of God in a wonderful way. Through a rhetorical question that expects a positive answer, God made known that He should spare a vast multitude of people in that wicked city who in some manner did not know which hand was which. To me, this statement provides a basis for believing that babies, small children, and people who are severely mentally handicapped go to heaven when they die.

Interestingly, God does not stop with his statement about the people that He wanted to spare in Nineveh. His final words reveal that He held that He also should have spared the abundant cattle that were in the city.

Why did God inform Jonah of this fact? He apparently wanted to make known to Jonah (and to us) that His great mercy extended even to animals that would have perished.

Jonah’s message brought about the repentance of the Ninehevites (Lk. 11:32), a repentance that resulted in the sparing of many helpless people and animals. Christ has commissioned His people to proclaim repentance and remission of sins to all nations (Lk. 24:47). We know that He commissioned that message because God desires that no one would perish (2 Pet. 3:9). From what we know about God’s dealings with the Ninehevites, should we understand that Christ also intends that the proper reception by all nations of His commissioned message would be a means of providing divine mercy in some manner to many animals?

Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Before Jesus died on the Cross, He said, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?” (Matt. 27:46; caps in original). Although He Himself was fully God, Jesus addressed the Father as His God twice in this statement. Anyone who reads this statement and understands what He said has to reckon with the fact that the One dying on the Cross made an incredible statement that was not focused on His own deity. Rather, the reader is to accept the truth of the profound reality communicated by Jesus’ words concerning Him and His Father. 

In one of His resurrection appearances, Jesus said to Mary, “Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father: but 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). Although He had risen from the dead, He had not yet been glorified at the Father’s right hand when He made this statement that speaks of the Father as His God. Again, the reader is confronted with a statement that directs his attention away from Jesus’ own deity and to that same profound truth seen earlier. Apparently, Jesus intended His saying to communicate to His original audience and to all who have encountered it thereafter that the Crucifixion and the Resurrection did not change this profound reality concerning Him and His Father. 

About six decades after Jesus had made these statements, Jesus appeared to the apostle John. At that time, He had already been glorified at the Father’s right hand for more than half a century. In one of His statements to John, the glorified Jesus again spoke of the Father as His God. This time, however, He strikingly emphasized that truth by repeating the words, “My God,” four times: 

“Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name” (Rev. 3:12). 

Why did Jesus repeatedly say these words to John? Apparently, Jesus intended to communicate unmistakably to John that His ascension and glorification did not change the profound reality concerning Him and His Father that He had spoken of decades earlier. The Father was still His God, and Jesus wanted to be sure that John understood that fact and was mindful of it. 

Moreover, by His including these words in one of the letters to the seven churches, we understand that Jesus wanted to confront all the churches of that time with the same striking emphasis. Jesus thus desired that all believers of that time would be mindful of the profound reality of the Father as His God. 

Because the Holy Spirit has recorded these statements in Scripture, it is clear that there is a divine intent for all believers in all subsequent ages to be mindful of the fact that the Father is still Jesus’ God. The last statement by Jesus about that truth emphasized that truth far beyond the other two. Revelation was written several decades after Jesus’ glorification, and the greater emphasis on this truth in Revelation 3:12 suggests that believers at that time needed an even stronger presentation of that truth than those who lived during the days that Jesus was on the earth. 

If this understanding is correct, why was it so? Perhaps part of the explanation for what Jesus did is found in considering our human desire ever increasingly to resolve paradoxical truths and explain everything as fully as possible. How the Father can be the God of Jesus—who Himself is God—is a very difficult truth for us as humans to handle. Jesus’ final statement served not to lessen the difficulty but to intensify it greatly. We thus must conclude that God views it as very important that we maintain, regardless of the difficulties that doing so presents to our minds, full belief in and mindfulness of both Jesus’ own deity and the truth of the Father’s continuing even today to be the God of Jesus.

Jesus repeatedly spoke of the Father as His God so that we would not become overly focused on Jesus’ own deity and lose sight of the profound nature of His relationship to the Father. Revelation 3:13 shows that we must continue to make known that emphasis in our churches today.

Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Hebrews 11 highlights many great heroes of the Christian faith, especially Abraham and Moses. Much preaching and teaching focuses on these great men and others like David, who is only mentioned in passing in 11:32. Though he is spoken of in two full verses (Heb. 11:5-6), Enoch, however, seems to have received far less attention. Closely examining the scriptural revelation about him shows some important truths from his life. Most of all, we can and should learn to please God from his example. 

Overall, Scripture does not provide much revelation about Enoch. Four passages tell us about him (Genesis 5; 1 Chronicles 1:3; Hebrews 11; and Jude). From these passages, we learn two major truths about Enoch that teach us how to please God. 

Please God by walking with Him 

As a married man with sons and daughters, Enoch walked with God for three hundred years (Gen. 5:21-24)! He pleased God and did not see death because God translated him (Heb. 11:5). People searched for him but did not find him because God was so pleased with him that He translated him. The next verse declares that pleasing God is only possible by those who come to Him as believers in His existence and His being a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6). 

Together, Hebrews 11:5-6, therefore, teach us that Enoch pleased God by walking with Him by coming to Him with faith in His existence and in His being the God who rewards people who seek Him earnestly. Moreover, like Enoch, we too must in our Christian faith learn to please God. To do so, we must walk with Him with confidence in Him and in His intent to reward us for pursuing Him wholeheartedly. 

Please God by speaking for Him 

Although many have given attention to what Genesis 5 and Hebrews 11 together teach us about Enoch, fewer people seem to have considered how Jude 14-15 compared with these passages also teaches us important truths about how Enoch walked with God in a pleasing way. Jude 14 tells us that Enoch was the seventh from Adam. It adds that he prophesied of the Lord’s coming. 

What is not often brought out is what the content of Enoch’s prophesying about the Lord’s coming teaches us about how he pleased God by walking by faith in Him. Enoch prophesied that the Lord would come with multitudes of His saints to render judgment on all ungodly people (Jude 15). Yet, we are not given any information that the Lord ever returned to do so in Enoch’s lifetime. 

By comparing Genesis 5, Hebrews 11, and Jude, we thus learn that Enoch believed and proclaimed to others the revelation that he received from some undisclosed source about the future coming of the Lord to judge. These passages considered together suggest that Enoch’s faith in future judgment by God was a key element of his walk that pleased God. We thereby should learn the great importance of that doctrine in our Christian faith. 

From all that we know about Enoch, we learn that we are to stress that God desires to reward those who diligently seek Him, having heeded His revelation that warns of His future judgment of the ungodly that refuse to please Him by faith. Although speaking of future judgment by God is an unpopular teaching with many people, Enoch’s example shows us that communication of that truth is a vital aspect of a walk that pleases God. 

Scripture teaches us that there are many important doctrines in the Christian faith, and the example of Enoch teaches us that the doctrine of judgment is one of those doctrines. From other Scripture, we learn that we are to preach the judgment of God compassionately and lovingly whenever possible. Let us please God in our Christian faith by walking with Him and speaking for Him.

Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.