WOT: The Father's love for the Son

Robert Hickman

Sorry if this is way off topic but I just had to ask....

In John 15:9 we read......

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.(ESV)

My question is....

How did the Father love the Son and what specific examples do you have?

Thanks,

Bob - just a Prodgial son

Rich DeRuiter

ROBERTTHICKMAN said:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.(ESV)

My question is....

How did the Father love the Son and what specific examples do you have?

It's not possible to directly answer your question adequately. However, the clue is in the statement Jesus made. If you want to know how the Father loved Jesus, look at how Jesus treated his disciples. When Philip later asked Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus seemed exasperated and replied "Don't you know me...if you've seen me, you've seen the Father" (John 14:9). To continue this, Jesus tells his disciples to love each other as he loved them (John 15:12; even before he went to the cross).

It seems to me that Jesus experience the Father directly in His personal times of prayer, and probably as he was meeting people, since everything Jesus did was a reflection of what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19). John emphasized Jesus relationship with the Father, to the point that by the time we're done reading John we know that Jesus and the Father are one, and that Jesus invites us into their unity (John 17:21). But we shouldn't see this as a mystical experience, but rather as a direct experience of the Father through the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 8:15-16; 1Jn 4:13).

 

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/36728#Comment_36728

Bob,

As far as specific examples....hmm

At Jesus' baptism:

“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”
(Matt. 3:17),

and also in connection with the transfiguration
(Matt. 17:5).

Very precious to the heart of the Son was this love of the Father. Hence, he makes mention of it in the high-priestly prayer
(17:23, 24). Here too the comparison holds, for Jesus specifically mentions that this love of which he himself was the object was a reality even “before the foundation of the world.”

William Hendriksen and Simon J. Kistemaker, New Testament Commentary : Exposition of the Gospel According to John, New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953-2001).