Four absolute claims

Luke 10:22 (NLT)

“My Father has entrusted everything to Me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.”

Jesus makes at least four absolute claims in this remarkable verse.  By absolute, I mean there’s no room for conjecture or alternative meanings.

1. Everything has been entrusted to Jesus by His Father. 

         Not some things, but every thing.  It is difficult to comprehend what “everything” means.  An easy answer would be “all things”.  What are all things?  Everything that God created--the earth, the heavens, all living creatures, including all people.  Psalm 24 speaks of the earth and everything in it coming from the Lord. James 1:17 says that every good and perfect gift comes from above.  John 1:1-3 makes the claim that Jesus was with God in the beginning and all things made in the world were made through Jesus.  These and many other similar passages in the Bible that speak of God creating everything with Jesus alongside Him require great faith to believe.  You either believe what the Bible says about creation or you don’t.  There’s no middle ground.  This truth also relates to other biblical teaching that Jesus was given authority by God to redeem people (Eph 1:7, Col 1:14, 20-22, others) and to judge people (Acts 10:42, II Tim 4:1, others).  Indeed, the Father entrusted (the Greek word translated as entrusted literally means “to give into the hand of another, to give power to another to do whatever”) everything to Jesus.  Remarkable truth, but how strongly do you believe this?

2 and 3. No one truly knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son

These statements about truly knowing the Son and truly knowing the Father are easier to agree with or understand.  The Greek word for “truly knows” is “ginōskō that means to learn to know, to understand.  None of us would know Jesus if God had chosen not to reveal Him.  We would not know God as Father if what Jesus taught about God as Father recorded in the gospels.  While there are a few references in the Old Testament to God as Father (e.g. Deut 32:6, Ps 89:26, Isa 63:16, 64:8, Jer 3:19), we cannot really understand God as Abba Father until we read what Jesus said about Him.  The only time recorded when Jesus did not refer to God as Father was when He was dying on the cross for the sins of the world and cried out “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”.  While we can never claim that we truly know the Son or know the Father as well as the Son and Father knew one another, we can better understand who Jesus is and who God the Father is by studying the gospels. 

4. No one truly knows the Father except those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him

This is a controversial subject and one of many difficult statements of Christ.  Is Jesus talking about salvation here?  Or is He talking about choosing certain people to have a deeper revelation of the Father?  He is talking to His disciples who He chose and to whom He revealed God the Father to them.  But, Jesus, through His words and actions recorded in the Bible revealed the Father to everyone who reads and takes the Bible seriously.  It is God’s desire that everyone is saved (I Timothy 2:4); yet God created people with free will to choose whether or not they desire to be saved.  Jesus said to His disciples in John 15:16 that they did not choose Him, but He chose them.  Then He said in John 15:26-30 that people who have dedicated their lives to Him can never be taken away from Him.

I believe that what Jesus meant by this statement is that anyone who comes to Him, confesses his sin, asks for forgiveness, and asks to be reborn into a new life following the teachings of Jesus, that anyone is who the Son chooses to reveal the Father.  It is through Jesus Christ that sinful humans are reconnected to a holy God and have a personal relationship with Him.  That is the Good News, the gospel message, and the purpose for which Jesus came to earth and eventually died sacrificially for the sins of all mankind. 

Do you believe that the Son has revealed the Father to you?  If not, you know what to do……….