26 “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
In the last Words of His great High Priestly Prayer Jesus states He had clearly demonstrated by both Word and deeds the Father’s character, attributes and reputation – He being the perfect resemblance of God. Jesus displayed the invisible nature of the Father – He being the exact representation of His Father’s Being. He had lovingly made the Father known to His disciples and now they in turn were to make Him known to a lost and needy world. Furthermore, our Lord states, He was going to continue to make His Father known for the express purpose that the love the Father had for the Son would also be in our Lord’s followers and Jesus would be in them as well. Our Lord proclaimed His Father to be the Sender of salvation to a weary world without hope and without God and He would continue to declare it even after His ascension through the precious Holy Spirit abiding in the saints. To make the Father known was the one great object of Jesus’ ministry and it is to be ours as well. Scripture tells us:
18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. John 1:18 (NIV)
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. Col 1:15 (NIV)
3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. Heb 1:3 (NIV)
6 "I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me." John 17:6-8 (NIV)
“God alone knows the depth and riches of His Godhead, and divine wisdom alone can declare His secrets.” Thomas Aquinas
To this day, Christ continually makes declarations of His Father’s great renown - through the indwelling Holy Spirit in the saints - to all the ends of the earth as long as the world endures. Experiencing God’s love in their own hearts the disciple is to then demonstrate it to others just as our Lord had done. We are to follow our Lord’s great example. Hence the Great Commission Jesus gave to His followers (and every follower thereafter) prior to His ascension from this earth:
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matt 28:18-20 (NIV)
Our Lord desires for His followers to experience a sense in their own hearts of the love of the Father as the Father had loved Him. Agape love – selfless love – comes straight from God. It is a patient and kind love that gives rather than self-seeks. It is a love that protects and hopes and perseveres – a love that never fails. It is a super natural love believers are to demonstrate to others through the power of the Spirit. If we do not love, we do not know God because He is love.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:7-12 (NIV)
“Love for God is ecstatic, making us go out from ourselves. It does not allow the lover to belong any more to Himself, but only to the Beloved.” Dionysios