Sword & Trowel 2018: Issue 2
holiness cannot be grasped. He who never sinned became sin for us, and the anguish of his soul, at the very prospect of it, is beyond human lan- guage to describe. ‘And what shall I say?’ he asks in
verse 27. (Here is the double ques- tion.) ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, he says. ‘For this cause came I unto this hour.’ And he yield- ed entirely to Calvary for us, with a prayer simple in form, but enormous in scope — ‘Father, glorify thy name.’
7 THE VOICE OF THE FATHER Then comes the seventh, the fi nal
voice (verse 28), the voice of the Fa- ther, the climax of voices — ‘a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorifi ed it, and will glorify it again.’ The Father had already glorifi ed the Son — showed his divine attributes — when his voice was heard at his baptism and at the transfi guration. He glorifi ed him through the mira- cles, recently through the raising of Lazarus, and now through the voice from Heaven. We know the disciples heard it because the people who thought it thundered or that it must be an angel were the people ‘that stood by’, or non-disciples. The voice was for the disci- ples, to strengthen and help them through the ordeal to come. They heard the voice of the Father. Three had heard it before at the transfi guration, now they all heard it. The people that stood by said they heard a voice coming most certainly from Heaven, and al-
though they could not make out what it said, only unbelief would fail to be impacted and awed. Calvary, when it was eventually understood, would show that God’s holiness and justice must be satisfi ed for salvation. It would show the love of Christ, that he should go so far to save his people. It would show his divine power, to endure the terrors of atonement to defeat Satan and secure salvation for the redeemed. And the resurrection would display Christ as the prince of life, sealing the revela- tion of God’s glory in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The seven voices affi rming the Messianic offi ce of Christ, now on the way to Calvary, reach their cli- max in the Father’s endorsement and undertaking to glorify the Godhead through the Son.
The apostle John magnifi cently
shows the superintending, overruling, sovereign hand of God in even the ‘incidental’ events of the great drama of redemption. Friends and foes, en- lightened and ignorant, human and divine, all authenticate and attest the Messianic offi ce and glory of Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Personal Spiritual Life, Steps for Guidance and The Purposes of the Lord’s Supper by Dr Masters have been translated into Spanish. (Available in the UK from Tabernacle Bookshop.)
Seven Voices of Calvary page 9
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