Awaken The Dawn

A Vessel of Honor “the bread of the Father,” “knowing the will of the Father,” and “being sent by the Father.” Furthermore, Jesus reveals that He has seen the Father. John attempts to explain the relationship between Father and Son: “the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” The Amplified Version correlates “in the bosom of” and “in the intimate presence.” A footnote from The Life of Christ in Stereo echoes this insight:

The Greek expression pictures two persons at din- ner, ancient style, reclining with feet away from the table, one leaning against the bosom of the other at his left; the symbolism pictures complete fellow- ship. 4

However, we must be cautious in assessing the paragon of a prayerful life which Jesus modeled for us. After all, being mortal men, we are limited in how far we can fol- low Him into the power and depth of prayer. In one sense, we can claim the third Servant Song of Isaiah as our example; still, we must face the great gulf between His prayers and ours. His personal prayer life is beyond our ken, yet He set before us the paradigm of prayers which we should emulate. Although we may recognize that He is one with us, He is not one of us. 5 Moreover, since our Lord was truly man, He needed to be in contact with the Father as a man. He ministered as a man among men, and what He did as a man relates how He prayed as one. A good basic summary of this thought is given by Harold Lindsell:

If the true man, who lived in sinless life, needed to have this prayer fellowship, then sinful men are even more in need of this kind of communion. Therefore,

97

Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter