September 15 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading:

Matthew 28:18-20:

¹⁸And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
¹⁹Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
²⁰Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Devotional:

Wondrous intimacy is at once imparted to social intercourse, when some one who was thus far a stranger to you, or whom you knew, but only addressed as "Sir," allows you to call him by name. And you feel that you have become more intimate still, when the family name drops away and gives place to the baptismal name.

Children do not know this transition. Only when the shoes of childhood have been outgrown, do the forms of politeness come into force which aim to elevate the conventionality of childlife, and to graduate it to those nobler forms which purposely create a certain distance between one person and another, in order that they can develop themselves more freely. But when in later years, either because closer acquaintance ripened into friendship, or because association in a common pursuit lessened the distance, and titles fall away again, and for the first time we address one another again by name, then we feel ourselves at once drawn closer together, and it seems that mutual confidence but waited the chance to reveal itself.

As a rule, the higher the station is of the person who allows us to call him by name, the greater the leap is from estrangement to the more confidential intercourse. It is indeed great when we call one by his family name; but greater when we address him by his personal name. Another difference is, that among women, even as with children, the personal, baptismal name is used, and almost never the family name, while, as a rule, among men the family name is in vogue, and the use of the personal name indicates a far higher degree of intimacy. In family life every more dignified title falls away, and the use of the family name would have no meaning, since everything hinges on the baptismal name, or passes over into an entirely different sort of name which expresses the relation one sustains to the other. So we come at length to the mother-name and the father-name. We speak of husband and wife, and parents say: "my child." These names commonly used in the family are more than sounds, and express something essential in the mutual relationships. They are somewhat on a line with the names we give to a physician, clergyman or sexton, which indicate that we do not mean their person but their office. But while with the latter, the person and the relation in which they stand to us, separate themselves, the father-name, the mother-name and the name of "my child" contain this excellent trait, that they express both the persons and the relation they sustain to us, and thus indicate the highest that a name can express.

If then, after these observations, we address God as "Our Father" or as "Abba, dear Father," we appreciate more fully than before the supreme privilege which this Father-name confers upon a child of God.

Not every name by which we seek to indicate the Eternal Being, is equally tender and intimate.

The vague name of "God" brings no approach. The mere word "God" indicates a highly-exalted Being, that far transcends mankind; but the word itself expresses nothing, it excludes, and reveals nothing, it points to no single relationship; and only when we put "my" before it, and speak of "my God," or of the "Covenant-God," does it become significant and vital.

The same applies to the name, "the Most High." In Scripture this name is used particularly in circles outside of Israel. It occurs in connection with Melchizedek, with Nebuchadnezzar (Isaiah 14:14), in the heathen world, where Daniel dwelt, and with good and fallen angels. In the sixth verse of the eighty-second Psalm angels are called "Children of the Most High." Gabriel speaks of "the power of the Highest" that shall overshadow Mary, and so likewise Demons call Jesus "Thou Son of God, Most High" (Luke 8:28). This is but natural. This name of the Most High merely indicates that our God is exalted far above all created things, but it is not a name that brings Him closer to us or initiates one into His secret fellowship.

It becomes altogether different when God reveals Himself as the Almighty, as Jehovah, as our Lord.

The name of God Almighty, by which the patriarchs were permitted to call their God, speaks of protection, of a refuge in time of peril, of assurance regarding the given promise, of a fellow-member in a covenant, who will break every form of opposition in our behalf. Hence the rich development of this name exhibits itself in the manifold references to God as our high tower, or refuge, our rock; as of a God in Whose tent we may dwell, and Who is our hiding-place. It is all the unfolding of this one idea, God Almighty means an Almightiness that watches over us and works for our good.

The same applies to the name Jehovah.

This name also is not a mere sound, but an expression of being, and more particularly an expression of that in the Being of God, which we need for our comfort in the face of the anxiety with which the constant change, instability, unsettledness, and, at length, the finiteness, of human life fills us.

Everything about us comes but to pass away. We ourselves change continuously with every changing thing around us. Scarcely has the spring passed over into summer before autumn is at hand which in turn succumbs to the winter sleep of death. This conflicts with our inner being which calls for immortality, and which at the bar of its own consciousness in old age, still maintains identity with the self of the child. And still this change around us and within us ceaselessly goes on. Nothing is sure. It is all as the rocking of the waves on which we are rocked, and on which we are irresistibly driven forward.

And now, in the midst of this restless ocean, this wondrous name of Jehovah: "I am that I am" is the revelation of what endures, of what abides, of the eternal and of the unchangeable, and merges with the name of Rock. Thus the result of this revelation of the name is, that he who has been apprehended by Jehovah, and who himself has laid hold on Him, has in God the fixed point from whence he defies the restless tossings of the waters on the sea of life, and in the God Whom he worships lays hold on eternity itself. To know Jehovah is to have eternal life.

The same is the case with the name: "Lord."

He who only speaks of God, says nothing of the relation in which he stands to him; but he who says, "Lord, our God," or "God the Lord," bears witness to a relation which he sustains to the Eternal Being. He is the property of God and His servant; from God he expects orders and appointments; he recognizes that he must live for God, because He is his Lord, and that therefore he exists for the sake of God.

But even this is not all.

The love of God, that sought and drew us, has made still farther advances in the revelation of the name, and has taught Israel already to know the Father-name, which is by no means revealed in the New Testament for the first time. When, by Malachai, God said, "If then I am a Father, where is my honor?" this one saying already shows, that in Israel the sense and meaning of this Father-name was clearly understood. Even the antithesis of the child was felt in it. Or was it not already said of David, "I shall be to him a Father and he shall be to me a son?"

Now every one feels that the Eternal Being comes close to us in this Father-name. It is as though all distance falls away, and as though by this name God Himself invites us to warm confidence, close fellowship, and intimate communion. The mother-name would have done this still more tenderly, but yet not so richly, because the mother-name is more closely associated with childhood and early youth, and the father-name embraces all of life. Moreover the Father-name of God includes both the tenderness of the mother-name and the energetic intimacy of the father-name. "Though a mother may forget her sucking child, yet will I not forget thee" (Isaiah 49:15).

Only, with the Father-name does inward religion unfold itself in all its richness and fullness. For now the family life originates, the continuous fellowship with God, the outpouring of the heart, the holding of oneself fast by God in confidence and love, and the fellowship of prayer, with a tenderness which no longer holds anything.

More yet, this Father-name includes the name of child, and with the "Abba Father" comes the surprising discovery that one is himself a child of God, and with it is disclosed the nobility of our race, the royal exaltation above everything in the unconscious creation that surrounds us, and the thought which transforms all of life, that our real life is not here, for that this is a life with and by and in our God.

And with this the last step is made possible, and, at length, comes the full revelation of Father, Son and Holy Ghost—of the one and threefold Being.

Hereby, at once, the relation in which we stand to God, is connected with the Being of God Himself.

By itself the Father-name might yet stand outside of the Divine Being, and simply have been borrowed from human family-life. So taken, it would merely imply that, as you are a child of your father in the home, so likewise God watches as a Father over you.

But now all this becomes different at once.

Now God is Father from all eternity in His own Being and in that Being of God is the Son, so that what is known in the family on earth, is merely the reflection of what was in the Being of God from all eternity. Thus there is no more comparison, but the reality lies expressed for us in that Father-name; and if we may be called God's child, this name does not come to us from comparison with the family, but directly from the Image of God.

He is not merely called our Father, but eternally He is our Father. And in like manner you are not merely called His child, but generated by Him, and born from Him, you are his child.

This now is salvation.

And therefore he who deems that the confession of the Trinity is merely a doctrinal question, does not fathom by a long way what lies in this revelation of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Only the Triune God is the wealth, the delight of our soul.

This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."

The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit

Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.