Son contains the idea of the universe.  Jesus tells his disciples that his father had no secrets from him; that he knew the Father as the Father knew him.  The Son must know the Father; he only could know him—­and knowing, he could reveal him; the Son could make the other, the imperfect children, know the Father, and so become such as he.  All things were given unto him by the Father, because he was the Son of the Father:  for the same reason he could reveal the things of the Father to the child of the Father.  The child-relation is the one eternal, ever enduring, never changing relation.

Note that, while the Lord here represents the knowledge his father and he have each of the other as limited to themselves, the statement is one of fact only, not of design or intention:  his presence in the world is for the removal of that limitation.  The Father knows the Son and sends him to us that we may know him; the Son knows the Father, and dies to reveal him.  The glory of God’s mysteries is—­that they are for his children to look into.

When the Lord took the little child in the presence of his disciples, and declared him his representative, he made him the representative of his father also; but the eternal child alone can reveal him.  To reveal is immeasurably more than to represent; it is to present to the eyes that know the true when they see it.  Jesus represented God; the spirit of Jesus reveals God.  The represented God a man may refuse; many refused the Lord; the revealed God no one can refuse; to see God and to love him are one.  He can be revealed only to the child; perfectly, to the pure child only.  All the discipline of the world is to make men children, that God may be revealed to them.

No man, when first he comes to himself, can have any true knowledge of God; he can only have a desire after such knowledge.  But while he does not know him at all, he cannot become in his heart God’s child; so the Father must draw nearer to him.  He sends therefore his first born, who does know him, is exactly like him, and can represent him perfectly.  Drawn to him, the children receive him, and then he is able to reveal the Father to them.  No wisdom of the wise can find out God; no words of the God-loving can reveal him.  The simplicity of the whole natural relation is too deep for the philosopher.  The Son alone can reveal God; the child alone understand him.  The elder brother companies with the younger, and makes him yet more a child like himself.  He interpenetrates his willing companion with his obedient glory.  He lets him see how he delights in his father, and lets him know that God is his father too.  He rouses in his little brother the sense of their father’s will; and the younger, as he hears and obeys, begins to see that his elder brother must be the very image of their father.  He becomes more and more of a child, and more and more the Son reveals to him the Father.  For he knows that to know the Father is the one thing needful to every