“All that the Father giveth.” By this word “Father,” Christ describes the person giving; from which we may learn several useful things.
First, the Lord God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is concerned with the Son in the salvation of his people. True, his acts, as to our salvation, are diverse from those of the Son; he was not capable of doing that, or those things for us, as did the Son; he died not, he spilled not blood for our redemption, as the Son; but yet he has a hand, a great hand, in our salvation too. As Christ saith, “The Father himself loveth you,” and his love is manifest in choosing of us, in giving of us to his Son; yea, and in giving his Son also to be a ransom for us. Hence he is called, “the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.” For here even the Father hath himself found out, and made way for his grace to come to us through the sides and the heart-blood of his well-beloved Son (Col 1:12-14). The Father, therefore, is to be remembered and adored, as one having a chief hand in the salvation of sinners. We ought to give “thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col 1:12). “The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” (John 4:14). As we also see in the text, the “Father giveth” the sinner to Christ to save him.
Second, Christ Jesus the Lord, by this word “Father,” would familiarize this giver to us. Naturally, the name of God is dreadful to us, especially when he is discovered to us by those names that declare his justice, holiness, power, and glory. Still, now that the word “Father” is familiar, it frightens not the sinner but rather inclined his heart to love and be pleased with the remembrance of him. Hence Christ also, when he would have us pray with godly boldness, puts this word “Father” into our mouths; saying, “When ye pray, say, Our Father, which art in heaven;” concluding thereby, that by the familiarity that such a word is intimated, the children of God may take more boldness to pray for, and ask great things. I have often found, that when I can say this word, Father, it does me more good than when I call him by any other Scripture name.
It is noteworthy that calling God by his relative title was rare among the saints in Old Testament times. Seldom do you find him called by this name; no, sometimes not in three or four books: but now in New Testament times, he is called by no name so often as this, both by the Lord Jesus himself and by the apostles afterwards. Indeed, the Lord Jesus was he that first made this name common among the saints, and that taught them, both in their discourses, their prayers, and in their writings, so much to use it; it being more pleasing to, and discovering more plainly our interest in, God, than any other expression; for by this one name we are made to understand that all our mercies are the offspring of God, and that we also that are called are his children by adoption.
This word “giveth” is out of Christ’s ordinary dialect, and seems intimate, at first, as if the Father’s gift to the Son was not a past act, but one that is present and continuing; when, indeed, this gift was bestowed upon Christ when the covenant, the eternal covenant, was made between them before all worlds. Wherefore, in those other places, when this gift is mentioned, it is still spoken of, as of a past act; as, “All that he hath give me; to as many as thou hast given me; thou gave them me; and those which thou hast given me.”
Therefore, of necessity, this must be the first and chief sense of the text; I mean of this word “giveth,” otherwise the doctrine of election, and of the eternal covenant which was made between the Father and the Son, in which covenant this gift of the Father is most certainly comprised, will be shaken, or at leastwise questionable, by erroneous and wicked men: for they may say, That the Father gave not all those to Christ that shall be saved, before the world was made; for that this act of giving is an act of continuation. But again, this word “giveth” is not to be rejected, for it hath its proper use, and may signify to us—
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