Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
—Romans 1:7
It is remarkable that the apostle Paul in each of his thirteen epistles wrote: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He had such a deep sense of the inseparable oneness of the Father and the Son in the work of grace, that in each opening benediction he referred to both.
This is a lesson of the utmost importance for us. There may be times in the Christian life when we think chiefly of God the Father, and so pray only to Him. But later on, we realize that it may cause spiritual loss if we do not grasp the truth that each day and each hour it is only through faith in Christ and in being united with Him that we can enjoy a full and abiding fellowship with God.
Remember the account of the Lamb in the midst of the throne. “The four beasts…rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come’” (Revelation 4:8). Later, John saw “in the midst of the throne…a Lamb as it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6). Of the entire worshipping multitude, none could see God without first seeing Christ, the Lamb of God. And none could see Christ without seeing the glory of God, the Father and Son—inseparably One.
O Christian, if you wish to know and worship God fully, seek Him and worship Him in Christ. And if you seek Christ, seek Him and worship Him in God. Then you will understand what it means to have “your life…hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), and your experience will be that the adoration of Christ is indispensable to the full knowledge of the love and holiness of God.
Be still, and speak these words in deepest reverence: “Grace…and peace”—all I can desire—“ from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Take time to meditate on this, to believe and to expect all from God the Father who sits upon the throne, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb in the midst of the throne. Then you will learn to truly worship God. Return frequently to this sacred scene, to give “glory…unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb” (Revelation 5:13).