27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. 

It is important to note that Jesus is not depicted as a religious genius who has discovered the divine mysteries. Simply put, Jesus is the beloved Son who is on intimate terms with the Father.  It is the divine initiative of the Father who has given all things (v.27) to the Son.  This is not a message or a relationship that Matthew suddenly thrusts upon us as an assertion on the part of Jesus.  Matthew’s narrative has prepared the reader by means of preceding declarations about Jesus.

• Immanuel, the Son miraculously born to Mary, signifies the unique saving presence of God with his people (1:23).
• Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’ baptism mentions the pleasure the Father takes in the Son in words echoing Isaiah 42:1 (3:17; cf. 17:5).
• Satan was unable to shake the Son from his resolve not to test the Father (4:1–11).
• Jesus did miracles to show that the Father had given the Son of Man authority to forgive sins on the earth (9:6).
• In times of persecution, the disciples must confess the Son if they wish the Son to confess them to the Father (10:32–33, 40).

But one would be hard pressed to speak of the Son in terms more exalted than those used in 11:27, which uncompromisingly yet elegantly says that saving knowledge of God the Father comes only through the selective revelation of Jesus, the exclusive mediator of salvation.

The exclusive communion between Father and Son is of the essence of their relationship. For anyone else to share in this knowledge, however, is a matter of revelation, and as such is not a natural right, but a matter of divine choice. Thus God’s sovereign initiative in revelation, set out in vv. 25–26, is applied specifically to our knowledge of God: it does not come naturally (see 1 Cor. 2:6–16 for a spelling out of this theme). It depends on God’s choice, or, more specifically, the Son’s choice. Thus Jesus unequivocally describes himself and his will as the key to humanity’s approach to the Father; there is no other.

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