The Fatherhood of God

John 8:44; Psalm 103:13, 14, etc.

Introduction:

Much has been said about the “Fatherhood of God”, especially by those who attempt to extend the concept and call it the “Universal Fatherhood of God.” The fact is, God flatly denies that He is the father of everyone, and Jesus pointed out that being the offspring of some person would cause that offspring to bear some resemblance to the parent, one way or another…specifically, He said “if God were your Father, you would love me.”

So, we have a problem: These two ideas are sharply opposed, and one is called out by the Savior as being false, yet that one is, by far, the more popular of the two notions. They cannot both be true. Jesus said to those same people (John 8:44), “Ye are of your father the devil, and his works will ye do!” He went on to explain what kind of works he meant; in this particular case, lying and murder. And, as a race, we humans do seem to excel at both. The market for nonfiction is huge, but we are less interested in it than we are in fiction. The movie industry is completely given over to fiction, both for entertainment and for politically inspired social engineering. And the most popular fiction includes violence, immorality and, frequently Spiritism of some sort.

From God’s Perspective:

When God refers to Himself as a Father, what does he mean? Who does he claim as his offspring? Does it mean something different, for example, when he refers to someone as his “son” than when he call them His children, or “infants”—little children?

To begin with, it is probably important for us to see that there is one word in the Old Testament, which is translated “father”: the Hebrew word “ab”. And, in the New Testament, there is only one main word, too: the Greek word “pater,” which is where we get our English words, patriarch, paternity and paternal. Both the Hebrew word and the Greek word can mean either one’s literal paternal parent, or simply a forefather.

In some cases, both the Old Testament and the New Testament use the words to mean the “originator” or Creator of something or someone, while not indicating a paternal relationship. In at least one case, Jesus used the Greek word “pater” in exactly that way, saying that Satan “is a liar and the father of it”…He does not mean that Satan has a “paternal relationship” with lies: only that he is the originator of deception. In this sense only, one could say that God is the Father of all, meaning only that He is the Creator. But in terms of relationship, He does not claim all his creation as His children, or His offspring, let alone, his heirs.

In our own lives, of course, we have that dichotomy of meaning, too. It is possible for someone to have an absent father, with whom they have never had a relationship. He was their originator, but never filled the role of protector, teacher, and provider in their life. In fact, most human parents fail at one level or another. None are perfect, no matter how we may desire to be. But God is! So we need to look to Him, and be blessed and encouraged by His role as our heavenly Father. How does He fulfill that role?

In the Old Testament there are a few references to God as a “Father”: some in reference to His relationship with Israel as a nation, and at least one (Psalm 89:26) in reference to his relationship with a human…King Solomon, specifically; but, ultimately, that one actually turns out to be describing His relationship with The Messiah, God the Son (see Hebrews 1:5). It found its short-term fulfillment in His relationship with Solomon, but the final fulfillment was in Jesus Christ. It is interesting, that of the hundreds of uses of the word “father”, in the Old Testament, virtually all of them are strictly in regard to human fathers, or ancestors, not God. But in the New Testament, that pattern is nearly completely reversed. Virtually all New Testament references to “Father” are specifically in reference to God the Father, as opposed to a human father, and (sometimes), in comparison or contrast to God the Son or God the Holy Spirit.

In Psalm 103:13, 14, it says “…as a father pities (or, ‘has compassion for’) his children, so God pities those that fear him”…describing His response to believers in general…He is compassionate toward us. The next verse continues, “…for He knows our frame; He remembers that we are but dust.” He is not expecting us to do anything outside our capability, unless we do it with His ability. Jesus confirmed this idea in John 15:5, saying “…apart from Me, ye can do nothing.” If an ordinary human being said such a thing, it would be the grossest arrogance: when Jesus said it, it was the simple truth. We are not capable, on our own, of doing anything that has eternal value. Our core characteristic, as natural people, is to be contrary to God. He says that our sin nature not only is not subject to God, but cannot be subject to Him. In our natural ability, we cannot offer anything clean, or holy, to God, because we are contaminated with Sin. God knows that, and He loves us anyway, and He offers to replace our strength with His. He then works through us to make something of eternal value, and rewards us as if we had done it…just for allowing Him to work through us.

From Jesus’s Perspective:

Bearing in mind that Jesus is God—God the Son—it is still instructive to see how Jesus responded to God the Father. We see the following:

Love
Admiration
Respect
Imitation
Faith
Submission
Obedience
Fellowship

Jesus made a point of the fact that he was obedient to the Father, but that it was an obedience based upon admiration, and respect, not fear of punishment. He said repeatedly that what He Himself did was in direct imitation of His Father. At Gethsemane, he submitted Himself to His Father, in faith, knowing that His Father would do what was perfect.

We see an Old Testament portrait of this relationship in Abraham and Isaac, as they walked up into the mountains of Moriah. They walked together in fellowship. Isaac carrying the wood for his own destruction, while his father carried the knife and the fire-pot. Isaac could see what was coming, and definitely had the strength to refuse, and could easily have outrun his father…but chose to maintain faith and fellowship. Just as Jesus did, at Gethsemane, Isaac, by his actions, said, “…not my will but thine be done.”

Jesus said that our Heavenly Father knows our needs and provides for us. Are there exceptions? Yes, Hebrews 11 states that the “best of the best”…of whom the World is not worthy, were those who had everything taken from them, and lived completely destitute lives, fleeing for their lives, and looking to God for their future. He said these died in faith, not having received the promise. Did that mean that God has failed them? No, it means that He has something better for them. He says so. (Hebrews 11:30)

From Our Perspective:

We must choose to look at Him through the eyes of Scripture: What characteristics of God, what attributes of His nature, do we think of when we consider Him as our Father? Here is a short list:

Omniscience
Omnisapience
Omnipotence
Immutability
Authority
Faithfulness
Steadfastness
Righteousness
Mercy
Love
Goodness
Grace

How might each of these attributes affect our relationship with Him, and our response to Him?

Omniscience…and Goodness:

Being confident that our Father is literally all-knowing, and that along with being all-knowing, He is completely Good, can give me confidence in His choosing my place in life, and providing opportunities in that place for me to “blossom where I am planted,” rather than constantly fretting against His will for me.

Omnisapience…and Love

Knowing that my heavenly Father is all-wise is comforting, because it means that He will guide me and care for me in appropriate ways. His Love will be extended to me, not in mushy, “that’s OK, Sweetie-pie, Daddy loves you” ways, but in Divine wisdom, doing what is actually best for me. Jesus went to the Cross, as an active outworking of the Love of God…and Divine wisdom.

Omnipotence…and Authority:

I can be confident that the absolute power of God the Father is not limited, because He also possesses the absolute authority to speak, and carry out His will. These two ideas are not exactly the same. A strong man may have the physical ability to bend others to his will through force, or through threat of force…but may act far beyond any authority he has been allotted. We call such people overbearing bullies, or abusers, or, in some cases, criminals. But God has the authority, and uses it wisely. He certainly can stop the storm, but sometimes, instead, He shelters His children from the storm.

Immutability…and Grace

In most cases, when a person says they “never change,” that is a bad thing…most people need to change, either because there are bad things about them that require repentance—which means “a change of mind”—or because they are needing to grow, and learn from experience.

But God says that He is unchanging, and that is a Good Thing! His Grace is always applicable in our lives. His Love is unfailing. He never wakes up in a bad mood and acts out against his family, or says cruel things because he is frustrated. He is Unchanging…immutable. When we look back at how God saved sinners in the Old Testament, all the way back to Adam and Eve, we see that they were saved by Grace through Faith, just as we are today. Why? Because our Heavenly Father is unchanging. His Goodness, and His Love and His Grace never come and go like the tide… they are always the same. God, our Heavenly Father, is overwhelmingly Good all the time, whether we see it that way or not.

Righteousness…and Mercy

The Father is Righteous…completely and unwaveringly righteous, like a blindingly white, powerful searchlight, that exposes everything. He is Holy, completely separate from, and completely opposed to sin. God says that He hates sin, just as a parent who has lost a child to a drug overdose would hate the illegal drug trade. God has lost every single one of his human creation to Sin, and is working to win them back…to save them from eternal destruction.

1^st John 1:5 says that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. This refers to His eternal Holiness and Righteousness, but it poses a problem for those of us who seek to know Him, and to approach His throne. The problem is that we, as sinners, are not righteous, or holy. We are deficient in every way, when compared to Him. So, from our perspective, His Mercy becomes His most important attribute, along with His Love.

God’s Righteousness and Justice were satisfied at the Cross…and that is where His Mercy was extended to us, as well. He says that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. Not those that just believe He exists, but rather those who trust in His Mercy and Grace through the Cross. The demons believe he exists: they have seen him face to face from the moment they were created…and they live in fearful knowledge of the coming judgment. Mercy was not extended to the angels who sinned. They knew Him face to face, and chose to rebel. None of us have ever seen God…thus we all sin in ignorance, to one degree or another. And God knows our limitations, and He extends His Mercy and Grace to us, as a loving Father makes allowance for the fragility and ignorance of his toddlers. He is compassionate toward us.

Steadfastness…and Faithfulness

These two sound as though they are the same, but Steadfastness could possibly only refer to a “stubborn refusal to give up”, whereas Faithfulness carries the idea of full commitment to a person or an ideal. So to say that my heavenly Father is steadfast in His faithfulness toward me is a matter of full confidence that God will not give up on me. In Philippians 1:6, it says “Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Yes! That means God will stubbornly refuse to give up on me! It means He is completely committed to my well-being, and will never abandon me to my sin, or to Satan, the enemy of my soul. He will never forsake me and leave me to flounder alone. This is why the Psalmist could say, “Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me!” He knew of the faithfulness and steadfastness of God! He knew that God would be with him through all of life and beyond, into eternity. He knew what it meant to have confidence in his Heavenly Father.

Conclusion:

We have all had human fathers: some wonderful in every way, some distressingly lacking, in one way or another, and some completely absent, as having abandoned their family to follow their own desires. (This is true of mothers as well, but there is no “Heavenly Mother”, to whom we can make a comparison, so we simply don’t go there. We are just grateful for who they are.)

But all of us, as believers, have a Heavenly Father, in whom we can have full confidence, and faith, and to whom we can, in full confidence, offer obedience and submission, love and admiration, and above all, respect. We can imitate Him, in full faith that he is worthy of our worship and, in doing all of the above, we can join in fellowship with Him, just as Jesus did.

To whatever degree it has been possible, given the relationship we have had with our human fathers, we have offered them the same sort of responses. And, to those of us whose human fathers are still alive, we still can offer that sort of respect and love, tempered by the awareness that they, like we, are sinners, and flawed from birth. We do not compare them to God (or anyone else), and shake our heads as though they are to be dismissed for malfeasance of duty. We treat them with respect, because God commands it. We love them for the things they have done right, and we extend God’s Mercy for their failures, knowing that we, too, are failures. (Remember? “…for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God?”) My children were astonished to discover that I didn’t know everything. I was astonished to find out that they had ever assumed I did. From that point forward, a balance had to be established. They learned to respect me in spite of the fact that I don’t know everything, and the fact that I make mistakes.

If you are a father, and can still actively emulate the character of God, in your continuing striving to be the man God has called you to be, then press on, in faith, knowing that God is with you and will work through you as you seek to imitate Him. Keep in mind the character of God, and strive to be like Him, in Love and Mercy, and kindness, maintaining a righteous, Godly example for your children to follow, as well.

If your father is still alive, please offer him the love and respect God says we are to offer to both our parents. I wish my parents were still alive, so that I could do that, but I am truly grateful that God gave me the parents he did, even with their shortcomings, as, overall, He used those influences to shape me and make me the man he has called me to be.

Lord Jesus, thank you for revealing the Father to your followers, and letting us see Him in you. Allow us to reflect your glory, as you reflected His glory. Pour your love and righteousness through us, and make us emissaries of your Grace.