God the Father
THE FATHERHOOD OF A LOVING GOD
God the Father
THE FATHERHOOD OF A LOVING GOD
God does not keep His great love to Himself; it is also transitive. That is, the object of His love can lie outside of Himself. Just at the living God offers us life and the perfect God offers us truth, the loving God offers us Himself! When we contemplate the outpouring of God’s love for us, we realize that this is not the kind of love we are accustomed to among our peers. We may be at ease when we think about God’s awesome power, penetrating knowledge, and intimate presence – because we are assured that all of these attributes are active under the umbrella of His holiness, purity, morality, and “ethics.” The realization that God is loving, can put us at rest because God’s loving is, shall we say, the expression of His holiness.
We are deeply moved and truly grateful in knowing that we have such a loving God. We may still be confused, however, by the great gap between His love for us and our love for Him. We may feel about His love as Jesus’ disciples felt about prayer. After Jesus had finished praying on one occasion, one of His disciples requested, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). We must break out of a worldly mindset to embrace the love of God. We must have a meeting of minds with God if we wish to respond to His overture of love.
First, we must realize that “love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will.” We may find this shocking after being nurtured in a society that equates love with sensualness. A society that believes that love is perhaps 90 percent sex is a long way from being able to understand or appreciate the love of God. Although the word eros is not found in the New Testament, the dangers of eroticism are stressed (Matthew 5:27-29; 1 Corinthians 6:18-20).
Surely love that is approved by God must be expressed on a higher level than that. The institution of marriage is God’s prescribed way to propagate the human race and provide for the intimacies of shared sexual love. When a marriage is functioning as God planned, it is held up in such high regard by Him that it is compared to the relationship of Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:22-33).
Friendship is another beautiful expression of love. In fact, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). The noun philos, used dozens of times in the New Testament, usually indicates friendship (John 11:11; Luke 12:4). The verb phileo, also used frequently in the Scriptures, shows love for friends (John 11:3), love for Jesus (John 11:15), and parental love (Matthew 10:37).
So God’s love is demonstrated in remarkable ways. The highest degree of love is that shown by our God, Who is love (1 John 4:8). Agapao is used hundreds of times in the New Testament. This love calls us to the highest plateau of living. It has heaven as its source and its designed is to take us there. It is not an abstraction. It is not merely an influence. God’s love for us has a vital, living quality.
The greatest demonstration of that love in history is God’s great love offering – Jesus Christ, His Son. This is agape, the all-giving love: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). This offering of Jesus shows us not only the love the Father has for us but also the love the son has for the Father. In Gethsemane , Jesus prayed in great distress that the will of His Father be done; and He gave Himself willingly. This is the greatest measure of love on earth – to give ourselves freely to the Father’s will through Jesus Christ, our Lord: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:2-3).
As we look further at God as our Father we find that God will be to us either a compassionate Father or a consuming fire. Two developments in recent years have caused concern in the field of biblical studies. They frequently go hand in hand and both touch on the subject we are preparing to examine. Therefore, a few words need to be said about these developments as a preliminary to our present topic.
The first development falls within the area of biblical translation. Anyone who has attempted to do serious translation knows there is some truth in the old adage: “Every translation is an interpretation.” We run into problems when we try to bring an ancient text into a modern language. For example: the English translators of the Elizabethan era felt at ease in translating ta splaqchna as “the bowels.” However, approximately four hundred years later the translators are convinced that the translation is better served with the words “the hearts,” as in Philemon, verse 7. In each case a metonymy is involved. At the time of the King James Version (1611), the “bowels” were thought to be the seat of the emotions. In modern times, the “heart” seems more appropriate. In this passage, “the bowels of the saints” were thought to be the seat of the emotions. In modern times, the “heart” seems more appropriate. In this passage, “the bowels of the saints” and “the hearts of the saints” are attempts to convey the idea of how Christians have been refreshed. We can understand and appreciate this kind of translation challenge.
However, when translators decide that “meaning” must take priority over “words,” the result may easily become mere paraphrase under the guise of translation. This raises legitimate concern. For example: The Greek phrase “en de te mia ton sabbaton” means “on the first [day] of the week” (Acts 20:7). This is indicated in a number of versions. However, the New English Bible reads “on the Saturday night ...” The reasoning for this change is logical, but it is not at all conclusive. There is no justification for altering the plain words of the text when there are no ambiguities or variants to create textual problems.
The second development falls within the area of cultural influence and follows on the heels of the “open translation” practice mentioned previously. We refer to the feminist movement. As with most significant changes, the feminist movement of our time has helped to correct many inequities, giving rise to abuses as well.
In the area of biblical studies, feminism has merged with liberation theology, resulting in some amazing and disconcerting “translations” of the Bible. For example, the New Revised Standard Version is a meticulous version. It is obvious that the translators have a high view of the Bible as the Word of God, yet they consistently translate the Greek word adelphoi, which means “brethren” or “brothers,” as “brothers and sisters.” Since these translations are in the contexts where the generic term adelphoi includes “sisters,” one may wonder why the translators wanted to place in the text the phrase “brothers and sisters” while stating in a footnote that the Greek text means “brothers.” Should not the translation of the text carry what the text says and let paraphrasing and explanation be in the footnotes? In spite of an explanatory paragraph in the preface of the New Revised Standard Version, it seems to me that the translators have yielded to the climate of the times in biblical studies and have cast a shadow on what otherwise is a commendable work.
These comments have been made in order to alert us to the fact that “gender” has become a topic to be included in any discussion of God the Father. This has not been a pressing problem in ages past. Now that a furor has been raised by liberal theologians and the feminist movement objecting to the exclusive use of the term Father for God and other “gender” matters, it is time to examine the issue.
With these considerations in mind, we will now look at God as “Father” and see how important it is for each of His children to embrace this relationship with Him.
So the question arises, “How is God our Father?” The very essence of God is pneuma, meaning “spirit.” “Spirit” is neuter in Greek, which means that the word has neither male nor female connotations. Jesus said that we must worship pneumati or “in spirit”, without regard to gender (John 4:24). This reminds us of Paul’s great affirmation concerning the baptized ones: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
It may seem a bit strange to speak of gender without including the idea of sex – that is, male and female. However, this is common in Greek and many other languages. For example: I remember my initial encounter with this linguistic trait years ago when I first started studying German. I was astonished to learn that der Loffel (masculine gender) means “spoon;” die Gabel (feminine gender) means “fork;” and das Messer (neuter gender) means “knife!” Of course, these are grammatical genders; they have nothing to do with maleness or femaleness. How is it, then, that we refer to God as Father? The answer lies in two directions.
First, we need to remember that our Father is an eternal Father. We go directly to the internal relations within the Godhead. Here we find one answer to our question in the essential nature of God. He is a Triune God, Whose essence is spirit, in whom there are three Persons. The eternal God is the eternal Father, the eternal Son, and the eternal Spirit. Therefore, God is first spoken of as Father, because as Father, He is always in eternal relationship with His “only begotten Son” (John 3:16). There has always been a Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. God the Son is not a created being. God the Spirit proceeds from God the Father and is sent by God the Son (John 15:26). All of this means that there never was an occasion in eternity when God “needed” a female consort in order to “produce or create” a prodigy. The idol male and female gods of fertility among the Canaanites were denounced and legislated against in the Old Testament.
How, then, is it possible to refer to God as Father? We do so because He is eternally Father by spiritual nature in the Godhead. As in essence He is spirit, in person He is Father.
