God The Father

Familiar verses, I'm sure, for they contain the story of the prodigal son. We shall not read the whole of the parable, but just the first part of the story where the son returns to his father. So we commence at the 11th verse, and it's the 15th of Luke's gospel.

And he, that is Jesus, said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and I'm no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants.

And he arose and came to his father, but when he was yet a great whale, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and I'm no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and be merry.

For this my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found, and they began to be merry. Amen.

Well then, once again we return to this grand and noble subject of the doctrine of God. And I cannot ask you to turn to one specific passage of scripture, because we shall be reviewing a number of scriptures during the evening. And perhaps from time to time you will find it helpful to look them up.

I think the majority of the references to which I shall allude have been recorded in the notes, if you care to look them through later on. Now the doctrine of God, as we have already discovered, is a fascinating one, and a glorious one. And let me spend a moment or two just reminding you of what is now familiar territory, ground that we have already covered.

We have recognized that the doctrine of God is the focal point of the Bible. The Bible is the revelation, the disclosure of God to men and women. And we commenced our studies by analyzing, to some degree, certain of the arguments that are put forward today against the existence of God.

And then we looked rather hurriedly at some of the arguments that are put forward to counter those views, and to demonstrate, indeed, the claim is made even to prove the existence of God. Then you recall how we sifted through evidence from the Bible itself to find information as to how we, as Christian people, should approach this subject. And we discovered that the knowledge of God comes through faith.

It's not scientific knowledge. It's not knowledge about which you can experiment. But rather, knowledge of God comes through faith.

Let him who cometh unto God, says the writer of the Hebrews, first of all believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently search for him, seek after him. Well, having come that far, we then proceeded to sift the evidence of Scripture more and more to determine what sort of God this is that we, as Christian people, claim to worship. And we were driven to the conclusion that this God is a personal God.

He's not remote. He's not detached from our lives, but he's nigh unto all who call upon him. He's a God who's capable of entering into relationships.

Indeed, he's a God who wants to enter into a personal relationship with men and women. And further, we discovered from this book that some of the characteristics, some of the dominant features of the person of God are herein recorded. God is a holy God.

We thought about his holiness and all that this means. And then coupled with his holiness and sort of interrelated with it in the person of God is a feature of his love. The God that we serve is a holy God and a God of love.

And then you remember how last week, following what I hope is a logical and, I pray, a clear presentation of the doctrine, we referred to the great statements that are found on virtually every page of the Bible that indicate the absolute power of God. Our God is a sovereign God. In him all power is invested.

He is the origin, the source of all power. Well, having said that, we recognize that we landed ourselves with a problem. If our God is absolutely sovereign, if he has all power and all control in this universe, then what about ourselves? How are we to view men and women in relationship to God? Are we to think of ourselves as being akin to robots that have been constructed by some inventor? Is the doctrine of man, in effect, that the Bible presents us with one which suggests that man is a mechanical being, that he has no human responsibility at all, that he has no accountability to God? Well, we declare that this most certainly was not the case.

Man has. Man has a responsibility to God. Man is not just a robot.

Man is accountable to the Lord. And we said that these two doctrines of the sovereignty of God and the thought of human responsibility, though logically we might not be able to work them out, though to some extent they seem to be opposed to one another, yet the Bible most clearly defines that the two truths exist and are to be accepted. And let me remind you, and we need to remind ourselves of these things, that the final court of appeal, when you are studying the doctrines of Christianity, is not the mind.

It is not human reason. It is the Word of God. It is revelation.

And where you cannot be completely logical on the human plane, it is incumbent upon the believer to bow to the authority of God's Word, and to recognize that if God's ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts, then there are going to be certain areas in theology where we cannot logically understand, but where we believe. Well, that's as far as we have come to this point. But I now need to open up the subject at a different angle, and to show you another facet of it.

For we have been talking about the doctrine of God, and historically, throughout the years of the existence of the Christian church, believers have proclaimed that the God of Christianity is a trinity. We talk about the triune God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

And having cleared the ground at least a little thus far, it remains for us to look at the teaching of the Bible in connection with the trinity, in connection with the triune God. The doctrine is simply put. God according to the Bible, God according to the Christian church, is three persons.

And yet those three people, those three persons, are the same. They are equal. God the three-in-one, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, each with their different characteristics, and yet each basically the same.

The three, as I say, in one. And again we run into difficulty, because logically speaking, on the human plane this is impossible. You cannot have three things that are one, and yet three at the same time.

The human mind just cannot comprehend such a concept. And yet the Bible, as I shall endeavor to demonstrate, most clearly teaches that this is the case. So the first thing that the believer has to do when he is presenting the doctrine of God is to recognize that there are certain aspects in this doctrine that he does not fully understand, and he cannot fully explain.

And of course the critic will seize onto this admission, and maybe he will charge the Christian with being an obscurantist, with being the sort of person who cannot rationalize upon his beliefs, who cannot always explain it. Well, this could well be the attack that the unbeliever might make on the Christian. But again, we've no need to be afraid of this.

Why? Well, you see, the very belief that we have in our God, as I've already intimated, indicates that there are certain aspects of the doctrine which we don't claim to believe. God is far greater than human comprehension. If I could analyze God, if I could bring Him to you as some scientific experiment and perform experiments upon Him, He would not be God.

He would be God reduced to the form of man. He would be on the same level as you and me. But the Bible speaks about the otherness of God, about the distinctiveness of God.

And for me, it is not remarkable that I cannot fully understand God. For me, the miracle is that I can understand a little bit about Him, that through the revelation of Jesus Christ, something has been conveyed to me, to my intellect about this God, something that I can latch onto and understand. My dear friend, the believer's problem is not that we don't understand it all.

The believer's reaction is how glorious a thought it is to accept that something of the nature of God has been revealed to us, and it is that revelation that we are to pass on to men and women. So then, the Bible argues for the idea of the Trinity, for the concept of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And the Bible nowhere claims to give a full, complete presentation of the doctrine of God.

Rather, it goes on to affirm great is the mystery of godliness. That's as far as you can go. You can take what the Bible says, and where the Bible gives no further information, then you'll look for that day, which the apostle Paul was anticipating, when he would see clearly, and when things which were not revealed to him during his earthly life would be revealed.

All right, so far so good. Let's now come to looking at the scriptural teaching concerning the first person of the Trinity, God the Father. And when you sift the evidence in the Old Testament and the New Testament incredibly, as we would anticipate, recognizing the inspiration of the Spirit behind both books, the teaching is the same.

We have an identical presentation of the doctrine, and scattered throughout the pages of the Old Testament is the word Father, and it is used of the first person of the Trinity. We find this term employed to describe the way that God has created the world and created men and women. We discover, for example, in the prophecy of Isaiah in the 64th chapter, the eighth verse, Now, O Lord, thou art our Father.

We are the clay, and thou art our potter, and we are all the work of thy hand. When you go on to the minor prophets, you find Malachi saying something like this, Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us all? This is the faithful creator to whom we were making reference last week, you remember, the God who has created us, not some impersonal force, but a personal being, one who is called Father, who is directly involved and related to the work of his hands. But moreover, we discover in the Old Testament that this God who takes the name Father, as we would anticipate from the very terminology, has a concern, a care for his people, and specifically in the Old Testament dispensation towards the Jews.

And when you read the psalmist, what do you find him saying with regard to God? Well, he is a father of the fatherless. He pities his children. He has concern for them.

God is in a direct relationship with the Hebrews. He feels for them, and the whole history of God's relationships with the Jewish people confirms this thought. He has a special relationship to the Hebrews.

Again, when you read the prophecy of Isaiah, you come across such words as these, glorious words, as far as the were concerned. I refer to the 63rd chapter and the 16th verse, where we find the Jews saying, Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer.

Thy name, that's a very important statement, thy name is from everlasting. The name of God is here referred to in terms of father, and it is the fatherhood of God that the spiritual Hebrews in the Old Testament found to be such a precious doctrine. But I tell you that what you find in the Old Testament, you discover again in the New Testament.

And there, there are references to God, the great Father of all, creating the world. I've given one or two references to that in the notes, but there is not time for me at this moment to turn to them. Perhaps you'd care to look them up later on.

God is the Father who has created the world, and yet even more than being a creator, we discover that He has a concern, a concern for men and women. He is a faithful creator, and this you find the Lord Jesus Christ bringing out in His teaching. You remember how on the Sermon on the Mount, He advised His followers not to be unnecessarily worried about secular things and about material provisions.

Why not? Well, He said, your heavenly Father cares for you. You remember His illustration about the lilies of the field? They don't get worried. You never hear of them having a nervous breakdown.

He says, consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

And He goes on to confirm that God the Father will take care over the disciples, and by extension, over all Christian people. It says the Savior, and I'm still in the same chapter, the sixth of Matthew, only referring to a previous verse. Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.

Again, notice the terminology, it's very important. He refers to God's concern for the animals, for the birds, but when He's speaking to the disciples, He doesn't just refer to God in an abstract, impersonal sense. He says, your heavenly Father.

You're different from the lilies of the valley. You're different from the birds. Your heavenly Father, your God who is concerned for you in a personal way.

He guarantees that all that happens will be within His control, and He is concerned to minister to you, to bring to you all that you would need. And again, by extension, as we found in the Old Testament, this great Father who is compassionate and concerned for men and women has made it possible for mankind to enter into a special relationship with Him. As in the Old Testament, this teaching applied specifically to the Jews, so in the New Testament it's taken up and applied to the Gentiles and to believing Jews.

This is what the Apostle Paul says when he's writing to the church at Ephesus, chapter 3 and verse 14. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the family, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Again, you see the point.

Here is the possibility of believing people entering into the family of God and recognizing God to be their Father. You get the same teaching in the 18th and 19th verses of the second chapter of the letter to the Ephesians. For through Him, that is Jesus Christ, we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God. Isn't this a remarkable thing? It says the Apostle Paul, once you didn't belong to God, once you weren't in a special relationship with Him, but now you are, and so intimate is that relationship, you're in His very family. He has such a concern, such a personal involvement in your life.

So then that is roughly the teaching of Scripture in connection with the fatherhood of God related to men and women. But I want to advance upon this for a moment and think through with you, as the Holy Spirit enables me to do, the relationship, the special relationship that Jesus Christ had to the first person of the Trinity. So we're now being quite deep in our studies, so to speak, and I hope that what I have to say will be clear so that you can grasp the teaching of the Word of God at this particular point.

I want us to study from the Bible what the relationship was and is between the first person of the Trinity and the second person of the Trinity. You see, the word father was employed by the Lord Jesus as describing the first person of the Trinity more than any other word. The classic example, I think, is in John chapter 17, the high priestly prayer, where the Lord Jesus refers to God as father.

And it's been calculated that something like 51 times the word father is applied to the first person of the Trinity between chapters 14 and 17 of John's gospel. And in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus uses the word on 17 occasions. Now, when you watch the Lord Jesus in action, so to speak, as you're reading through the gospels, when you listen to him minister, when he refers to God, the first person of the Trinity, you learn a great deal about this God.

The God of the Lord Jesus Christ was not remote. He was not removed from him. The Lord Jesus practiced the presence of God, to use a phrase that was much in vogue at the turn of the century.

God, the first person of the Trinity, was never far removed from him. You remember how sometimes there was the upward look of the eye of the Lord Jesus to heaven as though God was just there. You remember how time and time again you find the Lord Jesus engaging in communion with his father at the break of the day.

Now, if you are to understand anything about the fatherhood of God, you must start first by examining the relationship between Jesus Christ and the first person of the Trinity, because Jesus called the first person of the Trinity father. And he went on to say in the high priestly prayer that he has declared to the disciples the name of God. Verse 6 of chapter 17, John's gospel, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me.

What name? Well, I've already conceded that on some 50-odd occasions in these chapters, in the chapters surrounding the 17th, the Lord Jesus uses the word father. Can it not therefore logically be deduced that Jesus has manifested to his disciples, has revealed to his disciples, all that he's meant, all the implications of calling God father? Well, in a very special sense, in a very special sense indeed, Jesus Christ recognized that God, the first person of the Trinity, was his own father. Indeed, I put a quotation, which is a significant one, down on your notes from Dr. Moffat, who says at this point that the distinctive factor in Christianity is not that Jesus taught God was the father of men, but that God was his father.

Jesus Christ, you see, alone knew something about sonship. He was the one who reveals God. What God does he reveal? He reveals God as father.

Jesus was the son of God, eternally the son of God, eternally existing in a relationship with God that can only be described as the relationship between a father and the son. Jesus had the key to sonship. You and I want to be related to God.

Well, how are we to be related to God? By studying the life of Jesus Christ, for he alone has a secret. He alone has the formula. Indeed, and I think you will understand what I mean at this point when I say this, you can interpret the whole ministry of Jesus Christ in terms of coming into this world to make men and women sons of God.

This was his ministry, to turn you and me into a son of God. And the relationship that the Savior enjoyed with the Father was an eternal one. Again, in the High Priestly Prayer, the 17th of John's Gospel, we find the Lord Jesus Christ saying in the 14th verse, Father, I have given them thy word.

I have given them thy word. Father, thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. I've just lost my reference there, but you'll find it in that chapter.

Thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. And when Jesus makes this statement, he refers to God as Father. So, again, I say in his pre-incarnate state before the very worlds were created, God the Father and God the Son eternally existed.

They had this loving relationship one towards another. You remember how when we were discussing the concept of God being the God of love, I made this logical deduction that love cannot exist in a vacuum. Indeed, I said that when you say God is love, you are in effect saying that God is plural.

Why did I make that assertion? Simply because love must have an object. Love must have something upon which it fastens itself. And this clearly was seen in terms of the pre-incarnate existence of the Lord Jesus.

Father, he says, before the very foundations of the world, I knew thee. Before the very foundations of the world, we enjoyed a glory. And you see the point.

It stands out in relief. Before the worlds were created, God the Father was loving. God the Son.

And thus the New Testament develops this teaching, and it tells us that God is, if you like, a prototype of all fatherhood. Ephesians chapter 3 verses 14 and 15 tell us this, and I'm translating directly from the Greek, that it is from God from whom all fatherhood in heaven and earth is named. I am to understand my responsibilities as a parent, if I were a parent, in terms of the fatherhood of God.

For God was eternally the Father of Jesus Christ, and they existed in a relationship of love. All right, let's move on a little further. And let me put up the question, having determined all this, is God the Father of all men? Is God the Father of all mankind? This is an important question, yet to some extent I've already answered it in as much as from the Old Testament scriptures.

We looked into the prophecy of Malachi, and we heard the prophet saying that it is one God and Father who has created us all. So on the level of creation, it is true to say that God is indeed the Father of all mankind, of every man and of every woman. And God is always to be seen in terms of the Father of us all, because God never changes.

God eternally exists as Father. Well, does that necessarily mean then that we are sons of God? No, you cannot apply human logic here. You have to come to the Bible and sift the teaching.

And what do you discover? That there was a time when the first created man, Adam himself, was referred to as the Son of God. And surprisingly enough, you find the reference in Luke's Gospel. Again, I've given it you in your notes.

Adam was created as a son of God. But that relationship that Adam enjoyed, it was destroyed by sin. And do you remember how Adam was thrust out of the Garden of Eden? Geographically, he was separated from God.

But the most important thing to notice is that spiritually he was separated from God. What had happened? Well, he betrayed his very sonship. He had rejected the fatherhood of God.

He had gone along his own rebellious course. And from that moment, Adam was no longer a son of God. And the teaching of the New Testament is this, that as in Adam, all have sinned.

In other words, we have all followed in the same pattern set for us by our forefather. And we have all forfeited our sonship. So on the spiritual plane, it is not true to say that we are sons of God.

Indeed, the whole import of the Gospel is the message whereby men and women can be made the sons of God. You remember how the Lord Jesus is referred to in the opening chapter of John's Gospel, inasmuch as he was rejected by the Jews. And the evangelist has this to say, he came unto his own, but his own received him not.

But to as many as received him. Now listen, this is important. To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.

Now that would be logically ridiculous if people were already the sons of God. No, they're not. Adam was no longer a son of God when he sinned.

You and I were not sons of God in our sinfulness. But Jesus Christ has come into this world to make it possible, to retrieve our sonship, to link us up again in a relationship with God so that we can indeed call him Abba Father. And the teaching is most clearly explained in the parable that the Lord related of the prodigal son, and that's why we read it together a few moments ago.

You remember what happened in this well-known story. The son, in effect, forfeited being part of the family. He determined by his own free will that he would leave the family home.

He'd take some of his father's money with him, some of his inheritance, and he went into the far country. And there he squandered his inheritance. But the most important thing for us to recognize is this.

He lived as though his father never existed. He couldn't have lived at home as he was living in the far country. All the morality of home life, all the regulations of home life have been completely rejected by this lad.

To put it colloquially, he kicked over the tracers. He lived as though his father was dead. And then you recall how in the story we're told he came to an end of himself when he spent all his money.

And what happened? Well, he reflected upon his foolishness, and he decided that even the servants in the household back home were better off than he was. And so he decided to return home, not to become a son, but to become a servant. In fact, he admits this.

He says, and I'm reading the 15th chapter of Luke's gospel, and the 18th verse, I will arise and go to my father and say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and I'm no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants. Now that's precisely the condition the Bible teaches us that you and I are in.

In our sinfulness, we are no longer sons of God. God is still our father inasmuch as he is responsible for our creation. But we have forfeited all the benefits that were ours, being within the family circle of God when we left it, when we turned to our own waywardness, when we followed a rebellious path.

So the son comes back home. And you recall how the father rushes down the hill, and he places his arms around the son, and he says some very significant things. And here I'm reading the 24th verse of Luke 15.

For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. I think there is no more precious scripture in the whole of the Bible than that one.

Listen again. If the significance has never dawned on you, then let the Holy Spirit minister to your heart at this point in my Bible study. Listen to the words.

For this my son was dead. Here he was, away from his father, spiritually speaking, dead, alienated from his father, in theological language, alienated from the very life of God. But he comes back.

The father rushes down the hillside, embraces the lad, and the first words, almost, that he says is this. This my son was dead, but he is alive again. He was lost, but he has been found.

Here are words of invitation, bringing the son not back into the mansion on the level of a servant, but back into the family circle on the level of a son. And this, I say, is what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. And it is only men who respond to the gospel of our gracious Lord and Savior who can really refer to themselves accurately in terms of sons of God.

Well, what are we to say by way of conclusion? Just one or two very hasty remarks. We have discovered that in a very unique fashion, the first person of the Trinity is the father of our Lord Jesus. No reference is here implied to his being created for Jesus Christ, as I shall seek to show you next week, was eternally in existence.

Before Abraham was, he says to the Pharisees, I am. There was no beginning. He was the eternally begotten son of God, ever existing in a loving relationship with the Lord.

But it was Jesus Christ, you remember, who was responsible with the first person of the Trinity, with God the Father, in bringing about the whole of creation. You find reference to this in John's Gospel, the first chapter, and also in the first chapter of Paul's letter to the church at Colossae. But more than this, God the Father and God the Son cooperated together, not just in the creation of the world, but in bringing about the possibility of the redemption of men and women.

It was Jesus Christ who died on the cross of Calvary so that you and I might become new creatures in him, so that we might be made by grace what we were not by nature, so that we might be improved, so that we might be completely transformed and qualified, therefore, to enter into the family circle. We are new creatures in Christ Jesus, and the Bible says in a scripture, two verses after that one, that God was in Christ. God the Father was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.

What is the point? Jesus Christ is uniquely the Son of God, yes, but in a very wonderful fashion, by a combination of the ministry of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, it is possible for you and for me to become sons of God. And this, I say to you, is the import of the Christian gospel. Jesus Christ came into this world to turn the key, so to speak, of sonship, so that you and I could enter through the door and be met by a loving heavenly Father and be recognized in terms of his children.

And this surely is what the Apostle Paul means when writing to the Romans. He speaks of the grace of God that has operated in his life and has operated in the life of believing Christians, and he says it is because of this that we can call God Abba Father. Well, may God have blessed this study to you this evening, and next week we shall look at the theme of God the Son.

Amen.