How should I understand the concept of the Father God?

We read in our third text, "God our Father." Not the great universal Father, as some say, coupling with it the idea of the universal brotherhood of man. This is not God's truth, but one of Satan's most dangerous lies. He is the Father of all who believe in the Lord Jesus, but of no others. His name of Father was revealed by the Son. Israel knew Him as Jehovah, and the early patriarchs as the Almighty; we are privileged to know Him as Father. "No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (John 1:18). But the unfolding was gradual. During His earthly ministry He taught His disciples to say "Our Father, which art in heaven," and "heavenly Father," but these titles do not express the full grace of Christianity. Not until He was risen from the dead did He say "My brethren," and "My Father and your Father, and My God and your God" (John 20:17). Such words put all His own into His place and relationship with His Father and God. Godward we are "many sons;" Christward we are "many brethren," amongst whom He is Firstborn. Well might the apostle say: "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3:1). The Lord's own touching parable in Luke 15 shows how the Father delights to lavish His love upon those who come to Him in repentance. His love as "God our Saviour" is a love of compassion; His love as "God our Father" is a love of tenderest relationship.

Except as creator and preserver of all, God is not revealed as Father in the O.T. "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?" Mal. 2:10. The Lord Jesus is also prophesied of as 'the everlasting Father' or 'Father of the everlasting age.' Isa. 9:6. It was reserved for the N.T. times that God should be made known as Father; and this was done only by the Lord Jesus while upon earth, who constantly spoke to His disciples of God as their Father in heaven. Matt. 5:16, 45, 48; Matt. 6:1, 8, 14, 15, etc. He could, as the Son, while on earth thus make Him known to them. After the resurrection the Lord was able to send this message to His disciples, whom He now calls His 'brethren:' "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." John 20:17. The will of the Father and the work of His Son, the source of eternal life to them, had brought the disciples in this respect into the same heavenly position as the risen Christ Himself before the Father. The term 'father' is used symbolically when there is a moral likeness between a leader and his followers. John 8:38-44.

It is remarkable, however, as showing the character of this book, that, although we do see them in the presence of God, it is not called the house of the Father. On the contrary, it is a throne that is seen; and so too, when He who sits thereon is named, it is not as the Father, but as the Lord God Almighty. When we speak of God as "the Father," it is to express the nearest place of affection into which God has brought us; and when we hear of God as "the Lord God Almighty," it is connected with the putting forth of Divine power and government. "God," as such, is the most general and abstract name, and implies no relationship with another being. But to be called "the Father" necessarily implies the closest relationship of love, whether spoken in the highest and intrinsic and eternal sense of Jesus as the Son of the Father, or subordinately of those whom He has taken into the adoption of sons, loved with the same love. (John 17 and 1 John 3.)

"The Father" was to be worshipped henceforth: of itself, what a revelation! It is no longer a question of the Jehovah God of Israel, nor even of the Almighty as was the name by which He was made known to the fathers. There is a richer display of God, and far more intimate. It is not as the Eternal Who put Himself in covenant and government, Who will surely yet make good His ways with Israel, as He has chastised them for theirs. Nor is it the God Who shielded His poor pilgrims that hung on His promises in their wanderings among hostile strangers before their children formed a nation and received His law. It was God as the Son knew Him, and was making Him known in the fulness of love and fellowship, Who would accordingly bring His own that were in the world into the conscious relationship of children as born of Him. (Compare John 1:12-13, 18; John 14:4-10, 20; John 16:23-27; John 20:17-23.)

This brings us to dwell on the content or meaning of the name of Father. In it is disclosed the last secret of the depths of God, never to be superseded, never to be outshone, for it is the light that shines in the eternal home of God. In this name of glory we learn, not only God's power, as in El Shaddai, not only His character, as in Jehovah, but the last secret, which is that His essential nature is a relationship of love. That relationship is primarily between the Father and the Son, but such a revelation offers the gift of relationship with God to men. Men are not to be only in covenant relations with God, but "to as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the children of God" (John 1:12).

Such then are the relationships in which we know God now. It is not simply a supreme God, the Most High; it is not only He "who is, who was, and who is to come," He who, always the same, accomplishes His promises; nor any more the mighty God, the all-powerful who keeps His own. All this is true; but these titles are connected with God governing the world, accomplishing His promises, and keeping His own down here. Here it is God Himself who reveals Himself, as the Father who has sent the Son, to bring us to Him according to the full manifestation of what He is in Himself, partaking morally of His nature, His own sons, and destined to be like Christ.

Hitherto, God was not revealed as a Father; there is one God, and His name one was the burden of Old Testament teaching — "Jehovah our God is one Jehovah," in contrast with the idols of the heathen. But the presence of the Son revealed the Father, as it is said, "The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him" (John 1:18); and with this new privilege and relationship come new responsibilities and moral obligations. Therefore it is said in Matt. 5:48, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." The child must be pitied which needs his Father's "Thou shalt not" which is applicable to the servant only. Hear the word of God in Gal. 4:1, 9: "Now I say, That the heir as long as he is a child, differed nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" As children with a father our relationships are different, and our "rule of life" is correspondingly higher; it is "to walk even as he walked" (1 John 2:6, and 1 Peter 2:21).

When speaking of God as the Father we have to notice three things, firstly, when God is called Father in the Old Testament the thought is, generally speaking, of origin. There are also three passages in the New Testament that speak of the Father in this way, when God is called the "Father of mercies" (2 Cor.1:3), the "Father of lights" (Jas.1:17) and the "Father of glory" (Eph.1:17). Secondly, is the capacity of discernment. Since the Son of God came to earth we know the truth of the Trinity of God, God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit, existing from eternity, but manifest through the coming of the Son upon earth. Matt.28:19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" shows us that we have knowledge of the three Persons of the Godhead and that we can make a difference between them. But, the third point to notice when speaking of the Father, which John presents to us, is relationship or fellowship.

Thus when we are informed simply about creation, we hear of Elohim; when it is not Elohim, but Jehovah-Elohim, we have moral relationship; for Jehovah, I repeat, is the characteristic name of relationship in the Old Testament, as Father is in the New. In the New Testament, indeed, it is not only a God who has a people, but a Father who has a family. That His Son became a man to die and rise again has made it possible for God, by redeeming grace, to bring us into the place of children and sons; and consequently our proper term of relationship to God is children, as His relationship to us is that of Father. But in the Old Testament Jehovah was the term revealed in due time.

The believers in the Psalms know God as ‘Jehovah', as ‘Lord' (adon) (Ps. 8:9), as ‘God' (Elohim, Ps. 99:9) and as ‘Most High' (Ps. 83:18), but not as Father — except in the sense that He exercises fatherly care upon those who trust Him (Pss. 68:5; 103:13). This is in direct contrast to the Christian time in which we know God as our Father (John 20:17). He is the ‘God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ' (Eph. 1:3).