Is it biblical to refer to God as God the mother?
Scripture consistently reveals God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — never as "Mother." While a few Old Testament passages use maternal imagery to illustrate God's compassion (Isaiah 49:15; 66:13; Matthew 23:37), these are similes — comparisons to help us grasp the depth of divine tenderness — not names or titles. There is a critical difference between God comparing His care to a mother's love, and God revealing Himself as Mother. The former appears in Scripture; the latter does not.
God Has Revealed Himself as Father
The name "Father" is not a human projection onto God; it is how God chose to make Himself known. This is a central theme in John's Gospel. William Kelly writes:
William KellyFor God is thus fully revealed: the Only-begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. The partial measure of Judaism has passed away, no less than Samaritan pretension or any other. Grace and truth came through Jesus; and the testimony of the Holy Spirit is to Him as the sole way to the Father.
To rename God is therefore to undo Christ's own work of revelation. As Kelly goes on to say, the children of God — even "the babes or little children of God's family" — know God as Father, "not as Jehovah now, but as Father."
J.N. Darby draws this out at length from John 17. The Lord Jesus came bearing the Father's name, and the whole purpose of His mission was to make that name known:
J.N. Darby"Keep them in thy name" (that is, "Holy Father") "which thou hast given to me." Now, it is not that Christ was called Father, but that this blessed Man, the Lord from heaven, the Son, bore and presented that name … glorified it; He that had seen Him had seen the Father; had manifested this name to the men given to Him out of the world; would have them go directly to the Father, as themselves sons … so, "Because ye are sons, God hath put the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father."
Darby further explains that eternal life itself consists in knowing God in this relationship:
47017EThe knowledge of the Almighty is acquaintance with protecting power; of Jehovah, faithfulness to promise; of the Father, in the exercise of love, is eternal life. It is to know Himself in His own blessedness in relationship with the Son. Hence is added, "And Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."
The Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — Not "Father-Mother"
Morrish's Bible Dictionary notes that the name "Father" was reserved for the New Testament era and revealed only through the Son:
Morrish's Bible DictionaryIt 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.
The risen Lord's own words are precise: "I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God" (John 20:17). He does not say "our Mother."
A.J. Pollock, in his critique of Mary Baker Eddy's system (which coined the phrase "God the Father-Mother"), is blunt:
A.J. PollockHer God is not the God of the Scriptures. She alters His blessed name, and hyphenates it for her own evil purposes in a way quite foreign to and unsupported by Scripture. Her Christ is not the Christ of divine revelation. She reduces His divine person to an idea. Her Holy Comforter is not the Holy Spirit of the Bible.
Pollock affirms the scriptural revelation against every attempt to redefine the Godhead:
Why_believe_bibleScripture presents the Father as God, the Lord Jesus as God, the Holy Spirit as God. … The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are equally God. The order in which the names are put in Matthew 28:19 does not indicate any difference in status.
And again:
Divine_Titles_and_their_SignificanceThis is a most ineffable name of God. In a perfectly unique way it stands in relation to the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a relationship He shares with none besides. There ever was the Father. There ever was the Son, the "only begotten" Son of God. There ever was the Holy Spirit. Their Godhead glory they share with none.
The Persons of the Godhead Are Related — Not Interchangeable
J.G. Bellett presses this point profoundly: the names Father, Son, and Spirit are not mere descriptions of modes or roles that God takes on, but reveal eternal relationships within the Godhead:
J.G. BellettIf there are Persons in the Godhead, as we know there are, are we not to know also that there are relationships between them? Can we dispense with such a thought? Is there not revealed to faith, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit; the Son begotten, and the Spirit proceeding? Indeed there is. The Persons in that glory are not independent, but related. Nor is it beyond our measure to say that the great archetype of love, the blessed model or original of all relative affection, is found in that relationship.
To call God "Mother" is not merely to add a title — it is to introduce a relationship that God has not revealed, thereby altering the very nature of the Godhead as Scripture presents it.
Maternal Imagery Is Not a Maternal Name
Scripture does sometimes compare God's compassion to a mother's tenderness. J.A. Von Poseck alludes to this when meditating on the love of God:
J.A. Von PoseckWhat is like a mother's love? And why does she love her child with such love? Because she has travailed in pain for it.
He quotes Isaiah 49:15: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." But Von Poseck's whole point is that this points to the Father's love — a love that surpasses even a mother's — not that God should be addressed as Mother:
the Father's loveAnd what, beloved, about the love of such a Father? He Himself tells us … "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?"
Similarly, the Lord Jesus compared Himself to a hen gathering her chicks (Matthew 23:37) — yet He remained "the Son" and revealed God as "the Father." Metaphor and name are not the same thing.
Conclusion
The short answer is no — it is not biblical to refer to God as "God the Mother." God has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are not arbitrary labels but eternal names that correspond to eternal relationships within the Godhead. The Son came specifically to declare the Father's name (John 17:6, 26), and the Spirit was sent so that believers might cry "Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6; Romans 8:15). While Scripture occasionally uses maternal similes to illustrate the tenderness of divine love, it never names God as Mother, and no biblical writer or apostle ever addressed Him that way. To alter God's self-revealed name is to set human reasoning above divine revelation — which is precisely the error that Bellett warns against: "the soul dare not surrender such a mystery to the thoughts of men."