Who is God the Father?

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. ... 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.

There are four names by which God revealed Himself. To Abraham it was "God Almighty," to Israel as "Jehovah;" "Most High," in the millennium; to us, "the Father" revealed in the Son.

The moment the Son was there, the name of the Father was revealed. God has come out in Christ; when God does come out, it is the Father revealed in the Son.

Let us then enquire from God's Word as to the way in which we may know God as Father, and rejoice in the consciousness of relationship to Him as children. ... In John chapter 1 we read, "As many as received Him (the Lord Jesus) to them gave He power (or right) to become the sons (children) of God, even to them that believe on His Name."

Matthew 11:27 reads — "Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and He to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him". Further in John 14:6 we find these conclusive words "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me". Thus for the knowledge of the Father, and for the way to Him, we are dependent absolutely upon the Person of the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is no other way to God as Father.

As to the source of all our blessings we read, "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ... has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world." All our blessings have their source in the counsels of the Father's heart. We discover that His heart was set upon us before the foundation of the world.

Furthermore, not only are we chosen to be in a condition suited to God, but we are predestined to enjoy the relationship of sons before the Father. Angels, doubtless, will be before God in a condition suited to God, but they are there in the position of servants. We are brought into the relationship of sons. This is the special privilege to which we are predestined according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.

To such the Lord gives eternal life and thus brings this new company into relationship with the Father and the Son, for this life eternal is the enjoyment of the relationship in which the believer is set with Divine Persons. It is communion with God revealed as the Father, and with Jesus Christ — a Divine Person, the Son — but manifest in flesh.

The blessings connected with the knowledge of the Father are boundless. In Luke chapter 12 the Lord Jesus tells us that the Father knows all that we have need of in our pathway through this world; but there is much more than this! "Every good and perfect gift ... cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness." ... He is "the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort." No sorrow, no care, no anxiety, no pressure upon spirit or body — escapes His eye, and from Himself as Father comes the needed sense of mercy and comfort. He is the "Father of glory", and as in affectionate communion with Himself He would flood our hearts with the wisdom and intelligence of His glorious purpose in Christ ... He is the "Father of spirits" and as such is engaged with the inward refining of our affections, having in view the blessed fact "that we might be made partakers of His holiness."

Within the depths of the glory, in that home of love, the family of many sons will dwell, and in their praises the Father shall live for evermore. For He has chosen them that they should be before Himself in love for ever. (Eph. 1:3-4.)

In that eternal life which ever was with the Father, every movement is in perfect concert with the Father's will and yet governed by the perfect law of liberty; divine life cannot be fettered. ... His redeemed sons will be at home in the love of the Father who is at once the origin, source and governing power of all that heavenly bliss.

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.