  Foundations of the Faith
Foundations
of the Faith explores
and explains
Volume 33, Number 2, Posted April 3, 2000 |
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It is not that the Jews of Jesus’ day were unfamiliar with the concept of God as their Father. “Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us?” asked the prophet Malachi (Mal. 2:10, see also Deut 32:6). Isaiah even prayed to God as Israel’s Father, “But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name” (Isa. 63:16). However, Israel’s theology emphasized God’s covenant relationship to the nation as a whole, not God as the Father of each individual Israelite. Jews did not commonly address God in such personal terms. And Jewish religious leaders took particular offense at Jesus’ repeated references to God as “my Father.” Today some are equally aggrieved that Jesus’ disciples follow his example. Such objections, and the Biblical reasons why they must not be sustained, come into focus as we consider what it means to approach God in prayer as “Our Father.” Father of us In the Greek New Testament the Lord’s Prayer begins pater hemon, literally “Father of us.” Behind the Greek pater lies the Aramaic abba, a term whose nearest English equivalent is “Daddy.” This is the word Jesus used when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsamene, “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 13:36). Abba implies intimacy, a relationship of love and trust. It is a term a toddler would use of her father and also a form of address an adult son could employ without embarrassment. There is no parallel in Jewish literature for addressing God in this way. However, it was not the introduction of novelty but the presumption of deity that concerned some Jews when Jesus spoke of God as “my Father.” After healing a lame man on the Sabbath, Jesus said, “‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.’ For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:17-18; see also John 10:30). The Jews rightly recognized what many since have denied – that Jesus knew he was God. But the idea that God could become flesh did not fit their conceptual categories. So rather than worship Jesus as God, they arranged to have him executed. Much modern opposition to calling God “Father” is similarly rooted in current cultural habits of thought. Some demand that Christians abandon the Biblical teaching that God is our Father because, in their view, this teaching is rooted in the patriarchal culture of ancient Israel. They insist that God was first called “Father” because fathers, and males in general, held the positions of power in Israelite families and society. Since modernity has rejected cultural patriarchy, they argue, Christians must therefore reject any understanding of God as “Father.” However, such arguments assume that God is a merely cultural creation, one that culture can name and rename as fashion dictates. Identifying this often unspoken assumption helps us see that behind both ancient and modern objections to addressing God as “Father” lies the refusal to accept God’s self-revelation. God’s self-revelation “In revelation,” Diogenes Allen writes, “God makes manifest divine purposes or intentions, and in that manifestation God has the initiative.” The consistent testimony of Scripture is that in our relationship with God, God makes the first move. God spoke the cosmos into existence and created humans beings (a paternal act) to be in fellowship with him. God called Abraham and his descendants into an everlasting covenant relationship. God called out to Moses from the burning bush and made known his name, YHWH, “I am who I am.” God spoke through the prophets, calling his people back to an unhindered relationship with him.
“He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:10-13). Our adoption Jesus is God’s Son by nature. We are born again as God’s children through faith in Jesus Christ. Developing this theme, Paul assures us that all who believe “have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:15-17). God’s only Son came to earth to live as one of us. He willingly died on a Roman cross, sacrificing his own life to atone for our sins and reconcile us to God. Through faith in what Christ accomplished on the cross, we become God’s children. The salvation made possible by his death and resurrection includes not only forgiveness of our sins and deliverance from condemnation but also being placed in a position to receive unimaginable blessings as adopted members of God’s family (Rom. 8:22-23). Some object to calling God “Father” on the basis of hurtful relationships with their own fathers. But the Bible teaches that our relationship with God as our Father transcends the categories of human experience. God desires that human fathers follow the model of his relationship with us. Indeed, all human relationships are to be grounded in our relationship with God. (For more on this, see the review of Soulcraft. ) That human fathers so often fail to meet God’s standard is evidence of human sin. Human failures do not require that Christians reject God’s ways of revealing himself and relating to us. Our Father “Jesus knew what he was doing when he taught us that our normal way of addressing God should be as Father,” Donald Williams writes, “for it is precisely this personal relationship that is the basis for the whole activity of Christian prayer.” To call God “Father” is not to invoke an outdated archetype of patriarchal culture. Rather, it is to be reminded that the One to whom we pray is the one who made us, who chose us to be members of his family, and who loves and cares for us in ways that are beyond imagination. Addressing God as “Father” affirms our relationship with the One to whom we pray. It is because of God’s unmerited love, poured out for us through his Son Jesus, that we are blessed to be able to pray “Our Father.” |
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