In a previous post, I pointed out that very little is said
in the Old Testament about the fatherhood of God. It took the coming of the Son to
fully expound the ways in which God’s relationship to believers is paternal.
Or perhaps we have that the wrong way round. Perhaps instead
we should say something like this: The human father/child relationship was
designed by God to illustrate how he relates to his creations and his creations
to him. In other words, we can expect that human fatherhood done right will
be “Godly” in character. I don’t think that’s too much to assume.
Either way, until the Son came and made the Father
known — not simply as God but in his role as Father — only a very
small number of the faithful understood God’s parental care for his people, and
only in the most limited of ways.
When we take for granted the tremendous privilege and access
we enjoy as a result, sliding over the word “Father” in our Bibles as if it is
little more than a synonym for Creator, Lord or deity, we do both ourselves and
God a grave disservice, not to mention the Lord Jesus, who was at such pains to
make the Father known ... as Father.
The Right to Become Children
I should stop here to point out that Jesus never taught that
God is the father of mankind generally: he taught that God is uniquely father to
those who believe. This is one reason, surely, that he spoke of
the necessity for a new birth, while simultaneously dismissing the Pharisees’ claims to be children of God as false.
In short, the idea that there is a common “brotherhood of mankind” and that God is their father is not a biblical notion. The right to become children of God belongs only to those who
believe in the name of Jesus, God’s Christ. Nobody starts out that way.
A Jaw-Dropper
It is likely impossible to determine which came first out of Jesus’ many references
to God as not just his own Father but as Father to all who believed in him,
but to many who heard him that very first time it must have been a jaw-dropper.
Though it is never explicit, the fatherhood of God could indeed be inferred from the Old Testament
if that was all we had. If it could not, the Pharisees would hardly have dared
to claim such a status (though their claim, it seems, was corporate and
national rather than individual: the idea that a mere man might make the claim
to Sonship in a personal sense was considered blasphemy; they took that as
tantamount to equality with God).
With that in mind, even accounting for the variety of
interpretations and schools of thought extant in any religious system, it seems
highly unlikely that even the most pious first century Jew would have presumed
to call himself a child of God.
A worshiper of Jehovah, sure. But a child of God? Not likely.
No One Knows the Father Except the Son ...
Onto this scene now comes Jesus, declaring to those who believe in him that:
- because God is their Father, he is also their role model, and his followers ought to exhibit his character;
- their spiritual genetics are displayed through good works like their Father’s;
- God’s moral standards are to be their standards because they are his children;
- the Father will reward his obedient children;
- the Father is watching his children;
- the Father honors his obedient children publicly;
- the Father is so attentive to their development that he anticipates their needs and is merely waiting to be asked for help;
- God is to be addressed intimately, not in some more remote way;
- forgiveness of sins is available on the basis of family relationship;
- the Father is more concerned with his children than all his other creations;
- human fatherhood is only the merest shadow of our heavenly Father’s care;
- the Father is able to teach his children how to speak rightly on his behalf;
- the Father shares his spiritual treasures with even the least of his family members over and above the great secular minds of the age;
- the Father prizes family harmony — when his children agree, he is particularly concerned that they get what they are asking for;
- God’s children are to worship him AS Father, not merely as God;
- the Father is most perfectly revealed in the person of the Son; and
- those who love the Son are loved by the Father and have ongoing fellowship with him.
That should do for a sample, at least.
Gleaning and Harvesting
Now, it’s entirely possible that a devout Old Testament
believer, carried along by the Holy Spirit in times past, may have come to one
or more of these truths about God independently of one another and perhaps even
independently of thinking about God’s fatherhood at all. Some did just that.
For example, Solomon well understood that God is watching (“The
eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good”), but his all-seeing God in Proverbs is often more
judge and avenger than loving parent.
Likewise, like all ancient men of faith, David understood that God is a rewarder (“You will
render to a man according to his work”). But the reward of a overjoyed father is of a different character than any mere trophy or judicial commendation.
But whatever truths about the Father may have been intuited by the godly prior to the coming of the Lord Jesus, it remains incontestably
the case that “no one knows the Father except the Son and
anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Moses saw God’s glory, but he didn’t know him as Father. Ezekiel and Isaiah saw God enthroned, but they didn’t know him as Father. God sent fire from heaven at the request of Elijah, but the prophet never knew God as his Father.
The saints of previous centuries were scratching up mere grains of truth from the
edges of a great field in anticipation of the magnificent harvest of heartwarming, confidence-building, faith-sustaining knowledge we enjoy
today thanks to the coming of the Lord Jesus.
Don’t take that harvest for granted.
No comments :
Post a Comment