Understanding God the Father: Relationship and Sovereignty

So that the first affirmation of the creed has to do with the central importance of God the Father. Now, we ask why the affirmation in God the Father? Why is that there? I believe in God the Father. Why does this word occur in the early creeds? Anybody have any idea? Well, from very early on, even before the council of Nicea which came in the forth century, the Christian community was self-consciously Trinitarian. [00:32:48]

And those who were disenchanted with the supernatural trappings of biblical Christianity wanted to penetrate to the core of the Christian faith or to what the thinkers called the essence of Christianity. Just a ton of books published in the nineteenth century particularly in Germany, that spoke of the essence of religion like Ludwick Froyerbach or the essence of Christianity, the German word there is 'vasion,' the 'vasion,' or the 'being', the substance of what Christianity is. [00:159:24]

And the attempt later scholars were critical of saying that it was reductionistic, that is, get down to the very lowest common denominator of what we find in religion -- what is religion all about and Harnock for example in the nineteenth century published a book that is still in print and very influential, a simple little book entitled 'What Is Christianity?' And he boils Christianity down to this very basal common-denominator that has two central affirmations: the universal, fatherhood of God, and the universal, brotherhood of man. [00:193:64]

The Bible does not teach the universal of brotherhood of man. What the Bible teaches is the universal neighborhood of man. Jesus makes it clear that all men are my neighbors and I have duties to perform to my neighbors. That I am called to love my neighbor as much as I love myself. And you say, well maybe this is just a semantic game where we're distinguishing between neighbors and brothers, but I do it for a reason. [00:348:36]

In the New Testament the concept of brotherhood is a very, very special kind of human fellowship. I mean, at the heart of the Christian confessions, as we will see in a moment, that Jesus is the only Son of God. So that there is a unique sense in which Jesus is the Son of God which is a unique sense in which God is the Father of Jesus. [00:375:17]

And we enter into the family of God not by nature, not simply by being born a human being. In fact, the bible says we're children of wrath, doesn't it? But in order to become a child of God, we must be adopted into the Father's family by virtue of our relationship with the Only Begotten Son, who is Jesus. Elsewhere the Scripture says as many as are lead by the Spirit of God, those are the sons of God or the children of God. [00:404:16]

The personal direct form of address of calling God Father is noticeably absent from those Jewish lists. And we go over this in more detail in our Christology series but I'll mention it again here, and that is a fact that most people aren't aware of, that nowhere in the Old Testament or in any existing Hebrew documents do we ever find a Jewish person addressing God directly in the form of personal address as Father until the tenth century A.D. [00:525:30]

The reason I say it, is that Jesus' contemporaries were shocked to their boots that Jesus would walk around calling God, Father, directly. In fact, some of his enemies took that as grounds enough to convict Him of blasphemy. But if you listen to Christians praying in a group and, that each one speaks his prayer, you can depend that 90 percent or more will begin their prayer by saying, "Father." [00:603:82]

Jesus said, when you pray, pray like this, what? "Our Father." Jesus is saying 'What I have done; I am the first Jew to do it. I have done something radical, a major innovation, and now I'm inviting you to participate in that personal, filial relationship that I have with the Father. You can address Him as Father too. [00:657:53]

Christianity affirms the existence of a personal God with Whom we have a personal and filial relationship. We don't utter our prayers to the great mystery of cosmic dust. Again this is so elementary that it's often overlooked, that the God that we worship is a God who has a name, and who has a personal history. [00:726:14]

Now, here in the ancient world there is a sense in which the term "Almighty" calls attention to monotheism. Why would the term "Almighty" be a confession of monotheism, do you suppose? Right, there is no equal. Critical scholars in the nineteenth century developed what was called the religious historical school and they applied a scientific principle that was widespread and very influential to the culture in western civilization in nineteenth century, and it was the concept of evolution. [00:997:97]

The Father of Jesus Christ according to Christianity is the Creator of heaven and earth. That our redemption is brought about by the activity of our Creator, and that there is only one God. No demiurges, and that there is no disjunction between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament. [01:607:66]