How Do We Understand God the Father?

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

“The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…”  Our focus is on God and Father.  They are the same ‘person’ in the Trinity, but the second helps to define the first.  When we say “God”, we are attempting to define the undefinable.  Here is one attempt:

Q. 7. What is God?

A. God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty; knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

 

This is given courtesy of the Westminster Larger Catechism.  What are not included here are the fourteen footnotes outlining a summary of the biblical passages from which this description of God is drawn.

 

Peter narrows what he wants us to understand about God in this sentence as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God here is the parent-figure.  Here is the wall we run into: Father?  What about Mother?  Is God a male at the expense of the female? 

 

So, consider metaphor.  The bible uses language we understand and are familiar with in an attempt to establish a relationship with God (The bible writers were never interested in helping us ‘define’ God).  On the one hand, God is neither male nor female.  On the other, male and female are created in God’s image.  To understand God as Father is to understand God as Mother, is to understand God as Parent.

 

But God is a particular kind of Parent.  God is NOT abstract.  Therefore, if we were to update the language of the Lord’s Prayer, I would not like opening the Lord’s Prayer with “Our Parent who art in heaven…”  I would prefer “Our Father and Mother who art in heaven…” 

 

But, I don’t use that language.  I use the traditional male dominant language of “Our Father who art in heaven…”

 

Now we are about to go off track, no longer connecting to God and Father, but to sinful males and females.  I am not going there today.

 

The metaphor of Father and Mother as connected to God is rooted in the definition of God, in Question 7 of the Westminster Catechism.  Some of the words that really appeal to me are ‘wise, holy, just, merciful, gracious, and longsuffering (a really cool if ancient word for ‘patience’).

 

In other words, God is the ideal Father and Mother.  In our sinful world, Father and Mother are loaded with all the baggage of our sinful natures.  If you are coming to God and the only image you have of a ‘father’ is the abusing bastard who turned the life of your whole family into a living  hell or the only image you have of a ‘mother’ is someone who decided your family was not worth her happiness and disappeared, you are not coming to God to argue about gender issues in divine naming.

 

You are coming to God to find healing.  You are coming to God to learn what a father and a mother can truly be.  You can look at the mothers and fathers of families around you where love exists and you can find that love for yourself in God.  The image of parent can be redeemed as surely as Christ has redeemed us all.

 

But that is a story for tomorrow.