Affirming the Apostles ’ Creed (4 page)
What is the basic meaning of God’s name Jehovah? What does it tell us about him?
Have we not all one Father?
Has not one God created us?
MALACHI 2: 1 0
The Father Almighty
I
n any church where saying the Creed is part of the worship service it is likely that God’s fatherhood will have been celebrated in song (“Glory be to the Father...”) before the Creed is said, for it is a theme that with a sure instinct hymn-writers have always highlighted. But how should we understand it?
C
REATION
Clearly, when the Creed speaks of “God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” it has in immediate view the fact that we and all things besides depend on God as Creator for our existence, every moment. Now to call creatorship fatherhood is not unscriptural: it echoes both the Old Testament—Malachi 2:10, “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?”—and the New Testament—Acts 17:28, where Paul preaching at Athens quotes with approval a Greek poet’s statement: “we are indeed his offspring.” Nonetheless, both these quotations come from passages threatening divine judgment, and Paul’s evangelistic sermon at Athens makes it very clear that though the offspring relationship implies an obligation to seek, worship, and obey God and makes one answerable to him at the end of the day, it does not imply his favor and acceptance where repentance for past sins and faith in Christ are lacking (see the whole speech, verses 22-31).
Some who stress the universal fatherhood of God treat it as implying that all men are and always will be in a state of salvation, but that is not the biblical view. Paul speaks of persons to whom “the word of the cross is folly” as “perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18) and warns the “impenitent” that “you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath” (Romans 2:5), however much they are God’s offspring.
F
ATHER AND
S
ON
In fact, when the New Testament speaks of God’s fatherhood it is not with reference to creation, but in two further connections. The first is
the inner life of the Godhead
. Within the eternal Trinity is a family relation of Father and Son. On earth, the Son called the One whom he served “my Father” and prayed to him as Abba—the Aramaic equivalent of a respectful Dad.
What this relationship meant Jesus himself declared. On the one hand, the Son loves the Father (John 14:31) and always does what pleases the Father (8:29). He takes no initiatives, depending instead every moment on the Father for a lead (5:19ff., 30), but he is tenacity itself in cleaving to the Father’s known will. “My Father... not as I will, but as you will... your will be done” (Matthew 26:39, 42). “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11).
God’s loving fatherhood of his eternal Son is both the
archetype of his gracious relationship with his own
redeemed people and the model from which derives the
parenthood that God has created in human families.
On the other hand, the Father loves the Son (John 3:35; 5:20) and makes him great by giving him glory and great things to do (5:20-30; 10:17ff.; 17:23-26). Giving life and executing judgment are twin tasks that have been wholly committed to him, “that all may honor the Son” (5:23).
God’s loving fatherhood of his eternal Son is both the archetype of his gracious relationship with his own redeemed people and the model from which derives the parenthood that God has created in human families. Paul spoke of “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” as “the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Ephesians 1:3;3:14ff.). Human families, by their very constitution, reflect the Father-Son relationship in heaven, and parent-child relationships should express a love that corresponds to the mutual love of Father and Son in the Godhead.
A
DOPTION
The second connection in which the New Testament speaks of God as Father has to do with
the believing sinner’s adoption
into the life of God’s family. This is a supernatural gift of grace, linked with justification and new birth, given freely by God and received humbly by faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. “To all who did receive him [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born... of God” (John 1:12ff.). The message Jesus sent to his disciples on rising from the dead was: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17). As disciples, they belonged to the family; indeed, in that very sentence Jesus called them “my brothers.” All whom he has saved are his brothers.
When the Christian says the first clause of the Creed, he will put all this together and confess his Creator as both the Father of his Savior and his own Father through Christ—a Father who now loves him no less than he loves his only begotten Son. That is a marvelous confession to be able to make.
A
LMIGHTY
And God the Father is “almighty”—which means that he can and will do all that he intends. What does he intend for his sons? Answer: that they should share all that their elder Brother enjoys now. Believers are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:17). Suffer we shall, but we shall not miss the glory: the Father almighty will see to that. Praise his name.
F
URTHER
B
IBLE
S
TUDY
On our adoption in Christ:
Q
UESTIONS FOR
T
HOUGHT AND
D
ISCUSSION