God the Father
The Father
Apostolic Teaching
Jesus’ Teaching
Jesus taught His diciples to pray in this manner, and so by this teaching we know that God the Father tenderly invites us to call on Him as our Father and to believe that He hears us (as a father tenderly hears his own children) when we pray these words:
Matthew 6:9b-13 (KJV altered)
Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed by Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Jesus sent His disciples to make disciples of all nations by doing two tasks:
- Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit;
- Teaching them to observe all things that He had commanded them
and so we see that Jesus (through Baptism) places the holy name of God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) upon each one being baptized. And so, God promises to dwell in us just as He promised to dwell in the midst of His people in whatever place He would choose to set His name in the Old Testament period (Deuteronomy 12).
Deuteronomy 12:10-14 (NKJV)
{10}But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety, {11}then there will be the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide. There you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, and all your choice offerings which you vow to the LORD. {12}And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, since he has no portion nor inheritance with you. {13}Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; {14}but in the place which the LORD chooses, in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.
Jesus consistently remained in fellowship with His Father, seeking to please Him alone.
John 8:15-16 (NKJV)
{15}You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. {16}And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me.
John 11:40-42 (NKJV)
{40}Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” {41}Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. {42}And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.”
Even when Jesus spoke, He was speaking only of those things which He had seen from His Father:
John 8:37-38 (NKJV)
{37}I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. {38}I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.
By exclusively following His Father’s lead, Jesus was well-pleasing in every way to His Father. This obedience, humility, and single-minded devotion to the Father was in perfect keeping with Jesus’ revelation of the glory of the Word made flesh (ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο - John 1:14), which is the glory of the Only-begotten from the Father. Therefore, without this revelation of the Word made flesh, which is visible to us in the Incarnation of the Son, we would never have known the Father.
John 1:18 (NKJV)
{18}No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
Jesus spoke of God’s Temple (Matthew 21:12) as God’s house (Matthew 21:13), quoting from the prophets.
Matthew 21:12-14 (NKJV)
{12}Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. {13}And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” {14}Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.
But He also spoke of God the Father’s house with reference to the heavenly abode of God the Father, the place where He would prepare to receive all His blessed disciples “to Himself” so that they could be with Him forever.
John 14:1-6 (NKJV)
{1}"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. {2}In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. {3}And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. {4}And where I go you know, and the way you know." {5}Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” {6}Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
God the Father sent His only-begotten Son into the world to save the world through Him (John 3:16ff), and this salvation is a gift to all who, having been born of God (ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν - John 1:11-13), having been born from above (γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν - John 3:3), and having been born of water and Spirit (γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος - John 3:5), are given the miraculous ability to receive Jesus (cf. John 6:43-44; 8:45-47).
Apostolic Teaching
Peter confesses his faith in God the Father’s work of saving sinners:
1 Peter 1:3-5 (NKJV)
{3}Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, {4}to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, {5}who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
John confesses his faith in God’s regenerative/adoptive work that makes us His children by His own will:
John 1:11-13 (NKJV adapted)
{11}[The Word/the true Light] came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. {12}But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: {13}who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Father and Holy Spirit active in regeneration
This birth from above is also the work of the Holy Spirit working through the water of Baptism (John 3:3, 5). Those who come to Christ are granted this by the Father (John 6:63-65).
{63}“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. {64}But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. {65}And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”
Paul bent his knees before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when he prayed for the Ephesian Christians (Eph. 3:14ff).
Ephesians 3:14-19 (NKJV)
{14}For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, {15}from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, {16}that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, {17}that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, {18}may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—{19}to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Every spiritual blessing ultimately comes from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Paul’s teaching about our election by Him in Christ (Eph. 1:3-6).
Ephesians 1:3-6 (NKJV)
{3}Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, {4}just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, {5}having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, {6}to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
This of course agrees as well with James’ understanding of the true source of our blessedness by the will of the Father of lights.
James 1:17-18 (NKJV)
{17}Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. {18}Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.
Ancient Symbols
Nicene Creed
- We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. (Nicene Creed)
Athanasian Creed
- The Father is one person. (Athanasian Creed)
- The Father is uncreated…infinite…eternal…almighty. (Athanasian Creed)
- The Father is God. (Athanasian Creed)
- The Father is not made nor created nor begotten by anyone. (Athanasian Creed)
- There is one Father, not three Fathers. (Athanasian Creed)
Small Catechism
Since God the Father Almighty is also “maker of heaven and earth,” I have warrant to believe that He has made me and all creatures, that He has given me all my faculties of mind and body, that He amply provides me with daily sustenance and all creaturely gifts, that He defends me against all dangers, and that He does all these things not for any good that He finds in me, but rather “only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy.”