God, the Father Almighty

The God who is love is the Father who sends his Son. So to be Father means to love, to beget the Son. That is his most fundamental identity and therefore love is not something the Father merely has, something he switches on, one of his moods. He is love, he could not not love.

If he did not love, he would not be Father. As you look at the creeds of the early church, you'll notice that the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed begin by declaring the Fatherhood of God. Is that where you would begin if you were to write down what you believe about Christianity? This is the Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind and you're hearing messages from Ligonier Ministries Winter Conference on the theme, We Believe. The Fatherhood of God is so significant that creeds begin there.

R.C. Sproul noted that our highest privilege as a Christian is to call God our Father. So what is the significance of his Fatherhood and how does it shape our understanding of the Gospel and the way we're called to live the Christian life? Well, here's Michael Reeves with a message titled, God the Father Almighty. The Apostles' Creed opens with these words, I believe in God the Father Almighty.

And the Nicene Creed is almost identical. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty. Now, why do the creeds start with the Fatherhood of God? Why not God as Creator, as Almighty?

Why does Father come first in the creeds? Because this is the deepest revelation of the identity of God. When God sends forth his revealing word to see who he is, what do we see? John 1 verse 14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. Or verse 18 of John 1, no one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father's side has made him known. The revealing word is a Son revealing a God who is Father. So against every other belief system in the world, John's prologue is saying God is eternally a Father. The God revealed in Jesus Christ is first and foremost a Father. I am the way, the truth, and the life, says Jesus. No one comes to the Father except through me. That is who God has revealed himself to be, not first and foremost creator or ruler.

But, well, think of it this way. Here is the thorny old question. What was God doing before he created the world? The pompous theologian's answer is God was inventing hell for those cheeky enough to ask such speculative questions. But Jesus answers it for us in John 17 24. He says, Father, you loved me before the foundation of the world. That is the God revealed by Jesus Christ. Before he created, before anything else, this God was a Father loving his Son. The most foundational thing in God is the fact that he is Father. And again and again in Scripture. Throughout Scripture, we see the Scriptures seem to equate really the terms God and Father. In the Exodus, the Lord calls Israel my first born son. He carries his people as a father carries his son.

He disciplines them as a man disciplines his son. In Psalm 103, we read that as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. Jeremiah 3, he says, how gladly would I treat you like sons.

The most delightful inheritance I would give you, I thought you would call me father and not turn away from following me. Isaiah therefore prays, you, O Lord, are our father. You, O Lord, are our father. And to show how this sunk into Israelite consciousness, one of the really popular Old Testament names was Abidjar. We usually pronounce it these days as Abijah. But Abijah or Abidjar means the Lord is my father.

It's a very striking name. Then Jesus repeatedly refers to God as the father. He directs prayer to our father. He tells his disciples he will return to my father and your father, to my God and your God. Paul and Peter refer to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul writes of one God, the father, of God our father.

Hebrews says God is treating you as sons for what son is not disciplined by his father. And it was with all that in mind that when John Calvin wrote his institutes, he divided the knowledge of God into two steps. So book one of the institutes is about the knowledge of God the creator.

But Calvin didn't believe you could ever stop there. He didn't want Christians to stop with the knowledge that God is creator. And so book two is about the knowledge of God the redeemer in Christ. For he said, those who only think of God as creator are, he said, lost, accursed. And that is precisely our problem as sinners in this world, said Calvin, that I quote, in this ruin of mankind, no one now experiences God as father. That he will show is the blessing of the gospel, that when Christ the mediator comes forward to reconcile us, only then do we come to know God do we come to know God as father. And Calvin wanted Christians to think of the almighty creator as their father. He wanted to draw his readers to know of the son returning us to God our author and maker. And he said, in order that he may be to us a father, our father.

For without that knowledge of the son as our redeemer and the father as our father in Christ, if we do not have that knowledge, we do not properly know God and we certainly will not break forth into praise of him. Now, since before all things, God is a father, before he created, before he ruled his creation, he's a father, it means all his ways are beautifully fatherly. He creates as a father, he rules as a father. So it's not that this God does being a father as a day job and then he kicks back in the evenings as plain old God. No, it's not that he has a nice blob of fatherly icing on top. He is father all the way down. That's who he is. And that means the way that this God rules over creation is entirely different to the way any other God would.

So we've got to ask, what then does it mean that God is a father? For that name does actually mean something. Names these days don't tend to mean much. So my name is Michael.

But you couldn't care less. It could be Bob. Bob would make no difference to you because my name doesn't really mean much in terms of telling you about who I am, what I'm like. But if I can make the jump, the name father does matter. He's called father because he is a father and a father is a person who gives life, who begets children. And that insight is like a stick of dynamite in all our thoughts about God.

Because if before all things God was eternally a father, that means this God is inherently an outgoing life giving God. And this gets unpacked for us in 1 John 4. Those remarkable words in 1 John 4 verses 7 and 8. John writes, dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. And hear this, whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.

Is love. I think have you ever known someone maybe in your church, maybe a senior saint who's walked with the Lord for decades and seemed to radiate holiness and the joy of knowing God. Do you know such a person? Magnetically kind, gracious. So warm and generous of spirit that they invite you to lunch at their house on a Sunday and while you're there, you're just a bit nicer. It seems to rub off on you.

I mean, it wears off. But while you're with them, you're just nicer. People like that seem to be little pictures of how God is according to John. For this God, he says, is love in such a profound and potent way. You just cannot know him without yourself becoming more loving.

You just don't know him if you're not becoming like that. And this is precisely what it means for God to be father. For when John writes God is love at the end of verse eight in first John four, he's clearly referring to the father because his very next words, verse nine, state, this is how God showed his love among us.

He sent his one and only son. So the God who is love is the father who sends his son. So to be father means to love, to beget the son. Before anything else for eternity, this God was loving, begetting, delighting in his son. And seeing this, many theologians have liked to compare the father to a fountain ever bursting out with life and love.

It's a scriptural image. And just as a fountain, to be a fountain must pour forth water. So the father to be father must give out. Or he's not a father.

That is who he is. That is his most fundamental identity. And therefore, love is not something the father merely has, something he switches on. One of his moods, he is love. He could not not love. If he did not love, he would not be father. Now, God could not be love if there was nobody to love.

He could not be a father without a child. And yet it is not as if God created so that he could love someone because he is love. He doesn't need to create to become that. If he did, what a lonely thing he would be creating in order to get friends for himself.

How sad. No, father says, Jesus, you loved me before the creation of the world. The eternal son who is before all things. The one through whom all things were created.

Lord, God, the one who laid the foundations of the earth. He it is who is loved by the father before the creation of the world. The father then is the eternal father of the eternal son.

And he finds his very fatherhood in loving, begetting, delighting in his son. That is why it is so important to note that the son is the eternal son. There never was a time when he didn't exist because if there was a time when the son didn't exist, then God must be a completely different sort of being. If there once was a time when the son didn't exist, then there once was a time when the father wasn't yet a father.

So he must have some other deeper identity. And if that is the case, then once upon a time, God was not a father. Once upon a time, God was not love, having nobody to love. Hebrews 1-3 says, the son is the radiance of God's glory. And the fourth century theologian Gregory of Nessa explained it like this, as the light from the lamp, so is the son of the father, and the father is never without the sun, for it is impossible that glory should be without radiance, and it is impossible that the lamp should be without brightness. The father is never without the sun, but like a lamp, it is the very nature of the father to shine out, to beget his son. And likewise, it is the very nature of the sun to be the one who shines out from the father. The son has his very being from the father. He is the going out, the radiance of his father's own being. So father is the first thing the creed wants to say about God. It is the deepest revelation of the identity of God. But onto my second point, that identity entirely shapes the gospel. A different God would have a different gospel, because who God is, is the mold that shapes the gospel.

Now how so? Well, John 1 18 describes God the son as being eternally, it's literally in the bosom or lap of the father. And one would never dare imagine it, but Jesus declares, his desire is that believers might be with him there, where I am. And in fact, we see that at the last supper where the disciple that he loves leans into his bosom or lap. His disciple is in his heart as he is in the heart of his father. It is why the father sent him that we who've rejected him might be brought back, and brought back not merely as creatures, to be brought back us as children. To enjoy the abounding love that the son has always known. God the redeemer's great purpose in salvation was that the son might be the firstborn among many brothers. That the son might share his sonship, bringing us with him to enjoy his father. So the gospel is so much more than getting heaven. It is being taken to the throne itself, there to enjoy the son's own life before the father. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones once said this of our adoption in Christ, when he was looking at Romans 8.

He said this is the very top, the acme. This is the quintessence of the Christian faith. Here in our adoption in Christ we have arrived at the grand plateau.

We are standing on the summit and we are just looking, looking and gazing with astonishment and amazement at the height to which we have been brought. Our chief trouble, he said, and the whole trouble with the church is that we do not realize the meaning of a statement like our adoption in Christ. Were we to do so the Christian church would be revolutionized. If only every church member, every Christian in the church realized the truth of this statement, the church would be so different we should scarcely recognize her, said Lloyd-Jones. Well, come with me to Romans 8 to see why. For Romans 8 captures how the fatherly identity of God shapes our salvation so wonderfully. And I want to start with the surprise here. For we're going to go from verse 14 and I want you to see particularly ladies how outrageous this language is.

I particularly say ladies antennae up here. Verse 14, all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. No wonder people say scripture is misogynistic. It's how people read a verse like that now.

It looks misogynistic to them. But while scripture does sometimes speak using the more generic term children of God, Paul is not being misogynistic. Oh, he has a purpose. Paul wants us to be clear. The status we are all given, male and female, is quite specifically the status of the Son Himself. The men have to make peace with being part of the bride of Christ.

We've all got issues. It's not a sexist thing to talk about our sonship. It's being clear that we share in precisely nothing less than what the Son Himself enjoys before the Father. The Father doesn't just give us some exalted semi-angelic status before Himself. The Son shares His own sonship. He shares the Spirit of adoption.

Verse 15, you do not receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. You've received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba, Father. We're in Galatians 4, Paul calls Him the Spirit of His Son. Yes, united to the Son and so adopted in Him, the children of God receive the very Spirit of the Son which makes us cry the very cry of the Son, Abba.

And deliberately, Paul uses that one Aramaic word in this Greek letter to make us think of Mark 14 when Jesus personally in private is speaking to His Father and says Abba, Father. And Paul is showing us that sonship means being given the very access and relationship to the Father that the Son Himself has. Jesus shares His own relationship with His Father with us. The eternally beloved and cherished Son comes to share with us the very love that the Father has always lavished on Him. He comes to share with us the life that is His, that we might be brought before the Most High, not just as forgiven sinners but as dearly beloved sons of God. Sharing by the Spirit, the Son's own Abba cry. The Father's eternal love for the Son now encompassing us. John Calvin put it like this, he said, Christ's aim in all that He did was to restore us to God's grace so as to make the children of men children of God, to make the heirs of Gehenna the heirs of the heavenly kingdom. That is the aim of redemption. You remember Martin Lloyd-Jones talking about how transformative that adoption knowing God as our Father is?

Well, let me give you a biblical example of how that adoption affects people. A favorite Old Testament character of mine, Caleb. Caleb is the only Old Testament character repeatedly said to have followed the Lord fully or wholeheartedly. When we first get to meet him, when he's sent by Moses to reconnoiter Canaan as one of the 12 Israelite spies.

If you're a fast flicker you might want to flick to Numbers 13 to see this because here's one of those instances where genealogy is very interesting. In Numbers 13 when the list of spies is given out, he's described in Numbers 13 6 as from the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh. So what do we know about Caleb so far? He is of the tribe of Judah and his father is Jephunneh.

So far so easy. Who's Jephunneh? Now flick on to Numbers 32 verse 12. He's called Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite. Jephunneh the Kenizzite. Now the Kenizzites were pagan Canaanites. Do you remember Abraham in Genesis 15 is told that the Lord will give to his descendants Canaan the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Hittites and all that scary lot. Caleb is an ethnic Gentile who joined Israel. He's not a native Jew and almost certainly that explains his name for Caleb means dog in Hebrew and the Israelites commonly referred to foreigners as Gentile dogs and Caleb wore it as those who have that name today still and should wear it as a badge of honor. For like Rahab, Ruth, many others a Gentile dog had joined Israel and been adopted into the royal tribe of Judah. Born a pagan he would receive an inheritance as a part of Judah and indeed of all the wilderness generation it was only Joshua and Caleb who survived to enter the land, an ethnic Jew and an ethnic Gentile walking together and equal into God's reward.

Now is it a coincidence that Caleb is repeatedly spoken of as wholehearted? He'd been adopted, welcomed, embraced. He found he belonged with the Lord and his people. He was far less likely to fall into Baal worship and he remained a lion-hearted soldier of the Lord into his late 80s.

Oh, adoption is a powerful, heart-affecting thing. It was for Caleb as a son of Judah. It is for the sons of God. We have been shown such kindness and we belong with this Father we believe as in Christ. Do you know if you want to understand how well someone understands Christianity think what he makes of the thought of being God's child, having God as his Father. And if that thought is not prompting prayer, is not shaping his outlook, he's really not understanding the Gospel well. But when a person deliberately and confidently calls the Almighty Father it shows they've grasped something beautiful, fundamental about who God is and to what they've been saved. Knowing God as our Father gladdens our view of him. Our view of him. The honor of it is stupefying. Imagine hearing that you had been adopted to be the child of some rich king.

That would be impressive. We have far more to be the beloved of the emperor of the universe. And clearly the salvation of this God is better than forgiveness and more secure even than forgiveness. And other gods might offer forgiveness but this God embraces us as his children on top of forgiving us never to send us away. But children do not get disowned for being naughty. This adoption means that God does not offer some kind of, he loves me, he loves me not relationship whereby I have to try to keep myself in his favor and it's all dependent on my behavior.

No. To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Just think of who the son is. He is the one eternally utterly loved by his father. The father would never moderate or lessen his love for his son and his son comes to share with us all that as the father wanted because Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers Hebrews 2 therefore the father Hebrews 11 is not ashamed to be known as ours.

Nothing could give greater confidence in approaching the heavenly throne of grace. How great is the love the father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God and that is what we are 1 John 3.1. Now if God were not a father he simply could not give us the right to be his children. If he didn't enjoy eternal fellowship with his son you've got to ask does he know what fellowship is?

Does he have any fellowship to offer? If the son had never been close how could he bring us close? If God was not a father salvation would look entirely different. A God who's not a father might allow us to live under his rule and protection but he'll be at a distance. He might even offer forgiveness but he couldn't offer adoption and since by definition a God who's not a father is not eternally loving would he deal with the price of sin himself? Offer forgiveness for free at his own cost?

No. With another God as it is in Islam with a God who's not a father with such a God we would remain distant hirelings. We would never hear the son's golden words to his father and may I suggest you brush your teeth with these words for the next week. Father you have loved them even as you've loved me.

Father you've loved them even as you've loved me. This God the father rejoices to share his love for his son sends him that we might be brought into the father's bosom there to cry Abba ourselves. It means that we can pray with all sincerity our father knowing that we pray as it were through the mouth of Jesus knowing that kind father in heaven will hear us and on his throne is all powerful to answer us. Talk about enabling a hearty prayer life and if this is the shape of salvation it means you've got a salvation that must be by grace from first to last because if salvation is about being adopted into the family of the father it must be all of grace.

I see I often think we speak of the gospel like this that God's standards are high speak of the gospel like this that God's standards are high our problem is that our standards aren't high enough and we think that's the only problem now that is a big problem but when we hear that as sinners we think ah so my standards aren't high enough I better try a bit harder and so we tell each other we can't meet God's perfect standards but if high standards is what it's about and we have a high view of ourselves we'll have a go but if salvation is to be adopted as children into the family of the father performance can have nothing to do with it because it's simply a wrong category you just can't earn your way into a family God's blessing is sonship and so effort can have nothing to do with it your efforts can make you a slave but no amount of effort can make you a son all our efforts to win God's blessing by our own strength to earn salvation can only produce slaves slaves slaves who will not inherit but sonship is free and friends this is right at the heart of the Christian battle knowing that the only blessing God has is offered freely free adoption for real sinners because if you're like me I find I can go through life thinking I'm so inconstant I am so faithless I'm so riddled with sin my Christian life is so poor and therefore I doubt God can love me and so I reason and so I reason once I've sorted myself out then I can go back to God you parents will know how this feels what kind father what would a kind father think hearing that that their child thinks I need to sort myself out before I could ever go to my father the father hearing his child needs thinks she needs to earn his love that's not love then and you know this Abba cry also tells us something else about how the trinity how the fatherhood of God shapes the gospel because that cry is not just about our new status before God those who cry Abba do so because they've been transformed the natural sinful mind Paul says is hostile to God it hates him but God Romans 5 5 pours his spirit into our hearts turning our hearts he pours his love into our hearts by the spirit turning our hearts from a love of sin and hatred of God to a love of God and a hatred of sin and therefore believers increasingly cry Abba not just because they're allowed to but because the spirit has changed their hearts so that they now adore him as their father think for eternity God the father has delighted in his son the son has delighted in his father and we've been created that we might share that mutual enjoyment this in fact is the heartbeat of what it means to be godly to be like this God it's why Jesus says if God were your father you would love me because the father's very identity consists in his love for the son and so when we love the son we reflect what's most basic about the father the great puritan John Owen wrote therein consists the principal part of our renovation into God's image nothing makes us so like God as our love for Jesus Christ because that's what's characterized the father for eternity the spirit makes us like the father loving Christ and the spirit gives us the mind of Christ to love the father what is most characteristic of the son is his relationship with the father that he knows and enjoys the father that he says in John 14 31 I love the father and do as exactly as he's commanded me so at the heart of our transformation into the likeness of the son is our love and enjoyment of the father the heart of our transformation into the likeness of the father is our love and enjoyment of the son that is the happy life the spirit calls us to how great and lovely is the work of the spirit then he unites us to the son so that the father's love encompasses us he draws us to share the father's enjoyment of his son and he causes us to share the son's delight in his father what could be more delicious than to keep in step with a spirit whose purpose is that you know the reformer Martin Luther he knew very personally how the son of the father how the fatherhood of God changes the shape of salvation and all our thoughts about God for in his days of monkery Luther said his mind was filled with knowledge of the fact that God is righteous and hates sin but he didn't understand what God's righteousness was or why he hated sin and so Luther said I did not love I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners I was angry with God he didn't know God as a kind father and so Luther found he just could not love him and what happened is Luther and the other monks found they transferred their affections elsewhere to Mary and the saints because Mary at least seemed to be kind and so attractive lovely I'd rather love such a kind figure than this distant monster in heaven that Luther thought was there and that changed when he saw God is a God who shares his righteousness his glory his wisdom he is a fatherly God sharing his son with us and Luther then said it is not enough to know God as creator only when God is known as a loving father is he known aright for although the whole world has carefully sought to understand the nature of God it's had no success in this but God has revealed and disclosed the deepest profundity of his fatherly heart and through sending his son to bring us back to himself God has revealed himself to be fatherly and Luther found that won his heart to the God he'd once hated and he said oh so we may look into God's fatherly heart and sense how boundlessly he loves us that would warm our hearts setting them aglow with thankfulness in the salvation of this fatherly God we see a God we can really love adore understanding the nature of God and therefore the nature of his gospel transformed Luther you see that in the years after he made that discovery that happy find in those immediate years afterwards seemed to give Luther once he got that key it seemed to give him this superhuman burst of energy and so the next year after that discovery he wrote all his major reformation tracts forced into hiding having stood up to the pope and the emperor he translated the entire greek new testament into german in 11 weeks and then wrote sermons in the evenings he then went on to do the rest of the bible and churn out tract after tract lecture after lecture sermon after sermon and i could go on for knowing God and his gospel transformed luther transformed luther from shaking in fear that both God and man to adoring this glorious father who is almighty it transfigures those who share this discovery and so my dear friends let us preach to ourselves and to this generation this specific God revealed in Jesus Christ and this gospel and like in luther's day we might see a second reformation by the power of the gospel that brought about reformation before let us pray oh our father how glorious you show yourself to be in your self-revelation we praise you for your compassion for your generosity your grace in sharing what is most precious to you your son and calling us in him to yourself your grace wins us to you and so we pray bring us to know you ever better for just like Martin Luther we might adore you and fear you alone and no other and proclaim you and your good news to this dark world and all for the great glory of Jesus Christ your precious son and in his name we pray it amen you're listening to the Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind and that was Michael Reeves speaking at last month's winter conference on the campus of Ligonier Ministries and Reformation Bible College. Dr Reeves mentioned the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed today. You've probably heard of them before and maybe even recite them in church but do you know their history?

When were they written? In a new collection of 20 creeds, catechisms and confessions titled We Believe, each document also includes an introduction to help you understand its context. Request this new hardcover resource when you give a gift at renewingyourmind.org in support of Renewing Your Mind's uncompromising commitment to proclaim the truth of God in all its fullness. You can also call us at 800 435 4343 and when you do we'll send you this hardcover volume We Believe. So give your gift at renewingyourmind.org and know that your generosity is fueling Renewing Your Mind and the global outreach of Ligonier Ministries. As we heard today, God is our Father and Christ, He's our mediator and that's what we'll discuss tomorrow here on Renewing Your Mind. you