The Fatherhood of God

The fatherhood of God is extended to those who are adopted into His family by virtue of their union with Christ. And so, so far from teaching the universal fatherhood of God, the Bible teaches the particular fatherhood of God, the idea of the universal fatherhood of God is not a biblical concept. You've heard it said, I'm sure, that we're all children of God.

But is that true? Is God really the father of everyone? This is the Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Before moving on to the next petition in the Lord's Prayer, today R.C. Sproul will bring additional clarity when it comes to speaking of God as our Father. This week's messages are from Dr. Sproul's series, The Lord's Prayer. Don't forget that you can own this entire series, plus receive a copy of the Prayer of the Lord book from Dr. Sproul when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org in support of Renewing Your Mind.

As always, we're grateful for your support, as Renewing Your Mind would not be possible without the generosity of you, the listener. Well, here's Dr. Sproul on the fatherhood of God. Our Father who art in heaven. That's the opening address of the Lord's Prayer. We've already looked briefly at the significance of this form of personal address that begins, Our Father. But I'm not quite finished with this.

I don't want to move on to the first petition until I spend a little bit more time on this form of personal address. In the 19th century, a new discipline was added to the curriculum of the study of religion called comparative religion, an attempt at understanding the great religions of the world, not in isolation from each other, but as the term comparative religion suggests, in terms of the interconnectedness and comparisons of the various world religions. This interest was brought about in part because of the shrinking of the globe. In the past, because of difficulties of travel and immigration, we would seem to find clusters of religion in certain geographical portions of the world and limited to ethnic groups or nationalities. But as the world became smaller and more interaction took place between the West and the East, Christians had to deal with Islam and with Buddhism and Shintoism, Confucianism, and so on. And so the 19th century field of comparative religion tried to look at the various religions of this world and find common denominators among them. It was during this period that the famous mountain analogy was first coined, the idea that God in the image sits at the apex of a high mountain and that there are many roads that go to the peak of that mountain.

Some of them go more or less directly from the base of the mountain to the top, while others bend and wind and twist and turn into a circuitous route to the top. But the basic idea was it doesn't really matter ultimately which road you take because all of the roads lead to the top and will eventually get you to the top. So if you're trying to get to God, you can go on the road of Buddhism or Taoism or Shintoism or Judaism or Christianity.

These are just different roads all going to the same place. Now in German scholarship in the 19th century, particularly in this field of comparative religion, I noticed that there was a German word that occurred over and over and over again in the titles of important books written during this period. And that word is the German word Wesen, W-E-S-E-N, Wesen.

And that word can be translated by the English word being or substance or essence. And the idea was as we look at the different religions of the world, can we penetrate to the core beliefs of these religions, get to the fundamental substance of religion, or distill the basic essence or Wesen, the being of world religion? And the sanguine conclusion of these scholars in the 19th century, as I've already mentioned was, at the core, at the essence of world religions, there is this common affirmation of faith. Now one of those works that was written by an outstanding German church historian, perhaps the most important church historian of the last 200 years, Adolph von Harnack, is that von Harnack was interested in this study, and he produced a little work in German that was subsequently translated into English and became a bestseller in the theological world, and a little book that had a tremendous impact on the thinking of theology at the end of the 19th century and end of the 20th century. And that book is entitled, What is Christianity?

Now that's a provocative title, isn't it? What is Christianity? And it comes over from the German in the sense of what is the essence or the being or the Wesen of Christianity. What makes Christianity Christian?

What's its core beliefs? Now, in an effort to make this analysis, von Harnack came to this conclusion that the message of Christ and the core doctrine of biblical Christianity can be reduced to two fundamental propositions. This is fundamentalism with a vengeance, that there are two fundamental, core, essential propositions that define the Christian faith. And I'm sure that you have heard these propositions. You maybe have never heard of Harnack, and you've never perhaps heard of his book, What is Christianity? But I guarantee you that if you've been alive for twenty years or more, you've heard the two propositions.

They are these. Proposition number one, the universal fatherhood of God, and two, the universal brotherhood of man. Have you heard those propositions? The universal fatherhood of God, universal brotherhood of man. I'm going to say something that may be a little bit controversial, maybe a whole lot controversial. You may find it shocking, and you may be completely outraged by what I say about it.

But here's what I'd like to observe. I think that Harnack is wrong in his analysis of the essence of Christianity. I don't think that these two propositions are at the essential core of the Christian faith. In fact, I don't think they're even a part of the Christian faith. I think these propositions are opposed to the Christian faith, antithetical to the Christian faith. Now, if you ask me to write a book, What is Humanism or What is 19th Century Liberalism or something like that, then I might say if you want to get to the essence of these systems, you may want to say the affirmation of the universal fatherhood of God or the universal brotherhood of man. Now, that may sound shocking to you, and I'll just ask you to hear me out for a moment. And I ask you to go to the Scriptures, to the Old and New Testament, and find out where you find this concept of the universal fatherhood of God.

Where is it? I can find a couple of passages that may support this in a very tangential way. Paul, when he is debating with the philosophers in Athens at Mars Hill, when he rebukes them for their altar to an unknown god, he quotes their own pagan poets to them, and the citation that he quotes is that we are all God's offspring. Now, this is not a quotation from the Old Testament. It's a quotation from a pagan source, and then Paul goes on to say, in that sense that we live and move and have our being in God, and in the sense that we have God as the Creator of all people, then you can talk about fatherhood that is universal, in the sense that God is the universal Begetor of the human race. We are all His offspring in the sense that we have all been created by Him. But when the Bible speaks of the fatherhood of God, as we've already seen, it doesn't do it normally and characteristically with regard simply to creation, but specifically to redemption. It is in the context of redemption that this language of fatherhood is used most frequently in the Bible, and in that case, it is not inclusive, but it's exclusive and restricted. In that sense, God is first of all only the Father of Jesus in the unique way. Jesus is the only begotten of the Father. And as we've already seen, the fatherhood of God is then extended to those who are adopted into His family by virtue of their union with Christ. And so, so far from teaching the universal fatherhood of God, the Bible teaches the particular fatherhood of God, that this concept of fatherhood applies only to and in particular to those who are in Christ. And to call God Father in the New Testament sense of the word, in the sense of the word, the way the church expresses it as the family of God, is to repudiate the very uniqueness of Christianity.

So, I would say be very careful about that proposition. It's un-American to question it, and it's anti-humanistic to question it. But the idea of the universal fatherhood of God is not a biblical concept. The universal creatorhood of God is. Now, the second proposition, in a very real sense with Harnack and others who use it, is deduced from the first. Since God is the Father of us all, then we must all share in our common humanity a certain brotherhood or sisterhood, that there is a common community relationship of the whole human race that Harnack describes as a brotherhood. This of course was before sexist language was condemned, and today we would have to say brotherhood and sisterhood or whatever. But in any case, this really is a deduction from the first premise, not from the New Testament.

Now, let me say something else that is shocking to you. I don't think the Bible teaches the universal brotherhood of men at all. They say, wait a minute, doesn't the Bible teach us to love everybody? Yes. And shouldn't a brotherhood be a community where people love each other?

Yes, of course, obviously. But just to have a community where people are obligated to love each other doesn't mean that you have a brotherhood or a sisterhood. That concept goes deeper. And again, in biblical categories, the brotherhood of which the New Testament speaks is the brotherhood or sisterhood of fellowship of all of those who are adopted into the family of God and who are in Christ, who becomes the firstborn of many creatures and of whom the Bible describes as our elder brother. I am in the brotherhood when I am linked to Christ by adoption.

He's my adopted brother. And every other Christian who is in that special fellowship, the fellowship of the church, the fellowship of the bride of Christ, are people who are participating in this special brotherhood. And you're not born into it naturally. You must be reborn or regenerated to be in this fellowship, to be in this brotherhood or sisterhood. And when we speak about the universal brotherhood of man, we weaken or cheapen this crucial point that the New Testament makes about the church and about the body of Christ with respect to its singularity. Now, why would anybody come to this conclusion of the universal brotherhood of man?

I've suggested one reason is a deduction from the first premise, the universal fatherhood of God. But there's another reason why this conclusion is reached as erroneous as it may be, and that is there is something that the Bible teaches in terms of its universality, and that is the universal neighborhood of man. Not brotherhood, but neighborhood. All men are not my brothers. Only those who are in Christ are my brothers in Christ. All men are my neighbors, and I am required of God to treat these people as well as I could be expected to treat a brother. I am required to love my neighbor as much as I love myself. And Jesus made it clear that the neighborhood is not restricted to the brotherhood. That was the mistake the Pharisees made.

The Pharisees believed that all of these obligations to love the neighbor and to be kind to your neighbor and to be gracious to your neighbor and all of that was limited or restricted to their fellow Jews, to the brotherhood. But they didn't have to be loving, for example, to the Samaritan. Now you remember the parable of the good Samaritan, where Jesus tells the story of the man who goes down to Jericho and falls among thieves and is beaten and robbed and left for dead, and how the Levite and the priest pass by and leave the man suffering and stripped and humiliated. And it is then the passing Samaritan who stops, who has compassion, who anoints the man's wounds with oil, who carries him to the lodge and pays the innkeeper for the ongoing care until such time as he can come back and settle up the bill. And Jesus tells that wonderful story about the good Samaritan.

What was the occasion of that parable? Why did Jesus tell the story of the good Samaritan? He told that story in answer to the people who were asking the question, who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor?

And Jesus purposefully tells the story that involves an act of kindness and mercy, of compassion and love between a Samaritan and a Jew, two people who certainly did not consider themselves as part of a brotherhood. But Jesus said the Samaritan is your neighbor. The Russian is your neighbor. The pagan is your neighbor. The Buddhist is your neighbor. The Muslim is your neighbor.

Every human being on the face of this earth is your neighbor, and you are to love that person as much as you love yourself. And that that's not just a postscript to the law of God. Jesus defines that as integral to the great commandment. So again, this is not some esoteric point in the fine print of the Bible.

It's front and center. It's prominent that we are to regard all people as our neighbors. And you see what a slight shift it would be from the idea of universal neighborhood to universal brotherhood.

But the danger of that is in obscuring the uniqueness of the brotherhood. Again, I'm laboring this point because of the opening form of address of the Lord's Prayer, our Father who art in heaven. With the word Father, we are entering into sacred ground. As I said, we are given the unspeakable privilege of being able to address God in the same terms of filial familiarity as Jesus did. But not only are we acknowledging that now God is our Father, but the word that comes before it, our, is restricted. We're not supposed to pray to the Father, but He's our Father. He's our Father in a special salutary way. He's our Father in the sense that He is the patriarch of the brotherhood. He is the one who begets the brothers and the sisters as the brothers and the sisters are born of God, and they are reborn by the Spirit of God. In creation, we are by nature enemies of God.

By recreation, by regeneration, we become the children of God, which is a status and a privilege that is paramount to the New Testament concept of redemption and should be brought to the front of our minds every time we use the word our when we say the Lord's Prayer, our Father who art in heaven. How many times have you heard that expression, the universal Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man? I hope you listen carefully to what I said today so that you don't think that I'm saying that we should set ourselves up as superior to other people and to withhold our love or graciousness from anybody.

But I can hear somebody say, but that is so patronizing. You're saying, well, yes, I have to love everybody. I have to consider everybody my neighbor, but I'm really not recognizing the validity of their religion.

I'm putting them outside of the exclusive camp of the church. Did you hear me say that? I didn't say that, but what I said means that.

I'm doing just that. I am saying that other world religions are outside the camp, that there is a difference between Christianity and Buddhism, and that that difference is of eternal significance. And I know that when I say that, I'm opening up the possibility for significant conflict. But what else is new in the history of Judaism or Christianity? Did God say to Israel, it doesn't matter whether you follow Baal or follow me?

Both roads come to me. All religions are essentially the same. Beloved, go back to the first commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. And in the eyes of God, Baal was a false god.

Dagon, the god of the Philistines, was a false god. And the prohibition against idolatry is at the same time, beloved, a mandate for exclusiveness. The world might not like it, but because it is true, it is the loving thing to tell people of the exclusivity of Christ. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and I'm glad you're with us for Renewing Your Mind as we spend a week considering the Lord's Prayer. If you'd like lifetime access to today's important and clarifying message from R.C. Sproul, you can gain lifetime streaming access to it and all 10 messages in the series when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343. In addition to access to this series, we'll send you the companion book, The Prayer of the Lord by R.C.

Sproul. This offer ends this week, so call us today at 800-435-4343. Give your gift online at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. Thank you for keeping Renewing Your Mind freely available seven days a week, 365 days a year. I recently read a review of the Renewing Your Mind podcast. It was posted by a teenager, and he titled his review Ruthlessly Biblical, and I just love that. And he goes on to say that Renewing Your Mind has been used of God to edify and equip me almost more than any other. I praise God for the faithful Bible teaching. Christians of all ages would benefit immensely from listening to the podcast.

I'm in my teens and can testify that it is by no means inapplicable to younger generations. Well, thank you for that review. And if you're thankful for the Renewing Your Mind podcast, I would love to hear from you. Consider leaving a podcast review wherever you listen to podcasts or send me a message on any of the social media platforms at NWBingham. That's NWBINGHAM. Hallowed be your name. Is this a declaration that God's name is holy, or is it a petition to God? Join us tomorrow as RC Sproul continues his examination of the Lord's Prayer here on Renewing Your Mind. Thank you.