Understanding the Fatherhood of God Through Jesus Christ

“He said to me, ‘you are my Son, today I have become your Father’.”  —PSALM 2:7

We are all familiar with the idea of calling God “Father,” but to the Jews that was something completely irrational and even offensive. It suggested intimacy with an almighty God, which they thought was presumptuous and totally wrong. 

In the Old Testament, God is likened to a father many times, but He’s never called ‘Father’. He’s also, on one or two occasions, likened to a mother, but in the New Testament, something fresh and new is happening. He is called ‘Father’. In fact, it was one of the reasons why the Jewish people were greatly offended by Jesus. John 5:18 says, “For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill Jesus; not only because he was breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father…” In their eyes, that was blasphemy or as close as you could get, and blasphemy was punishable by death.

In our day and age, how are we to understand God as Father? When you hear the phrase, “We’re all God’s children”, that is not how the Bible speaks of the relationship of human beings with God. God is not our natural father, but because He is our creator we might in a very loose sense say that God is our Father, yet never experience that relationship. The Fatherhood of God does not come automatically. In the New Testament it becomes something fresh and new, made possible only as we enter into relationship with Jesus.

John writes, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1) This is one of the wonderful privileges that expresses God’s love in that we can become children of God. You see, God has only one son. When we become Christians, we become united to Jesus and we share in His Sonship, which makes us sons of God. This is not a sexist term. Christian women are sons of God, because they are incorporated into the Son of God, which is one body and one church. We all become sons of God by adoption into Christ.

God becomes our Father only in light of a relationship with Jesus Christ. Without that relationship, calling God our Father has little merit, other than the fact He is our Creator. That’s why developing a relationship with Jesus is essential. It’s also what makes our prayer lives effective and fruitful, because we’re talking to a Father who loves us, and with whom we can personally and intimately relate to as legitimate children of God.

Thank You, Lord, that I am able to call you “Father”. Thank You for the relationship I have with Jesus, and all the blessings that come from being a child of yours. 

Is my relationship with Christ bringing me into a deeper experience of God as my heavenly Father?