Who God is

103. God the Father

 

The Father God is not like many of our earthly fathers. We can get the wrong image of God because we try to define Him by comparing Him to our earthly fathers.  Someone said that God made man in His image, and then man tried to remake God into man’s image. 

 

God the Father has a desire to “father us.” 

It was August 26, 1979, 5:30 PM Sunday, when the words jumped off the page at me, “And He said to me, ‘It is done!  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.  I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.  He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son’” (Revelation 21:6-7).

The surprising thing for me was that I, being a person of reason and intellect, did not even know what that meant; all I knew was that I had a new Father.  The Holy Spirit was all over me, and the new birth took place.  There was no theology, no consciousness of forgiveness of sin. All I knew is that God had become my Father, the Bible was The Word of God and that Jesus “wrote the Bible” (that is how I expressed it).

Titus 3:5 states that we experience the new birth (regeneration) by two things: The Holy Spirit and The Word of Truth. 

Now, many years later, I am just beginning to understand what “Father” really means.  W.E. Vine’s Bible Dictionary defines the Greek word “Father” as “Pater,” from a root signifying a nourisher, protector, upholder, the nearest ancestor, the progenitor of the race of people; the originator of a family or company of persons animated by the same spirit as himself.  Regeneration is from two words: “palin” which means again, and “genesis” which means birth.  Palingenis, or regeneration, is actually changing who your Father is.

W.E. Vine’s Bible Dictionary also defines the word “Abba” as an Aramaic word used by infants to call their daddy.  It betokens unreasoning trust, while Father or Pater expresses an intelligent apprehension of the relationship.  The two together express the love and intelligent confidence of the child.

 

Pater.

At first, Father God was Abba to me, not so much Pater.  There were so many things for my family and me to face, that we needed the comfort of Abba.  However, we should not miss the “Pater” definition.

This world was created to have everything bring forth and reproduce after its own kind. Therefore, our “flesh,” or our old nature, is our inheritance from our natural father, his forefathers, and all the way, back to Adam.  Our inheritance, therefore, is cursed by sin, and everything we have coming to us is not good!  It takes longer for some to realize that, especially those of us that have decent fathers.   Even at best, we are doomed to failure and spiritual death.  Look at the millions of people who were subject to parental abuse, even sexual in nature.  This is more common than uncommon now.  The child did not deserve this lot in life, but it is indeed his lot.

Recently, there is a new survey trying to prove that certain gay lifestyles are inherited by birth; therefore it is God’s plan for these people to be gay.  I say that their lifestyles might have been inherited by birth just as my sin was, but it just shows in a more vivid way their need for a new Father.  I submit that it is possible that sin itself could be written on our very DNA.  I would like to see a study to see what happens to our DNA after the new birth.

This is not a religious problem, it is a scientific fact. We all need a new Father!

 

We need to change our race. 

We need a new progenitor; we need an originator of a family, or company of persons, animated by the same spirit as Himself.  When I saw that in W.E. Vine’s Bible Dictionary I got excited.  If God becomes our Pater, then through the insertion of His Spirit into our body, we are then animated by His Spirit.  That changes our race, our inheritance, our lot in life, what we have coming, our very nature.  The world thought it was amazing when in the 1960s in South Africa a man actually received a heart transplant; what would they have thought if they had known of a LIFE TRANSPLANT. 

So, how does this happen?  Thank God that He set up the Universe so that Life is in the blood.  Jesus and we “drank each other’s blood” and exchanged races.  He did the drinking of our blood in the Garden of Gethsemene, and He poured out His blood voluntarily at Golgotha on the Cross.  We drink His (not only in communion), but also when we partake of the Word of the Covenant.  He circumcised our hearts, thus shedding our blood.  We must also “take up our cross” as in Luke 9:23-24.

What a deal.  Jesus got our race, and we got His.  That is why His virgin birth took place.  One’s blood is inherited by his father.  Jesus’ Father is God Himself.  He got God’s blood just like Adam did.  Jesus is the last Adam.

 

Think of the Lord’s Prayer in light of this. 

“Our Father (Pater) who is in heaven.”  The literal meaning of the word heaven is “an elevated, high and lifted up mount, happiness, eternity.”  So we pray to our Father (not our earthly father here on earth, not the Pharisees’ father, not Satan who is below), but the One Who is High and Lofty, above all things, circumstances and people. Praise God! 

Next in The Lord’s Prayer is “Holy is Your Name.”  To me, that means a description of what our new inheritance is.  If your father’s name is Smith, then you inherit what is Smith’s nature and Smith’s substance.  If your father’s name is Satan, then you inherit what is Satan’s nature and Satan’s substance. If your Father’s name is Holy, then you inherit Holiness.  Praise God!  Look at the Ten Commandments not as a prescription for conduct, but as a description of God.  You can depend on Him, He will not lie, steal or kill, He will take care of His own, etc.  He is unchangeable and ABSOLUTE in His ways.  He is absolutely honest, absolutely merciful.  His wrath is also absolute.  Thanks be to Him that He took out His absolute wrath absolutely on His Son, the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world.  So when God is our Father, our progenitor, His Spirit animates us, He writes His laws upon our hearts and performance is ended.  No longer do we need to use clever religious methods to please an absolute God. That is ridiculous.  He puts Himself into us just as our natural father did.

I usually like to know from God what His responsibility is, and what mine is.  If I can clear that up on any given matter, it brings peace.  I think it also pleases God. 

If what we need to experience in new birth is, as it says in Titus, “The working of the Holy Spirit and the washing of the water of the Word,” then my question is, “What is our responsibility to prepare ourselves for those two things (not only for our initial new birth, but progressive “births” into His image)?”

First, the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus after His baptism when John the Baptist said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).  I submit that the Holy Spirit comes upon those who have the nature of a lamb.  Humility is the key.  Not seeking our own plans, but willing to submit, willing to be led, not demanding rights, not hanging on to our wretched pride.  So often people experience the new birth and later deliverances when they have reached the end of themselves, when they are exhausted in trying to make life work. 

Next, I submit that God reveals His Word of Truth to the ones who are truthful and honest.  It is a sowing and reaping law.  Psalm 85 says that truth springs up from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.  Being honest, really gut-level honest without masks and hypocrisy, is being humble.  To admit that there is no good thing in our flesh, that all our flesh wants to do is to sin, is humiliating!  Often when someone who does not know Jesus asks me about Him, I tell him to be honest with God and God will reveal Himself.

God actively resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  We need to exercise absolute truth (as we know it), which will translate into humility.  God our Father does the rest.

 

Derek Prince writes about the Father God in his book “Fatherhood.” [1]

 

One of the great themes of biblical revelation is “Fatherhood.” Strangely enough, it is a theme that has been somewhat neglected in many Christian circles.  Personally, Fatherhood is a subject which I have not merely studied in the Bible, but also been faced with in my own experience.  My first wife, Lydia, and I raised a family of nine.  More recently, my second wife, Ruth, has added three more children to our total family.  So altogether I stand in the relationship of father to exactly one dozen per­sons.  Most of them are grown and now have families of their own.

The Fatherhood of God.

However, it is not with human fatherhood that I want to begin.  I want to share, first of all, about the Fatherhood of God.  The Fatherhood of God is the great fact behind the universe.  That there is a Father who is our God is the fact behind all other facts.  A Father who created the universe as a father.  A Father who has left the imprint of His Fatherhood on every aspect of the entire universe. In Ephesians 3:14-15, Paul prays one of his great and wonderful prayers.  He says:  For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, [from] whom the whole family in heaven and earth [or every family in heaven and earth derives its] name.

That is the King James version.  However, the word that is there translated “fatherhood” is the Greek word patria.  And that word is derived directly from the Greek word for father so that the most literal, straight­forward translation would be “fatherhood.” So, in this connection, I would like to give you also Phillips translation of those verses which brings out this fact of the connection between father and family or fatherhood.  Phillips translates it this way:  As I think of this great plan I fall on my knees before the Father (from whom all fatherhood, earthly or heavenly, derives its name).

That is a remarkable fact! All father­hood in the universe ultimately goes back to the fatherhood of God, and that fatherhood did not begin on earth, it began in heaven.  Fatherhood is eternal with God.  It did not begin with time, it did not begin with human history, it began in eternity.  Eternally, God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and He is so described in many parts of the Bible.  In his gospel John says, “In the beginning . . . the Word was with God.” That was before creation ever took place.  The divine Word, the eternal Son of God, was with the Father.  The Scripture says He was in the bosom of the Father.  That intimate, personal relationship between God and the Son existed before creation ever began.  This is an absolutely distinctive feature of Christian revelation.

It makes Christianity unlike any other religious faith that I have ever encoun­tered in the world.  It reveals something unique and particular about the nature of God.  In God, eternally, there is fatherhood.  There is a relationship.

When Jesus came to earth, His ultimate purpose was to bring to the Father those who would turn to Him.  This is stated in many places. 1 Peter 3:18 says: “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God…”

Why did Jesus die? That he might bring us to God.  Jesus was not the end, He was the way.  He said that Himself, emphatically, in John 14:6:  Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”

Jesus is the way but the Father is the destination.  I think many times in our Chris­tian faith we really miss the purpose of God.  We talk a great deal about the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, our Intercessor, our Mediator, and so on.  All of that is wonderful but it stops short of God’s purpose.  God’s purpose is not merely that we should come to the Son, but that through the Son we should come to the Father.

There is something beautiful about the language of Jesus in the prayer He prayed in John, chapter 17.  That prayer opens with the word “Father” and it occurs six times in that prayer.  Jesus speaks there about having made known the name of God to His disciples.  In verse 6, He says, “I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world.”  Then He says in verse 11: “Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, the Name which Thou hast given Me.” And right at the end of His prayer, He says again: “I have made Thy name known to them, and will make it known; that the love wherewith Thou didst love Me may be in them, and I in them.”

What name was it that Jesus came especially to make known to his disciples? It was not the sacred name Jehovah, the Jewish people had known that name for fifteen centuries.  What was the new and special revelation, the great purpose, the name that Jesus wanted the disciples to know? The name is “Father.” That is the ultimate name of God.  That describes the nature of God in His eternal character more perfectly than any other word that exists in human language.  The ultimate revelation of God, therefore, in the New Testament is the revelation of God as Father.  And the ultimate purpose of the New Testament, the reason why Jesus Himself came, is to bring us to God.  If we stop short of this revela­tion of God, we have stopped short of the full and final outworking of redemption’s purpose.  But when we come into the fullness of this revelation of God and into that direct rela­tionship with God as Father, it supplies certain things which are conspicuously lacking in the emotional experience of perhaps the majority of the people in our culture.  The three things which come out of this revelation and this relationship are: identity, self-worth, and security.

Identity is a real problem for modern man. An interesting commentary on this need was the success of the book and TV serial, “Roots.” The essence of that story was a man looking for the place or roots from which he came.  Humanity is busy with the same search.  Men and women want to know from where they came, who is behind them, how it started and who they are.  Scripture and psychology agree that a person really does not answer the question, “Who am I?” until he or she knows who his or her father is.

Today, human relationships between parents and children have been so greatly broken down that it has produced an identity crisis.  Christianity’s answer to that identity crisis is to bring men and women into a direct, personal relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son.  People who truly know God as Father no longer have an identity problem.  They know who they are, they are children of God.  Their Father created the universe, their Father loves them, and their Father cares for them.

That brings us to the second need that is supplied by this revelation of God the Father – the need of self-worth.  I cannot count how many people I have dealt with in my ministry whose great problem was not suf­ficiently appreciating themselves.  They had too low a picture of themselves which caused them many spiritual and emotional agonies.  In 1 John 3:1 it says, See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are.

Once we really comprehend that we are the children of God, that God loves us intimately and personally, that He is interested in us, He is never too busy for us and He desires a direct and personal relationship with us, that gives us self-worth.  I have seen this happen again and again in the lives of people.

Once I was in a meeting and I literally ran into a lady. We were going in opposite directions at considerable speed.  She picked herself up and she said, “Mr. Prince, I’ve been praying that if God wanted you to speak to me, we’d meet.”

“Well,” I said, “we’ve met.  But I can only give you about two minutes.  I’m very busy.” She began to tell me what her problem was and after a while I interrupted her and said, “I’m sorry, but I’ve only got one minute left but I think I know your problem. Will you follow me in this prayer? And led her in a prayer in which she just thanked God that He was her Father and she was His child, that He loved her, that He cared for her, that she was special and that she belonged to the best family in the universe.  I said, “Good-bye. I have to go,” and left.

About a month I later, I got a letter from that lady in which she said, “I just want to tell you that being together with you and praying that prayer has completely changed my whole attitude toward life.  For the first time, I really have a sense of my own worth.”

The third great provision of God through the revelation of Father is security.  Behind the universe is not just some scientific force or some great “bang,” but a Father who loves US.

A friend of mine was once feeling lonely and blue late at night in the deserted, windy streets of a city.  He just did not quite know if he was going to make it through.  As he stood there on the street corner, he just be­gan to say, over and over again, “Father…  Father… Father… Father…” As he did that security came to him.  He knew that even though things were cold and bleak around about him, he was a child of God in the uni­verse that God had created for His children.

 

Look up these Scriptures (on the following pages) and read them.  Meditate on them today.

1. The Father tenderly loves us.  John 16:27

2. The Father loves and pities us when we fall.   Psalm 103:13

3. The Father’s holiness is our comfort.  Revelation 4:8

Holiness and being holy is often misunderstood.  Holiness is God’s personality of love.  It is who God is.  He is honest, unselfish and totally just and fair.  Holiness can never do anything wrong, selfish or unloving. We will always be able to trust God because He is holy. We are called to be holy.  It means to be separated, sanctified (or “married”) to God.  As His blood covenant partner, we are to be totally dedicated to Him.  We can trust Him!

4. His love surrounds us.  1 John 4:8-10

God IS love.  He does not have love; love is Who He is.  The world has various definitions for love, but most of them are not accurate.  Love is unselfish and always chooses the best for the other person.  It is not conditioned on the other person’s acts.  God loved us first, even when we were deep in sin.  Jesus died for us on the Cross with unspeakable sufferings in Hell.

5. His justice will be done.  Revelation 20:15

Many people do not believe in Hell, but it is real.  We cannot earn our way out of Hell.  Salvation is free.  But so many people do not accept the free gift of Jesus’ death for us.  People who reject the Lordship of Jesus here on earth would not be happy in Heaven under His authority.  Hell is the fairest place for those people because they will be isolated and separated from what they do not desire. It is God’s way of honoring their free wills. It is God expressing His love to them in spite of the limitations that have put on God.

6. His will reigns supreme.  Psalm 33:10-11

7. His creativity knows no bounds.  Nehemiah 9:6

8. His memory can blank out sin.  Psalm 103:10-14

9. His emotions reveal His care.  Psalm 86:15

God enjoys fellowship with us, but He does get angry and grieves over our bad choices.  He is compassionate and would much rather show mercy; He is quick to restore us when we confess our sin, but He does allow us to turn to our own ways if we continue to resist His loving invitation.

10. God made us in His image (like Him) so He could relate to us and fellowship with us.  Genesis 1:26-27

11. While Jesus was here on earth and even though He was God Himself, He still depended entirely on hearing from the Father.  John 5:19

This is our example for living out this life.  We need to respect the Father, our Creator and lover, to plan the best for our life.  We must do whatever is needed to hear from Him.  John 5:19

12. God is surely the Father, but He does not force His fatherhood on anyone.  He is only the Father of those who choose Him.  John 8:42,44; John 1:12-13

 

Scriptures for this Lesson

 

John 16:27 (Amplified Bible) says,

27 “For the Father Himself [tenderly] loves you because you have loved Me and have believed that I came out from the Father.”

 

Psalm 103:13 says,

13 “As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him.”

 

Revelation 4:8 says,

8 “The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!’”

 

1 John 4:8-10 says,

8 “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.

10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

 

Revelation 20:15 says,

15 “And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”

 

Psalm 33:10-11 says,

10 “The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect.

11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations.”

 

Nehemiah 9:6 says,

6 “You alone are the LORD; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all. The host of the heaven worships You.”

 

Psalm 103:10-14

10 “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities.

11 For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him.

12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him.

14 For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.”

 

Genesis 1:26-27 says,

26 “And God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’

27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

 

John 5:19 says,

19 “Then Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.’”

 

John 8:42 says,

42 “Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.’”

 

John 8:44 says,

44 “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

 

John 1:12-13 says,

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.”

 

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[1]  Derek Prince - Fatherhood, pp. 1-7, Derek Prince Ministries