The Fatherhood of God

by George Sidney Hurd
 
In what sense is God the Father of all? When we receive Christ, we are born again as children of God, born of the Spirit of God as John says:
 
“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.” (John 1:12-13)
 
This new birth is the rebirth of our spirit which was dead in sins: “even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Eph 2:5). Christ explained to Nicodemus that it is the spirit of man that is born again: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). Without this new birth, we cannot see; much less enter, the kingdom of God (Jn 3:3-5). Physically speaking, we are sons of God before the new birth. But flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1Cor 15:50). Nevertheless, Christ came to give us new life, and in due time, all will be made spiritually alive and will put on immortality:
 
“And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1Cor 15:45)
 
“…in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order.” (1Cor 15:22-23)
 
The majority of the Partialists (those who do not believe in the salvation of all) would say that God doesn’t consider us to be His sons until we have been born again - that men are creatures of God but that He isn’t our Father until we are born again, becoming part of the new creation. This, according to them, absolves God of all responsibility as a Father to mankind. But this is not what we find in the Scriptures. The Prodigal son never ceased to be a son to his father, even in the far country. When he returned, it was like being born again but he never stopped being considered a son by his father. The father in the parable is an expression of Father God’s heart towards all His lost children. Even though they rebel against Him and are in the far country, wasting the Father’s hard-earned inheritance, His love for them never diminishes. What did the father say to the elder son when his lost son returned? “It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost (apólumi) and is found” (Luke 15:32). God considers all to be His sons and not just those who have already been made alive or born again. The Scriptures affirm the fatherhood of God and His loving care for all of His children:
 
“Men of Athens…. God, who made the world and everything in it…, gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth…. 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising.” (Acts 17:22-29)
 
Here, Paul affirms the fatherly care of God towards all mankind, including the unbelieving men of Athens, saying that all are His offspring. I believe Paul would have been reproved in many traditional church circles today for stating that God was the Father even of unbelievers. This is not the only instance in which Paul states that God is the Father of all:
 
“one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph 4:6 NIV)
 
Here, we see God’s universal Fatherhood stated. Some Greek manuscripts end this verse with the personal pronoun “us” and others with “you.” However, they were most likely added by traditional scribes who couldn’t accept that God is actually present in all His creation, including His lost sons, and therefore added the pronouns to give the impression that God is only in believers. While it is true that Christ only comes to dwell in our hearts when we receive Him, there is also a very real sense in which God is in all: “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Whatever the correct reading of the last phrase of the verse is, we can be certain that God is the Father of all, as Paul already stated some ten verses earlier:
 
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father…from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” (Eph 3:14,15)
 
Here, Paul includes both those who are in heaven and on earth as part of God’s family. Jesus also spoke to the multitudes, affirming that God was their Father:
 
“Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying…One is your Father, He who is in heaven.” (Matt 23:1,9)
 
Some would argue that God cannot be the Father of all because Jesus told the Pharisees that the devil was their father:
 
“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.” (John 8:44)
 
“In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.” (1John 3:10)
 
Nevertheless, it is obvious that it is not referring to their origin, but rather to their character. They originated from God, as do all, and not the devil. One’s conduct cannot change one’s origin. If an individual were to be separated from his father in infancy and imitated his adoptive father, would that make him less a child of his true father? No. However, those who have been born again normally act like God, whereas others may act like the devil. What these verses emphasize is that we cannot convincingly claim to be sons of God if we act like the devil.
 
However, in the sense of origin, even Satan and his angels are called sons of God (Gen 6:2,4; Job 1:6; 2:1). Jesus and John were referring to their conduct and not their origins when they referred to some as being children of the devil. We express this idea as: “Like father, like son.” In this sense, even the Gentiles who believe like Abraham, are called “sons of Abraham” (Gal 3:6-7). However, all of us - without exception - are sons of God in virtue of the creation:
 
“Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?” (Mal 2:10)
 
To say that God is our Creator, but denies being our Father, is contrary to God’s faithfulness. We consider it unacceptable when a man procreates a son and doesn’t accept responsibility for him as a father, and yet some would say that God is absolved of all paternal obligations towards His creation. They say that, even though He created us, He doesn’t regard us as being sons until we are born again. Thomas Allin in his book Christ Triumphant comments:
 
“We are told God is not the Father of all men; He is only their Creator! What a total misapprehension these words imply of all that is involved in creating man in the likeness of God, in the image of God…. For what do we mean by paternity and the obligations it brings? The idea rests essentially on the communication of life to the child by the parent. Now paternity is for us largely blind and instinctive; but Creation is Love acting freely, divinely; knowing all the consequences, assuming all the responsibility, involved in the very act of creating a reasonable immortal spirit…. It seems, then, very strange to seek to escape the consequences of the lesser obligation, by admitting one still greater; to seek, in a word, to evade the results of a divine universal fatherhood, by pleading that God is only the Creator of all. Hence a good Creator, freely creating for a doom of endless sin, freely introducing a dualism, is a profound moral contradiction. Can we even imagine a Good Being of His own freewill calling into existence creatures to hate Him forever, or certainly creating those who will, as He knows, hate Him forever, and sin forever!” [i]
 
Paul says that one who does not provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever (1Tim 5:8). How could we arrive at the point of thinking that God would not accept responsibility for all His children that were created by Him in His own image and likeness? The genealogy of Luke 3 ends in verse 38 saying: “the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. If God has not denied that Adam, the originator of sin to the human race is His son, how is it possible that He would deny the sonship of Adam’s descendants who are victims of the sin nature inherited from him? As Father God has said: “Behold, all souls are Mine…” (Ezek 18:4). Thomas Allin also says:
 
“The essence of Christianity perishes in the virtual denial of any true Fatherhood of our race on God's part. Follow out this thought, for it is of primary importance. We lose sight of the value of the individual soul, when dealing with the countless millions who have peopled this earth and passed away. What is one among so many? we are tempted to say, forgetting that the value of each human being is not in the least thereby altered. Each soul is of infinite value, as if it stood alone, in the eyes of God, its Father. And more than this, we are altogether apt to forget another vital point, to forget whose the loss is, if any one soul perishes... It is God's loss: it is the Father Who loses His child. The straying sheep of the parable is the Great Shepherd's loss: the missing coin is the Owner's loss. In this very fact lies the pledge that He will seek on and on till He find it. For only think of the value He sets on each soul. He has stamped each in His own image…, and you must see how impossible it becomes to credit that unworthy theology, which tells you that such a Father can ever permit the work of His own fingers, His own offspring, to perish finally.” [ii]
 
This article is an excerpt from my book The Triumph of Mercy.
 


[i] Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant
 

[ii] Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant
 

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