Chapter 5
Chapter 5
HE SPOKE OF THE FATHER
"They understood not that he spake to them of the Father''—John 8:27.
One of the most illuminating names of God is the one revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ—the name of Father, While God had been called throughout the ages by many other names expressing other aspects of His character, Christ alone revealed Him to us under the all-inclusive name of Father.
It is a name that holds within itself all other names of wisdom and power, and, above all, of love and goodness. The name of Father embodies a perfect supply for all our needs.
Christ, who was the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, was the only one who could reveal this name, for He alone knew the Father.
**As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father.
. .Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father"
(John 10:15; 6:46).
In the Old Testament, God was not revealed as
the Father so much as a great warrior fighting for His people, or as a mighty King ruling over them and caring for them. The name of Father is only given to Him six or seven times at the most. In the New Testament, however, it is given between two and three hundred times.
Christ knew Him, and He was the only one who could reveal His Father. '*No man knoweth.
. .who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him'' (Luke 10:22).
The question that confronts each of us is whether we understand that Christ speaks to us of the Father. We know He uses the word Father continually, but do we understand what the word means? Have we even so much as an inkling of what the Father is?
A True Father All the discomfort and unrest of the spiritual life of so many of God's children come from this: they do not understand that God is truly their Father.
They think of Him as a stern Judge or a severe Taskmaster or, at best, as an unapproachable Dignitary, seated on a far-off throne, dispensing exacting laws for a frightened and trembling world. In terror that they might fail to meet His requirements, they hardly know which way to turn. But they have no conception of a God who is a Father, tender and loving and full of compassion; a God who, like a father, will be on their side against the whole universe.
Discomfort and unrest are impossible to the souls that come to know that God is their Father.
God is the kind of Father that our highest instincts tell us a good father should be. Sometimes eanhly fathers are unkind, tyrannical, selfish, or even cruel. Or they are merely indifferent and neglectful. None of these can be called good fathers. But God, who is good, must be a good Father or not a Father at all.
We must have all known good fathers in this world or at least can imagine them.
I knew one, and he filled my childhood with sunshine.
I can remember vividly with what confidence and triumph I walked through my days, absolutely secure in the knowledge that I had a wonderful father.
I am very sure that I have learned a little about the perfect fatherhood of God, because of my experience with this lovely earthly father.
But God is not only a father; He is a mother as well. We have all known mothers whose love and tenderness have been without bound or limit. The God who created them both, and who is Himself father and mother in one, could never have created earthly fathers and mothers who were more tender and more loving than He is Himself. Therefore, if we want to know what sort of a Father He is, we must heap together all the best of all the fathers and mothers we have ever known or can imagine. Then we must tell ourselves that this is only a faint image of God, our Father in heaven.
When our Lord was teaching His disciples how
to pray, the only name by which He taught them to address God was *'Our Father which art in heaven'' (Matthew 6.9). This meant that we were to think of Him only in this light.
Millions of times, during all the centuries since then, this name has been uttered by the children of God everywhere.
Yet, how much has it been understood? Had all who used the name known what it meant, it would have been impossible for the misrepresentations of His character and the doubts of His love and care to have crept in that have so desolated the souls of His children throughout all the ages.
Tyranny, unkindness, and neglect might perhaps be attributed to a God whose name was only a king or a judge or a lawgiver. But of God who is before all else a father, and a good father, no such things could possibly be believed. Moreover, since He is an everlasting Father, He must act, always and under all circumstances, as a good father should act.
It is inconceivable that a good father could forget, neglect, or be unfair to his children. A savage father or a wicked father might, but a good father—never!
When we call our God by the blessed name of Father, we know that, if He is a father at all. He must be the very best of fathers.
It is a Fatherhood that combines both father and mother in one, in our highest ideals of both.
It comprises all the love, tenderness, compassion, yearning, and all
the self-sacrifice that we recognize to be the innermost soul of parentage, even though we may not always see it carried out by all earthly parents.
But what about the other names of God? Do they not convey other and more terrifying ideas? They only do so because this blessed name of Father is not added to them. This name must accompany every other name by which He has ever been known.
Has He been called a Judge? Yes, but He is a Father Judge, one who judges as a loving father would.
Is He a King? Yes, but He is a King who is at the same time the Father of His subjects and rules them with a father's tenderness. Is He a Lawgiver? Yes, but He is a Lawgiver who gives laws as a father would, remembering the weakness and ignorance of his helpless children.
**Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust" (Psalm
103:13-14).
It is not **as a judge judges, so the Lord judges;" not **as a taskmaster controls, so the Lord controls;" not **as a lawgiver imposes laws, so the Lord imposes laws;" but, **as a father pitieth, so the Lord pitieth."
Never, never must we think of God in any other way than as our Father. All other attributes must be based upon and limited by this one of our Father.
What a good father could not do, God, who is our Father, cannot do either. And what a good father
should do, God, who is our Father, is absolutely sure to do.
A Measure Of His Love
In our Lord's prayer in John 17, He says that He has declared to us the name of the Father in order that we may discover the wonderful truth that the Father loves us as He loved His Son. Now, how many of us believe this? We have read this chapter over often. Yet, do any of us believe that it is an actual, tangible fact that God loves us as much as He loved Christ?
If we believed this to be true, could we ever have an anxious or rebellious thought again?
We would be absolutely sure, under every conceivable circumstance, that the divine Father, who loves us just as much as He loved His only begotten Son, would care for us in the best possible way. We would be convinced that He could not deprive us of any good thing. No wonder our Lord could tell us so emphatically not to be anxious or troubled about anything; He knew His Father and knew that it was safe to trust Him completely.
It is very striking that He so often said, "'yout heavenly Father;" not Mine only, but yours. Your heavenly Father cares for the sparrows and the lilies. Of course He will care for you who are of so much more value than many sparrows. How supremely foolish it is for us to be worried and anxious about things, when Christ has said that our heavenly Father knows that we need all of
these things. Being a good Father, He will supply our needs. (See Matthew 6:26-33) Our Lord draws the comparison between earthly fathers and our heavenly Father in order to show us how much more good and tender and willing our heavenly Father is to bless us.
**If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Matthew 7:11).
Can we imagine a good earthly father giving a stone or a serpent to a hungry child, instead of bread or fish? Would not our soul despise a father who could do such things? Yet, there are a great many of God's children who think that their heavenly Father does this sort of thing to them. They believe He gives them stones when they ask for bread or curses when they ask for blessings.
It is not only that our heavenly Father is willing to give us good things. He is far more than willing.
Our Lord says, 'Tear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom"
(Luke 12:32). There is no grudging in His giving; it is His good pleasure to give. He likes to do it. He wants to give you the Kingdom far more than you want to have it.
Those of us who are parents know how eager we are to give good things to our children—often far more eager than our children are to have them.
This may help us to understand how it is that it is God's good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. Why
then, should we ask Him in such fear and trembling? Why should we torment ourselves with the anxiety that He may fail to grant what we need?
There can be only one answer to these questions: we do not know the Father.
We are told that we are '*of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19). The principle is set forth in the Bible that if any man does not provide for his own household, he has '*denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel"
(1 Timothy 5:8). Since we are of the household of God, this principle applies to Him.
If He fails to provide for us, His own words would condemn Him.
I say this reverently, but I want to say it emphatically, for so few people seem to realize it.
It was extremely significant to me to discover this responsibility of my Father in heaven.
In a single moment, the burden of life was lifted from my shoulders and laid on His. All my fears, anxieties, and questionings dropped into the abyss of His loving care.
The instinct which demands that the parents who bring a child into the world are bound to care for and protect that child according to their best ability is a divinely implanted instinct.
It is meant to teach the magnificent fact that the Creator, who has made human parents responsible for their children, is equally responsible toward His children.
I could have shouted for joy! From that glad hour, my troubles were over. For when this insight comes to a soul, that soul must enter into rest.
With such a God, who is also a Father, there is no room for anything but rest. When temptations to doubt or anxiety or fear come to me, I dare not listen to them. To do so would be to cast a doubt on the trustworthiness of my Father in heaven.
False Humility We may have thought that our doubts and fears were because of our own unworthiness and arose from humility. We may even have taken them as a sign of special piety and thought they were in some way pleasing to God.
If children let in doubts of their parent's love and begin to fear their care may fail, would these doubts and fears be evidence of humility on the children's part? Would they be at all pleasing to their parents?
If God is our Father, the only thing we can do with doubts and fears and anxious thoughts is cast them all behind our backs and have nothing more to do with them ever again. We can do this. We can give up our doubts just as we would urge a drunkard to give up his drink. We can take a pledge against doubting, just as we try to induce the drunkard to take a pledge against drinking.
Once we see that our doubts are a sin against God and question His trustworthiness, we will be eager to give them up. We may have cherished our doubts because perhaps we thought they were a part of our religion. We may have thought they were a proper attitude of the soul in one so
unworthy. But if we see that God is our Father, we will reject every doubt with horror, because it slanders our Father's love and care.
What more can any soul want than to have a God whose name is our Father and whose character and ways reach the highest possibilities of His name? As Philip said, '*Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us"
(John 14:8).
It does indeed satisfy, beyond what words can express!
A Lesson In Trust One day a friend of mine went to see a woman living in one of the poorest parts of Philadelphia.
The woman's case had been reported as being one of great need. My friend found things even worse than she had feared. The poor woman was old and crippled with rheumatism. She lived alone in a little room, with only the help of a kind neighbor now and then to do things for her. Yet, she was bright and cheerful and full of thanksgiving for her many blessings.
My friend marveled that cheerfulness could be possible under such circumstances and said, **But do you ever get frightened at the thought of what may happen to you, all alone here, and so lame as you are?"
The old saint looked at her with surprise and said in a tone of amazement, ''Frightened! Why, honey, doesn't you know I have got a Father, and doesn't you know He takes care of me the whole endurin' time?" And then, as my friend looked
perplexed, she added in a tone of wondering reproof, **Why, honey, surely my Father is your Father, too, and you knows about Him, and you knows He always takes care of His chilluns."
It was a lesson my friend never forgot.
** Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God"
(1 John 3:1). The manner of love bestowed upon us is the love of a father for his son.
It is a tender, protecting love that knows our weakness and our need and cares for us accordingly. He treats us as sons. All He asks in return is that we treat Him as a Father, whom we can trust without anxiety.
We must take the son's place of dependence and trust and let Him keep the father's place of care and responsibility. Because we are the children and He is the Father, we must let Him do the father's part. Too often we take upon our own shoulders the father's part. We try to take care of and provide for ourselves. No good earthly father would want his children to take upon their young shoulders the burden of his duties. Much less would our heavenly Father want to lay the burden of His duties upon us.
No wonder we are told to cast all our care upon Him, for He cares for us.
(See
Peter 5:7.) Of course He cares! It is His business as a Father to do so. He would not be a good Father if He did not.
All He asks of us is to let Him know when we need anything. Then we should leave the supplying of
that need to Him. He assures us that if we do this, * 'peace of God which passeth all understandthe ing shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7).
The children of a good human father are at peace because they trust in their father's care; but the children of the heavenly Father too often have no peace because they are afraid to trust in His care. They make their requests known to Him perhaps, but that is all they do. It is a sort of religious form they feel it is necessary to go through. But the idea that He will care for them seems to never cross their minds.
Instead, they go on carrying their cares and burdens on their own shoulders, exactly as if they had no Father in heaven. It is as if they had never asked Him to care for them.
What utter folly it all is! For if ever an earthly father was worthy of the confidence of his children, much more is our heavenly Father worthy of our confidence. The reason that so few of His children trust Him can only be that they have not yet found out that He is their Father. Although they may call Him Father every day in their prayers, they still have never seen that He is the sort of Father that a good and true human father is: a Father who is loving, tender, and merciful. They fail to realize that He is full of kindness toward the helpless beings whom He has brought into existence and whom He is therefore bound to protect.
The Spirit of Adoption The remedy for your discomfort and unrest is to be found in becoming acquainted with the Father.
*Tor ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Romans
8:15).
Is it this Spirit of adoption that reigns in your hearts or is it the spirit of bondage? Your whole comfort in your spiritual life depends upon which spirit it is. No amount of wrestling or agonizing, no prayers and no efforts, will be able to bring you comfort while the Spirit of adoption is lacking in your heart.
You may ask how you are to get this Spirit of adoption.
I can only say that it is not a thing to be acquired.
It comes as the result of the discovery that God is truly a Father.
When you have made this discovery you cannot help feeling like a child and acting like a child.
This is what the Spirit of adoption means.
It is nothing mysterious. Rather, it is the simple, natural result of having found a Father where you thought there was only a Judge.
Every soul has great need to make this supreme discovery. And to do this, we have only to see what
Christ tells us about the Father, and then believe it.
'*Verily, verily, I say unto thee. We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." Then
He adds sadly, **Ye receive not our witness" (John 3:11.) In order to come to the knowledge of the Father, we must receive the testimony of Christ who declares, *The words that I speak unto you
I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10). After grieving over the fact that so few received His testimony. He adds these memorable words, '*He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true" (John 3 3 3).
The whole authority of Christ stands or falls with this.
If we receive His testimony, we set to our seal that God is true.
If we reject that testimony, we make Him a liar.
**If ye had known me," says Christ, "'yc should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him"
(John 14:7).
The thing for us to do then is to make up our minds that from now on we will receive His testimony, and will know the Father. Let other people worship whatever sort of a God they may; for us there must be **but one God even the Father."
*Tor though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one
God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him" (1 Corinthians 8:5).