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GOD OUR FATHER

VITAL IMPORTANCE OF THE TOPIC

The first word of the Layman's Library may properly be a message from Laymen. These are the terms of it.

"The hope of a brotherhood of a humanity reposes on the deeper spiritual truth of the Fatherhood of God. In the recognition of the fact of that Fatherhood and of the divine purpose of the world, which are central to the message of Christianity, we shall discover the ultimate foundation for the reconstruction of an ordered and harmonious life for all men."

These words have a theological ring about them. They are however the words not of theologians, but of representative and responsible statesmen in conference on urgent questions of public welfare. The message was issued by the premiers of Great Britain and of all British Dominions to all citizens of the British Empire. It forms a remarkable confession of faith in the spiritual basis of human life. The peace of the world depends on goodwill among men, and goodwill among men rests on spiritual forces, and of these forces the source of all and the greatest of all is the fact of God our Father and of His gracious purpose for the world.

WHERE CAN WE LEARN OF GOD?

All who wish to know God truly must put themselves to school under Christ the Master. A wonderful school it is. Little children are at home in it and the greatest minds among men find in it always something new to learn. The wonder of the school and the power of it lie not only in the personality of the Teacher but in the fact also that He Himself is what He teaches. What Jesus Christ was God is. The revelation of God we possess in Christ is a revelation that is personal and complete. "This is life eternal to know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent."

This does not mean that the knowledge of God--or even of God as Father--is the exclusive possession of Christians. A long line of Hebrew prophets, called and inspired by the spirit of God, revealed God's Name and will and attributes in different ways and in different portions to generation after generation of His chosen people. It was the special privilege of Israel to receive the oracles of God. Christ Jesus, Whose coming the prophets foretold, took over the revelation of God that each had given, corrected it where it had been misapprehended, endorsed it, set it in order, and completed it. In the fulness of the knowledge of God that had been given them Israel stood unique among the nations. Nevertheless other races had some knowledge of Him also. God has not anywhere or at any time left Himself without witnesses. In our classical studies we heard of Jupiter or Zeus "Father of men and of gods". Greeks of old in their philosophic search for unity, Hindoos in their longing for absorption into the divine, Chinese in the moral precepts of Confucius, Mohammedans in the constant call to prayer which they obey, all bring before us religions that are sincere in their adhesion to one or other of the great truths about God which they have discovered.

I stood one night on the deck of a ship on the ocean. The moon was at the full and was shining in a cloudless sky. The light penetrated everywhere. No part of the wide expanse of water was beyond its reach, and yet straight before me was a broad pathway of light reaching as far as I could see. So bright was this pathway, that compared with it on this side and on that all else seemed to be in darkness.

Some rays of the knowledge of God are recognized in all the great world religions. Along the line of the prophets of Israel the light of God's self-revelation shone with special brightness, sometimes waxing it is true and sometimes waning, until the day dawned and Christ the Sun of righteousness arose.

This is what St. Paul means when he tells the Christians at Corinth that God Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in their hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

WHAT DO WE KNOW OF GOD?

But what is the knowledge of God that has been revealed? We find it in the Old Testament gradually unfolded, in the New Testament perfected. What truths does it contain? We must approach this question with humility and reverence. He of Whom we are thinking is the Living God. We are in His presence while we think and speak of Him. The whole splendour of God's Being is beyond us. He is the Creator and Lord of all. Nevertheless, if we are guided by the Revelation He has given us in Holy Scripture, we can wholly trust our thoughts of Him as far as they carry us, just because they are not our own but have been given us by Him.

GOD IS PERSONAL

"The Lord God is the true God, the Living God and an Everlasting King." He is also our Father. God then is Personal. He is One on Whom we can lean, to Whom we can pray, whose works we can study in the Universe He has made and in the history of men and of nations which He controls. This is the first truth of God our Father that comes home to us when we learn the Lord's Prayer. It is also the last and most profound that we shall rejoice in when we meet Him face to face, and know Him as we are known.

It is a truth of vital and practical importance, affecting our whole outlook on life. Because God is Personal with mind and heart and will we believe that this great world has a plan on which it is being fashioned and a purpose towards which it is tending. Within this plan and purpose we too have a place, and no mean place. We too are persons with minds and hearts and wills. We are not then mere straws on the stream of destiny, or victims of blind fate. We are children of our Father Who is working in and through all mightily in wisdom and in love.

This is not a theory only; it is true to the experience of religious men. In it is found the secret of confidence, strength and joy. It is the infinite and varied record of this experience which the Psalms contain that gives to them their special value for our use today.

"Thy hands have made me and fashioned me, O give me understanding that I may live. Be Thou my stronghold whereunto I may always resort, for Thou art my house of defence and my castle. The Lord is my shepherd therefore can I lack nothing. The Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is the strength of my life. Who so dwelleth under the defence of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."

In a faith like this we can face our duty manfully. In life's responsibilities and perplexities we can trust our Father.

IT IS A TRUTH OF PERMANENT VALUE.

Personality in God and in man are closely related one to another. That men are persons and must be so regarded is a matter of intense practical concern to us all and to the social life of this and every age. We cannot ignore personality in man. To do so is to awaken resentment, unrest and strife. The statesmen already quoted are clearly right. Peace and progress in the world depend on the recognition of this truth growing more and more adequate until we realize fully the brotherhood of men which is implied in God's Fatherhood. We cannot ignore Personality in God, or pass it by as a truth that belongs to childhood only. It is a vigorous intelligent faith which commands the allegiance of men. Ultimately the dignity of our own manhood will be found to depend upon it. To lose sight of it is to lose our way in religious life and thinking. To hold it fast is not an attempt to make God in our image, but to acknowledge that we are made in His.

GOD IS HOLY

In the Old Testament God is the Holy One in Israel. In the New Testament also we remember Christ's own words in prayer, "Holy Father keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are one". God's Holiness is closely connected with His glory; we must associate with it all passages in Holy Scripture which attribute to Him majesty and radiance, beauty and light. The religious value of this truth is very great.

In the vision of the Holiness of God men have found their chief impulse to worship Him, and have felt the claim on their own lives exercised by the moral splendour of God's own character. "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness." Further, in proportion as they have realised God's holiness and moral claim, men have felt the need in His presence of acknowledging their own infirmity and sin. This was the experience of Isaiah and of St. John. It has been the experience of an innumerable company since. We all have our share in it in the services of the Church. It finds expression in one of the greatest of our hymns,

"Holy, Holy, Holy, though the darkness hide Thee, Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see, Only Thou art Holy, there is none beside Thee, Perfect in power, in Love and Purity."

This is undoubtedly the first great impression that the Holiness of God should make upon us. There is, however, another truth within it which must not be forgotten. There are in both the Bible languages Hebrew and Greek two words which in English are represented by the one word "holy". One of them stands for moral righteousness, the other has the meaning of set apart or consecrated. This latter word when used of God means that God is set apart from the world He has made. Not in the sense that He is separated from it, for He is very near; but in the sense that He is not himself a part of it or identified with it or confused with it.

This truth was needed in Old Testament times to save God's chosen people from falling back into dark immoral forms of nature worship which possessed the kindred people from whom they had been called out. It is needed no less to-day to save us from falling back into non-Christian ways of thinking. God is distinct from His world; He is never separated from it. Is this difficult? An illustration may help if it is not pressed too far. An eagle is perched on the topmost bough of a tall dead tree. A motor boat hurries by at some distance across the water. The great bird takes flight. It is in the air. It breathes the air and is upheld by it. The air is in the bird, in every quill, I believe, of every feather. Yet the bird is not the air, and the air is not the bird. They are distinct; separated they cannot be. Without the air the bird could not exist. "In God we live and move and have our being." We cannot for a moment imagine Him away. Without Him we could not exist. Yet man is not God. We are close akin, He is very near. But God is not man, nor man a part of God. We hear sometimes that God is all and all is God. Christian truth cannot be expressed in this way. Our faith in the Holiness of God declares that He is within the world but distinct from it, above it, around it, controlling it, making it the servant of His will, that He is the source of all, the upholder of all, the Master of all.

GOD IS ALMIGHTY

God our Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth, is Almighty. "The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." Here also are two words and two thoughts, not one alone. God is Almighty in the sense that His power is supreme and irresistible. This is wholly true but it is not the thought that stands in the forefront either in Holy Scripture or in the creed. It is there in the background, where sheer force must be and ought to be.

The prominent thought, however, when we profess our faith in God the Father Almighty is the thought of His wise, holy sovereignty. He is the Ruler of all, the Master of all, of Himself and of all persons and things. Not by might but by persuasion He is content to exercise His Dominion over men. So God governs the world and in His government we find the model for the true government of men. Force has its use only where freedom has failed. It is not God's power but His patience that excites our wonder and at times our perplexity. We are puzzled because He does not intervene more directly with His outstretched arm, but waits on man's agency and allows such latitude to man's self-will and blindness and cruelty. It is the price of our freedom. This we know and more we do not know as yet. But we can trust our Father for what Jesus Christ was God is.

We know therefore in the story of the Cross and of the Resurrection that while sorrow and suffering and disaster are not removed from human life, God does not stand apart from them and unconcerned. All who pass along the way of sorrows and into the valley of death may find in Christ, that is in God Himself, the sympathy of One Who has passed that way before, and the strength of One who has conquered death and all its powers.

GOD IS EVERYWHERE PRESENT AND KNOWS ALL THINGS.

The attributes of God pass inevitably and naturally one into another. It cannot be otherwise because they are all ways in which the Living Eternal Being reveals Himself. In thinking of His Holiness and of His power we are led to think of His presence and in thinking of His presence we are led to think of His knowledge.

"The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good." It will not be possible to speak here in any fulness of the knowledge of God. Two facts, however, should always be kept in mind. Nothing can be hid from Him Whose eyes are in every place. Nothing is obscure to Him Who is everywhere. Yet it is not God's knowledge of them that causes men to be what they are or to act as they do. There is a big problem here. In theory it is too big for solution, but in practice the problem is not so great. God's knowledge does not compel us more than does His will. Within the limits that we are well aware of, that come to us from inheritance and from environment, we are free and because we are free we are responsible.

A second consideration is this. The Holy One Who is ever present, Who makes His moral claim upon us and expects the best of us, is no other than our Father. He knows us through and through. Yet as a Father he has compassion on His children. He knoweth whereof we are made; He remembereth that we are but dust. The presence of God may best be studied in close connection with His Personality. It is as a person that He is present. The 139th Psalm will help us best to realize how universal His Presence is. We can then follow out the teaching given there and elsewhere in Holy Scripture, in the witness of the Church, and in the experience of men. He Who is everywhere present, just because He is our Father, can be present with us by His own appointment in special ways and places and for special purposes. He is present in nature in its vastness and in its minuteness, and in both we can read His thoughts after Him. He is present in the affairs of men and of nations in all ages. He speaks to men in the voice of conscience and we hear Him in its strange authority to command and to forbid. In Christ He is present revealing Himself in human experiences and in human deeds and words and service. Where two or three are gathered together in Christ's name He is in their midst. In the Sacraments He is present to give His sacred gifts.

GOD IS OUR FATHER.

We have considered now some of the great truths of God which have been revealed to us, but the Fatherhood of God in itself, what is it that we know of this?

In the teaching of Christ our Master,--the Fatherhood of God is the central truth of all. It gathers into itself all other attributes and gives to all a special quality. It is our special Christian heritage. The heart that believes God to be "Our Father" has room for the conviction that "God is Love". We shall perhaps gain fullest insight into the greatness of this truth if we concentrate our thoughts on certain facts which stand out with special clearness in Holy Scripture.

First of all it is His presentation of the Fatherhood of God which gives to our Saviour's teaching its wonderful tenderness and power. Not power alone, nor tenderness alone, but both. He tells us that our Heavenly Father knows our every need; that He Who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field will not be unmindful of the children of men; that our Father's heart is full of that eager, forgiving, redeeming love which wins our heart in the parable of the Prodigal Son. On the other hand, He would have us ever mindful that our Father, when we approach in faith and penitence, is One Whose Name is to be hallowed, Who is the Lord of heaven and earth to Whom all things are possible, Who governs all things and knows all things, even the inmost thoughts of men.

Again, the Fatherhood of God is unchanging and universal. It must be so for He is the Eternal Father, and "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." Nevertheless, man's power to respond to God's Fatherhood is not everywhere the same. We shall understand this best if we study the Bible teaching on sonship and brotherhood in the light of the revelation which God has given of His Fatherhood. There are in the Bible different kinds of sonship, or sonships on different levels. The fact that we are created and created in the image of our Maker constitutes sonship. He is our Father Who gives us life. "Have we not all one Father, hath not God created us?" There is, therefore, a sonship which is natural and universal, but it is not in itself complete. Its value consists in the fact that it is the ground of a higher relationship. It is the capacity for sonship, which, however hidden or dormant, we believe to be in every man.

Again, those who have Christian knowledge and grace have not received this privilege for themselves alone. They are God's sons who have special gifts in trust on behalf of all mankind who have them not. The call to Missionary work is based on this responsibility, and will remain so until "the earth is filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea."

Finally, there is the unique sonship of Christ Himself. His sonship is perfect and complete. It is also the channel through which our sonship, whether of creation or redemption, comes to us. "All things are delivered unto Me of My Father, and no man knoweth the son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father, save the son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." It is this Eternal sonship which constitutes the special significance to our confession of faith in God the Father in the Apostles' Creed. Christ is One Who comes to us from the Eternal life of God. That life which though inseparable from man and from the world is yet forever holy and distinct. The Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity helps us here. It arose out of simple loyalty to New Testament teaching. From the first it has been a living practical faith. Christians learnt to recite their belief in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost; they were baptised in the threefold Name and sang the Doxology before they thought out the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity and before they were called upon to defend it. We find in this great truth the most profound realization of Personality in God. We see in it a vision of eternal fellowship in life and in love, towards which we strive on earth. In the light of it we begin to understand that man, not only as an individual, but also as a social being, is made in the image of God.

FUNDAMENTAL THOUGHTS ABOUT CHRIST

TWELVE FUNDAMENTAL THOUGHTS ABOUT CHRIST BRIEFLY SUMMARIZED.

Christ's Religion is a "Revealed" Religion.

Jesus Christ the Son of God eternally existing in the Godhead became Man for our salvation. This is called the Incarnation.

He was born of a Virgin.

The Gospels ascribe to Christ not Divinity only, but Deity.

He is also true Man, and Sinless.

When He spoke God spoke.

He is the Saviour of the world.

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