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7

THE FATHER

In antiquity it was common to call both god and king by the name of father.  This is not surprising when one recalls that the father in a family was seen as its protector, nourisher, and the begetter of the children.  Our task is to notice specifically the way in which YHWH is called Father in the Old Testament, how Jesus addressed God as "my Father," and how the Apostle Paul spoke of the "God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ."  Then we shall reflect upon the nature of the word "Father" and its contemporary appropriateness in the light of modern sensitivities.

From the beginning, there is in the religion of Israel a clear and precise yet limited confession of the fatherhood of Yahweh.  To appreciate this belief and its expression in words it needs to be seen in the context of the polytheistic mythologies that surrounded it.  Within these mythologies sexual potency and fertility were ritually divinized; the gods were portrayed as sexual beings who lust, mate, and give birth.  Further, the god who was called ’ab (father) was nothing like the patriarchal figure which feminist

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rhetoric has depicted.  Most often, the father god in ancient Near Eastern mythologies is incompetent, ineffective, and inert while the divine activity is conducted by his wife or consort or son or daughter.

In contrast, Yahweh’s fatherhood is wholly removed from the notion of physical procreation.  In fact, it has been well said that the loudest silence of the Hebrew Bible is the absence of a consort for Yahweh.  He is utterly and completely alone!  Perhaps Yahweh’s solitude is the most distinctive thing about him, for to be Semitic he needs a female consort and he does not have one! Amazing!  Yahweh is male and beyond sexuality!

Yahweh’s fatherhood is best described as supervenient, for Yahweh deliberately and mercifully comes upon and makes Israel into his "firstborn son."  When Moses was instructed by Yahweh to return to Egypt he was told to say to Pharaoh, "Thus says the LORD, Israel is my first-born son, and I say to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me’; if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay your first-born son" (Ex. 4:22-23).  Yahweh as Father exercises his fatherhood by creating a specific relation with an already existing people.  His fatherhood is a supervenient intrusion into the life of an historical people.

This message is clear in Deuteronomy, where Moses addressed the assembly of Israel and said:

Do you thus requite Yahweh, you foolish and senseless people?  Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you? (32:6)

For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage (32:9).

And using the image of begetting, Moses further said:

You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth (32:18).

By divine election, Yahweh made this people his people.  The deep impression of this fatherhood in terms of election is seen vividly in the Book of Hosea, where Yahweh speaks in great tenderness of his son.

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When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.  The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Ba’als, and burning incense to idols.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them.  I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them (11:1-4).

Commenting on this text, Paul Mankowski expresses the view that the picture here is not of a father teaching his own infant son to take his first steps.  Rather it is "of one who is helping an injured youth, most probably a slave lamed by mistreatment, to regain the power to walk.  God comes upon Israel enslaved in Egypt the way a man walking in the countryside might come upon a young beaten slave, whom he nurses and takes to his bosom as a son."¹  Thus again fatherhood for Yahweh is a purely gratuitous extension of partiality: "Out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1).

Jeremiah also uses the image of the fatherhood of Yahweh along with the image of God as the Bridegroom both to describe the unfaithfulness and to call the elect people back to loyalty to their God.  Israel has polluted the land with vile harlotry and as faithless children have forsaken Yahweh, who says:

Have you not just now called to me, "My father, thou art the friend of my youth" (Jer. 3:4).

Later, speaking of the future, Yahweh declares,

And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me (3:19).

God’s love and favor met Israel’s disobedience and ingratitude.  They would not match their words with their deeds!  Yet Yahweh remained their Father.

Speaking for his people and addressing Yahweh, Isaiah lamented:

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Look down from heaven and see, from thy holy and glorious habitation.  Where are thy zeal and thy might?  The yearning of thy heart and thy compassion are withheld from me.  For thou art our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; thou, O Yahweh, art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is thy name (Isa. 63:15-16).

Yet, O Yahweh, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are all the work of thy hand (64:8).

The same kind of appeal and thought is found in the work of the Prophet Malachi (1:6; 2:10).  Such speech was not borrowed from its Semitic neighbors by Israel and it was not the projection of patriarchalism into the nature and character of Yahweh.  No!  Rather it was the confession of a faith in the one God as solitary, active, generous, and compassionate, whose fatherhood consists in adopting a people and making them his own.

As part of his fatherhood of the whole people, Yahweh is also "Father of the fatherless and protector of widows" (Ps. 68:5).  In fact, "as a father pities his children, so Yahweh pities those who fear him" (Ps. 103:13).

Alongside the confession of faith in Yahweh as Father through election, we meet in the Old Testament the proclamation that Yahweh is the Father of the king.  This is found first of all in the oracle of Nathan the prophet addressed to David and concerning his son, Solomon:

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.  I will be his father, and he shall be my son ( 2 Sam. 7:12-14).

This oracle is repeated in 1 Chronicles (17:13; 22:10; 28:6) and in two Psalms.

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And with reference to David and his house:

He shall cry to me, "Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation."  And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth (89:26-27).

Here the king is created or made "son of God" by Yahweh when he is crowned.  As the whole people is Yahweh’s firstborn son by election (Ex. 4:22-24), so the king, who represents the people, is adopted and appointed son of God by election.  In Canaanite religion and culture, the king was believed to be an offspring of the gods and to have been suckled at divine breasts.  In contrast, within the Hebrew Bible no claims are made for the king’s divinity and, furthermore, no prophet is ever recorded as condemning any Hebrew king or kingship on this ground.

Naturally these texts concerning the Son were interpreted by the early church as pointing to the coronation of Jesus in his resurrection and exaltation as the Messiah and as the true Son of God (see Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5).

In Proverbs there is a further reference to an individual man as a son of God in terms of beneficent, divine discipline.

My son, do not despise Yahweh’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for Yahweh reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights (Prov. 3:11-12).

However, the idea that Yahweh is "my father" reappears in the deuterocanonical literature (see Sir. 23:1, 4; 51:10; Wisd. 2:16-18; 5:5; 14:3; Tob. 14:3).

If personal names are any indication of the faith of a people then it is significant that while there are no personal names which are compounds of the word "mother" in biblical Hebrew, there are at least eight persons (six men and two women) who are called ’abiyya ("Yahweh is my father" – 1 Sam. 8:2; 1 Kings 14:1; 2 Kings 18:2; Neh. 12:2; 1 Chron. 2:24; 7:8; 24:10; 2 Chron. 11:20) and three who are called Yo’ab ("Yahweh is father" – 1 Sam. 26:6; 1 Chron. 4:14; Ezra 2:6).  In addition, the word ’El for God occurs in compounds of the same kind, confessing God as Father – e.g., ’eli’ab (Num. 1:9; 16:1; 1 Sam. 16:6; 1 Chron. 12:9; 15:8) and ’abi’el (1 Sam. 9:1).

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In order to understand what Israelites had in mind when they used the word "father," it is instructive to note what is both presupposed and taught concerning the place and roles of a father in the Torah and Wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible.  Here John Miller’s book, Biblical Faith and Fathering, is very useful in showing how Israel’s understanding of God produced a new kind of human fatherhood for the ancient world.²  What Miller makes clear is that (contrary to feminist claims – for which see below) the word "father" was not forged as a legitimation of coercive power in Israel, but rather was an expression of a caring, educative, and committed authority (where authority is not conceived as coercive as in much modern thought!).

A careful study of The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament³ reveals that in both Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism the term "father" was used only rarely of YHWH – six times in Palestinian and seven times in Hellenistic texts.  For example, in the Hellenistic Tobit comes the confession: "For he is our Lord and God, he is our Father forever" (13:4).

Further, there is only one example in the Qumran texts (1QH9:35f.).  The supplicant (relating to Ps. 22:11) states: "My [human] father has renounced me and my mother has abandoned me to thee.  Yet thou art a Father to all who know thy truth.  Thou wilt rejoice over them like a mother over her infant."

In the Rabbinic Judaism of the first century the use of the name of Father for YHWH (e.g., as "Father in heaven," emphasizing his transcendence) increased; even so, it is still far less frequently used than other standard Old Testament terms and names.  It is possible that in the time of Jesus, Jews were addressing YHWH in the Jewish New Year Liturgy as "Our Father, our King."

Commenting upon this evidence, Robert Hamerton-Kelly notes that the simple invocation "Father" does not occur in the extant prayer sources of Judaism.  (To make this statement he has with other scholars to read Sirach 23:1, 4 as originally stating in Hebrew, "God of my father and God [Master] of my life," instead of via the Greek as, "Lord, Father and Master of my life.")  Then

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he concludes: "Therefore, although early Judaism differs from the Old Testament by invoking God as Father, this invocation does not indicate a personal intimacy with God of the kind that is the hallmark of Jesus’ use of ‘Father’ in his prayers."⁴  YHWH is the Father in the sense of the heavenly, transcendent, patriarchal Father.  The connection between YHWH and Father is bound here, as in the Jewish Bible, by the ties of election, covenant, and the promise of salvation.

In general agreement with the Protestant Hamerton-Kelly, the Dominican biblical scholar, Francis Martin, writes that the material "indicates that God was spoken of as Father and addressed as such in both Greek- and Hebrew-speaking Jewish milieu.  The paucity of references, however, also indicates that while such language was intelligible and acceptable, it was quite rare."⁵

It seems clear that Jesus often addressed God, YHWH, as abba.  This is an Aramaic word with a warm familiar ring to it and seems to have originated as a word used by small children of their fathers.  It is not inflected and takes none of the suffixes by which Aramaic indicates the personal and possessive pronouns.  Thus abba can mean "father," "my father," and "the father."  We have no evidence that any Jew before Jesus addressed YHWH as abba.  Significantly this Aramaic word occurs three times in the Greek New Testament.  First of all, in the mouth of Jesus, abba occurs only in the oldest form of the prayer in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36).  It is an expression of a childlike trust in God and of obligation to obedience (both aspects being characteristic of the calling of God "Father" in Judaism).  Jesus prayed, "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt."

In the light of Mark 14:36, it is probable – but cannot be proved – that the expression, the father, ho pater, of Mark 13:32 (Matt. 24:36) as well as the expression my father, ho pater mou, in Matthew 16:17 and Luke 22:29 are translations of abba.  This points both to the general use of this intimate expression by

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Jesus and to the preference of Jesus to speak of YHWH as the one and only Father, who is uniquely his Father.

Further, it is difficult to believe that any Christians would have used the word abba of God (see Paul’s use in Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6) had Jesus himself not set the precedent.  We can therefore suggest the word abba was cherished and remembered by the first Christians because it was expressive of Jesus’ own sonship and they wanted to share in that sonship.  Probably the "Our Father" was originally addressed to Abba.

In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus himself is reported as speaking of God as "Father," Pater, on various occasions.  From these we can choose three brief sayings which modern scholars generally accept are authentic words of Jesus (in contrast to words placed on the lips of Jesus by the evangelists).  We should assume that Jesus originally said Abba.

(1) After the confession by Peter that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus said to him: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 16:17).

(2) Speaking of the end of the age, Jesus said: "Of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32; cf. Matt. 24:36).

(3) Addressing his disciples in the upper room at the Passover, Jesus said to them: "As my Father appointed a kingdom for me, so do I appoint for you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom" (Luke 22:29-30).

Whether it is "my Father" or "the Father" there is a certain intimacy with God who is in heaven (transcendent and all-glorious) communicated by this form of speech.  However, it is certainly not irreverent. It is probably to be seen as an intensification in terms of personal relationship of the reality of the divine fatherhood known in Judaism.  What is hinted at and experienced before is wholly surpassed in the knowledge and experience of God by Jesus, the Servant-Messiah and Son.

To these three sayings must be added, also from the Synoptic Gospels, a further, longer saying.  This is found in both Matthew and Luke and is also usually reckoned as being an original saying of Jesus.  It has been called "the Johannine logion" because it sounds as if it could belong to the Gospel of John.

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I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will.  All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (Matt. 11:25-27; Luke 10:21-22).

To address YHWH as "Lord of heaven and earth" was common in Jewish prayer, but to combine with this the more intimate, Abba, "Father," was to move into the unfamiliar.  The addressing of God as "Father" appears to be closely related to the revelation of God’s will to the disciples of the kingdom of heaven.  In the second half of this logion Jesus speaks specifically of "the Father" and "the Son" (note the definite articles) as well as of the unique and intimate knowledge between them.  He is the Son who reveals the Father.

The distinction between the "my Father" of Jesus and the "your [heavenly] Father" of his disciples is maintained in the Synoptic Gospels.  They pray "Our Father," knowing that "[their] your Father is merciful/perfect" (Matt. 6:9; 5:48; Luke 6:36).  The disciples never address the Father together with Jesus for the simple reason that their relation to the Father is dependent upon and derivative from his own unique relation to the Father.

An "astonishing fact" is often noted by modern biblical scholars concerning Jesus’ prayers as recorded in the five layers of the Gospel tradition (Mark, Q, Matthew, Luke, and John).  With one exception, Jesus always addressed God as "Father"; and the one exception is a quotation from Psalm 22:1, which was prayed by Jesus on his Cross at Calvary (Mark 15:34; Matt. 27:46) – "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Hamerton-Kelly summarizes the three levels of intimacy on which Jesus used "Father" according to the Synoptic Gospels:

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In comparison with the Judaism of his time, Jesus’ teaching on God as his/our/the Father is remarkable – most probably unique.

In the Gospel of John the expression "Father" for Theos occurs 122 times, which is more than the total number in the other three Gospels (Matthew – 44; Mark – 5; and Luke –17).  Here is a list and summary of the major occurrences of the name of "Father" in John’s Gospel.

1:14: The Father has an "only-begotten Son."

1:18: No one has ever seen God – the Father.  The only-begotten Son is in his bosom (i.e., in an intimate relation with him).

2:16: The temple in Jerusalem is (says Jesus) "my Father's house."

3:35: The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands as the Mediator between God and man.

4:23: The Father seeks those who will worship him in spirit and in truth.

5:17-23: Jesus calls God his Father and also claims that the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself does.  Also the Father shares with his Son his prerogatives of raising the dead and judging the world.

5:26: The Father has life in himself, and this prerogative he shares with his Son.

5:36: The Father has given to the Son works to complete.

6:57: The living Father sent the Son, who has life through the Father – and this life is given to those who "eat" the Son.

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8:38-44: Jesus has come forth from God, his Father, and bears the Father’s authority.

10:30: Jesus and the Father are One.

10:38: The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father.

14:2: In the Father’s house, in which the Son stays forever, there are many places to stay.

14:6: No one goes to the Father except through Jesus, the Son, who is the way, the truth, and the life.

14:9-11: To see the Son is to see the Father, for the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father.  So the Father works in and through the Son.

15:1: The Father is the cultivator of the real vine, which is Jesus, the Son.

16:26-28: The Son came out from the Father into the world and he is leaving the world and going to the Father.

17:1: Jesus prays to the Father asking him to glorify his Son so that the Son may glorify the Father.

17:5: Jesus prays that he as the Son will be glorified in the presence of the Father with the glory which he had with the Father before the world existed.

17:21: Jesus prays that his disciples will be one as he the Son is one with the Father.  The mutual glorification of the Father and the Son implies a unity in which the disciples are to share.

18:11: The Father has given to Jesus, the Son, a "cup" to drink.

20:17: Jesus is ascending to his Father and his God.

20:21: As the Father has sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus sends his disciples into the world.

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A first impression on looking through these verses is that they tell us more about the Son than the Father.  And, since the Son reveals the Father, and the Son is visible and the Father is invisible, this is an appropriate impression.  However, we do learn some things about the Father.  Yahweh-Elohim is the Father, and he is called the Father because he has an only-begotten Son who is one with him and shares his eternal glory and his prerogatives.  The Son perfectly loves and obeys his Father, doing the work given to him on earth.  So, in the first place, this heavenly fatherhood is by its very nature to be understood only in reference to the eternal relation of Yahweh to the Logos, the incarnate Son, Jesus.  It is not a fatherhood whose first reference is to creatures. Further, "Father" is a proper name: it is the literal name of Theos for Jesus, who is the only Son.  Finally, the disciples of Jesus are "children of God" (1:12; 11:52), who call God "Father" because of their union with the only Son.

In the letters of Paul God is said to be "Father" about forty times.  A common way of speaking of YHWH is "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3; 11:31; Eph. 1:3; Col. 1:3).  Yet YHWH, Theos, is also the Father of believers and thus "our Father" (1 Cor. 1:3; 8:6; 2 Cor. 1:2; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:1; Phil. 1:2; 4:20; Col. 1:2; 1 Thes. 1:3; 3:11, 13; 2 Thes. 1:1; 2:16; Phile. 3).  "For us there is but one God, the Father" (1 Cor. 8:6).

It is obvious that the early Christians did not so much speak of God as Father but rather they addressed him as "Father."  They knew YHWH, Abba, through Jesus and in the Spirit as their Father by adoption through grace.  In fact, they knew that they had received the Spirit of adoption and were able to cry out in prayer, "Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:6-7; Rom. 8:14-17).  Being in vital union with the Lord Jesus they had the great privilege of joining him in his way of addressing YHWH.  The Fatherhood is not a fact of nature but it is a miracle of grace.

In 1 John, YHWH remains as "the Father" (1:2; 3:1; 4:14) while God’s fatherhood of believers is interpreted through the concept of begetting.  Christians are God’s children because they

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have been begotten by him (3:9).  The origin of their new being is wholly from God himself (4:4).  So they have fellowship with him and he abides in them (4:16) and they abide in his love (3:16-17).

It would appear that alongside this distinctive naming of YHWH as the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Father of those whom he calls, adopts, and begets through Christ, there is also the naming of YHWH as "the Father" in a related but different sense.  "I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named" (Eph. 3:14-15).  Here the universe is not a Greek cosmos but a Palestinian and Jewish cosmos, where God, the Father, is the Father of both the upper cosmos of the angelic world and the lower cosmos of the human world.  The Father is the Master of the whole house, of the invisible and visible worlds.  It is possible that "Fatherhood" is here understood as inherent in the nature of God and thus it is wholly appropriate to see Yahweh-Elohim, the Father, as the archetype, origin, and source of all fatherhood in the created realm.

The writer of Hebrews asks: "Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?"  Again the reference is to the Lordship of YHWH over both heaven and earth and is dependent upon the way Yahweh-Elohim is described in Numbers 16:22 and 27:16.  And James, using a phrase which was familiar in the liturgy of the synagogues, wrote of blessings coming down from heaven "from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change" (1:17).

There is a significant minority of people within the Christian church in the West who are hesitant, or not prepared, to call God (however they define God) by the name of "Father."  In chapter 1 we noted the nature of the feminist challenge to orthodox Christianity.  The material presented in this chapter makes it clear that the name of "the Father" when used of YHWH has a major place in the Christian Scriptures, especially in the New Testament.  Thus to cease to use the name of the Father or to replace it by another name would be to impose a major change in the way Christians think about, name, and address God.  Further, it would

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mean that the revealed name and nature of God was probably giving way to an identity projected from below upon the Godhead out of human experience – a theology from below in contrast to a theology from above.

Perhaps we need to note that the word "Father" as used of God functions at different levels in the Christian Bible.  First of all, it can be a simile, where God is likened to this or that aspect of human fatherhood.  For example, the psalmist claimed that "as a father pities his children so YHWH pities those who fear him" (Ps. 103:13).  In the second place, it can be a metaphor, where God is given the name of Father.  This is a stronger meaning than the simile.  When the writers of the Old Testament speak of YHWH as the Father of the nation and the Father of the king they use metaphor.  Here God’s relation to his chosen people in the created order is being described through a well-known picture drawn from human experience.  God is not in all respects exactly the same as a human father – for example, he does not sexually beget his children – but his care is sufficiently similar to that of the care of a good, patriarchal father for his family that he can be called "Father."

There is the third level of the literal statement – God is truly and really "the Father."  This is not found in the Old Testament and occurs only in the New Testament where God is naming himself through self-revelation.  Thus Theos is literally "the Father" and he is the Father of "the only begotten Son" and the Father from whom comes "the Holy Spirit."  What "the Father" means here is not to be gained by studying human fatherhood and projecting that information into God so as to name and understand him.  Rather, this is God’s self-revealed name and what it means is revealed by the One who is his "Son" and by the One who is his "Holy Spirit."  Converts to Christianity were to be baptized into the fully revealed Name (YHWH) of "the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19).  In the Old Testament YHWH is the literal Name of the living God.  In the New Testament the literal Name of the living God is spelled out more: "the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."  The literal Name of God is most clearly revealed in the Gospel of John, but it is not absent from the rest of the New Testament as we noted above.

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It is a mistake to treat this third level merely as a specific form of metaphor.  For while the actual name of "the Father" is certainly a word taken from the language of mortal men, the content of what Fatherhood means is wholly revealed.  As the Son who has been given complete knowledge of the Father (John 3:35; 10:15; 16:15), Jesus reveals the Father (John 1:18; 8:26-29; 12:49-50; 14:7, 9).  When Jesus addressed his Father he was not using a metaphor drawn from human experience.  He was speaking in the literal mode according to personal knowledge.

Now if we take the word "mother" and ask whether or not it can be a substitute for "father" in these three levels we discover interesting results.  First of all, God is likened to a mother (human or animal) in both the Old and New Testaments.  Here are some examples.  First of all, God is like a protective mother bird:

Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, YHWH alone did lead him (Deut. 32:11-12).

and,

Like birds hovering, so the LORD of hosts will protect Jerusalem; he will protect and deliver it, he will spare and rescue it (Isa. 31:5).

Further, in delivering the tribes of Israel from Egypt YHWH described his action thus: "I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself" (Ex. 19:4).  Jesus, the Son, also used this simile, likening himself in his relation to the holy city, Jerusalem, to a mother bird.  "O Jerusalem How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not" (Matt. 23:37; Luke 13:34).

The clearest examples of feminine images for God in the Old Testament occur in Isaiah.  In none of them is YHWH called or addressed as "Mother," but the image of motherhood is used to dramatic effect by the prophet through simile:

(1) 42:13-14: Having been bottled up, Yahweh’s war cry bursts forth like the cries, gasps, and groans of a woman in labor.

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YHWH goes forth like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes.  For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in travail, I will gasp and pant.

(2) 45:9-10: YHWH is likened first to a potter, then to a father, and finally to a mother, as a woe is pronounced upon anyone who resists his God.

Woe to him who strives with his Maker, an earthen vessel with the potter! . . . Woe to him who says to a father, "What are you begetting?" or to a woman, "With what are you in travail?"

(3) 49:14-15: YHWH is first presented as the bridegroom of the bride (Zion) and then as the mother of the child (Zion).

But Zion said, "YHWH has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me."  "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?"  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

(4) 66:13: Yahweh is like a mother who comforts her child.

As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

While this image of motherly care conveys a vital sense of the compassion of YHWH for his people, it occurs only rarely in the Old Testament and is thus never developed into a metaphor, where God is said to be "a" or "the" Mother.⁷

The early church confessed that Theos is the Father and the Father is the Pantokrator, whose divine action, creative and provident, is universal in scope.  This teaching entered the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, whose first paragraph is brief and reads: "We believe in one God the Father Almighty (pantokrator), Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things

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visible and invisible."  In the second paragraph, which is devoted to the Son, the relation of the Son to the Father is set forth and thus the reason why the Father is called the Father becomes clear.  The one God is the Father because he has a Son begotten before all ages, who is consubstantial with him.

The German Protestant theologian, Jürgen Moltmann, explained the identity of "the Father" in this way:

The first person of the Trinity is the Father only in respect of the Son, that is, in the eternal begetting of the Son. God the Father is the Father of the Son.  He is never simply "universal Father," like Zeus, Jupiter, Vishnu or Wotan.  He is not called Father merely because he is the unique cause on whom all things depend.  Nor is it for the sake of the authority and power which all authorities and powers in heaven and on earth, in religion, state and family, hold from him.  It is solely and exclusively in the eternal begetting of the eternal Son that God shows himself as the Father.  He is uniquely "the Father of Jesus Christ" and only through Christ, the only-begotten Son, and in the fellowship of this "firstborn" among many brothers and sisters, is he also "our Father."⁸

In order to maintain this crucial distinction, Moltmann continued in his lecture (paper) to speak emphatically of "the Father of the Son."

The Jesuit theologian, Bertrand de Margene, summarized the teaching of the western medieval councils on the identity of "the Father" within the Blessed and Holy Trinity in these words.

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claimed the Father "source and origin of the whole divinity," – fons et origo totius divinitatis.  An incomprehensible abyss of affirmation, the Father is eternally plenitude as source, fontalis plenitudo, without receiving anything from anyone, not only uncreated but also unbegotten.

And he continues:

The Father gives to the Son and to their Spirit his substance or nature without losing it, and in giving it, and in giving it totally, he gives himself.  Thus he gives and he retains. He remains in the Son and in the Spirit to whom he is essentially relative, at the same time that he communicates to them his essence and gives himself personally to them.⁹

There fore the Father is "the summit of the Holy Trinity" and the Son and the Spirit, within the immanent Trinity, are truly consubstantial with him because they receive from him their substance/essence.

Yet the truth of the matter is that we can only name, address, and know the Father because of our Lord Jesus Christ who is God, the Son incarnate.  So it must be our task in the next chapter to investigate the identity and the nature of this unique and only-begotten Son of God the Father.  The fact of the matter is that we only know the Father in, through, and by the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, who addressed God as Abba.

Achtemeier, Elizabeth. "Exchanging God for ‘No Gods’: A Discussion of Female Language for God." In Speaking the Christian God: The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism, edited by Alvin F. Kimel, Jr. Grand Rapids: Eendmans, 1992.

De Margerie, Bernard. The Christian Trinity in History. Still River, Mass.: St. Bede’s, 1982.

Dunn, James D.G. The Parting of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism. Philadelphia: Trinity, 1991.

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Hamerton-Kelly, Robent. God the Father: Theology and Patriarchy in the Teaching of Jesus. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979.

Jeremias, Joachim. The Prayers of Jesus. London: SCM, 1967.

----- New Testament Theology. Volume 1: The Proclamation of Jesus. New York: Scribner’s, 1971.

Mankowski, Paul V. "Old Testament Iconology and the Nature of God." In The Politics of Prayer, edited by H.H. Hitchcock. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992.

Martin, Francis. The Feminist Question. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.

Miller, John W. Biblical Faith and Fathering. New York: Paulist, 1989.

Moltmann, Jürgen. "Theological Proposals." In Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, Faith and Order Paper, WCC, no. 103. London: SPCK, 1981.

Toon, Peter. Yesterday, Today and Forever: Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity in the Teaching of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Swedesboro, N.J.: Preservation, 1995.

See also the articles on abba and pater and theos in Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, eds., Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990, 1991, 1993).

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