We Confess Him to Be Our Father

As part of our worshiping together in our common confession this year, one of our men read concerning the first Person of the Trinity yesterday morning in our gathering: “God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men” (Baptist Faith & Message 2000, IIA).

Father. While in the Old Testament God was known to those in covenant with Him by the name יהוה (historically rendered “Jehovah,” these days “Yahweh,” the ALL-CAPS “LORD” in most English Bibles), in the New Testament the Church is told countless times to call the first Person of the Trinity “Father.”

Calling God “Father” is one of the clear signs of assurance that you have been sealed in your salvation through the Son by the Holy Spirit:

• “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God...” (Romans 8:14-16).
• “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God” (Galatians 4:4-7).

Calling God “Father” is not just how Jesus taught us to pray to the first Person of the Trinity; it is also a reminder that the Church is actually an eternal family bound together in Christ with God as Father. Instead of praying “my Father,” we are told to pray “our Father” (Matthew 6:9; cf. Isaiah 63:16; 64:8; Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:2; Galatians 1:3; Ephesians 1:2; Philippians 1:2; Colossians 1:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 2:16; Philemon 3).

Because we have been saved through the Son and filled with the Holy Spirit, we call Him “Father.” Because the Church is our family in the Son, filled with the Spirit, we call Him “Father” together. Forever.

We confess the first Person of the blessed Trinity to be Father, and worship together as His children in this common confession of faith.

Confessing His Perfections

This week in our Gathering, we will read the introduction to the second article of our Confession of Faith, the article on “God”: “There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being” (Baptist Faith & Message 2000, II).

I love the doctrine of the Trinity. “Worship is to be given to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to Him alone” (1689 Baptist Confession, 22.2). This belief, firmly rooted in the whole revelation of the Bible, has set orthodox Christianity apart from other religions (and false christianities) for 2,000 years. Yes, it is beyond our full comprehension, but what kind of God would He be if we could comprehend His Being in its fullness (especially since we are wholly incapable of fully comprehending our own being!)? Grow in scriptural meditation on the Trinity, worshiping Him and praying to Him as one God in three Persons! This has always been Who He is, and will always be Who He is, to His unending and infinite glory! Let no one steal this wonder revealed to us in the Scripture and confessed by the true Church for two millennia! It is the reality by which we are brought into the Church (Matthew 28:19) and by which we bless each other in the fellowship of the Church (2 Corinthians 13:12-14). "This doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion" (1689 Baptist Confession, 2.3).

“The Lord our God is...without...parts” (1689 Baptist Confession, 2.1). This is called the doctrine of the simplicity of God. It is an old doctrine, neglected by most of us and even argued against by many popular theologians today, but I believe it is supremely valuable to us. It says that all of the adjectives (“perfections”) we ascribe to God are inseparably bound to Who He is. He isn’t just “holy.” He totally, completely, and perfectly is “holiness.” He doesn’t just “love,” but is “love.” What He is, He always has been and always will be. He is absolute and exclusive Source of all of these “perfections.” Whatever we see of these perfections in Creation or in ourselves is but a graciously-given reflection of His own glory. The opposite of God’s simplicity is that there is an eternally-existing “perfection” out there somewhere that God partakes in just as we potentially could (He drinks from the same well we do as opposed from being the Well). This basically makes these “perfections” outside of God and, in a sense, another god apart from Him. This, to me, is unacceptable and irreconcilable to the Scripture. He is simple – the absolute and utterly exclusive Source of His “perfections.”

It’s interesting to me that there is one adjective missing in this paragraph: good. God’s goodness is mentioned later (“Election...is the glorious display of God's sovereign goodness,” V). Don’t miss His goodness! It is foundational to one of the most basic confessions of the Old Testament (1 Chronicles 16:34; 2 Chronicles 7:3; Ezra 3:11; Psalm 106:1; 107:1; 118:1,29; 136:1).