One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
The universal Fatherhood of believers
I. A truth proclaimed by the gospel.
II. A truth manifoldly confirmed by Christian experience.
1. The Divine Father is over all His children. Fatherhood the ultimate truth concerning God on which all others rest, and out of which they grow. Expressive of
(1) supreme authority;
(2) protective care;
(3) the grace of God as an administrative principle.
2. The Divine Father is through all His children. This preposition suggests movement and instrumentality.
(1) The energy of the Father working through His children;
(2) the distribution of spiritual gifts;
(3) the revelation of the Father through believers.
3. The Divine Father is in all His children.
(1) In the consciousness of their relationship to Him (Rom_8:15; Gal_4:6);
(2) in real union with Him (Joh_17:22-23). (A. F. Muir, M. A.)
One God and Father
The ideas connected with God and Father are here joined beautifully in the same person--power and love. Majesty is softened with tenderness, and the splendours of the Divinity tempered by the condescensions of paternal love. This principle is indeed wonderfully exemplified in all God’s dealings with the human race since the beginning of the world. The entire Jewish theocracy was the clothing the splendours of the present Ruler under the forms of a carnal ritualism. Whenever, in the old Testament, the glory of the Lord appears, two things take place--the sinful creature is laid in the dust, and then a word of comfort comes from the excellent glory: power is tempered with grace; the majesty of Jehovah with the human heartedness of the Father. Thus it was with Isaiah (Isa_6:5-9); Ezekiel fell prostrate (Eze_3:23); and Daniel fainted and was sick certain days (Dan_8:17-27); John, the beloved, fell down as dead before the glory of his Master (Rev_1:17); and even the fierce murderer of the saints (Act_9:4-5) was overwhelmed by the manifested glory. It is a source of comfort to remark that in these and all such cases there is ever some word or act of kindness on the part of God to raise up and strengthen His trembling creatures. It is the realizing of the name, “God and Father.” This is, indeed, the principle of Incarnation. The awful glory of the incorruptible God is tempered, softened, humanized in the person of Christ. (W. Graham, D. D.)
The Fatherhood of God
There are degrees of Fathership; or rather, there are such different degrees of the development of a Father’s love as make new orders in the relationship. He is the Father of the inanimate creation. Job calls Him the Father of the rain. In a higher sense and measure, He is the Father of the whole human race. All are the creatures of His hand; all are the subjects of His special providence; for all Jesus died. But the believer says it as a heathen or man of the world never says it. Or, see it again in this way. God has only one begotten Son, Jesus Christ. As many as believe are united to Jesus Christ; they become members of that mystical body. So they become sons by a double process, and by virtue of their union with Christ they are sons indeed. Therefore to them in a further degree God is Father. I do not say He is a reconciled Father to them, that He did not need (that is not in the Bible), but they are reconciled children to Him. There are two persons who best know what it is to say “Father.” One is a little, simple, trusting child, “of the womb of the morning,” who has not yet unlearnt the faith of his infancy. The other is a penitent, rising up from his sin, going back to his home--“I will arise, and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee.” I believe the remedy of all sorrow and almost all sin will be to think of God more as a Father. But this is not the line of thought along which I wish to take you now, but it is this, that God is the common Father of us all. Surely it would be a great thing if we could have it always before us--“One God and Father of all.” There is a great deal of harshness of opinion in the world just now, and men are very busy unchurching and un-Christianizing one another. The rich speak of the poor as “the lower orders,” and the poor--partly in consequence because they think the rich look down upon them--the poor dislike the rich much more than the rich dislike the poor. But ought this to be where all are one family? Do we call brothers and sisters “lower orders”? At this moment, have you any disagreement with any living man? have you any quarrel? Now think--That person has the same Father that I have; how patient that Father has been with that man; how very patient God has been with me; and is this the way, as a child of God, I should act to another child of the same God? There are deep mysteries in God’s providence--why some are heathen and some are Christian, some know nothing and some know much, some have so many advantages and some have so exceedingly few. But let us never forget the Word, and all it tells, and all it teaches us to do--“One God and Father of us all.” I know nothing which brings heaven so near. Here are we on earth trying to say, and we ought to say, every day, “Our Father.” And up there, just inside the blue veil, the hundred forty-and-four thousand have “the Father’s name on their foreheads.” Was this the reason why Christ taught us to say, “Our Father”?(J. Vaughan, M. A.)
God the Father of all
The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy. The lowly pine on the mountain top waves its sombre boughs, and cries, “Thou art my sun.” And the little meadow violet lifts its cup of blue, and whispers with its perfumed breath, “Thou art my sun.” And the grain in a thousand fields rustles in the wind, and makes answer, “Thou art my sun.” So God sits effulgent in heaven, not for a favoured few, but for the universe of life; and there is no creature so poor or so low that he may not look up with childlike confidence and say, “My Father, Thou art mine.” (H. W. Beecher.)
God is above all
When Bulstrode Whitelock was embarking, in the year 1653, as ambassador for Sweden, he was much disturbed in his mind, as he rested at Harwich on the preceding night, which was stormy, while he reflected on the distracted state of the nation. It happened that a good and confidential servant slept in an adjacent bed, who, finding that his master could not sleep, at length said, “Pray, sir, will you give me leave to ask you a question?” “Certainly.” “Pray, sir, don’t you think that God governed the world very well before you came into it?” “Undoubtedly.” “And pray, sir, don’t you think that He will govern it quite as well when you are gone out of it?” “Certainly.” “Then, sir, don’t you think you may trust Him to govern it properly as long as you live?” To this last question Whitelock had nothing to reply, but, turning himself about, soon fell fast asleep, till he was aroused and called to embark.
