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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals: 41. A Fathering God.
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 41. A Fathering God.
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A Fathering God.
Why is God called a father? Is it simply a using of a word and a relationship familiar to us so as to convey some idea of what God is like? He is called a Shepherd. Yet He is not a shepherd, and we are not sheep; though that word of David's tells us with wondrous tenderness and realness what sort of a god God is. Is He a father? Or, does He simply mean to teach us that He loves and cares for us as a father does for his children?
Is the word "father" one that God takes up out of our common life? Or is it one that comes down into our life out of the life of God? Is He a father because we are fathers, by an accommodation of a human word? Or, are we fathers because He is a father, and has transferred fatherhood down from Himself to us by direct descent? Which?
It gives great tenderness to the meaning of the word both in using it for God, and in using it among ourselves, to get at the real answer. And the answer is gotten simply by noticing what "father" means; that is, what a father is. A father is one who, because of love, chooses to give of himself, of his own life, that there may be another one, made in his own image, with whom he may have fellowship in spirit, and partnership in service.
And whatever some of our scholarly friends may do with the simple Genesis story of creation, it is impossible to get away from this, that its direct purpose was to let us know that God really fathered man. He was moved by love. He chose to have us made. He gave of His own life that we might come into life; and yet more, that we might come into His own sort of life, life like His, and that we should be in His own likeness in our life.
And He has been acting the father part so fully and faithfully that it can be no mere use of words, no make-believe for teaching purposes, as loving as that would be in letting us know His heart love. The starry heavens above, the green fertile earth beneath, the answer of earth to heavens in life received, and of heavens to earth in life constantly given—all spell out that word "father" in the fullness of its mothered meaning.
And if there be any doubt at all about this it disappears entirely as we stand on the foot of the hill of the Cross. A father gives of his life at the first that his child may come into life; then he gives constantly that his child may grow into fullness of matured life. And in any emergency that may arise he unhesitatingly gives of his life again, to the extreme of giving it out, that his child may be saved from death.
It was Jesus who taught us to call God Father. The word was used before, but it was used very little. He taught us the blessed habit of using that word for God. But He did infinitely more than teach us the use of a word, even of that great word. He acted the father part for God on Calvary. God breathed out His life in Eden that we might come into life. And He bled out His life on Calvary that our life might be saved in time of terrible danger. Eden and Calvary both join in the spelling of that word "father." And one must use both to spell it out fully.
And all the loving preparation of the earth beforehand, and all His patient care of the life of the earth, and of the race ever since, regardless of our ignoring of Him, and blaspheming of Him, all underscore that word with constantly new emphasis. God is our Father in the plainest meaning of that word.