But the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for also the Father seeks such as his worshipers. John 4:23
Many Christians unwittingly underestimate and under appreciate the name Father. Many may not even know that when referring to God, Father is a name. It describes a relationship, but it is also his name. this is the last and greatest name of God that has been revealed to man: Father!
In times gone by God revealed himself to us by names which tend to focus on his attributes:
“I am that I am” the absolute, the self-existing one.
“Elohim”, deity.
“Jehovah or Yahweh, Jah”, the eternal one.
“el Shaddai” God almighty.
“El Elyon” God most high.
To further emphasize his attributes and his care for his people he revealed compound names as well:
Jehovah Nissi: The Lord my banner
Jehovah Tsidkenu: The Lord our righteousness
Jehovah Jireh: The Lord will provide
Jehovah Rapha: The Lord my healer
But no previous name of God comes close to the name father! Before the Lord Jesus, the Son, came down from heaven to reveal the Father to us, no one could imagine or presume that God, the eternal, the creator of the universe, could be our father in this deep sense. He is much more to us as our father than our human father and even our mother: Isaiah 49:15 “can a mother forget her nursing child, or fail to have compassion for the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget but I will never forget you”!
Of course, men understand God as our father in a general sense being that God created us. God also called Israel his firstborn son “tell pharaoh to let my son go that he may serve me in the desert”. However, “Father” in the Christian sense goes further and deeper than anything before. The depths and the realities of the name Father could only be revealed and declared by the Son who came out of heaven from the father. Only the one who ever dwells in the bosom of the father could reveal the love that he shares with him in the relationship of Son and Father.
John 1:18: “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” …
Declarer of the Father's name,
Expression of His grace,
The Word of life, the light of men,
The Lord with unveiled face;
“See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God”. 1 John 3:1. We are children of God by new birth. We are born into the family of God. Not only are we children of God by new birth, but we are sons of God by adoption. We are born again into the family of God and he also makes us sons of God by adoption. As sons we are to be mature intelligent and responsible in the affairs of our Father who is in heaven and the zeal of our Father’s house should also consume us!
The Lord Jesus is the Eternal Son of God, a divine person just like the father and Spirit are divine persons. He is never the child of God. He was Mary’s child but even as a baby he was God’s Son. We become children of God by new birth and we receive sonship by adoption. To demonstrate that he is serious about this sonship, God gives us divine enablement to understand sonship and to glory in it. He gives us his Holy Spirit: “But because you are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” Gal 4:6, “For you have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Gal 4:6. It is the Spirit that gives us the power and the courage to dare to believe that God almighty is our own Father and to approach him in worship as Father;
“Abba, Father,” we approach Thee
In our Savior’s precious name.
We, thy children, here assembling,
Now the promised blessing claim!
And so, every Sunday morning since the late 1960s except for sickness, work and a hiatus of 5-6 years, I have assembled together with a group of fellow Christians to remember Christ’s death symbolically by eating the bread and drinking the wine; pure symbolism yet it is a visible and tangible mnemonic of his body given for us and his blood shed two thousand years ago. While we gather to remember him, we experience his presence and we spiritually follow the voice of our “chief Musician” as he sings praises to the Father! As we remember him, the blessed Lord Jesus directs our hearts to the Father who sent him to be the savior of the world.
“I will declare thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”: The words of the Lord Jesus himself!
Makiliwè Colin Younge
Jan 18, 2018