Relationships to the Father

• I. "Father"
• II. "My Father"
• III. "The Father"
• IV. "Your Father"

I. "Father"

1. The Willing Son (Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42; John 12:27,28).
2. The Confident Suppliant (Matt. 11:25).
3. The Satisfied Intercessor (John 11:41).
4. The Earnest Worker (John 17:1).
5. The Holy Priest (John 17:5,21,24).
6. The Pleading Substitute (Luke 23:34).
7. The Surrendered Spirit (Luke 23:46).

II. "My Father"

1. Mutual Work. Christ speaks of "My Father's business" (Luke 2:49), and the works He did as done "in My Father's name" (John 10:25), and says, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work" (John 5:17). The sphere of His service, the authority for His action, the plan which He followed, the business in which He was engaged, and the fellowship of His work, were all begun, continued and ended from, in, through, with, and to the Father.
2. Mutual Purpose. The requirement of the Father was met by the ransom of the Son, hence, in referring to the direction of the Father in relation to His substitutionary death, Christ says, "This commandment have I received of My Father" (John 10:18). Christ's death was no accident, it was Love's sending and suffering, and thus the accomplishment of Divine decree.
3. Mutual Keeping. The double grip of grace tells us that Love's fingers are interlaced in the warmth of their embrace for the keeping of the sheep in the place of the Lord's preservation, for the Lord assures us we are not only in His hand, but "My Father," Who gave them, He is greater than all: and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand" (John 10: 29). Preserved in the hand of Power, we are kept safe from sin's pollution.
4. Mutual Indwelling. There is a mystic union between the sons and the Son with the Father. Wonderful are the words, "Ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me and I in you," and to those who know Him by their obedience, Christ further says, "If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him" (John 14:20-23). The word "abode" is the same as rendered "mansion" in John 14:2. God's home is in the obedient child, and the obedient child is at home in God.
5. Mutual Obedience. The Son and the sons have one path to tread, namely, the way of obedience. The appreciation of love's complacency comes through response to Love's commands. "If ye keep My commandments ye shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love" (John 15:10).
6. Mutual Bestowment. "Behold I send the promise of My Father upon you" (Luke 24:49). The purpose of the Father culminated in the Passion of the Son, and the Passion of the Smitten Son brought the Power of the Spirit's grace, even as the struck rock of Horeb resulted in the gushing water.
7. Mutual Thought. " In My Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you" (John 14:2). The place Christ is preparing is in the house of the Father's many abodes. The home-coming of the children from the school of life will find many surprises of the Father's thinking and the Son's working.

III. "The Father"

1. Source of Action (verse 19). Being in the subordinate position as the Son, He cannot act apart from the Father as His servant, therefore all His actions were the acts of the Father. The lowly dependence of His Spirit declares the holiness of His character and His fitness for His Father's service, for as all independence of God is in the virus of sin, so dependence upon Him is the virtue and vitality of service.
2. Source of Love (verse 20). The love of the Father to the Son shows itself in three ways -- in His confidence in Him (John 3:35), in His communion with Him, and in the communication through Him. His tender regard is manifest in the feelings of His heart's love, and in the fulness of hand's liberality, for all that comes from the Father to the Son comes through the Son to us.
3. Source of Power (verse 21) The "as" and "so" of the verse show community of action. "The work belongs to the Father," as Luthardt says, "in so far as it proceeds from Him; to the Son, in so far as it is accomplished by Him in the world."

IV. "Your Father"

1. Nature of the Father. There are two principal words translated "sons," or "children," in the New Testament, namely, "Huios" and "Teknon." The former is always used in an adoptive sense, and refers to the dignity of son ship, and the latter expresses kinship, a descendant, and denotes nature. "Huios" is used in Rom. 8:14,19; Gal. 3:26; 4:6; Heb. 12:5,6,7,8; and "Teknon" in I John 2:12; Rom. 8:16,17,21; I John 3:1,2,10. As the child owes its being to its parents, so being begotten from above by the Spirit we possess the nature of God, and that nature is love.
2. Named by the Father. " Called the sons (children) of God" (I John 3:1), that is, we are named children. The word (Kaleo), rendered "called," is frequently used in the giving of names: "called His name Jesus" (Matt. 1:25), "called the Son of The Highest" (Luke 1:32), "call his name John" (Luke 1: 60), " Mary, called Magdalene" (Luke 8:2), " A man named Zacchaeus" (Luke 19:2), "a place which is called Calvary" (Luke 23:33), "that old serpent called the devil" (Rev. 12:9). The title by which believers are designated is that of children. Life makes us children and character and conduct prove we are such.
3. Provision from the Father. There are three New Testament Scriptures beginning with the sentence, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ " (II Cor. 1:3 R.V.; Eph. 1:3; I Pet. 1:3), which accentuate the largeness of the Father's provision. All comfort in all tribulation is found in the first, so every circumstance in the outer life is met; all blessing for all need is assured in the second, so every requirement of the inner life is bestowed; and all the future for all time and eternity is provided for in the third, so the life infused is the earnest of the life to come, in all its incorruptibility and purity.
4. Fellowship with the Father. "Our fellowship is with the Father" (I John 1:3). The word for "fellowship" (Koinonia) is rendered "communication" in Philemon 6, "communion" in II Cor. 13:14, "distribution" in II Cor. 9:13, and "contribution" in Rom. 15:26, and comes from the word "Koinonos", which means one who shares something with another, hence we read of those who were "partners" with Simon (Luke 5:10). Fellowship with the Father means mutual communication, for we bless Him with our grateful praise, and He blesses us with His gracious provision; mutual distribution, for He gives to us the blessing of His love, that we may love others with the love of His blessing; mutual contribution, for He makes us partakers of His holiness, that we may by our holiness prove we are partakers of His nature. We are partakers in all His business, and He is a partner in all ours, so there is fellowship, fellow-help, fellow-feeling, fellow-work, fellow-purpose, fellow-company, and fellow-care.
5. Assurance in the Father. " Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son in your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15) The Spirit by the Word assures the surrendered sinner that He is God's own child. The act of our faith, acting according to God's Word, meets the assurance of God's voice in that Word, that the believers are God's children. The witness within is the entrance of the Word of God without, even as the sun lighted and sun-warmed room is proof positive of the shining sun outside.
6. Obedience to the Father. "If ye call on Him as Father" (I Pet. 1:17 R.V.), then certain obligations rest upon us, and especially the obligation of obedience, for we cannot have the privileges of the Gospel without their attendant responsibilities. Obedience is the medium of blessing (I Pet. 1:2,22), the meaning of faith (Rom. 15:18; 16:19), the soul of love (John 14:15), the evidence of holiness (Rom. 6:16), the heart of consecration (Rom. 6:17, margin), the answer of trust (Heb. 11:8); and the secret of confidence (I John 3:19) The word "assure" is given "may obey" in Jas. 3:3, and "confidence" in Philemon 21. The word in Heb. 11:8, rendered "obeyed," is rendered " hearken" in Acts 12:13. Literally it is "to answer." "Rhoda came to the door, to ask who was there" (R.V., "came to answer"; margin, "to ask who was there").
7. Loved and Preserved by the Father. " Beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ" (Jude 1, R.V.). One of the fundamental principles brought out in the New Testament is the unity of operation of the three persons of the Godhead, and yet their distinctive ministries. The Father bears witness to the Son and the Son to the Father, the Spirit reveals the Son and the Son speaks of the Spirit. The Spirit leads to the Son that we may know the Father, and the Father keeps us for the Son that we may share His glory. The redeemed are not only kept in Christ as the place of their safety, but they are preserved for Him as a trophy of His grace.

1. That the Father is made known in Christ alone, therefore if we would know the Father we must know the Son, for "no man," He explicitly says, "cometh unto the Father but by Me" (John 14:6).
2. That while all men are the "offspring of God" (Acts 17:29) by creation, they are only His creatures and not His children, for all humanity has sinned and all are under condemnation (Rom. 3:23), hence the necessity of a new birth to become members of the family of the Father (John 3:3,5; 1:12,13).
3. That is was essential the Son of God should taste death in a substitutionary sense for those who should become the sons of God, for the mystic key to open the door of sonship, as well as salvation, is the atoning death of Calvary. Christ's word was, "The Son of man must be lifted up" (John 3:14). The Son of man on the cross is the procuring cause to make the sons of men one with Him in the commonwealth of His Fatherhood.
4. That believers in Christ are the children of God in a double sense: spiritually by the new birth, for by the Spirit we are born into God's family (John 1: 12,13; 3:3,5), and receive His nature (II Pet. 1:4); and adoptively we are the children of God as to place, for He has given us all the privileges of sonship (Rom. 8:15-17).
5. That the evidence we are the children of God, is not by profession, but by following two things: (1) Negatively, separation from sin, for we read, "He that committeth sin is of the devil... whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin... in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil" (I John 3:8-10). (2) Positively, love to the Lord in loving others. "Every one that loveth is begotten of God" (I John 4:7 R.V.; 5:1).
6. That it is the privilege of every child of God to experience all that is meant by God being the Father. A Father thinks of His children, cares for them, watches over them, succours and keeps them. Our Father provides for our need (Matt. 6: 8,26,30), answers our requests (Matt. 7:11; John 14:13), watches over our welfare (Matt. 10:29-31; John 13:1), takes pleasure in giving (Luke 12:32), protects in danger (John 10:29), secures a home (John 14:2), loves His own (John 16:27), and trains in discipline (Heb. 12:7-9)