“If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means he does not understand Christianity very well at all.”[1]
J.I.Packer
Given how Jesus taught us to pray and Packer’s words above, we’ll continue to look a the topic of “Knowing God as Father.” Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll consider the doctrine of the universal Fatherhood of God—a doctrine that’s often pitted against the doctrine of the redemptive Fatherhood of God (a doctrine closely connected with what it means to be adopted by God).
Background
“Is this the way you repay the LORD, you foolish and senseless people? Isn’t he your Father who created you? Has he not made you and established you?”
Deut. 32:6, NLT
The verse above is the first time God is called “Father” in the Bible. Here he is the father who “created,” “made,” and “established” His people. Because of this, his people and really every person on the planet ought to honor and respect him. These last two sentences capture the essence of the universal Fatherhood of God and should seem straightforward to most readers. So why has this teaching been so controversial for many conservative Christians? And why is it rarely included in a full-orbed understanding of what it means to champion the sanctity of human life?
An Unnecessary Cage Match & What the Bible Teaches
George Eldon Ladd was one of the most influential evangelical scholars of the last century.[2] In his time-honored textbook, he defines “the old liberal view” of God’s universal Fatherhood as follows:
“Jesus allegedly took up the universal teaching of God’s Fatherhood, deepened and enriched it, extending it to all people. God is Father to all because he is perfect in love, and love is the sum of his moral perfections…”[3]
He then spends two pages refuting this teaching, seeking to make the case that Jesus never taught that people are “by nature children of God.” To say what Ladd said differently: all humans on this side of the Fall, have distorted desires and hearts that are estranged from their Creator; they are lost and don’t seek God.
Ladd is certainly right on this point. As Jesus told the religious leaders who rejected him:
“If God were your Father, you would love me for I came from God and am here…You are of your father the devil, and your will [nature] is to do your fathers desires….’” (John 8:42-44, ESV; see also 2 Pet. 1:4)
But although I’m in agreement with Ladd that all humans are not “by nature” children of God, nevertheless, I believe he goes too far in rejecting the universal Fatherhood of God altogether. In other words, there is a legitimate sense in which all humans, created in His image, are children of God.
Here’s a few vivid examples from Paul’s writings:
- “Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist…” (1 Cor. 8:6, ESV)
- “For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as some of your poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’”[5] (Acts 17:28, ESV)
- “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named… one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Eph. 3:14-15; 4:6, ESV)
Regarding this third example, New Testament scholar, Klyne Snodgrass observes:
Paul refers to God as Father forty-two times in his letters, of which eight are in Ephesians. No other description of God is used so frequently in the New Testament . . . God is the Father of believers but… a …broader use of ‘Father’ also occurs… In 3:15 (and 4:6) the broader sense occurs: God as the Father of all humanity….[6]
And what about Jesus? The parable of the prodigal son that we looked at last week is a classic text where Jesus’ clearly teaches both the universal Fatherhood of God and the redemptive Fatherhood of God. Regarding this passage, Ladd acknowledges that “humankind’s place is in the house of the Father,” but his rejection of the universal Fatherhood of God steals beauty from the story.[7]
Granted—and this is what Ladd is primarily concerned about, the doctrine of the universal Fatherhood of God has been a hallmark of theological liberalism and universalism, “nullifying by implication the distinction between the church and the world and denying the need for the gospel.”[8] Ladd’s approach, unlike Snodgrass’ above, however, is reactionary. Further, it has the practical effect of dismantling an important bridge for the gospel that Paul uses in Acts 17:28, diminishing something all humans share, and weakening important doctrines that Jesus and Paul actually shared.
Next week, we’ll look at the practical implications of this doctrine and why its recovery is so important in our day.
[1] J.I. Packer, Knowing God (London: Hodder & Stroughton, 1973), 224.
[2] In a poll conducted by Mark Noll in 1986, this work ranked as the second most influential book among evangelical scholars, second only to Calvin’s Institutes.See Mark Noll, Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America (1986). 212.
[3] George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 84.
[5] Interestingly, Ladd admits in a footnote that “Paul has a doctrine of God’s universal Fatherhood resting upon the fact of creation (Acts 17:28–29),” although he believes that this “represents a different line of thought” from Jesus. See Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, 83.
[6] Klyne Snodgrass, The NIV Application Commentary: Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 179.
[7] Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, 85.
[8] Cameron, N.M. des., “Fatherhood of God,” in The New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP, 1988), 254.