What Kind of Father Is God?
Jesus invites us to discover what fatherhood means by looking at the Father he reveals.
When Jesus speaks about God as Father, we do not all hear the word in the same way.
For some people, father is a word associated with affection, steadiness and safety. For others, it carries disappointment, absence, fear or a relationship that has never been easy. Even when our experience has been good, no human father has been a complete picture of God. We bring our own history to the word before we have had a chance to think about it.
That can make it difficult to hear what Jesus is actually saying. We may start with the father we have known, enlarge that picture and assume that God must be something like him. Sometimes we give God the best of our experience. Sometimes, without meaning to, we give him the worst.
Jesus invites us to begin somewhere else.
Where Our Picture Begins
Throughout this series I have been returning to his words to Philip: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9 NIV). Philip wanted to see God. Jesus told him that the Father had already been made known in the Son who had been with him all along.
That matters when we come to a word as personal as Father. Jesus is not asking us to take an earthly relationship, however good or difficult it has been, and use it as the final measure of God. He is inviting us to watch him, listen to him and allow him to show us the Father.
This does not require us to pretend that our experiences have had no effect. They have. Some people have much to be grateful for, and others have wounds that should be taken seriously. But our experience does not have to have the last word about God. Jesus can help us recognise where it has given us a glimpse of the Father and where it has left us with a picture that needs to change.
Let Jesus Show Us the Father
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks whether a parent whose child asks for bread would give a stone instead. He then speaks of the Father in heaven giving good gifts to those who ask him (Matthew 7:9–11). The comparison begins with something his hearers know, but Jesus takes them beyond it. Even the imperfect care we manage to give points towards a goodness greater than our own.
Jesus teaches his disciples to address God as “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9). He speaks of a Father who sees what is done in secret, knows what his children need and invites them to ask. In the life of Jesus, those words begin to take on a face. We see him notice people others overlook, welcome children, tell the truth without abandoning the person in front of him and move towards people who have been pushed aside.
If seeing Jesus is seeing the Father, these are not merely examples of how a kind person behaves. They help us understand the God to whom Jesus teaches us to pray.
Of course, one article cannot answer every question raised by the word Father. Jesus himself takes us much further into the Father’s care and welcome, and I want to explore some of that in the next posts. For now, the starting point is important: we do not have to invent the Father’s character from our memories or our fears. We are given Jesus.
Turning the Picture Around
Perhaps we have been trying to understand God by asking whether he resembles the fathers we have known. Jesus allows us to turn the question around. What might faithful fatherhood look like when measured against the Father Jesus reveals? What might care, attention, truthfulness and welcome look like when they take their shape from him?
That question can be healing, but it can also be challenging. Those of us who have been entrusted with care for other people, whether as parents, pastors, teachers or leaders, cannot simply claim God’s name for whatever we do. We are called to let the character of the Father correct the way we use our influence.
And for those who find the word Father difficult, there is no demand here to force an easy feeling. The invitation is simpler than that. Begin with Jesus. Give his life room to challenge the picture you have been carrying. Let the Father he reveals become known, perhaps one Gospel story at a time.