The Doctrine of God
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
Previously, in thinking about the doctrine of God, we have used some rather heavy theological terms to describe Him. We began by thinking about the attributes and actions of God. In so doing, we used such terms of multiple syllables and theological heaviness as God’s infinity, omnipresence, omniscience and omnipresence. Then we continued thinking about God using a two syllable and a single syllable term, both of only four letters, by which the Bible describes Him — holy and love. That God is holy is a distinctive theme in the Old Testament and that God is love is a major emphasis of the New Testament.
Sons and daughters
Beginning this week, Theology 101 will seek to let several common images serve to further explore the Bible’s revelation about God. The image for this week is Father. The image of a father is familiar to all of us in that each of us had a father. However, we do not understand God by using earthly, fallible fathers as our exemplars of God as Father. This distinction is immediately made when we add the Bible’s adjective to the term father that results in the designation “Heavenly Father.” Jesus put it like this: “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven” (Matt. 23:9).
God as Father reminds us further of His action in begetting us. As sons and daughters of our earthly father, we know we were begotten of him. As children of God, Christians have “been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Pet. 1:23). Thus, as Heavenly Father, God has children.
God as Father leads to the truth that He gives good gifts to meet the needs of His sons and daughters. He has given us many great and precious promises about providing for His own. None of His gifts is more precious or greater than the gift of eternal life. This good news is set against the background of the bad news about sin’s wages in Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God as Father includes the assurance that He looks after us, providing for and protecting us. Being in Christ through saving faith, we are in the Father’s hand, from which nothing can snatch us away now or forever (John 10:29).
God as Father suggests His nearness to us, His interest in us, His caring for us, His providing our needs and His loving us with perfect, unending love.
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