Talk:God the Father

Additional relevant passages

Some are not children of God (not exhaustive)

Ge 3:15; 6:1–4 (subject to interpretation); Dt 32:5; Isa 1:4; 14:20; 57:3–4; Eze 16:44–45; Mal 2:11; Mt 13:38; 15:24–26 (cf. Mk 7:27–28); Mt 23:15; Lk 16:8; 20:34-36; Jn 8:38-47; 17:12; Ac 13:10; Ro 9:8; Gal 4:21–31; Eph 2:2-3; 5:6; Col 3:6 NASB; 1Th 5:5; 2Th 2:3; Heb 12:8; 1Jn 3:10

Idols and false gods called father

Dt 13:13 KJV; Jdg 19:22 KJV; 20:13 KJV; 1Sa 1:16 KJV; 2:12 KJV; 10:27 KJV; 25:17 KJV, 25 KJV; 30:22 KJV; 2Sa 16:7 KJV; 20:1 KJV; 23:6 KJV; 1Ki 21:10 KJV, 13 KJV; 2Ch 13:7 KJV; Jer 2:27; Mal 2:11

Moses called father

Num 11:12 (“did I [Moses] conceive all this people?”)

Paul called father

1 Cor 4:14–17; 2 Cor 12:14–15; Gal 4:19; Phil 2:22 (allegorically); 1 Th 2:7 (allegorically “a nursing mother”!); 1 Th 2:11–12 (allegorically); 1 Tim 1:2, 18; 2 Tim 1:2; 2:1; Tit 1:4; Phm 1:10

John called father

1 John 2:1; 2:12–13; 2:18; 2:28; 3:7; 3:18; 4:4; 5:21; 3 John 1:4

Any sense in which believers are Christ’s children?

Ps 22:30; Isa 9:6; 53:10

Someone called “son”, “daughter”, “child”, or “children” (not exhaustive)

Jer 31:22; 49:4; Matt 9:22; Mark 2:5; 5:34; 10:24; Luke 8:48; John 8:35; 13:33; 21:5; Gal 4:1-3; 1 John 2:1; 2:12–13; 2:18; 2:28; 3:7; 3:18; 4:4; 5:21

TODO More Keywords?

I've searched the entire Bible for instances of “father”, “child”, “son”, “daughter”, “adopt”, “offspring”, “born”, “firstborn”, and “birth” (and all variant forms such as plurals, past tenses, etc.). Any other keywords I should consider? — 02:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

TODO Passages like James 1:18

I think James 1:18 is relevant to this topic, but what kind of search keyword(s) can I use to pan out more passages like this one? I think I just need to pay attention as I read through the whole Bible and just add to this collection as I go. — 02:42, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Bible passages cited in LDS sources

Cited in Preach My Gospel

Ac 17:29 (variously cited as Ac 17:29; 17:27–29; 17:16–34); Ro 8:16; Heb 12:9

Cited in LDS Topical Guide › Man, a Spirit Child of Heavenly Father

Nu 16:22; Dt 14:1; Job 32:8; Job 33:4; Ps 82:6; Ecc 12:7; Isa 42:5; Hos 1:10; Mal. 2:10; Mt 5:48; Mt 6:9; Ac 17:29; Ro 8:16; Eph 4:6; Heb 12:9

— 04:29, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Children v. dogs

From Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite or Syrophoenician woman in Matt 15 and Mark 7, two things are obvious:

1. The Israelites are the children and the Gentiles are not.
2. Jesus came to preach to Israelites, not Gentiles—to the children, not the dogs.

The observation that can be made from this is that whenever Jesus uses the words, "your Father," we must keep in mind he is talking directly to Israelites, not to a general audience. All he means is that God is their Father, not the Father of all men generally.

— 06:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

But, I find it rather fascinating that in the Gospel of John Jesus never refers to God as “your father” until after his resurrection when he tells Mary that he is going to ”my Father and your Father”, almost as though none of the elect are actually considered adopted until Christ’s sacrifice occurs. — 03:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Inconsistencies between translations

Take a look at Eph 3:14 ESV and Eph 3:14 KJV. In this case, the KJV says God is the Father of Jesus, the ESV says he is simply the Father. Given the number of such later interpolations by scribes, I suspect if I had used the KJV as the basis of this study, many of the verses in the "Of no one in particular" section would have ended up in the "Of Jesus" section. This is an interesting angle I'd like to study a bit more. — 22:15, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Only Begotten Son

Fascinating! Did you know the phrase “only begotten son” is only applied to Jesus by John the gospel writer, and he only uses it five times? (The only other time it appears in the New Testament is when it is applied to Abraham's son, Isaac, by the author of Hebrews.)

Only Begotten Son

Jn 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1Jn 4:9 (cf. NASB)

Here’s where this gets interesting. The very first instance, John 1:14, is clearly metaphorical. I believe we must interpret John’s four additional uses of the phrase the same way as his first. I think every time John calls Jesus the only begotten son he is echoing the poetic imagery of John 1, where Jesus’ glory is said to be like that of an only begotten son of a father.

This article was helpful to me in discovering this: Michael D. Marlowe › The Only Begotten Son (ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός).

Note that (and I haven’t decided how I feel about this) the ESV translators chose not to translate the word μονογενής as “only begotten”, but simply as “only”. Compare the verses given above in NASB, NKJV or KJV. — 02:02, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

It just occurred to me the phrase “Son of God” would probably have been interpreted in light of old testament passages that call the King of Israel the son of God. So that phrase can be taken metaphorically. If there’s any phrase that makes it sound more like we’re talking about God’s literal son, it’s “Only Begotten Son”, but if, as I’ve postulated above, that statement is also meant to be taken metaphorically, then what are we left with? Clearly I (along with the earliest Trinitarians) believe that Jesus proceeds from the Father in some way, so there must be at least some kind of face value literal meaning to these phrases, but I think we can safely reject the very literal Mormon interpretation that Jesus and God are material beings and that Jesus is literally God’s son in the same sense that I am my father’s son. — Joey 05:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Another relevant article: Only Begotten « By Common Consent.

See also Monogenēs.

Charles Lee Irons has recently argued very persuasively is a series of articles and a chapter in Fred Sanders and Scott Swain’s Retrieving Eternal Generation that monogenēs does really mean “only begotten”.

Israel as son of God in Torah

Need to read this article and see how relevant it is to this topic: “Israel as son of God in Torah”. — Joey 17:35, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

John 5:18

Need to spend some thought in teasing out all the implications John 5:18 holds for this topic.

• The Jews obviously didn’t regard God as their own Father, or what Jesus said would not have been considered blasphemy.
• Somehow calling God one’s own Father makes one equal with God.

— Joey 03:41, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Ephesians 3:15

Eph 3:15 is relevant to this topic. Important note: the Greek word for family, “πατριὰ”, is closely related to the word for father used in v. 14, “πατέρα”. Perhaps a better translation would be that every “fatherhood” gets its name from God the Father. — Joey 17:37, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Sproul speaks on this issue

http://blog.mrm.org/2011/05/gods-offspring/

Some notable quotes from the video (these have not been transcribed necessarily word-for-word here):

“Harnack, for example, in the 19th century published a book that is still in print and very influential, a simple little book entitled What is Christianity? and he boils Christianity down to this very basal common denominator that has two central affirmations: the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. . . . Well, orthodox Christianity reacts somewhat with a jaundiced eye to that kind of reduction, for several reasons. One is that it tends to obscure some of the other vital ingredients of christianity, but not only that, we raise the question as to whether or not it's true that the Bible does teach the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. William Elery Channing taught it as a creed for unitarianism and it’s become part of the American way of life to assume a universal fatherhood of God and a universal brotherhood of man and it may sound shocking to you if I suggest that maybe the Bible doesn't teach any such idea . . .”

Can you think of any place where the Bible teaches the universal fatherhood of God? It’s an inference that can be drawn from creation and it’s not just an inference. The apostle Paul on one occasion at Mars Hill does say, quoting the secular philosophers, ‘As your own poets have said, we are all God’s offspring.’ In the sense that God is the creator of all people there is this oblique sense in which the Bible does inferentially say that God is the creator of all men so that in that certain sense he’s the father of all men. But that is a very very rare indication and you would think that if it’s the essence of christianity that it's something that’d be virtually on every page.”

“But before I elaborate further on that let me go to the second phase, the universal brotherhood of man. Where do we read that in the Bible? The Bible does not teach the universal brotherhood of man. What the Bible teaches is the universal neighborhood of man. Jesus makes it clear that all men are my neighbors and I have duties to perform to my neighbors that I am called to love my neighbor as much as I love myself. And you say well maybe this is just a semantic game where we're distinguishing between neighbors and brothers, but I do it for a reason. In the New Testament the concept of brotherhood is a very very special kind of human fellowship.”

“In the Old Testament there are times when God is referred to as the Father, but when a Jewish child was taught to pray he was given several (30 or 40) different appropriate forms of address to God. . . . The personal direct form of address of calling God Father is noticeably absent from those Jewish lists. . . . Nowhere in the Old Testament or in any existing Hebrew documents do we ever find a Jewish person addressing God directly in the form of personal address as Father until the 10th century A.D.”

— Joey 22:54, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Genesis 3:15

There are implications here from Ge 3:15, which speaks of the offspring of the woman and the “offspring” of the serpent or the devil. — Joey 18:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Definition of “sons”

From The Meaning of “Sons of God” in Genesis 6:1–4 by Trevor Major (copied over here from Talk:Sons of God in Genesis 6):

The word “son” (ben) has a far wider meaning in Hebrew than it does in contemporary English use, and occurs some 4,850 times in the Hebrew Bible. The most common meaning is of a son, as in the male offspring of his parents (e.g., Genesis 5:4), but in general terms the word refers to a variety of rela-tionships in which a person or object belongs to, or is influenced by, someone or something. A son could be a citizen of a city (Psalm 147:13), a student (Proverbs 1:10), or an arrow (Job 41:28). The expression “sons of God” refers to some entity somehow connected or related to God, but whether by birth, creation, ownership, or characteristic, it is impossible to say from the phrase alone. The only way to examine the issue further is to study the use of the phrase in Scripture and other literature sources.

— Joey 16:01, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

“Eternal family”

“The Godhead—the Trinity, as we call it—is the ‘eternal family’ in the true sense of the word.” —Pastor Tim — Joey 16:42, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Why this page is arranged in the order it's in (don't rearrange it!)

Scripture, by contrast, points to something very specific and much less sentimental when it calls God “the Father.” It points to the fact that within the life of the one God, there is an eternal relationship of fatherhood and sonship. The first person is Father for Trinitarian reasons first of all. He is the Father of the Son by definition. That is who he is. Consequent to that is what he does: he acts to become the Father of those whom he predestined for adoption as sons (Eph. 1:5). Finally, in an extended or poetic sense, it may sometimes be appropriate to depict God’s general love and care for all his creatures by using a parenting metaphor. But to start with cosmic fatherhood is exactly backwards. God did not have the world as his son; he so loved the world that he gave his only Son (John 3:16).^[1]

God the Father in the Book of Mormon

See Experiment › God the Father.

Book of Mormon searches

I’ve already searched for “father”, “son”, “child”, “daughter”, “adopt”, “offspring”, “born”, “firstborn”, “birth”, “begotten”, “seed”, “family”, “parent”. Other search terms?

Mormon doctrinal exposition “The Father and the Son”

This 1916 doctrinal exposition is evidently the first time the word “Elohim” was used exclusively of Heavenly Father and “Jehovah” exclusively of Jesus in LDS doctrine: The Father and the Son: A Doctrinal Exposition by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (Improvement Era, Aug 1916).

Luke 10:6

Lk 10:6 calls someone a “son of peace”. Is this a euphemism for an elect believer?

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1. Sanders, Fred (2010). The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (p. 88). Crossway. #