Moses is the first person in Scripture to call God “Father.” In Deuteronomy 32:6, Moses sings about the spiritual relationship between Yahweh and the nation he brought out of Egypt. Father depicts the unique and personal relationship of God to his people (1 Cor. 8:6)—both with Israel in the Old Testament and with the church in the New Testament—as well as the relationship God the Father has to the other Persons of the Trinity (John 16:28). As we know the first person of the Trinity to be God the Father, so the second person is God the Son, eternally begotten from the Father before all worlds began.
Jesus himself calls God “Father” (Abba) in Mark 14:36 when he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion: “And He was saying, ‘Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.’” Jesus was truly the Son of God, and we see this partly in how Scripture reveals to us his prayer to his Father.
But Scripture reveals that we are the children of God as well! Romans 8:15 even uses the same intimate name for Father when describing our adoption by God, “Abba,” that Christ used praying to God the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’” (NASB). The same use of Abba is also found throughout the New Testament. The apostolic writers continually describe believers as sons and daughters, as beloved children of God: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” (Gal. 4:6–7).
What does this tell us about God? God’s assurance that he is our Father and we are his children means that we are heirs with Christ—we suffer with him and we will be glorified with him (Rom. 8:17). It means that we can wait in great hope for creation to be redeemed, when this present suffering gives way to freedom (Rom. 8:21–23). It means we are not alone—we have many brothers and sisters, united with us to God in Christ (Rom. 8:29)! And it means our salvation is secured—“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:31–32).
Footnotes
The Nicene Creed.
