We Christians worship God.
Which god is that? Well, we point out he’s the One God,
Simple: Christians believe
Uniquely the Father of Jesus. Because
Deuteronomy 32.6 ESV - “Do you thus repay the L
ORD , - you foolish and senseless people?
- Is not he your father, who created you,
- who made you and established you?”
Throughout the Old Testament, God’s called the Hebrews’ father—and really everyone’s father, ’cause he made everyone. Jesus likewise calls him “your heavenly Father,”
Which’ll confuse them. Heck, it confuses Christians! If God’s the Father of Jesus, yet Jesus himself is God, we’ve got a paradox brewing, don’t we? Well, kinda. So we gotta explain how God’s a trinity: One God, three persons, one person’s the Father, another person’s the Son, and both of them are the one Being who is God.
When Jesus described his relationship to our heavenly Father, there’s something way different going on than we see between us and our Father. ’Cause Jesus describes himself as the Father’s only Son. You know how John 3.16 goes:
John 3.16 ESV - “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Jesus is our Father’s only Son, his unique Son, his Son in a way that I’m not. ’Cause you know
Another paradox? Not really.
Jesus’s divine nature, and divine Father.
God’s not my biological Father; that’d be George Leslie.
Yes God made me, and considers me his kid, but we’re not the same species. His species is God; mine is human. God also created piranhas, y’know. Therefore he’s also the Father of all the piranhas in the world, in exactly the same way he’s the Father of humanity. But again: Not the same species.
It’s a little like a programmer who creates a great app. One she’s always tweaking to make it an even better app. She spends a lot of time with it; even calls it her “baby.” But this app clearly didn’t come out of her uterus. Still, she spends a tremendous amount of time on that app—possibly more time than she spends with her actual biological children!—and puts a lot of love and attention and affection into it. Still, it’s a way different relationship between a programmer and her app, versus a mother and biological child. Heck, the relationship between a “dog mom” and her “fur baby” is closer to that of a biological child.
Yeah, this isn’t a perfect analogy. But you get the gist: Jesus relates to his Father in a way the rest of us simply can’t. Because Jesus is the same species. He’s human, but unlike every other human, he’s got two species: His species is also God. (As theologians much prefer to say it, Jesus has two natures. My use of the word “species” weirds a few of them out. Still accurate though.) He’s exactly like his Father. He easily, entirely understands his Father in a way the rest of us really can’t. They share experiences of
Luke 10.22 ESV - “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
Revealing the Father is kinda
John 1.18 ESV - No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
1 John 5.20 ESV - And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
John 14.9-11 ESV 9 “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?B 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”
It’s a unique relationship. One which Jesus, due to having two species/natures, can actually extend to us, ’cause he bridges that divine/human divide.
But still: God is uniquely the Father of Jesus in a way he’s not the Father of humanity. Or of piranhas. Or bananas. Or tardigrades.
Jesus, our connection to the Old Testament God.
There have been, and still are, Christians who attempt to separate our heavenly Father from Y
Frequently it’s antisemites who hate the idea we worship the same God as Jews and Muslims. Other times it’s theological liberals who hate the judgments and violence they find in the Old Testament, and are pretty sure God would never behave that way. Doesn’t Jesus teach peace and love?
Both groups claim our God’s a different God than Y
Where their argument completely falls apart, of course, comes from Jesus and his apostles directly quoting the Old Testament, and of course making reference to it. They did so hundreds of times. The NT is steeped in the culture and traditions of the OT. It doesn’t make sense without it. God doesn’t make sense without it. Jesus doesn’t make sense without it; how
Jesus identifies Y
Nope, we worship the same God as Jews and Muslims. But as I said, the vital difference between the way Christians worship God, is we recognize nobody can understand this God apart from Jesus.
John 14.6-7 ESV 6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.B 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”John 17.25-26 ESV 25 “O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
So if you wanna know the Father, follow Jesus.
