The Character of God the Father - Part 1

The following is the first half of a talk I gave at the WYnet Passion conference 2010/11. The theme for the week was Character, and I opened the event with this to say about God the Father, with the character of Jesus and the Holy Spirit being expanded on in later evenings.

When talking about God the Father, it is useful to warn of an obvious point. The following is not a quote from the Bible:

“In the beginning Dad created the dinner and the dessert.
Now the evening was empty, darkness was over the screen of the telly, and the lasagne dish was soaking in the waters.
And Dad said, "Let there be sex," and there was sex.
Dad saw that the sex was good, and nine months later, he really saw the light!
Dad called his child an embarrassing name, and the nurse a naughty one.
And there was evening, and there was morning- the first day without rest.”

The obvious point is that we should not imagine God the Father to simply be a bigger version of our earthly fathers. That is getting things the wrong way around. If you need to compare, then instead think of your earthly father as a smaller and limited reflection of God the Father, just like yourself. Do not create a god in man's image!

This obvious point is worth immediately mentioning because some earthly fathers do a better job at reflecting God than others, and it would be a bad foundation to attribute so many flaws to God before you even begin to research actual material about Him. My own Dad, for example, separated from my Mum several years ago, but I do not imagine God will leave me, because I know that scripture tells me otherwise.

Creates

I picked out 4 characteristics of God the Father that we see in scripture and how God relates to us. Starting from the beginning- of everything- God creates. The Bible begins by telling us that God created everything out of nothing, which is extremely different to our own attempts at creating, which involve making something out of something else.

I will quickly note here that my research into the character of God the Father focused on the New Testament as much as possible, due only to the three parts of God being more easily distinguished here. If you're still wondering, then, why I started with creation, it is the gospel of John that backs up God the Father as the creator of the universe.

I asked the WYnet youth what kind of things they had created for school projects. Things like art, clocks, a pop-up book and even a birdhouse were recalled. But it wasn't a case of a teacher saying to their class “Make whatever you feel like, and if you finish it, you pass.” Instead, we are usually given a task to achieve, or a problem to solve. We don't just need to make a clock face, we need to make the time readable to the observer. We don't just make the birdhouse look nice, we need to make sure the birds can get in and out. We create things with a purpose, and this was true when God made us.

Judges

God created everything. It naturally follows that he rightfully owns everything, too. Also, everything (including ourselves) was created with a purpose. All quite positive so far, but here's where the route goes down a road we're not very fond of. If everything had a purpose when it was made, then it has, or is, currently succeeding or not succeeding at fulfilling it's purpose. An all-knowing God is aware of this, and his reaction will be to Judge His creation.

But I'm coming at a well-known word from a different angle than usually used by Christians. When I say that God Judges, I'm only referring here to the natural result of creating something with a purpose in mind. I am talking about judgment as a declaration of whether something has achieved or not achieved an intended result, not about an action such as punishment or reward of that result. A familiar ending of school projects was to evaluate what you had made- did the clock work, or had the roman numerals fallen off?

Notice that this use of the word can result in a rewarding action. When the word judge is used in this sense, it doesn't need to mean that pain and suffering awaits a poor soul! An example of this kind of judgment is found right back in the story of creation- before God had even created man and woman, he was judging things by noticing that they were 'good'!

Finally, I also hope that this use of the word Judge, and how it relates to a God that Creates, helps to ease the idea that God judges people because He is mean. I do not see how that fits with everything else He has shown us. Instead, judgment is simply the natural result of creation by any being, and it is not limited to negative results.

The natural language of Creation is Judgment.

That concludes the first half of my material- This is an incomplete picture of our Heavenly Father so far. I will soon post the second half, which includes the other 2 characteristics of God the Father that I picked out, and how they relate in a similar way to the first couple.



See Part 2...

Image Source: http://www.kinnarshah.in/index.php/2009/10/