Long Known as Father

We have already seen that monotheism is one of the fundamental Truths of Christianity. Let’s now recognize that our monotheism has its roots in Judaism.

Christians stand strong on the 4000-year tradition of faith in One God—the God of Abraham--the God the Jews call Father. Check out 15 passages from the Old Testament which substantiate the tradition of calling the One God our Father:

Is he [Yahweh] not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you? (Deuteronomy 32:6)

I will be his Father, and he [the Messiah] will be my Son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men… (2 Samuel 7:14)

I will be his Father, and he [the Messiah] will be my Son. I will never take my love away from him (1 Chronicles 17:13).

He [the Messiah] will be my Son, and I will be his Father (1 Chronicles 22:10).

I have chosen him [Solomon] to be my son, and I will be his Father (1 Chronicles 28:6).

A Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling (Psalm 68:5).

He [the Son of David, the Messiah] will call out to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior.’ And I will appoint him to be my firstborn (Psalm 89:26-27).

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him (Psalm 103:13).

Have you not just called to me: ‘My Father, my friend from my youth’? (Jeremiah 3:4)

I thought you would call me ‘Father’ and not turn away from following m (Jeremiah 3:19).

I am Israel’s Father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son (Jeremiah 31:9).

Yet you, LORD, are our Father (Isaiah 64:8).

But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us; you, LORD, are our Father (Isaiah 63:16).

A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a Father, where is the honor due me? (Malachi 1:6).

Do we not all have One Father? Did not One God create us? (Malachi 2:10)

The Jewish teachers of Jesus’ day affirmed the Jewish tradition of calling God their Father. Jesus discouraged them from speaking about God that way, but only because they didn't act like God's children. Their actions were not those of obedient children, so they disqualified themselves from using the term Father for God.

‘We are not illegitimate children,’ they protested. ‘The only Father we have is God Himself’ (John 8:41).

Don’t Deny Your Roots

It’s not good to deny your roots. Christians should give due recognition to the fact that they have inherited their faith in One God and Father from their spiritual ancestors, the Jews.

Ananias, the Jewish man who evangelized Paul (apostle to the Gentiles), said this:

The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will… (Acts 22:14)

So God, the God of the ancestors of the Jews, was the God who chose Paul. Paul had no doubt that he was a Jew and that he was serving God just as his Jewish brethren were serving God. Paul had plenty to say about his faith in the One God.

I am a Jew... I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the Law of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today (Acts 22:3).

I admit that I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets, and I have the same hope in God as these men themselves have... (Acts 24:14-15)

Paul had the exact same hope in God as his Jewish compatriots. He was just as zealous for God as they were, worshipping the God of his ancestors and believing in everything written in the Scriptures. Paul spoke of his Jewish roots with pride because they were God's people!

Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew... (Romans 11:1-2)

Paul believed in the ministry to the Gentiles, but he did not preach a different God than the God of the Jews. He saw his ministry to the Gentiles as a peacemaking mission, a mission to bring the Gentiles into the household of God, to join them to the Jews as God's people.

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles... at that time you were... without hope and without God in the World. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ...

His [Christ’s] purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the Cross... For through him [Jesus] we both have access to the Father by One Spirit.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household (Ephesians 2:11-19).

In order to interpret the last passage well, try to answer these four questions:

• To whom did Christ bring us near?

• With whom does Christ propose to reconcile us?

• To whom do we now have access?

• Who is the head of the household to which we now belong?
  

The answer to every one of the questions above is God--God the Father!

Do you remember Cornelius, the first Gentile convert? He invited Peter to visit him to explain the Gospel. What did he want to hear? That he could be part of the same family of God and have the same access to God that the Jews had. Do you as a Gentile feel the same way? Do you understand that Christ has brought you near to God, the God of the Jews?

Be happy the way Cornelius was happy, to now have access to God. You have joined his family and there is now no more separation between you and the Jews. You share the same God.

Jews Who Didn’t Know God?

Notice in the next passage that the knowledge the Jews are missing is not a knowledge of God, but a knowledge of his righteousness. In other words, they didn’t understand how God demonstrates his righteousness to us.

Do you understand how he demonstrates his righteousness? [Hint: It’s through Jesus].

... my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness (Romans 10:1-3).

One God for Jews and Gentiles

In the following passage we have a grand truth: The basis for all unity, that is, the reason for the unification of Jews and Gentiles is the fundamental reality that ‘there is only One God.’

Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only One God… (Romans 3:29-30)

In other words, the apostolic thinking is this: With just One God, it's impossible for Jews and Gentiles to be separate now. Division is unimaginable among those who believe in the same God. We are one people because we have One God.

Be Humble

Another important issue to address is that Gentile Christians should never consider ourselves to be above the Jews. Gentiles have had that evil thought many times. Let's renounce it and keep it far away from our thinking. The following passage from Romans 11 is medicine for any Gentile infected with the sin of arrogance towards the Jews. If any Gentile Christian thinks that he knows more about God than his Jewish counterparts, he needs to read this:

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you... if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again (Romans 11:17-18,23).

People who hold to Trinitarian theology presume that they know more about God than the Jews. They believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are part of what they call the “Godhead,” don’t they? That's something Jews don't know. In fact, the Jews don't even use the term "the Godhead." So, are Trinitarians more knowledgeable about God than their Jewish counterparts?

And believers in Oneness theology (churches that consider God to be Jesus) also suppose that their knowledge of God far surpasses the Jew’s knowledge of God.

But are Christians believers in God due to the revelation given to them from the Jews, or do Jews need Gentiles to tell them about God? Who learns from who? Is not Judaism the foundation of Christianity? Were not all of the first Christians, including Jesus and the Apostles, Jews? Do we not follow the God of the Jews, the One God and Father?