The great revelation of the Fatherhood of God was not possible until

Christ the Son was born.  When the Word became flesh, left the glory that was

His before the world was, and 'tabernacled' among us, we beheld His glory,

said John, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.  While this is

blessedly true, there are glimpses of the Fatherhood of God in the Old

Testament, though veiled and obscure.

'Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that

fear Him' (Psa. 103:13).

'A son honoureth his father ... if then I be a father, where is Mine

honour?' (Mal. 1:6).

'Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I

have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against

Me.  The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but

Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider' (Isa. 1:2,3).

Is there no yearning, loving, grieving spirit here, faintly echoed as

it is in the experience of many earthly fathers?  Did not our 'myriad minded'

poet say:

'Sharper than a serpent's tooth, is an ungrateful child'?,

and is not that intended in the passages cited?  Further, unless the title

'Father' be looked upon as empty and unreal (and who is there that dares to

challenge the fulness of this blessed relationship?), then to admit

fatherliness into the Divine Nature, is to admit all and more of the truth

for which we contend.  A true father loves, cares, provides, protects, trains

and rejoices in his children.  A true father cannot remain aloof from the

experiences of his family.  He must be a sharer in all their joys and

sorrows.  A true father does not limit his fellowship to high and noble

things, he enters with delightful intimacy into the infant's concern for her

broken doll, his son's school problems, his daughter's love affair, his

married children's homes, business and problems.  No man in his senses can

object to this connotation.  God is and does all this and more.  There is one

passage in the book of Genesis which is designed, not only as a foreshadowing

of Christ as the Lamb of God, but of the part played in that Offering by Him,

'Who spared not His own Son'.  We refer to Genesis 22.  Did not Abraham as a

father suffer, when God referred to Isaac as, 'Thy son, thine only son Isaac,

whom thou lovest'? (Gen. 22:2).  Did not Abraham as a father suffer, when he

'took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son'? (Gen.

22:6).  Did not Abraham as a father suffer, when 'he took the fire in his

hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together'? (Gen. 22:6).  Can

any words describe the anguish that underlies verse 7:

'Isaac ... said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son.  And he

said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt

offering?' (Gen. 22:7).

The apostle Paul evidently saw this truth, for he uses the same word in

Romans 8, that the LXX uses of Genesis 22:16, 'Thou hast not withheld thy

son, thine only son', saying:

'He that spared not His own Son' (Rom. 8:32).