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purpose and inflexible in His decrees; but the Scriptures say "He is God and not man",
and so "will not return to destroy Ephraim" but will allow "mercy to rejoice against
judgment".
The great revelation of the fatherhood of God was not possible until Christ the Son
was born. As John declares, when the Word became flesh we beheld His glory, the glory
as of the Only Begotten of the Father. Nevertheless, while this is blessedly true, there are
glimpses to be seen of the fatherhood of God in the O.T. though they are 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 spirit of yearning and grieving here, the same spirit as is faintly echoed in
the experience of many earthly fathers, the same kind of feeling as is expressed by our
own myriad-minded poet when he says: "Sharper than a serpent's tooth, is an ungrateful
child"?
Moreover, unless the title "Father" is to be regarded as empty and unreal (and who is
there that would dare to challenge the fullness of this blessed revelation?), then to admit
fatherliness into the Divine Nature is simply to admit the truth of what has been revealed.
A true father loves, provides for, protects and trains his children, and rejoices in them. 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, but enters with delightful intimacy into his small daughter's concern for her
broken doll, his son's school problems, his daughter's love affair, and all the various
interests of his married children's homes. Surely all this, and more, must be true of God
Himself.
There is a well-known passage in the Book of Genesis that not only foreshadows the
offering of Christ as the Lamb of God, but also speaks of the part played in that offering
by the One "Who spared not His Own Son". As we read this passage--in Gen. 22:--
we can appreciate something of what this offering meant to the Father. Did not Abraham
suffer as a father, when God told him to take Isaac--"thine only son, whom thou lovest"
(Gen. 22: 2)? Did he not suffer as a father, when he "took the wood of the burnt
offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son" (Gen. 22: 6), and 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 lay behind the simple record of 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 appreciated this, for he uses the same word in Rom. 8:
that the LXX uses in Gen. 22: 16: