Sunday, January 27, 2013

The Nicene Creed Part 4 - The Father


John 1:18
No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Rom 8:15
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.


In the Creed we call God "Father", but what does it mean for God to be called "Father"? God is Father primarily because He has a Son, eternally begotten from Him and being of the same divine nature. We also refer to God as "our Father" because, in Christ, we are adopted as sons of God and made joint heirs with Christ.

God is rarely referred to as a Father in the Old Testament. This is because God is revealed as Father in relation to His Son, Jesus Christ, in the New Testament. This is witnessed to by the Apostle John when he writes the words of Jesus "No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." and the Apostle Matthew when he writes the words of Jesus "neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him". This is echoed in the epsitles where God is often referred to as "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ". And just as we are taught by Christ to pray to God as "our Father", we find in scripture that this is not by nature, but by "the Spirit of adoption", "that we might receive the adoption of sons", and that God has "begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead".

We can also find this same teaching passed down in our catechisms and writings. We can find this in Greek Orthodox Catechism by C. N. Callinicos where he writes...
Why is God in the Creed called Father?
Not in an ethical sense, as at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer, but in a dogmatical sense, He being eternally by His own ever productive nature the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, His only Son.
St Augustine writes in On The Holy Trinity...
The Father is called so, therefore, relatively, and He is also relatively said to be the Beginning, and whatever else there may be of the kind; but He is called the Father in relation to the Son, the Beginning in relation to all things, which are from Him. 
St Jerome writes in his commentary on the Apostle's Creed...
When you hear the word “Father,” you must understand by this the Father of a Son, which Son is the image of the aforesaid substance. 
And St Cyril of Jerusalem taught in his Catechetical Lectures...
...let us come back to ourselves, and receive the saving doctrines of the true Faith, connecting the dignity of Fatherhood with that of the Unity, and believing In One God the Father:  for we must not only believe in one God; but this also let us devoutly receive, that He is the Father of the Only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ.
 God then is in an improper sense the Father of many, but by nature and in truth of One only, the Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; not having attained in course of time to being a Father, but being ever the Father of the Only-begotten.
And Christ Himself knowing this has spoken unerringly, I go to My Father, and your Father:  not saying ‘to our Father,’ but distinguishing, and saying first what was proper to Himself, to My Father, which was by nature; then adding, and your Father, which was by adoption. For however high the privilege we have received of saying in our prayers, Our Father, which art in heaven, yet the gift is of loving-kindness.  For we call Him Father, not as having been by nature begotten of Our Father which is in heaven; but having been transferred from servitude to sonship by the grace of the Father, through the Son and Holy Spirit, we are permitted so to speak by ineffable loving-kindness. 
Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.