YHWH God, A Father?

  Who is YHWH, the God of the Bible, to you?

  There are some who think of YHWH, "I Am Who I Am," as the strict disciplinarian God of the Old Testament, while Jesus is the kind, gentle and loving God of the New Testament. They say the God of the Old Testament is the God of the Law while Jesus, the God of the New Testament is the God of love and grace.  

  But these various Old Testament Scriptures themselves will describe Who God was to the Israelites even back then (italics mine):  

Deuteronomy 32

 6 Is this how you repay the Lord,

you foolish and senseless people?
Isn’t He your Father and Creator?
Didn’t He make you and sustain you?

1 Chronicles 22

10 He is the one who will build a house for My name. He will be My son, and I will be his father. I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.’

Psalm 89

26 He will call to Me, ‘You are my Father,

     my God, the rock of my salvation.’

Jeremiah 3
  4 Have you not lately called to Me, “My Father.
     You were my friend in my youth."

Isaiah 63

16 Yet You are our Father,
     even though Abraham does not know us
     and Israel doesn’t recognize us.
     You, Yahweh, are our Father;
     from ancient times,
     Your name is our Redeemer.

Isaiah 64:8 
  8 Yet Lord, You are our Father;
     we are the clay, and You are our potter;
     we all are the work of Your hands.

  But I've left the most moving example for last:

Jeremiah 3

19 I thought: How I long to make you My sons
     and give you a desirable land,
     the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations.
     I thought: You will call Me, my Father,
     and never turn away from Me. 

Malachi 1
 6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. But if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is your fear of Me? says Yahweh of Hosts to you priests, who despise My name.”


    Yet you ask: “How have we despised Your name?”

Malachi 2
10 Don’t all of us have one Father? Didn’t one God create us? Why then do we act treacherously against one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?

  As it turns out, the Almighty YHWH is a Father Who desires to be in a loving relationship with His children! 

  For some this might be a novel concept, but there it is, as old as the Bible. 

  And Who best to demonstrate the powerful bond between a father and son in the New Testament than Jesus the Perfectly obedient Son? Who else could model loving and God-honoring sonship for us but Jesus? 

  Even as He is struggling in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus calls out to the One Who had sent Him: 

  And He said, “Abba, Father! All things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” Mark 14:36

(note: "Abba" means "father" in Hebrew. The word was used by Greek-speaking believers together with their own word for father, and this produced the phrase, "Abba, Father," or more literally, "Abba, Pater")

  If you are one of those who are reading this and unable to relate with a loving Father God, perhaps these words from Jesus will help:

  “If you know Me, you will also know My Father. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him... The one who has seen Me has seen the Father.” John 14:7, 9b

  The very same love, selflessness, caring and compassion we see in Jesus is a mirror image of the Father. 

  When you see Jesus, you see the Father. 

  They are truly indivisibly and inseparably One.

  And He will always be there for you:

  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” Romans 8:15

  The Bible tells us that God never changes, that He can be depended upon to not morph into Someone different or new every day, leaving us always guessing or in fear of what whims might strike Him tomorrow. And that means that the God of the Old Testament remains a Father God in the New. Jesus' half-brother James wrote: 

17 Every generous act and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights; with Him there is no variation or shadow cast by turning. James 1

  If you don't yet know God in this way, you don't know what you're missing. Maybe your life is a mess. Maybe it's going well but you know you're missing something but you don't know what it is. 

  That can all change today. 

  Your whole life can turn around 180 degrees. 

  What are you waiting for? 

  Call on Him now in the name of His Son, Jesus, so that you, too, can begin to call Him your Father! 

And because you are sons, 

God has sent the Spirit of His Son

into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” 

Galatians 4:6