Again, I ask the question, “Who is God?” My answer today? God is Father. Have you ever wondered where the “God as father” identity originated? Was Jesus the first one to call God, Father? If you are familiar with the Gospels, you know that the religious folk in Jesus’ day did not like the fact that Jesus called God, His Father. They found that over-reaching and blasphemous.

But God referring to Himself as Father was not a new concept in the New Testament. God’s identity as Father didn’t start with Jesus living on earth. Rather, in the Old Testament, the Creator chose to identify Himself as the Father of the nation of Israel. He called His people “His children,” implying the idea of a close relationship between the Creator and His people. Look at these scriptures.

In Deuteronomy 32:6 NIV “Is this the way you repay the Lord, you foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?”

Isaiah 64:8 NIV “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.”

David called God a “Father to the Fatherless…” in Psalm 68:5 NLT

If you study Jesus’ prayers in the New Testament, you will find that His favorite term for addressing God was the name, Father. And in fact, the word Father is used 165 times in the Gospels. Jesus’ first recorded sentence in the scripture, when He was 12 years old, was “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Father is the first word of the Lord’s prayer, and it is the first word Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane. It’s His first word on the cross – Father, forgive them. And it’s one of His last words on the cross – Father into your hands I commit my Spirit.

This is my point. In answering the question – Who is God? - the scripture makes it clear that we should view God as our Father. And like Chris Tomlin’s song states, “He is a good, good Father.”