Our Father

When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He began with the words, "Our Father." This was a radical thing to say, as the Jewish tradition of approaching God in prayer was from a great distance. In other words, there was no inimacy; a Jew would never mention the name of God, much less call Him Father or Daddy out loud.

Remember that only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple, and then only once per year. There was no intimacy with God. In John 8, Jesus was chatting with some professing believers who proved themselves to be fraudulent in their claims. He accused this group of doing what their father, the devil, taught them to do. They first claimed that Abraham was their father. With this claim, we understand that the Jews thought themselves to be sons of God, but not so directly as Jesus' prayer language taught. Jesus refuted their claims to spiritual ancestry with Abraham. And only then did the Jews declare God Himself as their only Father. Jesus refuted them on this matter as well, since they failed to love Him. If God is your Father, you will love and believe in Jesus. Since these Jews neithered loved nor believed in Jesus, they proved themselves to be of the devil and not sons of God. Thus they had no right to call God Father.

So with the words, "Our Father," to begin the Lord's Prayer, Jesus is explaining that God is Father to those who come to Him by faith in Jesus. Jesus is not the only Son of God. He is the only begotten Son of God. But we who are united to Him by faith are adopted as children of God and co-heirs with Jesus of all things. All this of course is by grace, as we, apart from Christ, have proven ourselves enemies of God by our sinful behavior. Nevertheless we can approach the throne of grace with confidence through the One who gave His life as a sacrifice of atonement - thereby making us sons of God along with Him.

Our Father. Daddy. The Creator God of the universe who holds all things in His hand can be called Dad by those who love Him and are united to His Son Jesus by faith. Wow.