One of the things Christians mean when they describe the First Person of the Trinity as Father, of course, is that God is the Creator of the universe.
But something more of what we mean by the term is conveyed by Jesus in His parable (or story) about a runaway son, his obedient brother, and the father who loves them both. In it, the father is a metaphoric stand-in for God the Father. I'm going to spend a few days "unpacking" this story to show what kind of Father God is.
The story is found in the New Testament book of Luke, chapter 15, verses 11 to 32. Here's the story in its entirety, as rendered by Eugene Peterson in his masterful translation/paraphrase, The Message:
11-12Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.'So, what does this story tell us about God, the Father?
12-16"So the father divided the property between them. It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.
17-20"That brought him to his senses. He said, 'All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I'm going back to my father. I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.' He got right up and went home to his father.
20-21"When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.'
22-24"But the father wasn't listening. He was calling to the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time.
25-27"All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day's work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, 'Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.'
28-30"The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen. The son said, 'Look how many years I've stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!'
31-32"His father said, 'Son, you don't understand. You're with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he's alive! He was lost, and he's found!'"
It tells us, first of all, that He's a very different sort of Father than existed in first-century Judea where Jesus first told this story.
In those days, fathers passed their property onto only one son, the oldest. The father in Jesus' tale had a different plan. Both of his sons were to receive an inheritance. Presumably, if he'd had twenty sons, each would have received an inheritance. And if he'd had daughters, they too could have received a piece of the lavish pie.
God the Father, Jesus is saying, has an inheritance He wants to give to all His children, to the whole human race. The apostle Paul talks about this inheritance repeatedly in his New Testament letters. It refers to the blessings of forgiveness, of life with God now, and of new, everlasting life which all with faith in Jesus Christ are given.
God the Father is lavish in blessing those who turn to Christ with a spiritual inheritance that never ends.
As we consider the charitable, forgiving love extended by the father in Jesus' parable, a very different picture of God from that of the always-angry judge begins to emerge for us. No wonder theologian Helmut Thielicke disdained the traditional title for this parable, the Prodigal Son. He thought, quite rightly I think, that a better title is the parable of the Waiting Father. God, wanting to lavish blessings on the repentant, is the key to anybody's life being turned from rebellion against God's rule of love to embracing it...and Him.
More on this parable in the next installment of the series.
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