The word Trinity comes from combining tri (indicating three) and unity—God is a tri-unity. Although the word Trinity is not in the Bible, the Scriptures do teach this fact: there is one God whose name is Yahweh, and He exists eternally in three distinct persons, specifically, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is a trinity.
When I study the Bible with someone, one of the first facts about God that we explore is that He is a Father.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:16–17
In this lesson, we will explore the biblical foundation of the Father, the role of the Father in the Trinity, and the role of the Father for the disciple.
1. The Biblical Foundation of the Father
If you believe Jesus is the Son of God, then you must also believe the Father is God. While praying to the Father in John 17:3, Jesus said:
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
Although it may be safe to assume a biblical foundation for the Father’s deity—the fact that He is God—we never want to assume what the Bible says. What does the Bible say about the deity of the Father?
As we discussed in the lesson introducing the Trinity, these five attributes belong to Yahweh God: eternality, omnipotence, infinitude, omnipresence, and omniscience.
The Psalmist proclaims the Father’s eternality in Psalm 90:2:
Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
According to Jeremiah 32:17, the Father is omnipotent:
Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.
The Father is infinite in all ways that God is. His qualities cannot be qualified. They are immeasurable. The infinite quality of the Father that is perhaps expressed more than anything else in Scripture is His love.
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!
1 John 3:1
Because the Father is omnipresent, there is nowhere the evil (or unrighteous) can go to hide from Him, nor is there somewhere the righteous can go where God cannot help.
The eyes of the LORD are in every place,
Proverbs 15:3
Keeping watch on the evil and the good.
And, finally, we ought to be thankful that such an infinite, all-powerful Father is omniscient. In other words, He knows all things.
Remember the former things of old,
Isaiah 46:9–10
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure.
What’s interesting is that the attributes in most of these Scriptures are directly given to Yahweh; therefore, they inherently also apply to the Son and the Holy Spirit, but we will explore that truth in the next couple of studies. For now, let’s see how God is presented as a Father in Scripture in three ways, as well as a fourth way we will see toward the end.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Genesis 1:1–2
As we explored in the previous study, we can see all three members of the Godhead mentioned in this passage, and the Father is simply referred to as God. In this sense, God is the Father of all creation, as Paul said to the people of Athens, “We are the offspring of God” (Acts 17:29).
In his song in Deuteronomy 32, Moses said this in verse 6:
Do you thus deal with the LORD,
O foolish and unwise people?
Is He not your Father, who bought you?
Has He not made you and established you?
The word LORD (in all capital letters in English) in the Hebrew is the divine name of God—Yahweh. Here, Moses says Yahweh God is both the Redeemer and the Father of the nation of Israel.
After Jesus was baptized, the Father spoke from heaven, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). So, the Father is also the personal Father of Jesus, the “only begotten Son.” That leads us to…
2. The Role of the Father in the Trinity
Jesus’ relationship with the Father was much deeper than the way the Israelites related to God as Father. Notice Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane:
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
God was the “corporate” Father of the nation of Israel. Yet, Jesus referred to His Father as Abba, which, in Aramaic, was the personal way to relate to a Father. Jesus was breaking new ground, approaching God in an intimate way no one else had done before. Claiming to have this relationship is one thing, but did Jesus actually have this connection with the Father? John 1:18 says:
No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
Jesus did not have a human father, but instead, God was His Father, in a way that none of us have experienced. When the angel announced to Mary that she would have a child, being a virgin, she had a legitimate question. Notice how the angel answered her.
Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” And the angel answered and said to her, ”The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.”
Luke 1:34–35
Although Joseph would be entrusted in raising this child, God truly was Jesus’ Father. How so? The Holy Spirit miraculously provided the baby in Mary’s womb. Because of that fact, the Bible says Jesus would be known as the Son of God, which tells us something regarding the deity of the Holy Spirit and His role in the Trinity.
Since no one has seen the Father at any time, while Jesus was on earth, it was His task to show the Father to all people. Jesus explains that God the Father is a Spirit (see John 4:23–24), so Jesus was, as the author of Hebrews explains, “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus “is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). Therefore, Jesus could claim, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). He went on to claim:
If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him. … He who has seen Me has seen the Father.
John 14:7–9
So, God the Father is a Spirit who dwells in heaven, whom no one has seen. In order for us to have an image of God to go by, He sent His Son to the earth to both reveal the Father, as well as provide access to Him. Additionally, the Father sent the Holy Spirit through Jesus. In the night in which Jesus was betrayed, and in the same conversation where He said He was the only way to the Father, Jesus promised His remaining eleven apostles:
And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
John 14:16–17
He went on to tell them:
These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
John 14:25–26
Here, we see the role of each member of the Trinity. The Father, who provides all things, sent the Son, through whom He sent another Helper, Holy Spirit. This shows that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are united, but they also have different roles within the Trinity.
So, God is the Father of Jesus in a very unique and intimate way. It is only by the miraculous power of God that Jesus was born on the earth. One of the blessings Jesus provides is the chance for us to also be born of God in a way that is unavailable to those in the flesh. In a fourth way, then, God is the Father of all disciples of Jesus.
3. The Role of the Father for Disciples
In John 3, Jesus had a conversation with a man named Nicodemus.
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”
John 3:3–7
The Father, through the work of the Son and the Holy Spirit, can cause all people who come to Him to be born again. A few times in the book of 1 John, disciples of Jesus are referred to as those who have been “born of God.” If you’ve been born of God, then God is your Father too.
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Galatians 4:6–7
You may have a great relationship with your earthly father. Then again, you may not. Regardless, by being born of God, you can have a perfect Heavenly Father.
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
Romans 8:15–16
When Jesus spoke of His Father, He did so in a unique, intimate way, calling Him Abba. Now, since Christ has provided the way, and the Father has provided His Holy Spirit, we too can cry out, “Abba, Father!”
Now, be careful with this term Abba. We don’t have a perfect equivalent in English. The closest we may have is dad or daddy. But those words in English have many other attachments that are not present in the Aramaic Abba. Daddy is a term of familiarity and informality, and in darker parts of culture, it’s even been sexualized. Abba, although an intimate term, communicates respect and reverence that is not inherent with dad or daddy. So, please, don’t call God your “Daddy God.” Jesus provided His disciples this instruction:
In this manner, therefore, pray:
Matthew 6:9
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Calling out to God as a Father is commonplace to Christians today, but to relate to God as Father was something new Jesus demonstrated, as well as invited all people to do. Calling God our Father gives us a special connection with God, but it certainly does not remove the reverence we owe Him.
If you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear.
1 Peter 1:17
You are invited to call on God as your Father, but remember to do so in fear. The word for fear in this passage is the idea of reverence and respect, which God the Father fully deserves from all of us. Whether or not you grew up with a loving, biological Father taking care of you, if you are in Christ, you have your Father who is in heaven, “who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:6). Whether or not you grew up with a loving caregiver, someone we may call a “father figure,” if God “has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your heart,” then the Spirit cries out, “Abba, Father!” (Galatians 4:6). Are you thankful God is your Father?
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God.
1 John 3:1–2
God is not just the Father, but He can be your Father. Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” We will discuss that in the next lesson.