God Is A Father … gender 6

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,  Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named …  (Ephesians 3:14-15)

   The most important thing about any person, is how they see God. The vision of God is the determining factor in the intellectual, moral and spiritual life of every person. All of our problems are theological at root, they have to do with how we either correctly perceive or misperceive God. 

It doesn’t matter what anyone’s opinion or preference is, as to how they think God is or should be. Other than generally revealed facts such as, that there is a God, a Creator, and that there is a God given moral code, and an accountability for those of us who have failed to live up to it, how would frail, finite and now fallen humans ever know who God is?

The answer is, only if God is pleased to reveal himself to us, then we can know his attributes. 

God has revealed himself partially through Creation, and  through man   who bears the Image of God, as well as through Scripture. The fullest revelation of God given to man, is through  Jesus, as we see in the epistle to the Hebrews,

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,  Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;  Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:   (Hebrews 1:1-3) 

The Son is the “express image of His person”, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, who is the very “Majesty on high…”. He is in eternal communion with the Father, according to the self revelation of God.

In other words, when God presents himself, He reveals himself as masculine. When God incarnated himself, He came into this world as a man. There are attributes of God which many consider or infer to be feminine, but God is not the Mother, nor is the Incarnation that of a daughter.  God is King, Master, Husband, Son, etc. .

This truth ( That God primarily presents himself as masculine), has profound ramifications for mankind, and the distortion of this truth also has far reaching and destructive implications for humanity. 

First though let us assert that it would not be true to say that either of the two sexes is in anyway superior to the other, for we have already seen that both male and female  were created “In the Image of God”. Man and women share in the Image of God as well as in the shame of the fall. 

But we are taught to pray, in this manner, “Our Father, who art in heaven…”.

The teaching of Jesus about God, makes much reference to the loving trust that exists between a Father and his children, 

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?  Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?  (Luke 11:11-13)

It is as a Father, that God awaits his prodigal children,  to forgive them and restore them to dignity and honor. God is a Father, He lays out the family law, disciplines, orders, restores, provides generously, and he graciously forgives his children. 

The Love we receive from him is primarily “Father Love”, 

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. ( Psalm 103:13-14) 

I realize that there are passages of scripture which portray God as being like a Hen gathering her chicks, or as a Nursing mother, but overwhelmingly God describes himself in masculine terms, there is no reference to Him as “She”, “Her” or as the Queen or mother. 

The Feminization of the concept of God, or even the attempt at gender neutral religion is idolatrous.   The worship of female deities is one of the marks of complete apostasy and idolatry. Judah descended to wholehearted worship of “the queen of heaven”  in her very last days,

The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. ( Jeremiah 7:18)

We have seen in our own day, the progression in the mainline churches from the ordination of women as pastors, which usually leads directly to the sanctioning of homosexual marriages and even to the ordination of homosexual clergy. These all spring out of the same sin, the distortion of the God assigned roles for male and female.  

The restoration of the correct view of God, and the re-emphasis upon the Genesis narrative of the beautiful and unique creation of man and woman could be the remedy for this spiritual abomination.