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OF WHOM IS GOD THE FATHER?

We are told in Scripture that God is the Father of His Son Jesus Christ, of believers, and of Israel. We are also told that angels are “sons of God”. We are never told that Adam was the son of God. Each of these will be discussed in this paper.

JESUS CHRIST

Belief in the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is the most crucial element God’s plan of salvation. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16). And we read in Jn. 20:31, “But these (the signs recorded in the Gospel of John, see verse 30) are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name“.

BELIEVERS

John 1:12 reads, “But as many as received Him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name”. And Romans 8:14 is also helpful, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”.

As we consider a few scriptures, I believe it will become more clear just how the believer becomes a son of God. We read in John 3:6, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”. The contrast is made here between flesh and spirit. Man is born of the flesh, but he becomes the son of God through the spirit. In my opinion, this fits perfectly with the fact that, as we read in Jn. 4:24, “God is spirit” (not “a spirit”). I suggest that just as God is spirit, one is or becomes a son of God through the spirit.

Having determined that it is only believers who are the sons of God, we are ready to address the question of whether Adam was a son of God through creation. That question is a very important one because if Adam was a son of God by creation, that would make all men, i.e. all in Adam, also sons of God. Let us consider Adam.

ADAM

The KJV of Luke 3:28 reads, “…..which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God”. Please note that the phrase “the son” is in italics, indicating, of course, that the words are not in the original Greek texts. So this phrase should read, “Adam which was of God”.

Was Adam a son of God by virtue of the fact that he was created by God? If he was, then we would have to conclude that everything that was created was a son of God. I do not believe that there is any scriptural evidence to conclude that animals, for example are sons of God. Nor are the creatures of the sea sons of God. That being the case, we may not conclude that Adam was a son of God because he was created by God.

Also, if Adam was a son of God then all men are sons of God. If that were true, there would be no need for believers to receive the “power to become the sons of God” (Jn. 1:12).

But how are we to understand Paul’s statement in Acts 17 that we are the offspring of God? We read in Acts 17:28-29, “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring’. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or sliver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device”.

The Greek word translated “offspring” in this passage is, “genos”. It is used 21 times and is translated “kind” five times, “nation” or “country” four times, “kindred” or “stock” five times, “offspring” three times, “born” two times, “diversities” and “generation” one time each. As is true of most words, this one has shades of meanings, which is obvious by the way it is translated. But in my opinion, the basic meaning is “kind”. We read in Matt. 13:47, “The kingdom of Heaven is like a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind“. And in Mark 9:29 we read, “…This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting”.

As we consider “genos” as it is used in Acts 17 I believe the context will show that it is used in the sense of “kind”. Note that in verse 29 Paul contrasts the “offspring of God” with idols of gold, silver and stone. The contrast is in the fact that God is alive and not an image fashioned in a dead material. Paul’s point in saying that we are the “offspring of God” is that like God, man is also alive. So man is the offspring of God in that he is like God, alive.

ANGELS

We read in Gen. 6:4, “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown”. Let us determine from Scripture who were the “sons of God” who “came in unto the daughters of men”.

The wording of this verse suggests that the “sons of God” were not men. That is to say, there is a differentiation made between those of God and those of men. As we learned in the section above, believers become the children of God through belief in Him. There is absolutely nothing in this passage to indicate that those who had come unto the “daughters of men” were believers. I suggest therefore that these sons of God were not men at all. If not men, what were they?

We learn in Ps. 104:4 (“Who maketh His angels spirits”) that angels were created as spirit beings. They take on a body in order to make themselves manifest to man, but angels were not created with physical bodies, they were created as spirit beings. I believe that the sons of God who came unto the daughters of men were angels, i.e. spirit beings who took on the physical form of man in order to come unto the daughters of man.

The exact phrase in the Hebrew occurs also in Job 1:6 and 2:1.

Job 1:6, “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them”.

Job 2:1, “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord”.

Given that these sons of God presented themselves to the Lord and no man has ever ascended into heaven, but our Lord Jesus Christ, these verses in Job help to substantiate the suggestion that the sons of God are angels.

Jude 6 speaks of these angels. That verse reads, “and the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day”. The Greek word translated “habitation” in the phrase, “left their own habitation” is “oiketerion”, it is used only here and II Cor. 5:2 where it is translated “house”, “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven”. Just as in II Cor. 5:2 the Greek word is used of a certain kind of a body, so too in Jude 6 it is used of a certain kind of a body. So Jude tells us that these angels who are being reserved for judgment had left “their own” bodies. They left them to take on the bodies of man, so that they might come unto the daughters of men. (I believe that it is significant that the Greek word “soma” (which means “body”) is not used for “body” in Jude 6, as angels did not have a body until they took on a body.)

Because these angels are being reserved for judgment we may conclude that they acted against the will of God when they came unto the daughters of men. We may refer to them therefore, as “fallen angels“.

Many have difficulty accepting the fact that in the Old Testament the phrase “sons of God” refers to angels and in the New Testament the same English phrase is used of believers. But the key word is “English”. That is to say, while the phrase is the same in the English, the Hebrew is, of course, not the same as the Greek. Therefore, in the original languages the phrases are not and cannot be the same.

ISRAEL

We come now to the question of Israel. We read in Is. 64:8, “But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay, and Thou our Potter; and we all are the work of thy hand“. Let us also consider Mal. 2:10, “Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us?…..”.

These two verses leave no doubt that God is the Father of Israel by virtue of the fact that Israel was created by God. There are two difficulties that present themselves in this regard.

1) Not all Israel were believers and only believers are the sons of God.

2) As stated above in the section on Adam, one is not a son of God by virtue of creation.

Both the difficulties stated above are answered with one realization. God sometimes deals with man as individuals and sometimes as a nation. For example, we read in Acts 10:34 that “God is no Respecter of persons”. That means that God does not favor one individual over another. But we know that God did indeed have a favorite nation, Israel. My point is that all individuals are seen by God as being equal, but that is (or rather was) not the case with nations.

So an individual is a son of God through belief, but God is the Father of Israel as a nation.

This paper was written by Joyce Pollard. If you would like to respond please e-mail me at: [email protected]