Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Paternity of God" (June 16, 1963)

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Preacher	Is Luke 11 chapter verse two,	0:17
	Jesus said unto them,	0:22
	"When you pray, say our Father."	0:24
	This is to be a sermon today on the fatherhood of God.	0:31
	There is a sense in which this is to be understood	0:36
	as a means of getting at an interpretation	0:40
	of what the church had in mind	0:43
	when it set aside this Sunday as Father's day.	0:45
	But there is a more significant sense	0:50
	in which we need periodically to declare	0:53
	the meaning of the Christian doctrine	0:57
	that is involved in calling God	1:02
	the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ	1:05
	and to declare this in our churches.	1:10
	And this is why I am preaching on this today.	1:14
	I have waited for Father's day as the occasion for doing it.	1:19
	Now, I said, this is to be a sermon	1:25
	on the fatherhood of God,	1:27
	and yet the announced topic	1:30
	of the sermon is the paternity of God.	1:32
	Unless someone should think that this has been done	1:37
	merely because this sermon is to be preached	1:40
	from a university pulpit,	1:43
	and that perhaps university sermons	1:45
	are supposed to appear more learned	1:47
	than non-university sermons,	1:50
	I hasten to say that there is a distinction	1:52
	between fatherhood and paternity.	1:55
	Furthermore, it is a distinction with a difference.	1:59
	The difference is important.	2:03
	And what Christians mean to say about God	2:06
	is more fully contained in the 20th century	2:09
	meaning of the word paternity	2:11
	than it is in the 20th century	2:14
	meaning of the word fatherhood.	2:15
	I believe that there is a danger	2:19
	that if we freely use the term father to describe God	2:20
	and do not remind ourselves and our neighbors	2:26
	of the paternity of God,	2:29
	it is quite possible that we may lose a significant side	2:32
	of the understanding of the first person of the Trinity	2:36
	that has given us in the Bible.	2:40
	Speaking in purely human terms,	2:44
	if I refer to my father,	2:47
	my hero understands that I have direct hand	2:50
	almost exclusive reference	2:53
	to the husband of my mother,	2:56
	to the man who bounced me on his knee,	2:59
	who was born less than a hundred years ago.	3:03
	In a very real sense,	3:07
	this man is almost my contemporary.	3:09
	In my own instance,	3:13
	44 of my father's 75 years	3:14
	have coincided with my own existence.	3:17
	And my son, aged 12, already knows more about music	3:21
	and space than his father has learned in 44 years.	3:25
	We are in a sense contemporaries.	3:31
	Now in slight contrast to this concept,	3:34
	the idea of paternity	3:38
	according to Webster's on abridged,	3:40
	includes all of our thought about immediate fatherhood	3:42
	but goes beyond it	3:49
	to suggest the concept of ultimate source.	3:52
	The paternity of each one of us	3:58
	includes our father, our grandfather,	4:01
	and all of the ancestors who preceded him.	4:05
	What we are talking about here	4:10
	is the cumulative and combined inheritance	4:11
	which comes to us through our fathers	4:15
	but which no single individual earthly father	4:18
	ever can fully personify.	4:22
	Now, thinking of God, in the broader sense of paternity	4:27
	rather than in the more restricted sense of fatherhood,	4:31
	makes the idea of God, a great deal more palatable	4:34
	to many people.	4:37
	Some sons and daughters in fact	4:40
	would like to forget Father's day	4:41
	because their male parent	4:44
	represented to them everything that was ugly and repulsive	4:46
	and personified nothing that was noble and inspiring.	4:51
	How many individuals do you know	4:57
	who have said that they dearly wish	4:58
	their fathers could have had the grace and goodness	5:00
	of their grandfathers?	5:04
	One young man said to me in another city a few years ago	5:07
	that although he realized	5:11
	he should be able to rise above this,	5:12
	his own experience had caused him to hate the word father.	5:15
	For, to him, it represented uncouth selfishness,	5:20
	marital infidelity, perpetual drunkenness,	5:23
	and cruel treatment.	5:28
	He was stuttered Kennedy, who once said that	5:32
	when he tried to tell a small boy in the slums	5:34
	that God was his Father,	5:36
	the boy wanted to hear nothing more that he had to say.	5:39
	Well, now, unless we become confused	5:45
	rather than illuminated by a two literal application	5:47
	of this fatherly analogy,	5:50
	it might be well for us to say right here	5:53
	that what we're talking about in this sermon	5:55
	and what we're talking about	5:57
	in the doctrine of the fatherhood of God	5:59
	is not fatherhood itself	6:01
	but the nature of almighty God	6:05
	This is what the doctrine is about.	6:09
	This is what we are considering this morning.	6:12
	And the nature of Almighty God	6:15
	cannot be fully represented	6:18
	in any or all of the forms of human speech	6:20
	which are at our command,	6:23
	much less in any one word such as paternity	6:26
	or any one symbol, such as father.	6:29
	We are talking about a being so infinite	6:33
	that He is beyond our ability to comprehend	6:37
	even if adequate words were available to describe Him,	6:40
	which they are not.	6:44
	The biblical faith represents Him as being all knowing,	6:47
	all wise, all powerful, all loving,	6:53
	and His existence and dominion	7:01
	are measured from everlasting to everlasting.	7:03
	Now, even though our human intellects	7:11
	have a way of craving analogies,	7:13
	when it comes to the nature of God,	7:16
	all our analogies are inadequate.	7:18
	God is like a father.	7:22
	Yes, but much more.	7:24
	God is like a king.	7:29
	Yes, but much more than a king.	7:30
	God is like a watchmaker.	7:34
	Yes, but that is not all.	7:36
	God is like a physician, like a pilot, like a law giver,	7:41
	like a teacher, like a friend, like a guardian.	7:44
	He is judge, creator, redeemer, shepherd, counselor.	7:47
	And yet when we have added up all these things,	7:52
	God is much more than the sum of all of them.	7:55
	When my sister was five years of age,	8:01
	I saw her eating a peach one day	8:03
	and I asked her what it tasted like.	8:05
	She said it tasted like a peach.	8:09
	In the final analysis,	8:13
	we arrive at that same irreducible point	8:16
	in attempting to describe God.	8:18
	What is God like?	8:22
	He is like God.	8:25
	In the third chapter of Exodus,	8:28
	which was read a while ago by Dr. Henry,	8:30
	we are told how the word of God came to Moses	8:33
	when he was tending Jethro's sheep on Mount Horeb.	8:36
	God sent Moses on an historic errand	8:40
	to go into Egypt and take to the Israelite captives	8:42
	the excellent news	8:47
	that they soon were to delivered from bondage.	8:49
	Well, now Moses was staggered by this announcement.	8:53
	First, he asked God who he Moses was	8:57
	to be going on such an errand.	9:00
	And next he asked who God was	9:02
	to be sending him on such an errand.	9:04
	And God's reply to the second question	9:08
	strikes at the very heart	9:12
	of what we're talking about this morning.	9:14
	He said to Moses,	9:17
	"I am who I am."	9:20
	What do peaches taste like?	9:28
	Peaches	9:30
	Who is God?	9:33
	He is God.	9:35
	"I am who I am."	9:38
	There is an overwhelming sense, beloved,	9:45
	in which the being and the nature of God	9:48
	are past our finding out.	9:51
	But it is very healthy for us from time to time	9:55
	to stand like Moses beside the burning bush,	9:57
	with our shoes removed from our feet in humble reverence,	10:02
	and with bewildered intellects.	10:06
	Here, Almighty God declare to us, I am who I am.	10:10
	Because in a day when popular songwriters	10:19
	flippantly refer to the deity as the man upstairs	10:21
	and when we are told that my God and I	10:25
	walk through the fields together hand in hand,	10:27
	it is important that we should solemnly and awfully	10:32
	be quiet before the mystery	10:37
	and the majesty of Almighty God.	10:42
	And learn, again, what some of the old Hebrews	10:47
	learned about Him when they declined even to speak His name	10:49
	because His name was too Holy to pronounce.	10:55
	Instead they said Adonai, which means the name.	11:00
	They would refer to the name of God	11:07
	but would not speak the name.	11:11
	And yet having said that, there is another word	11:16
	which must soon be spoken.	11:20
	Healthy as it is, necessary as it is,	11:24
	to stand by the burning bush	11:26
	and look into the mystery of an infinite deity,	11:28
	we simply cannot indefinitely endure	11:32
	the strong light which pierces our eyes when we do this.	11:36
	Mark Bergner once said that God is like the sun.	11:43
	In that, by His light,	11:47
	all things on earth are intelligible.	11:49
	But if we attempt to look directly	11:52
	into the center of His nature,	11:54
	we are almost blinded by the strong light.	11:55
	And having looked, we cannot exactly report	11:59
	the detailed outline of what we have seen.	12:02
	Jesus knew that we need to deal with God	12:08
	in less austere terms most of the time.	12:12
	And even the theologian who in the classroom	12:17
	can talk about the ground of all being	12:19
	and the God beyond God, finds when he walks into the chapel	12:21
	that these categories are not sufficient.	12:28
	The brilliant theologian who can write volumes	12:31
	explaining that the nature of God	12:34
	involves the pro eternal duality of being and becoming,	12:35
	finds when he prays that the personal relationship	12:40
	between himself and the Supreme Being	12:45
	has to be cast in a different mold.	12:50
	And so Jesus Christ said, "When you pray, say our Father."	12:53
	I think He did not necessarily mean to say,	12:59
	when you discuss the theories of your faith, say our Father	13:02
	but He did say, "When you pray, say our Father."	13:08
	Now, this is because	13:13
	when we move from discussing	13:14
	our theological theories about God,	13:16
	to engaging in worship and in wakeness,	13:19
	we immediately move from the role of spectator	13:22
	to the role of participant,	13:26
	from observation to relationship.	13:29
	And what is the relationship of the created to the creator?	13:34
	That of sheep to a shepherd?	13:41
	Perhaps.	13:43
	That of subjects to a king?	13:46
	In a sense	13:50
	But the analogy which our Lord thought most fitting	13:52
	was the relationship of children to their father.	13:54
	Of course, there are two things that have to be noticed	14:00
	about this right away when we say this.	14:02
	The first is that when Jesus used this analogy,	14:06
	He was thinking of fatherhood at its best	14:09
	not at its crummy worst.	14:11
	Second, He was thinking of fatherhood	14:15
	as it was understood in His place and time.	14:17
	Fatherhood in that ancient day of Palestine meant much more	14:22
	of what we today mean by paternity,	14:26
	than by what we in this day of individualism	14:29
	mean by fatherhood.	14:33
	Then and there,	14:36
	the father was closely linked with his ancestors	14:37
	in the minds of his children.	14:41
	The endless genealogies,	14:45
	the frequent references to the God of your fathers,	14:48
	the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob	14:52
	made this very clear.	14:56
	The father was identified	14:58
	with the grandfather and the great-grandfather.	14:59
	He personified the paternal inheritance.	15:02
	And so when Jesus spoke of God as Father,	15:08
	He meant it in the sense of paternity of the ultimate source	15:11
	not merely the immediate occasion of life.	15:15
	Now, this being the case, friends,	15:21
	there are certain clear and inescapable conclusions	15:24
	Which we have to draw from this.	15:29
	If we're going to think in these terms about God	15:33
	then there are certain other things which we have to accept	15:35
	which follow inevitably.	15:40
	The first is that all of us are dependent	15:43
	upon the providence of God	15:46
	as children are dependent upon	15:49
	the providence of an earthly father.	15:52
	Our proper attitude is an attitude of trust.	15:56
	God is the source of our life.	16:01
	The ground of our being.	16:04
	He is our maker.	16:06
	Not only that, but our life from moment to moment now	16:09
	is dependent upon His continued care and grace.	16:14
	It is He that has made us	16:21
	and not we ourselves, proclaims the scriptures.	16:24
	And of course, while it's true that	16:29
	there is much that we can and should be doing	16:31
	to provide for ourselves from day to day,	16:34
	there's a much more fundamental sense	16:37
	in which our attitudes should be that of looking upward	16:39
	toward God in faith.	16:45
	Jesus said, "Behold the fouls of the air,	16:49
	"your heavenly Father feedeth them,	16:52
	"consider the lilies of the field how they grow.	16:55
	"Even Solomon in all of his glory	16:58
	"was not arrayed like one of these.	17:01
	"Therefore do not be anxious saying, what shall we eat?	17:05
	"What shall we wear?	17:09
	"What shall we drink?	17:10
	"Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all."	17:12
	Now, the thought here is that	17:19
	although we must labor for our welfare,	17:20
	God is the providence source of everything we have and are.	17:23
	Even as early as the writing of the Psalms	17:29
	in the old Testament, this was recognized.	17:31
	You remember that interesting verse in Psalm 104:21?	17:34
	"The young lions roar after their prey	17:39
	"and seek their meat from God."	17:43
	Now, the second conclusion that we must draw	17:50
	from Christ's teaching about God's relationship to us	17:52
	is that His attitude toward us is one of benevolence	17:57
	and of love,	18:01
	not of hostility and of rejection.	18:05
	He wants the very best for us.	18:09
	Jesus said, "What man is there of you	18:13
	"whom if his son asked bread, will he give him a stone?	18:16
	"If ye, then being evil	18:20
	"know how to give good gifts unto your children,	18:23
	"how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven	18:27
	"give good things to those who ask Him?"	18:29
	Now, sometimes this love can be painful	18:35
	to the children of God.	18:38
	A small boy slid down a plank,	18:42
	stuck a splinter six inches long into the muscle of his leg.	18:45
	His father gripped the end of it	18:50
	with a pair of pliers and pulled it out	18:52
	because they were many miles from a surgeon.	18:54
	The son was almost unable to bear that pain.	18:58
	The father knew what would happen	19:02
	if the splinter remained in the muscle.	19:04
	And although it hurt the father	19:07
	as badly as it hurt the son to pull it out,	19:10
	he loved his son too much to let it stay in.	19:14
	Though the son did not immediately appreciate it,	19:20
	he ultimately appreciated it.	19:23
	I know I was that son.	19:27
	We are told in the book of Hebrews,	19:31
	"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord	19:34
	"nor lose courage when you're punished of Him,	19:39
	"for the Lord disciplines him whom He loves	19:43
	and chastises every son whom He receives."	19:48
	You see God loves us too much	19:54
	to be indifferent to our welfare.	19:56
	He cares that we shall have the best gifts.	20:00
	Now, the third conclusion we must draw	20:06
	from the Christian doctrine of the paternity of God	20:08
	is that He loves all of His children equally.	20:13
	And He insists that	20:17
	we love all His children equally.	20:19
	Just as the nature of the mature father	20:25
	makes him play no favorites among his children,	20:29
	so God does not.	20:33
	Christ said He maketh His son to rise on the evil	20:37
	and on the good.	20:41
	He sends rain on the just and on the unjust.	20:46
	This rain is not only falling upon people here	20:51
	at the Duke chapel,	20:54
	falling on people who are scheming foul schemes elsewhere.	20:56
	God treats us equally	21:04
	and He wants us to treat each other equally	21:07
	and with equal love.	21:12
	Jesus said, "When you pray, say not my Father, our Father."	21:15
	A great many years ago,	21:23
	the children of Israel thought that	21:25
	they were God's special pets,	21:26
	and that He loved them of above everyone else.	21:29
	So God sent the prophet Amos to them to encourage them	21:34
	to love the Gentiles as much as they loved each other.	21:38
	Amos stood up in their midst and said	21:42
	"Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians?	21:46
	"Unto me, all children of Israel sayeth the Lord.	21:50
	"Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt?"	21:56
	And you can hear the Israelites answering	21:59
	"Yes, of course.	22:01
	"You love us."	22:03
	But that wasn't the end of the speech	22:05
	that God gave Amos to say.	22:06
	"Have not I brought up Israel	22:10
	"out of the land of Egypt and Philistines	22:12
	"from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?"	22:15
	"Sure I brought you out of the land of Egypt	22:21
	"oh children of Israel because I love you.	22:23
	"But I also brought up the Philistines	22:27
	"and I brought up the Syrians because I love them too."	22:29
	God makes no distinctions in His love for His children.	22:35
	He insisted we not make any distinctions either.	22:39
	Now, the last conclusion that we shall draw this morning	22:44
	from the doctrine of the fatherhood of God	22:47
	is that the heavenly Father has set an example	22:50
	for all of us who are earthly fathers.	22:53
	And we should pattern our human parenthood	22:56
	after the ways of the divine parenthood.	23:00
	We should provide for our children as best we can.	23:04
	We should love them intelligently	23:08
	and we should love them equally.	23:10
	"Be ye therefore perfect even as your father	23:14
	"which is in heaven is perfect."	23:17
	So in closing, I want to point out	23:21
	what has already been headed at,	23:23
	namely that the paternity of God or the fatherhood of God	23:25
	understood in the sense of Christ	23:29
	is not primarily a doctrine of Christianity.	23:32
	It is primarily a relationship.	23:37
	It is involvement.	23:42
	And because of this relationship,	23:45
	we can know ourselves to be more important	23:47
	than we ever could be possibly important otherwise.	23:50
	We're members of the family of God.	23:55
	As many as are led by the spirit of God,	24:00
	they are the sons of God.	24:03
	For we have not received	24:06
	the spirit of bondage again to fear,	24:08
	but have received the spirit of adoption	24:12
	whereby we cry Abba Father.	24:14
	The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit	24:18
	that we are the sons of God.	24:23
	Oh God, who has taught us to call the Father.	24:34
	Now in love and affection	24:40
	and in faithfulness,	24:44
	we commit our ways unto thee,	24:47
	We accept thy offer of sonship, and we join thy family	24:50
	through the grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord.	24:55
	And now may the grace of Christ,	24:58
	the love of God the Father,	25:02
	and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,	25:05
	be among you and remain with you now and ever more.	25:08
	(gentle music)	25:18

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Title:

Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Paternity of God" (June 16, 1963)

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June 16, 1963

Speaker:

Wilkinson, Howard C.

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Duke University. Chapel

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Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Paternity of God" (June 16, 1963)

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