God the Father - Doctrine in Twelve Weeks
A Study on God the Father - Leader Guide and Handout
Consider beginning your study by reading Ephesians 4:4-6 with a devotional attitude and prayer.
In our first three weeks of doctrine, we will focus on God as He has revealed Himself to us as the trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. As has been taught from the early days of the church, and can be rightly understood from the Bible, the three Persons are each fully God, equal in glory and power. While many Christians think of God primarily as a single entity, it is also right to consider God in His three Persons. While there is an unresolvable mystery here, there are also many deeply meaningful things to consider about the three Persons of God.
Show this diagram to your group to open up a conversation about the Trinity. You may want to put it on a screen, a handout, or just draw it on a whiteboard as you talk through it.
You may want to ask the following questions to your study group to garner discussion. Teach from the answers provided to help facilitate the study, reading the passages mentioned to ground the study in the Scriptures.
Relationships
How is the Father related to the Son? (John 5:19-24)
God the Father has always been Father to God the Son, Jesus. The early church adopted the perplexing language of “eternally begotten of the Father'' in the Nicene creed. It is worth mentioning here that ‘to beget’ something does not mean that it is created, instead it means to be the same kind as self. This means that there has never been a time that the Son was not “begotten” of His father. Furthermore, Christ is one-of-a-kind; he is the only-begotten of the Father. While we as Christians are adopted as co-heirs of Christ, there is only One who is eternally God’s Son.
How do God the Father and God the Son interact with each other? We see numerous times in the New Testament that Jesus submits Himself to the will of the Father (Matt. 26:39, John 6:38, 1 Cor. 15:2, Phil 2:5-9, Heb. 5:8). This pattern of submission tells us something important about the relationship of Father and Son: The Son is willingly subordinate to the Father. We will look into this more next week from the perspective of the Son. Here, we begin to see that there is an ordering, or taxis, to the Trinity. The Father has headship over the Son. There is no higher authority than God the Father.
It is also important to consider that the main characteristic of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son is love. This idea is repeated throughout the Gospels (John 3:35, 5:20, 10:17, 15:9, 17:24, Mark 1:11, 9:7, 12:6). There is eternal love between God the Father and God the Son. Because of this love, we can confidently know that God is inherently loving.
How is the Father related to the Spirit? (John 15:26)
The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from God the Father. This belief was clarified at the councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon in particular. The procession of the Spirit is both clear from a Biblical perspective, in that the Spirit is very often referred to as being sent from God, but also as a linguistic insight. In both Hebrew and Greek, the word and notion of spirit was tied up with that of breath or wind. In English, we still have this idea in the word, “aspiration”, linking the notions of spirit and breath together. As we breathe, our breath goes forth from us, indicating the existence of life within us (spirit). In the same way, the Spirit eternally proceeds from God the Father, going forth from Him as His very Breath.
How is the Father related to us? (Isaiah 64:8)
As Christians, God is our heavenly Father. By Jesus Christ, we have access to God the Father through prayer (John 16:26-27). This profound access is only due to Jesus’s atoning sacrifice. However, the notion of God’s fatherhood to us is also present in the Old Testament in a more general way (Malachi 2:10, Ps. 68:5, 103:13). This common fatherhood of God over His creation is due to Him being the source of all that exists. So, while God is the heavenly, intimate Father of those who believe in Jesus, He is also the father over all creation.
This is expressed uniquely in Genesis 1:26-27, which says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness … So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him”. The repetition is likely for emphasis. While Jesus Christ is clearly and perfectly the image of God, we were created in God’s image. While this reality is tainted by the fall, it remains a defining characteristic of our relationship with God.
What God the Father Does
What was God the Father’s involvement in creation? (Genesis 1:1)
The Father’s role in creation is that He is the source of all that exists (Acts 17:24-29). Historically, the Church has referred to this fact by calling God the Father the fons divinitatis, or divine font, the source or fountainhead of all existence. The existence of the Father Himself is the root of the existence of all things. We see this expressed in a similar way in Revelation 4:11, which says, “because of your will [all things] existed and were created.” It is by God’s will that anything was created in the first place.
How does God the Father relate to His creation now? (1 Timothy 6:15b-16)
God the Father is holy. While He is near in some sense (Acts 17:27b), His holiness demands and implies a certain kind of separation from this fallen creation. This is why we see phrases such as “[he] lives in unapproachable light” in 1 Timothy 6:16, and why there is extensive ceremony surrounding the tabernacle and temple in the Old Testament.
God the Father specifically relates to His creation in that He is its holy judge and sovereign ruler. While much of what God the Father does is accomplished through Jesus Christ, God the Father is the ultimate authority and final definition of justice; what God judges to be right or wrong truly is right and wrong. As the source of all that exists, it makes sense that God not only is the perfect judge, but also that He can’t help but to be the perfect judge.
How does God the Father relate to Christians? (2 Corinthians 5:18)
God is both our compassionate reconciler and the One to Whom we are reconciled as Christians. While the work of salvation is carried out by Christ, it is by the will of God that we are saved. God calls us to salvation (Eph. 1:4-5), forgives us (Eph 1:7), justifies us (Rom. 8:33), makes us His children (John 1:12), and adopts us as heirs (Gal 4:6-7). In this way, God relates to Christians with profound benevolence.
How has the nature of God the Father been revealed to us? (Col 1:15)
What God the Son does is what God the Father wills. What God the Father wills is based on His nature. In this way, much of what we know clearly about God the Father has been revealed to us through Jesus Christ.
However, as the source of all that exists, the world around us can also serve to reveal aspects of God the Father to us. Taking into account the Genesis account of creation and the origin of sin, we ourselves, made in God’s image, can judge the world around us and still see God’s good ordering of creation. We can at least recognize the Father’s creativity, love, and order in His creation.
The Trinity in Creation (Genesis 1:1, John 1:3)
As one triune God, we often see how each of the three persons in the trinity work in perfect unity to accomplish God’s work. One of the clearest examples of this is in creation. Genesis 1 tells us the story of how God spoke the heavens and the earth into being. We see the involvement of the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit) in verse 2, that He was hovering. This verb is probably meant to convey activity and energy. We see the Son’s involvement more clearly in the New Testament, especially in John 1:3, which says, “apart from Him (the Word: God the Son) nothing came into being”.
While the precise interplay between the three Persons of God in creation is not entirely clear based on the Biblical account, it is clear that each Person was intimately involved. We can say that God the Father spoke the Word, and that by His Words creation occurred. Likewise the Word, who is Jesus Christ, was there in the beginning with God the Father (John 1:2), and that it was by God the Son that all things came into being. The Spirit is often spoken of as being “sent forth” by God as in Psalm 104:30 (When you give them breath or Spirit, life is created’. The same seems to be true in Creation, as it is God’s Spirit that is actually in the physical space of that which is being created, “hovering over the surface of the waters”. The Spirit goes forth from God, actively carrying out God’s will in creation, physically enacting whatever the Father commands.
Conversation Starters
After working through the study, open the conversation to questions, or pose some of the following conversation starters to the group.
Is God the Father your Father?
How have you seen God the Father work, act, or be involved in your life as a Christian, in your local church, or in the world around you?
How might we better recognize God the Father as a distinct person of the Trinity and worship Him as such?
What verse might you use to focus your attention on worshiping God the Father?
What "we believe" statements can we make as a study group about God the Father?
The Apostles’ Creed is one of the earliest formulations of doctrine, and is still recited and confessed all around the world in various churches to this day. Together with your group, consider confessing the apostles’ creed, focusing on the core elements of doctrine that unite all Christians. Conclude with a prayer conclude with a prayer for the group and for the study.
The Apostles’ Creed
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
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