Biblically Based Fatherhood

by Jacob Brown

Why does our Lord tell us to pray to God as Father? When asked by his disciples to teach them to pray, the Lord Jesus Christ taught them to pray by addressing the Almighty God of all creation as Father. He just as easily could have taught them to pray to God as the King of the universe, or as Almighty God, or as Yahweh, the covenant name of the God of the Bible. But he doesn’t teach us that way. Now rest assured it is perfectly biblical to address God by those titles and names, and we should give honor and praise to God for who he is. But there is something particular that the Lord Jesus is wanting us to understand about the nature of God, and that is God as Father. 

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Our Father which art in heaven, 

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come. 

Thy will be done

in earth, as it is in heaven. 

Give us this day our daily bread. 

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 

And lead us not into temptation, 

But deliver us from evil:

For thine is the kingdom, 

and the power, 

and the glory, forever

Amen. 

Matt 6:9-13

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“Although we may think of fatherhood as a metaphor that we apply to God, Scripture has things the other way around. When Jesus is calling God His Father, this is not anthropomorphic language. Rather, when we call men our father, that is theomorphic language. God is the archetypal Father.”

It’s Good to be a Man. Foster, Michael and Tennant, Bnonn. Ch7, page 107

I think Michael and Bnonn hit the nail smack-dab on the head. We don’t arbitrarily get to project our own fallen and creaturely perceptions onto God. He reveals his nature to us. We don’t get to call God the divine feminine. We don’t get to call God an impersonal force. We don’t get to label God any which way we want to because God has revealed himself to us through his inspired and infallible Word. I mean with all this self-identity going around you’d think that if anyone had an actual say about how they identify it would be the Infinite and Omnipotent Creator. 

God is The Father or to put it another way, He is The Patriarch (Father-ruler). It is his very nature. Therefore since he is the creator, all of creation reflects his glory and patriarchy is in the very fabric of creation. We see this in the opening chapters of the Bible. 

“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Gen. 1:26 LSB

We see three key truths here. First, God creates man and names his “Man” which is the Hebrew word “Adam.” This shows God’s authority over Man just like the rest of creation. Naming something shows authority over that thing. So God has authority over Mankind. Secondly, God makes Mankind in His image. This means that Man is to rule in God’s stead; subdue and have dominion over the created order. We’ll see this played out as Man names all the animals. Just as God names the Day and Night and the Sky and Seas, Mankind names the animals showing his God given authority over the created realm. Lastly, We see that God creates Mankind as “sexed” beings, meaning male and female for the purpose of procreating and spreading the glory and image of God to the ends of the earth. 

Already we are seeing the order of hierarchy and patriarchy in the fabric of the created order. Mankind is over all the rest of creation and is to exercise dominion over it and to spread the glory and image of God throughout the earth through the means of procreation. While this is a good start, the second chapter is even more explicit. Hold on to your power suits, Feminists! 

“The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

23 The man said, 

“This is now bone of my bones, 

And flesh of my flesh; 

She shall be called Woman, 

Because she was taken out of Man.”

24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

Gen 2:20 LSB

We need to pay careful attention here because this passage coupled with the previous passage give us the building blocks for society. God creates Adam’s helper from his side. As Matthew Henry put it, “Eve was not taken out of Adam’s head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.” Adam then names her Woman through song and poetic language. This is showing his position of authority over her. This is not an arbitrary authority that God makes up but one rooted in nature. Woman came from Man, therefore in the hierarchy of creation, Man is over Woman. We see this is the understanding of the New Testament authors as well:

But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. 

1 Cor. 11:3

According to God’s Word then, patriarchy is natural and good- when there are good fathers. The question comes then, how do we as men be good fathers? The answer is found in the Heavenly Father. I find the Westminster Shorter Catechism particularly helpful in addressing this issue in understanding the Lord’s Prayer:

Question #100:

What doth the preface of the Lord’s prayer teach us? The preface of the Lord’s prayer, which is, “Our Father which art in heaven,” teacheth us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence, as children to a father, able and ready to help us; and that we should pray with and for others. 

As sons of God, we are to come to God with holy reverence and confidence. Why? Because he is able and ready to help us. Able. God is omnipotent and sovereign. There is absolutely nothing impossible for God.

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”

Eph. 3:20 LSB

Ready. Psa. 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. 

Fathers, can you say this describes you? Better yet, would your kids say this describes you? Can they come to you with a problem they are having with reverence and confidence saying “I know my dad can help me with this. I know he won’t push me to the side because there’s something else more pressing.” There’s a lot that goes into being a good and biblical father, but I think at the root, it’s being the kind of dad that is able and ready to help their family take dominion over their lives and subdue the world to the glory of God. 

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