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Apostles Creed 6: His Only Begotten Son

Ben Zornes on

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction:
What we know as orthodoxy is of course taught in the Bible. But that does not mean that every orthodox truth is found everywhere in the Bible, or that every verse that is used to defend the truth is being used appropriately.

The Text:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text:
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). It is a commonplace among us that Jesus was the “Son of God.” But the Bible talks about this in different ways, and so should we. One word in Greek is translated in our two words—monogenes is rendered as only begotten. Looking at the context, John uses this as a technical phrase, with a precise theological definition. That definition is the same as what is used in the Creed.

This verse may be summed up in this way. God loves and we live. The bridge between these two realities is the only begotten Son. By this phrase we are referring to the unique status and nature of Jesus of Nazareth. Our confession is this—He is the Son of God by virtue of the divine nature that was united with our human nature

Only Begotten:
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). These are all references to the Incarnation of the Son of God. They are references to Immanuel, God with us.

Chalcedon:
It would be absurd to ask you all to grasp in the course of one sermon what it took the whole Church three centuries to formulate. But we are part of that same Church, and so let me summarize what our confession is. We confess that our Savior, the Lord Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, is one person. He is one unified, well-integrated person, but He has two natures. These two natures are connected in what is called the “hypostatic union.” (Hypostases was the Greek word for person.) So there was a “one person” union that possessed two natures that were not comingled. And the result was not schizophrenia.

That which is predicated of one nature may be predicated of the person. That which is predicated of the other nature may be predicated of the person. But that which is predicated of one nature cannot be predicated of the other nature. This is quite important as we shall see.

So then, human nature has a particular height or hair color and so we can say that Jesus of Nazareth was (say) 5 foot 11, or had black hair. And the divine nature is infinite, and so we can say that Jesus of Nazareth possessed that attribute. But we cannot (and must not) say that infinitude is 5 foot 11.

How and Why:
Jesus had a true mother. He was born in the ordinary way, with the one exception being the fact that His mother was a virgin when He was born. He had a maternal grandmother and grandfather, and a lineage that went back to Adam. He was true man. But He had no biological human father.

“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

If original sin is passed down to us from our human fathers (covenantally, not genetically), then this accounts for how Jesus could be sinlessly perfect. He did not inherit sin from His mother because no one inherits innate sin from their mothers.

Other Senses:
But it is not the case that any references to the “Son of God” are necessarily talking about something as remarkable as the hypostatic union. Let me give you an example. “Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God” (Luke 3:38). There was no hypostatic union in Adam, and yet he is described as a “son of God.” And remember that celestial beings can be called “sons of God” without being partakers of the Godhead.

What Manner of Love:
We return to the earlier point that God loves and we therefore live. But remember the bridge between the two is the perfect God/man, offered up in sacrifice. This is seen in a type, when Abraham takes Isaac to Moriah (where Jesus was crucified) in order to prophetically foretell our coming salvation. “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son” (Heb. 11:17).

Because Jesus is the Son of God, it is possible for our status as sons of God to be restored. Remember that Adam was a son of God but that through the Crash, he and we became sons of the devil. How can we be restored? This includes a heart transplant, but there is something far more remarkable going on. This is a Father transplant.

“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not” (1 John 3:1).

 

 

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Apostles Creed 5: And in Jesus Christ

Ben Zornes on

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction:
Although we haven’t mentioned Jesus until this point in the Creed, in another sense, every word in the Creed revolves around Jesus Christ. The reason for that is something for us to explore now.

The Text:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text:
“Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:16–17).

We began the Creed by confessing that we believe. Now in Scripture, believing and knowing are intertwined. “But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him” (John 10:38). We believe in Jesus Christ, and this is how we come to know Him. When we come to know Him, we come to know the Father, and the only way this is possible is through the Spirit of Jesus, poured out into our hearts.

But we know Jesus in two senses, both of which are reflected in the Creed. The first is the Jesus of history—or as the Creed puts it, born of the Virgin, Mary, and who died under the term of a Roman provincial prefect named Pontius Pilate. If it had not been for Jesus, he would be as historical obscure as his predecessor Gratus, or his successor Marcellus. This is the Jesus who is the historical figure, as much a man of history as Napoleon, or Attila, or Confucius. But according to Paul in this passage, this same Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, has taken the throne of the cosmos. He is the cosmic Christ. We cannot understand any man without understanding Him.

Jesus:
If Jesus had a last name, the way we have last names, it would have been Jesus Davidson—Jesus ben David. He was born in the house of David, and this was his true human lineage (Rom. 1:3). He had a home town; He had a mother; He went to Nazareth High; He weighed a certain amount; some other men were taller. He was tempted in every point as we are (Heb. 2: 17-18), although keep in mind that this excludes temptations that require a history of sinning behind them.

Remember that Jesus was fully human—not part human and part divine. God did not put on a man suit the way one of us might put on a gorilla suit. He was not “man on the outside, God on the inside.” No, He was fully God and fully man—one person, Jesus of Nazareth, who had two natures, two complete natures. Jesus had a nature that was entirely human, which is our point here, as well as a nature that was fully and completely divine.

Christ:
I said above that Christ is not the Lord’s last name. The word Christ means anointed, and it is the parallel to the Hebrew word Messiah. The word Christ is a title, like King or Prince. Throughout Scripture, anointing is the rite used to set someone apart to a particular office, and that person assumes the office empowered by the anointing to discharge the responsibilities of that office. The anointing was not so that we would look at Him as the Messiah. The anointing was so that He would do what the Messiah was destined to do, and so that we would recognize Him in His glory.

There were three great offices among men as seen in the polity of Israel—prophet, priest, and king—and men were anointed to all three. “And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room” (1 Kings 19:16). “And the priest, whom he shall anoint, and whom he shall consecrate to minister in the priest’s office in his father’s stead, shall make the atonement, and shall put on the linen clothes, even the holy garments” (Lev. 16:32).

So when Jesus was anointed as the Christ, He was being established in all three of these offices. That is what it means to be called to be the Christ. He is our great Prophet (Dt. 18:15), our Priest (Heb. 3:1), and our King (John 19:19; Acts 17:7). As priest, He died and rose to put an end to the old world, our old way of being human. As king, He rules the new world, the new heavens and new earth. And as our prophet, He teaches us about both worlds. He is the cosmic Christ—not in some New Agey sense, but in the sense that His name and authority overarch absolutely everything. We will come back to this.

Come to Jesus:
So call upon Jesus. Turn to Jesus Christ. Bow before the Lord Jesus Christ. Partake of Jesus. He offers Himself. The Spirit and the Bride say come, and they say the same thing . . . come to Jesus.

Now when I say this to you, when I issue this invitation—which I am authorized to do, by the way—I am doing so because I am not looking at you “after the flesh.” Look carefully again at this passage. Paul here says that a direct result of having a right vision of the cosmic Christ is that we no longer look at anyone in a mundane way. How could we? Christ is risen. Christ is enthroned. More than this—He is here, and summons you to come.

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Apostles Creed 4: Maker of Heaven and Earth

Ben Zornes on

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction:
We confess the absolute authority of God, and there are layered reasons for doing this. He has authority over us in the first instance because He created us, and in the second because He redeemed us from our sins. We will come to the issue of redemption shortly, but we must begin where the Bible does, with the doctrine of creation.

The Text:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text:
“Know ye that the LORD he is God: It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture” (Ps. 100:3). When we confess that God is the Maker of heaven and earth, there are three basic things entailed by this. First, God is the Creator. And second, He created all things, heaven and earth both, and we are part of that. We are a subset of the created order, making us creatures. And third, we are not the Creator. He made us, and not we ourselves. God created us. We did not create us. However hard he strains, a creature cannot stand in a bucket and then pick it up.

Biblical Categories:
We see the created order described in a particular way—described as heaven and earth. The union of the two was disrupted by our sin, but in the redemption of Christ, the reunion of the two is coming. “That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him” (Eph. 1:10). It is no sin to say that God created the universe, or that He fashioned the space/time continuum, but take care not to lose the Bible’s way of speaking of it.

Ground of Worship:
The doctrine of creation is a strong incentive to worship. “O come, let us worship and bow down: Let us kneel before the LORD our maker. For he is our God; And we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand” (Psalm 95:6–7).

The created order evokes both praise and worship—but they are not the same thing. “Praise ye him, sun and moon: Praise him, all ye stars of light.” (Ps. 148:3). To praise God is to exalt Him, to lift Him up, to honor Him. To worship is to prostrate yourself in humility before Him, having been poleaxed by the grandeur. Having done so, you make yourself available for service. Here am I, Lord. Send me. Present your bodies, which is your spiritual worship (Rom. 12:1-2).

Ground of Mercy Work:
The doctrine of creation is a strong incentive to mercy work. “He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker: But he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor” (Prov. 14:31). It is a disincentive to oppression, and the sin of rejoicing in iniquity. “Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker: And he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished” (Prov. 17:5). And the doctrine of creation provides social perspective on the right kind of equity. “The rich and poor meet together: The LORD is the maker of them all” (Prov. 22:2).

Ground of True Sovereignty:
A robust doctrine of creation helps us to not trip over our Calvinism. A Creator God is a transcendent God, while a sovereign god “within the system” would be a muscle-bound Zeus, and a bully. But if God is the Creator, every difficulty vanishes. When Hamlet spoke of doing away with himself, how much of that soliloquy was Shakespeare, and how much Hamlet? 50/50? 90/10? Or 100/100? “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? Or thy work, He hath no hands?” (Is. 45:9).

Ground of Covenant Redemption:
“For thy Maker is thine husband; The LORD of hosts is his name; And thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called” (Is. 54:5). He is the God of the whole earth. He is the transcendent God. And, by the grace of God, we have been made the bride of Christ.

Something Is Eternal:
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Heb. 11:3).

So we must make an important distinction. God creates from nothing, ex nihilo. We are created in His image, and so it is that we are makers also. We are lower case makers, lower case creators, because we must always and necessarily work with preexistent materials. But God is the Creator Absolute.

Christ the Creator:
God created all things, but He did so through His agent, our Lord Jesus. Scripture tells us this repeatedly. Speaking of the Logos, John says, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). The apostle Paul teaches us the same thing. “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col. 1:16–17).

“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” (Heb. 1:2–3).

The Son of God created all things. The Son of God sustains all things—if He were to cease speaking it, the world would vanish again into the nothingness from which it came. It wouldn’t even make a noise. Not only is it all from Jesus, it is for Jesus.

And so this means—and we must never forget it—the one who fashioned you, made you, shaped you, and created you is the same one who died on a gibbet for you outside Jerusalem. The one who created the sky had the sky turn black over Him. And He did it so that you might sing the next song with a full heart.

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The Apostles Creed 3: Almighty

Ben Zornes on

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction:
We have confessed our faith in God the Father, and looking ahead we saw that He is the Father of Jesus Christ. We are not confessing faith in some kind of an abstract definition. And yet, like all particular persons, God the Father has attributes and characteristics, which means that we do have to get into some definitions. The first one mentioned here is that He is the Almighty.

The Text:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text:
The Creed was originally written in Greek, and the word here rendered as Almighty is pantokrator, meaning omnipotent or almighty. This is an attribute of God that is an overarching description, and that same word is used in various places in the New Testament (2 Cor. 6:18; Rev. 1:8; 4:8). But as we arrive at this description of Him, we have to be careful not to detach it from what Scripture reveals to us everywhere else.

The Divine Attributes:
When talking about God, we do have to talk about His attributes. There is no other way for finite beings to discuss an infinite being. And in addition, we know that this is lawful for us to do (and not impudence) because the Bible does it all the time. And so we must recognize that these are attributes that can distinguished from one another, but never separated. For an illustration we can easily distinguish height and breadth. A child can do that. But separating themselves would be another matter. So we can distinguish God’s power, and kindness, and holiness, and love, and so on. But we cannot separate them; they are all one in the divine simplicity.

That said, we need to distinguish certain aspects of God’s being that He delights to share with us and others that He does not share. In fact, He cannot share them with us in the very nature of the case. He communicates His holiness and His love to us, for example, but not His omnipresence.

When God communicates His love to us (Rom. 5:5), for example, He is making countless finite creatures more like Himself, and this is a process that will continue on forever and ever. We will always have head room, always have room to grow. But there are certain characteristics that God could not share without creating a second God alongside Himself—which is absurd, as nonsensical as a four-side triangle.

 

Admonishing the Sophomoric:
So this leads to a predictable question. If God is Almighty, well, then, can He make a rock so heavy that He can’t lift it? This assumes a false understanding of what the infinite power of God actually means. Of course He cannot make a rock like that—there are many things the Omnipotence cannot do. God cannot be tempted (Jas. 1:13). He cannot lie (Num. 23:19). He cannot undo His own omnipotence. God cannot do anything in violation of His own nature or character. Putting it the other way around, God can do absolutely anything that is consistent with His nature and character.

As C.S. Lewis said somewhere—quite trenchantly—nonsense doesn’t stop being nonsense just because we are speaking it about God.

The Place of Logic:
And here is another place where some rarified theology is of immense practical importance. Some people object to reasoning like this because, they say, “logic doesn’t apply to God.” But if that is the case, then we should all eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. If logic does not apply to God, then “I will never leave you nor forsake you” could easily mean “for now,” or “unless I change my mind.”

The foundation stone of logical reasoning is what is called the “law of identity”—A is A. Other laws accompany it—A does not equal not A, the law of non-contradiction. But before your eyes glaze over, let me ground this in the express word of God. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Heb. 13:8).

But we still have to be careful how we talk about this. If logic is subordinate to God, and subject to arbitrary change, then we are all in this terrible spot. But if logic is senior to God, and He somehow submits to it, then this is the will and voice of another God, the true Most High God. And that is absurd. So what this means is that “right reason” or “logic” is an attribute of God. When we are talking about consistency, we are reflecting what God is like, and that means what God is everlastingly like.

Our Refuge and Strength:
Now let us go back for a moment to the Fatherhood of God for a moment. It striking that one of the few places in the New Testament where the same word for Almighty is used has a close relationship to the Fatherhood of God, just like in the Creed. “And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:18).

When the Bible talks about the power and strength of God, it overwhelmingly does so by describing His might on behalf of His people. The strength of God is not abstract doctrine given to us for the entertainment of abstruse theologians.

Boil this down. What this means that you in the will of God outnumber absolutely everybody. “For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, Neither did their own arm save them: But thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, Because thou hadst a favour unto them” (Ps. 44:3). And if you would see the right arm of God, then you must look to Jesus Christ.

 

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The Apostles Creed 2: God the Father

Ben Zornes on

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What we now know as the Apostles Creed descended from an earlier form of the creed, known as the Old Roman Symbol. The beginning of the creed dates from as early as the second century. We do not have any direct evidence that it was penned by any of the apostles, but it is an admirable summary of the apostolic teaching.

Introduction:
So we begin the Creed with the statement “I believe.” Believe in what or whom? We do not believe in a generic deity, with details to be filled in later. We begin with the confession that we believe in a personal God, identified by name, and revealed in His Son. I believe in God the Father.

The Text:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the virgin, Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. On the third day He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

Summary of the Text:
This phrase in the Creed is not a stand-alone name. It is defined and filled out a moment later when we add that we believe “in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord.” In other words, we are not confessing our faith in a Deity who is in some vague metaphorical sense like a father. No, we believe in God the Father of Jesus Christ. This is a confession that is most specific.

The Structure of Salvation:
Speaking of the new unity between Jew and Gentile, the apostle Paul admirably summarizes the structure of salvation within the compass of one brief verse. “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” (Eph. 2:18). In a paraphrase, we would render it this way. “Through Christ we have access to the Father by means of one Spirit.” If I might employ something of a homely metaphor, the Father is the place we are driving to, the Son is the road, and the Holy Spirit is the car. The Father is where we are all going, Jesus is the way we get to Him, and the Spirit is the power that enables us to take that way to Him.

And this is why Jesus spoke of Himself in this way, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6). Jesus is the way (hodos)—road or path—and the Spirit empowers us to travel on that road. We do not walk in the flesh, but in the Spirit (Rom. 8:4). We are instructed to walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16), and then again (Gal. 5:25). The Father is where we go, the Son is the way we go, and the Spirit is how we go.

When We Pray:
This is why, when Jesus taught us to pray, He taught us to pray to the Father (Matt. 6:9). This is how Christian prayer is supposed to function. We pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, in the power of the Spirit.

We are not neglecting the Son or the Spirit because we are not addressing them directly. It is a travesty of prayer when we separate out the persons of the Godhead and create factions in the church according to our separations. In some ways, this is far worse than “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos.” Liberals says they believe in the brotherhood of man, fatherhood of God (BOMFOG). But if you don’t have the Son, you don’t really have the Father (1 John 2:23), whatever you say. And charismatics focus on the Spirit—but the Spirit points away from Himself. It is the Spirit’s task to glorify Son (2 Cor. 3:18), whose task it is in turn to glorify the Father (John 17:1). Evangelicals focus on Jesus—but Jesus came to bring us to the Father.

Anthropomorphism Backwards:
In our glib unbelief, we say things like this—“We all have experience with human fathers, and so our ancestors naturally enough invented a ‘sky father,’ who would protect us, terrify us, provide for us, etc. But we have grown past that stage where we project our image into the heavens.”

In our arrogance, we think we have created God in our image. But the Scriptures say that God created us in His image (Gen. 1:27).

If there is no God, we are an inchoate mess. We are a shapeless lump of protoplasm, and have no image to project. We are what these chemicals would always do under these conditions and at this temperature. We cannot project our image onto the screen of the heavens because we have no projector, and no movie. We are nothing.

In our arrogance, we think that we have fashioned a heavenly Father out of our earthly fathers. But again, it is the other way around. “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” (Eph. 3:14–15). We derive our faint reflections of masculinity and fatherhood from Him, and most emphatically not the other way around.

Fatherhood as Ultimate Reality:
The central point of all reality is ultimate, infinite, absolute masculinity. Fatherhood is at the center because the Father of Jesus is at the center. But this overwhelming. We cannot handle absolute Fatherhood. He dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). We would crater under the slightest glimpse of it.

We cannot have the Father “raw,” but we must have the Father. What are we to do? Remember, he who has the Son has the Father. Remember what Jesus said to Philip. “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?” (John 14:9).

But we preach Christ, not as a stand-in for the Father, but as the appointed and divinely fashioned way to the Father.

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