The Upper Register Blog

In his high priestly prayer for his disciples, just before he went to the cross, Jesus prayed, “O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:25-26 ESV).

These words are an excellent summary of the mission of Jesus: he came to make known the Father. Jesus reveals the Father to us. He does so not merely in an intellectual way, as if we just needed more facts or information about the Father. Jesus reveals the Fatherly character and heart of God, and he does so in a way that communicates experiential knowledge, not just head knowledge. Knowing God as Father means that the love that eternally existed between the Father and the Son is experienced and enjoyed by us as well, that is, we not only are loved by God the Father, but we feel loved by him.

What an awesome privilege! We know God is almighty and holy. We know God sits enthroned with winged seraphim crying out “holy, holy, holy” day and night before him in the heavenly temple. He is the high and lofty one, clothed in such unapproachable light, that no one has seen God as he is, face-to-face. In view of the seeming distance of God, what an incredible blessing that we should be able to crawl up on the knees of this holy God with the freedom of children and call him Father.

God’s only begotten Son, who is at his side, who is the exact representation of God’s being, has come and has revealed God to be not only his God and his Father, but our God and our Father. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 NASB). “For from the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another” (John 1:16 NIV). And the greatest blessing of all is that we have come to know the Father. For this is eternal life, that we may know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent (John 17:3).

We should be both Theocentric and Christocentric. Some Christians are more Theocentric, focusing, for example, on the holiness and majesty of God and the need for awe and reverence of God. I have been in churches like this, where Christ and the cross were hardly mentioned, and the focus was always on “God” in a somewhat authoritarian way. There is a one-sided emphasis that borders on Unitarianism. But other Christians (myself included) tend to be so Christocentric that the Theocentric dimension is often overshadowed. We dwell on the love of Christ, his atoning death, and the forgiveness of sins, but we don’t think as much as we ought about the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we should be both Christocentric and Theocentric, albeit in the right order: we should be Christocentric with the aim of coming through Christ to the Father. If I may coin a term, we should be Theo-(through-Christ)-ocentric.

How does the Spirit fit into this? I remember hearing a recording of a sermon by J. I. Packer in which he likened the Spirit’s role to that of a spotlight illuminating a great building at night. The Spirit doesn’t draw attention to himself; his role is to draw our attention to and kindle our affections for Christ.

Some practical ways we can more fully enjoy our relationship with the Father:

(1) We should read the Gospels more, for it is as we see Jesus in his ministry of healing the sick and seeking the lost, and as we respond to this Jesus revealed in the Gospels, that we come to know, experience, enjoy and rest in the love of God as our Father through Christ. As we get to know Jesus better, we get to know God the Father better. Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9 ESV).

(2) We should venture to make bolder requests in prayer. Our Savior said to his disciples in the upper room, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you … Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:23-24 ESV). After all, if God is our Father, and if he loves us as fathers love their children, then he will delight to satisfy the holy desires of our heart. “Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? … If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt 7:9-11 ESV).

(3) Those of us who are fathers should think of ways that we can better model the Fatherly love of God to our children, not only for the benefit of our children, but for our own benefit. “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him” (Ps 103:13 ESV). The way we discipline our children should mirror the discipline of the heavenly Father (Heb 12:3-11). We should never discipline them in anger, but because we love them and want them to grow in maturity. “The Lord disciplines the one he loves” (Heb 12:6, ESV, quoting Prov 3:12; cp. Rev 3:19).