God the Father
Who is God the Father in the Bible?
God the Father is the first person of the Trinity: the maker of heaven and earth, the one Jesus addressed simply as Father, and the one who sends both the Son and the Spirit into the world.
God the Father is how Scripture names the first person of the Trinity — the God who speaks creation into being in Genesis, who reveals his covenant name to Moses at the burning bush, and whom Jesus teaches his disciples to address as "our Father in heaven." The name is not a description of God's appearance or age but of a relationship: he is eternally Father to the Son, and by adoption Father to those who belong to him.
The One God of Israel
The Hebrew Scriptures begin with God creating, and they hold together around a single confession: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). The covenant name revealed to Moses, YHWH, stands behind the English word LORD in most translations; the more general word Elohim is what Genesis 1 uses of the creator. To Abraham he is El Shaddai, God Almighty, the one who makes promises no circumstance can cancel.
Fatherhood is already there in the Old Testament, though it is used sparingly. Isaiah prays, "But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter" (Isaiah 64:8). Moses is told to call Israel God's firstborn son. David is promised a descendant of whom God says, "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son."
Father in the Words of Jesus
What was occasional in the prophets becomes constant in the Gospels. Jesus prays to the Father, obeys the Father, and teaches his followers to begin their prayers with a single word: Father (Matthew 6:9). In Gethsemane he uses the Aramaic Abba, the intimate household word, and Paul later says the same word rises from believers by the Spirit.
The Gospel of John presses the relationship hardest. No one has ever seen God, John writes, but the Son has made him known (John 1:18). The Son does nothing on his own but only what he sees the Father doing (John 5:19-23), and on the night before his crucifixion he prays about the glory he shared with the Father before the world existed (John 17:1-5).
The Father in the Letters
Paul writes to Corinth that "for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 8:6), and to Ephesus of "one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Ephesians 4:6). James adds that every good gift comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation (James 1:17).
Those Who Called Him Father
The Bible is largely a record of people addressing this God. Abraham bargains with him over Sodom. Moses argues with him on the mountain. Hannah pours out her heart at Shiloh. David sings to him and Solomon dedicates a temple to him. Elijah calls down fire in his name and Isaiah sees him high and lifted up. Daniel prays toward Jerusalem three times a day, and Mary answers his messenger with "let it be to me according to your word."
In the New Testament the Father speaks aloud three times — at the baptism of Jesus, at the Transfiguration before Peter, James and John, and in the temple courts in the last week of Jesus' life. Stephen, dying, sees the glory of God. Paul opens nearly every letter with grace and peace "from God our Father."
Related Reading
Follow the thread through The Nativity, The Passion Week, and the people of The Gospels; or read the profile of the Son at Jesus and of the Spirit at The Holy Spirit.