Please read Part One first. Extract from the booklet The Fatherhood of God by Don Byrd, used by permission. You can save this page as a text file from your browser (File / Save As) and read it off-line. It is about 17K.
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The Fatherhood of Godby Don Byrd (Part 2)
Sons not a Product of Creation
The creation of the universe and all that is within it is an awesome display of the omnipotence of God the Creator. Yet God in all His omnipotence cannot bring forth one son using His attribute of Creator. Sons cannot be brought forth by God as "Creator". He created the heavens and the earth and created powerful angelic beings. Some angels were beautiful, some were of great power and some are before Him continually crying out "Holy, Holy, Holy". As beautiful, powerful, and holy as they are, by no stretch of the imagination are they "sons". Two-thirds of the myriads of angels have existed for eternal ages and have never committed one sin, not so much as an evil thought, but that doesn't make them sons. The angels will exist throughout eternity, but that doesn't mean they have eternal life. Angels have creature-life not eternal life, for he that hath the Son hath eternal life.
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Why didn't God send one of his most powerful and most beautiful angels to die for mankind? The relationship between angels and God is Creator-creature relationship. The angels could tell the believer how to exist without sin for they themselves are without sin. But a sinless life is not what makes the believer a son. The angels can tell the believer how to minister to others (Hebrews 1:14), but ministering to others is not the qualification for being a son. Angels are powerful and wonderful creatures and can do many wonderful things, but they know nothing about the Father-son relationship the believer has with the Father. Angels know nothing about the birthing. The only One that God could send into the world to tell the world of the "birthing" was His Son, for only a son knows that it is the "birthing" that makes him a son!
If God had sent an angel rather than His Son, you and I would never have known him as Father and would have known nothing about sonship. This is the whole point of the first chapter of the book of Hebrews. If we were ever going to know God as our Father he could send nothing less than His Son. The Son of God brought the Father-son relationship to everyone who chooses the Son. God by His power could create worlds without end but He knew that if He was going to have sons they could not be the product of creation but He must birth them Himself.
The believer whose motivation is to have a sinless life and go to heaven and exist throughout eternity desires nothing more than to be an angel, for angels have the same thing. A sinless life, going to heaven, and existing eternally are not the qualifications for becoming a son. But these things motivate many believers who do not know the truth of the Christ-life. Many believers will spend their life-time trying to live a life without sin which is a dreadful way to spend one's life. All some believers want is to "Just make it to heaven". These are not bad motivations but they leave the believer empty and void of the fellowhip, peace and love of the Father while they are on this earth. None of the things that angels possess will be a durable motivating factor of one who has been brought forth by the birthing. The only qualification for becoming a son is the "birthing" by the Father. Because of this relationship with the Father he has a sinless, eternally existing life in Christ with God as his Father.
Though angels have great beauty, great power, and great wisdom, I have no desire to be an angel, for I would never know God as my Father. To "make it to heaven" and live forever without sin would probably be a wonderful thing but that is no substitute for knowing God as Father. To live an eternity without knowing God as Father would be the same as life in hell! "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). This is part of the prayer that Jesus is praying to His Father, for the first word of his prayer is "Father!" All that follows is spoken as a Son to His Father, spoken as One who is "begotten of the Father". It is the birthing by the Father that gives a son every quality that is necessary for him to be a son.
Love from the Father
As Creator, God brought forth many living creatures great and small; among these creatures was one named Adam. Though God created all these creatures He did not direct His love toward any of them. The relationship that exists between God and creatures is Creator-creature relationship, and God doesn't love creatures. This is an obvious fact for Jesus came into the world and only believers are saved by virtue of His death at Calvary, where the love of God is manifested. Jesus constantly reminded the disciples that love exists between the Father and the Son, not between God and his creatures. Therefore the believer who endeavors to know God through that which is created will establish his relationship with God the Creator, and this places him on the same level as all other creatures God created. The believer who finds God through that which is created separates himself from God's love. Love exists between the Father and the Son and nowhere else.
I have said all this to say that love is an attribute of God as Father. Love does not come from God the Creator, it comes from God the Father! This truth is substantiated in "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not" (John 1:10). "And he is before all things, and by him all things consist" (Colossians 1:17). He was in the world and the world was made by Him and the world did not know who He was! The ramifications of these scriptures will lead the believer into the truths established by the birthing. He who created the universe and all that is therein stood in the very midst of it within plain sight of every creature upon the earth and the creatures didn't know who He was. Why didn't they know who He was? Because He did not stand there as the Creator! If He had stood in their midst as the Creator, certainly all creatures would have known who He was, but the relationship that would have been established would have been Creator-creature relationship. The world at that point didn't need a revelation of their Creator. There are many wonderful things a believer may learn from gazing into the endless universe that God has created, but he will never learn one thing about God as Father from looking at God's creation. What the believer will learn about God while looking at the wonders of His creation is that God is a marvelous, omnipotent, omnipresent Creator-God which has nothing to do with His being Father! The only way the believer will know God is his Father is to know His Son! He stood in their midst as "the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love" (II John 3). According to the first verse of John chapter one he came as the Word -- the Son of God. It is through the Son that the Father loves all who are birthed by Him.
He stood in the midst of creation as the "Son of the Father" and that is the reason they did not know Him. Only those who are of the birthing know God as Father and know Christ as the Son of God. To those who are without the birthing, God is known unto them in a number of different ways, but not as Father. The people didn't recognize Jesus as the Son because they didn't know God was "Father!" Anyone who is without the birthing by the Father is nothing more than a creature. Therefore it is impossible to know God as Father through anything that is created.
Only the Son knows the Father
Creation declares that God is Creator but creation cannot declare the Fatherhood of God in any way. It is Sonship that declares the Fatherhood of God, "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God " (John 5:18). "All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and [he] to whomsoever the Son will reveal [him]" (Matthew 11:27). The only way to know God is Father is to see (know) His Son. Where does this leave the believer? It leaves the believer needing to be "in Christ", for in Christ is the place where God becomes Father to all who desire to know Him in His fullness. In Christ is the only place where it is possible for the believer to know who the Father is. The believer will never know any more about the Father than he knows about the Christ who is in him as his only life.
It is the Christ in the believer who knows the Father. No one prior to the coming of Jesus, the Son of the Father, knew God as Father! It is the Father who is the source of love and it is the believer who is "in Christ" who is the recipient of that love. The Creator does not love, but the Father does love and it is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of His Fatherhood. The point here is that love is an attribute of God as Father: it is the Father who loves and it is the Son who is the object of His love. This is why it is imperative that the believer be in Christ, for it is there that he too receives the love of God the Father. The birthing makes this relationship a reality. Nothing else can bring this relationship to the believer. God the Father brings forth the "Son of His Love" through the birthing process.
It becomes obvious that love is not the fruit of an individual. Love necessitates a source of love and an object of love for it to be a reality. Love is not something that can be done but it is the very essence of God Himself. I have termed this "Father love" for its source is God the Father and its object is His very own Son. The Son also loves the Father or else the love of the Father is incomplete. The Son returns the love that is given to Him from the Father. There is no other source and there is no other recipient of that love. This love has existed between the Father and the Son as long as God has been Father and as long as His Son has been Son, which is through eternity past. The source of this love has never changed and the object of this love has never changed.
If this is true, then how does the Father love all those brought into the family through the birthing? This is done with the same eternal love that has always existed between the Father and the Son. The Father loves every son with the same love He has always loved, for there is only one source of Father love. "And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare [it]: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:26). The love whereby He loves His only begotten Son is the very same love whereby He loves all who come to Him. This is not a different love, nor a love like the one with which He loves Christ the Son, but the "love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them" which is the same eternal love. The Father doesn't have two different methods of love, there is only one love that can come from the Father -- Father love.
Can the believer possibly comprehend such love? A love that is eternal, has existed through eternity past and will exist through eternity future. Not only is it the very same love, but it is to the same degree of love with which He loves Christ; it is of the same magnitude! That is an awesome thought to be the recipient of the same love whereby the Father loves the Son! It is beyond my comprehension to try to imagine such magnitude as that of Father love. Do you realize that God loves with Father Love -- the only eternal love that has ever been? An even more incomprehensible thought is to knowthat this love comes from the heart of God the Father, the very center of all that God is and desires to be; above all He desires to be Father.
Reprinted by permission from the booklet, The Fatherhood of God by Don Byrd, Christ-life Fellowship, PO Box 17307, Dallas TX 75217. This article appears on the site: http://www.peterwade.com/
We also have a number of books by Peter Wade on these truths. Go to our Catalog. | |
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