And So We Call Him Abba, Daddy
יסר
yâsar – to chasten, discipline, instruct, admonish
Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines ( yasar ) his son, the LORD your God disciplines ( yasar ) you. Deut 8:5
There it is, a direct comparison of an earthly father and our Creator Father. In the same way a father instructs and corrects his son so our Father God corrects us. This picture of God as Father began in Exodus preparing for the nation of Israel to leave.
“You are to say to Pharaoh, “This is what Adonai says: ‘Israel is My son, My firstborn.’” (Ex. 4:22)
It is the firstborn son that has the right of inheritance from a father, and it is Israel as Son who holds the right of inheritance. Teaching through instruction (the giving of the “law” at Mt. Sinai), special attention and gifts (manna for example), rewarding and punishing are all aspects of Israel interacting with Elohim in their journey out of Egypt.
“My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.” (Prov. 3:11-12)
While there are many comparisons of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to a father, it is the prophet Isaiah who makes the most direct statement of this relationship:
“For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.” (Isa. 63:16)
This whole concept of God as our Father expands through Yeshua and his disciples. It is not as though God has changed who he is – (“For I the LORD do not change; Malachi 3:6) but our understanding has been changed and even expanded.
Consider the comparison of God as our Father to our earthly fathers, who being imperfect even communicate to us something of who he is.
“What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:11 – 13)
Maybe the point of this passage is not that God will not trick us through substitutions. Maybe the point of this passage is that what looks like a scorpion to us is really an egg that we dont understand at the time. One stings, the other nourishes, but if it hurts we do not think of being nourished. What looks like a snake is really a fish, and we just don’t get it.
The snake is not food but the fish just might be. So that when we ask for the Holy Spirit, we may not get what we are looking for in a way we understand. And that gift may just manifest itself in a way that we find confusing and not exactly what we thought we were looking for. The point is “how much more” will the Father give us what we asked for but not necessarily in a way we understand at the time.
Have you thought much about being called his children?
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1-2)
In the Salkinson-Ginzburg Hebrew translation of 1 John it says benei Elohim – sons of Eohim – God. I like that, sons of God carries a weight of authority and inheritance that you have to search for if our title is children.
In either case, we have a special relationship of Father and sons/children. This was a promise made – as one example – through the prophet Hosea.
“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the living God.’” (Hosea 1:10)
In all the history of Judaism though, there is not one reference to anyone calling God directly by “father.” In all the books of the Hebrew Scriptures, in the Mishnah, Talmud and Gemara – the Jewish commentary, there is not one example of someone addressing God directly as “father.”
The first Jewish rabbi in all of history to call God “Father” directly was Yeshua (aka Jesus) of Nazareth. Many of his enemies were his enemies because he called the Creator his “father” and that is quite a claim. However, what is even more astounding is that Yeshua tells his people, “When you pray, you say, ‘Our Father.’”
We call it The Lord’s Prayer but it really should be called The Disciple’s Prayer because it was given to us to teach us how to pray. And it begins with “our father. . .”
Soak in that for awhile and see where it may lead you. We are so loved that the Creator of heaven and earth calls us his children, and as John says, “beloved we are God’s children now.”