This is the second post in a series of communion mediations working through the Apostles’ Creed. You can read the creed here, and the first installment of that series here.
We believe: in God the Father. Why does the Apostles’ Creed begin with a confession of God as Father? Three reasons are worthy of our meditation.
It is uniquely the Christian God who exists in Trinity. That word, Trinity, famously does not occur in the Bible. Rather, it was coined by the early church as an accurate description and summary of what the Bible does teach concerning the nature and persons of God: God exists, eternally, as three identifiable persons together as One Eternal God. To quote from another ancient creed, the Athanasian Creed:
“We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible.”
One Majestic, Incomprehensible, Glorious God: one Divine Essence. Yet this One God eternally exists as three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the Father is pictured in Scripture as the Head, the one from whom all flows. 1
Confessing God as Father sets Christianity apart from other forms of monotheism which believe in one God, but not an eternally existent Son and Spirit. Muslims confess that Allah is one and he has no son. When Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, the Jews picked up stones to execute him. But Christians rejoice in this truth: God the Father has been The Father from all eternity. We believe in the Triune God of Scripture, and the begins by confessing believe in the Father.
We confess belief in God the Father because this is how Jesus, the Son, teaches us to pray: Our Father in heaven. Jesus, eternally the Son, wants us as adopted children into God’s family to think of God first of all as Father. The intimacy of the relationship we are offered with the immortal God is frankly hard to conceive, and we are privileged to not only confess such a truth, but to believe and experience the reality of this gracious gift.
Third, we confess God as Father, in obedience to Jesus, because this relationship was secured by Jesus at the cross. To those who believed in his name he gave the right to be called children of God (John 1:12). Furthermore, this gives us the specific rights and inheritance of heirs: thus, Romans 8:19 speaks of creation waiting for our revelation as the sons of God - not because its only for men, but because in the ancient world it was typically the sons who would inherit, and as God’s children we are given an inheritance of eternal glory. Again, this was accomplished by Jesus at the cross. Those who trust in what he did for us there receive the gift of his perfect life and substitutionary death. And more than that, we are adopted into his body, identified with him, and receive God as our Father, eternal life as our reward, and joy in his presence forevermore.
I haven’t yet read Shrier’s book, but this review really makes me want to:
“This way of parenting cedes too much authority to the child, relies on the unstable feelings of a child, and assumes parents are idiots and couldn’t possibly know what’s best without consulting their three-year-old or their therapist.”
https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/109017/Athanasian-Creed.pdf