LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 360

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

360

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

the following narrative is typical in using for God a third person mascu-
line singular suffix G-, 7, -):
Deut. 4:35-37:
Te you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is
no other besides him (19370). Out of heaven he let you hear his voice
Cp), that he might discipline you; and on earth he let you see his great fire
(228), and you heard Ais words (77273) out of the midst of the fire. And
because he loved your fathers and chose their descendants after them, and
brought you out of Egypt with his own presence (1272), by his great power
(moa).
As examples of the use of the second person masculine singular suffix
(3), the folowing may suffice:

Ps. 102:28 (Hebrew, v. 29):

The children of thy servants (7-732) shall dwell secure; their posterity shall
be established before thee (77).

Jer. 14:21:

Do not spurn us, for thy name's sake (72); do not dishonor thy glorivus
throne (77722); Remember and do not break thy covenant ("7") with us

3. Biblical Metaphors Concerning God. The above evidence indicates
that the Scriptures render the personal identity of God in masculine terms.
This picture is reinforced by the principal metaphors used in the biblica)
narrative to depict God in his relation to Israel and to the nations. Accord-
ing to Elizabeth Achtemeier, the Bible employs five principal metaphors:
King, Father, Judge, Husband, and Master.” We might add the metaphor
of the Shepherd, but our focus here is on the nature, not the number, of
these principal metaphors. These metaphors are each masculine and are
indicated to be such by the corresponding pronouns and verbs used with
them. The metaphors of King, Judge, and Shepherd are political in nature
and depict God as the Ruler and Redeemer of the chosen nation of Israel.
As Judge, God makes matters right either by exalting the oppressed or by
humbling the mighty (Isa. 33:22; Ps. 96:10 [Hebrew text, 96:11]). In the
New Testament God's judgment is exercised by Christ, whose death
reveals those who are good and those who are evil, and whose second
coming inaugurates the final judgment (John 5:19-47; Matt. 25:31-46). As
King and Shepherd, God conquers the enemies of his people and guides
them according to his will and to their proper destiny (King: Psalm 24;

* Elizabeth Achtemeier, “To feminist God-talk in the Church,” Christianity Today 16
(August 1993): 19, See also Achterneier’s more extensive article, “Female Language for God:
Should the Church Adopt It?” in The Hermeneuticul Quest, ed. Donald G. Miller (Allison Park,
Pennsylvania: Pickwick Publications, 1986), 97-114.

13

Since God is Israel's “father” by way of his election of Israel to be his
people, Israel is correspondingly God's “son” by way of being adopted by
God. When God sent Moses to Pharaoh, he told Moses to speak to Pharaoh
the following words: “Thus says the Lord, Israel is my first-born son, and
I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me”; if you refuse to let him
go, behold, I will slay your first-born son’” (Exod. 4:23). This text of
Israel’s sonship is the basis for the later words of the prophet Hosea which
find fulfillment in Christ: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out
of Egypt! called my son” (Hosea 11:1; see Matt. 2:15). Ina related but dif-
ferent way, God is the “father” of the kings of Israel, who are then called
God’s “sons.” This is especially true of the Davidic king, who is a mes-
sianic type of the Messiah to come. Typical of this theme is 2 Sam. 7:14-15:
“T will be his father, and he shall be my son. When he commits iniquity, I
will chasten him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men,
but I will not take my steadfast love from him, as | took it from Saul. ...”
(see also Ps. 2:7; 89:19-27; 1 Chron. 17:13; 22:10; 28:6).

The idea that God is the “father” of his people by way of adoption
occurs also in the New Testament. As the true son of Abraham, that is, the
new Israel, Jesus is designated by God to be his Son: “This is my beloved
Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17 and parallels). This affir-
mation is repeated at the transfiguration of Jesus (Matt. 17:5). Corre-
sponding to this naming of Jesus as “Son,” Jesus addresses God as his
“Father” (Matt. 11:27; occurs also frequently in John), and he instructs his
disciples that they too are to address God as their “Father” (Matt. 6:9; Luke
11:2). Indeed, that Christians are “sons” of God by way of adoption is cen-
tral to the baptismal theology of the New Testament: ”...God sent forth
his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were
under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because
you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying,
‘Abba, Father!” (Gal. 4:46; see Rom. 8:12-17). The apostle Paul is equally
explicit concerning the adoptive sonship of Christians in Eph. 1:3-6:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who . . . destined
us in love to be his sons (cig vio@eciay; literally: adoption as sons) through
Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will .. ..” (see also John 1:12 f.;
1 Pet. 1:3). Those baptized into the Son of God become God's “sons” and
have the right to cal! him “Father.”

However, as the New Testament presumes, the adoptive fatherhood
of God for us is the expression of the eternal, paternal love of God for his
eternal Son. God is Father of the Son, and the Son is the Son of the Father.
This unique status which Jesus has as “Son of God” is indicated in the
Gospel of John where Jesus is said to be God's only (uovoyevt,) Son (John
1:14, 18; 3:16). Similarly, Jesus’ filial address to God as his “Father” indi-
cates more than the adoptive sonship which Christians have with God.
Jesus is the Son whom the Father has “sent” (John 7:16). He is the Son in
whom there is eternal life as there is eternal life in the Father (John 5:26).

15

47:6-8; Isa. 41:21; 43:15; 44:6; Shepherd: Gen. 49:24; Psalm 23; Ezekiel 34;
Isa. 40:11). These metaphors are especially connected to the significant
theme of Israel’s expectation of a king like David

In the New Testament Christ is King and Shepherd of the new Israel.
He is the King who fulfills and consummates the line of David (King:
Matt. 21:9; 27:27-31; John 19:3, 14, 19; Shepherd: Luke 15:4-7; John
10:1-18; 1 Pet. 5:4). The Old Testament also depicts God as the Husband of
Israel (Isa. 54:5-6; Jer. 31:32; Hosea), although not so pervasively as King,
The metaphor of Husband especially depicts God in his steadfast faithful-
ness towards Israel, even when Israel is wayward. This imagery receives
its New Testament expression especially in Eph. 5:22-33, where the mar-
riage of Christ and the church is the pattern for a loving marriage between
husband and wife.

4. God as “Father.” That God is called “Father” requires a fuller dis-
cussion. In the Old Testament God's fatherhood is basic to the primary
theme of Israel as the elect “son” of God. God’s fatherhood, therefore,
denotes God as the God of grace and unmerited love. In the New Testa-
ment the designation of God as “Father” becomes pervasive and this is the
name by which Jesus, the Son of God, addresses God. The designations
“Father” and “Son" denote directly the primary relationship which exists
between God and Jesus. For that reason, already in the New Testament—
but more fully expressed in the credai and conciliar tradition of the
church—the designations “Father” and “Son” are understood to be
revealed names which refer to eternal relations within the Godhead. The
Father is God and the Son is God, within the Godhead.

Although not common, the word “father” does occur as a reference to
God in the Old Testament.?' God is the “father” of Israel by virtue of his
election of Israel to be his people. Referring to Israel's election, Moses, for
example, says: “Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and
established you?” (Deut. 32:6; see Isa. 64:8). The narrative of the election of
Abraham to be the progenitor of the chosen people and the “father of
many nations” is especially important for this theme (Gen. 17:1-9). In the
midst of peoples who had numerous female deities God calls Abram,
whose name means “exalted father’ or “the father is exalted.” It is to
Abram that God chooses to make his promise for redemption of the
nations. He therefore changes Abrams name to Abraham, “father of many
nations.” Throughout the Old Testament God is the God of Abraham, so
that God’s fatherhood of Israel is implicit in the patriarchal stories of
Israel's determinative history, even though the explicit naming of God as
Israel's “father” is relatively infrequent.

4 Deut. 32:6; Isa. 63; 16; 64:7; Jer. 34,19; Mal. 1:6; 2:10; 2 Sam, 7:14; 1 Chron. 17:13; 22:10;
28:6; Ps, 68:6; 89:27,

14

He is one with the Father (john 10:30). He is in the Father and the Father
is in him (John 10:38). He shared glory with the Father before the world
was made (John 17:5). It is evident from such passages that “Father” and
“Son” are not, so to speak, simply metaphors like King, Judge, Shepherd,
and Husband. These metaphors arise out of the history of Israel, whose
King, Judge, Shepherd, and Husband God is. God's fatherhood and God's.
sonship, however, are rooted ultimately not in his election of Israel but in
his divine being. “Father” and “Son,” therefore, designate the first and sec-
ond persons of the Trinity in relation to one another. In God fatherhood is
not extrinsic to the being of God. In him “Father” is not a title; it designates
and specifies God's personal/hypostatic reality as Father who eternally
begets his Son. Similarly, in God sonship is not extrinsic to his being. In
him “Son” is not a title; it designates and specifies his personal/hypostat-
ic reality as Son who is eternally begotten of the Father. Since the Arian
crisis of the fourth century the church has insisted that the names “Father”
and “Son” perfectly and truly correspond to the reality of the first and sec-
ond persons of the Trinity.22 God is not merely called “Father” and “Son”;
God is Father and God is Son. The trinitarian theology of the Scriptures
confessed in the creeds of the ecumenical councils requires that God be
named “Father” and “Son.”**

5. Language Concerning the Holy Spirit. Some have suggested that
while masculine language is biblically required of the Father and the Son,
the Holy Spirit may be regarded as a feminine reality and therefore femi-
nine nomenclature is permissible. Those who make this suggestion often
base it on the grammatical gender of “spirit” in the Hebrew (™7, ruach),

2 The church has always understood that the divine “fatherhood” and “sonship” are
both like and unlike that of the creature. Crucial for the understanding of divine “father-
hood” was that “fatherhood” was intrinsic, by nature, and personal. Crucial for the under-
standing of divine “sonship” was similarly that it was intrinsic, by nature, and personal
Such “fatherhood” and “sonship” was like that of humans in that it was by nature, but
unlike that of humans in that it was intrinsic. Therefare, Athanasius can argue that the Son
is Son of God in the sense that Isaac was son of Abraham, “for what is naturally begotten
from any one and does not accrue to him from without, that in the nature of things is a son,
and that is what the name implies” (De Decretis, 10, Nivente arut Post—Nicene Fathers, 4:156).
Yet, “men’s generation is in one way, and the Son is from the Father in another.” The gen-
eration of men is according to will, involves partition of substance, and results in a distinct
and separate other. For these reasons, among humans, fathers of sons are themselves sons:
of fathers, and sons of fathers can themselves become fathers of sons. However, in God gen-
eration is according to nature, involves the communication of substance, and results in
another who shares in one, undivided substance. Therefore, in God the Father is and can be
“Father of One Only Son” (De Devretis, 11).

® This trinitarian understanding of God is ecumenically expressed in the words of the
Nicene Creed. For primary reference, see Athanasius. Contra Arianos, 121-22; De Decretis,
11; Gregory Nazianzus, Oration, 28. For an excellent discussion, using Athanasius and
Hilary of Poitiers as primary resources, see Thomas F, Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The
Erangetical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), esp
47-75.

16