| The Lord's Prayer, Part 3: Our Father |
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| Written by David Lawrence |
| Monday, August 01 2011 00:00 |
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The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father
We noted in the last devotional that Jesus began the prayer He taught His disciples to pray with the address of “Our Father…” The use of the familiar address of Father by God’s people was a shocking departure from the traditional forms. Israelites did not view God as Father but as the Holy Creator and Deliverer of the nation. But Jesus also taught them to address God as their Father.Scholars have pointed out that Jesus was not including himself in the prayer, and that in other passages He would use “your Father” or “My Father,” but not “Our Father.” That interpretation would underscore the fact that He sustained a different relationship to God as the only-begotten Son of God, and the disciples would be sons of God only by adoption and that they were born of natural means according to the flesh. That interpretation has some merit, but like most speculative interpretations of Scripture, one should avoid being dogmatic on the subject. He may well have meant to include Himself in the prayer, for disciples are still brothers and sisters of Christ by God’s grace. What is without doubt is the relational nature of this adjective pronoun. God is not just THE Holy God, He is OUR Father. He claims us as His children. He brings us near to Him in Christ. He has adopted us according to his eternal counsel in Christ. We can claim God not only, as did the Jews, as our God or the God of our nation, but as our personal Father. Just as we had fathers in the flesh who loved us, claimed us, protected us, nurtured us, and cared for us, we also have a heavenly Father who all the more loves, claims, protects, nurtures, and cares for us. And He has loved us in His Son before He created the worlds. We are His own predestined children by His own eternal purpose, as Paul explains in Eph. 1. In reality, what greater and more comforting truth can we cherish than that we are children of God? God claims us as His. What an honor! What meaning and purpose that truth adds to our lives! He is Our Father! |
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