I'm not God's gender? - Mary Kassian on women approaching God as Father

Does every child need a father? Increasingly, our society's answer to this question is no, or at least, not necessarily.

The most important absence our society must confront is not the absence of fathers, but the absence of our belief in fathers.* Few idea shifts in this century have had such enormous implications. At stake is who we are as male and female, what type of society we will become, and, even more importantly, the way we understand and relate to God.

God is our Father. Why do we call him that? God is not male. He is a spirit. And does not the Bible use a number of maternal metaphors to speak of how God relates to his people. Did he not give birth to the Jewish nation (Deuteronomy 32.18)? Does he not have compassion on us like a mother has compassion on the baby at her breast (Isaiah 49.13)? Does he not nurse, nurture, and comfort us like a mother does (Psalm 131.2; Isaiah 66.13)? Because so many women, particularly those who come into Christianity from non-religious backgrounds, wrestle with the idea of addressing God with masculine pronouns, shouldn't we refer to God as Mother, or at least as Mother and Father? Why do we address God as Father?

What God wants

The first and most obvious reason is this: that is what he wants to be called. The First Person of the Trinity has many names - Almighty One, Creator, Most High, Holy Holy Holy, Rock, the Great I AM - but when Jesus came to tear away the veil he revealed God as Father. Jesus used the word Father more than any other description or name. And he taught us to address God in the same way: 'Our Father who is in heaven . . .' We address God as Father because he has revealed himself to us as Father and not as Mother. And although we must not ignore the beautiful, tender, nurturing aspects of his character, we must remember that the vast majority of metaphors in Scripture speak of how God relates to us as a Father.

Father is a term that has specific meaning. It is not an abstract word. It is concrete and personal. It indicates that we are speaking of someone who is real, someone who has a distinct personality, and someone with whom we can interact and relate. I may not know how to relate to an Almighty One, a Most High, or to the Great I AM, because I have not met anybody like that. I have no frame of reference to do so. But relating to a Father? That's different. Whether good or bad, the word Father means something very real to me. Father does not denote a metaphysical power, or a cosmic aura. It means a person with a distinct personality and characteristics. It means someone.

Best description

The term Father is also the term that best describes God's relationships - who he is in relationship to others. God relates to his Son, Jesus, and to us, his children, as Father. The term implies family interaction. It implies intimacy. It implies certain roles. The father is the pace-setter. He is the initiator, visionary, boundary-setter and final authority. He loves us, protects us, is committed to us, and provides for us. The implications of God as Father are staggering! Having God as my Father means that he is a personal being, and not an impersonal force. It means that I can get to know him. It means that I can talk to him and interact with him as his child. It means that I come to him for direction and to have my needs met.

Father is the most significant name of the God of the Bible. It is the name that sets Christianity apart from all the other religions of the world. Christ's whole purpose was to reveal the Father to us and to bring us into the Father's family. Jesus said: 'No one comes to the Father but through Me' (John 14.6). This is the essence of Christianity. Therefore, if we do not know and relate to God as Father, we do not really understand the gospel.

J.I. Packer said: 'You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one's holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.'

Fundamental need

We live in a culture of fatherlessness. And even for those women who have had fathers present in their lives, those relationships have often been more negative than positive. But the need to be well-fathered is a fundamental need of the human heart. It is a need that was carved into our spirits by our Creator - the heavenly Father, the true Father - who alone defines that fatherhood means and what fatherhood was meant to be.

The human need for being fathered is deep. Our spirits long to be fathered by the father of our dreams - our perfect heavenly Father.

The Bible teaches that when we are adopted into God's family, we receive the Holy Spirit as proof of the adoption. The Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of Sonship (Galatians 4.6), the Spirit of Adoption (Romans 8.15), and the Spirit of your father (Matthew 10.20). This Spirit lives in our hearts. And it is this Spirit who calls and drives us to intimacy with the Father, causing us to cry out Abba, Father! 'For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God' (Romans 8.15-16).

'Abba!'

Did you notice the first phrase of Romans 8.15? 'For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear . . .' Some women are so afraid of God our Father. They are afraid that their heavenly Father is going to abandon them just like their earthly father did. They are afraid that their heavenly Father is going to belittle, yell at, or strike them, just like their earthly father did. That is not the Holy Spirit in them speaking. The Holy Spirit in every Christian cries out to connect with the Father: 'Abba! Father!'

The verb cry indicates a spontaneous expression of intensity, full of emotional depth and longing. It is used in its present tense. Literally it means 'your spirit is even now crying out . . .' This speaks of the unrestrainable heart cry of everyone controlled by the Spirit to be close to the Father's heart. Being close to him is a strong, desperate need.

Have you been influenced?

So although the need for being fathered may be denied on an intellectual level, the need to know God as Father is deep and real. If that need is not met, a believer will feel restless, unsettled and frustrated and will lack the peace and joy promised her. Therefore, godly older women must teach the younger women how to relate to God as daughters in an intimate, personal and concrete way. Part of this process requires that a woman examine her relationship with her earthly father to determine whether his shortcomings have negatively influenced her concept of the perfect Fatherhood of God.

Does every child need a father? Though our society's answer to this question is no, or not necessarily, the Christian answer is yes. Even now, our heavenly Father's heart is turned towards his daughters. Will you turn your heart - and help other women turn their hearts - toward him.

Mary Kassian is a wife, mother of three sons, conference speaker and the author of Women, Creation, and the Fall, and The Feminist Gospel.

This article is from the Spring 2000 issue of the Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

* J.I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 1973), p.182.