WHO IS THE FATHER OF JESUS? CAN I GET TO KNOW HIM?
God is the Father of Jesus Christ—and you can get to know Him!
The people in the stories of the Bible know God. The Bible makes it very clear that God can be known.
The Bible tells us about people who live in the land of Israel, who are descendants of a man named Jacob, whose name later changes to Israel. These people are the “children of Israel”—also known as the Jews. God talks to these people, and they talk to God. He is open to them. Some of the prophets see Him.
The Bible’s story is rooted in history, starting at roughly 4,000 B.C. The children of Israel did exist back then, and they still exist today, and they did not exist in a vacuum. All around them were people of other nations and cultures—such as the Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures.
In the Old Testament, God instructs the children of Israel to follow a sacrificial mode of worship that involves offering animal sacrifices at a designated place and in a specific manner. The priests take the blood of the animals and sprinkle the blood on their altar. God tells them that sprinkling the blood on the altar will cover their sins (their acts of disobedience and rebellion) from His sight.
God is perfect and holy, but the children of Israel are often disobedient. Many times they do not do what God wants them to do. But if their acts of disobedience are covered with a proper blood sacrifice, then God is willing to talk to them, and they can talk to Him. The Old Testament describes an open and loving relationship between God and these people. The relationship is often strained because of their disobedience, but it is always open to those who will obey.
History tells us that the people in the surrounding cultures wanted to know God. The Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman philosophers taught about their conception of God, and people wrote down their teachings. Much of this literature still exists today. The written material clearly shows us that they know there is a God. They can sense Him. And they know that God is the Creator. They can perceive that.
But their writings also show that there is a block in their perception. There is a separation, a screen—something that keeps them from God. There is a place in their concept of God where they cannot go.
It is important to remember that the people in these surrounding cultures were not following the sacrificial system that God had established for the children of Israel. Their acts of disobedience were not covered from God’s sight. They were trying to approach a holy God with their sins in full view—and this is not possible to do. These people, though, perhaps did not understand that their sins were uncovered and that they could not approach a holy God. They thought that the block from God was because of what God was like.
Across these cultures, the description of God in the literature is basically the same. The names that the people use for God vary among the cultures, but the structure that they perceive in God is the same.
For ultimate Divinity, for God Himself, the people perceive a vertical stack of three levels—three different gods with different names. The literature shows that the people can somewhat understand the lower two levels (the lower two gods), but they cannot grasp the top level.
The third level down:They describe the third god down with words meaning SOUL, and the various cultures give it various names. They believe that this SOUL permeates the earth and all of the universe and that it makes everything alive. This is the life-force. They believe that the earth is so full of this SOUL that the earth itself is a living creature or maybe part of God. They believe that this third level is uncreated and eternal in existence.
Much of their description of this third level matches the Bible’s description of subtle energy. The Bible tells us that God creates an energetic substance as the first step of His creative acts, and He whirls this energy out. He then speaks and unfolds from this energy the rest of the created substances. This energy permeates and animates the created substances, and at all times, God keeps the energy empowered.
When God creates this energy, He energetically imprints it with His characteristics, and as a result, the energy very closely resembles Him. Because this energy has God’s characteristics imprinted into it and thus resembles God, and because God constantly empowers it, people have often been confused as to whether this energy is a created energy or whether it is God Himself. The ancient philosophers describe it as all a part of God.
The philosophers describe the second god down with words meaning MIND, INTELLECT, WISDOM, and WORD (in Greek, the LOGOS.) This is the part of God that communicates. They all acknowledge that God can communicate. This is also the part of God that creates everything. The functions of communication and creation are on this second level. And they believe that this second level is uncreated and eternal in existence.
The top level:The top level is the ultimate in Unity and Goodness. They use names for this level that mean the ONE and the GOOD. They believe that this top level is what generated the second level of MIND, and that this top level and the second level together generated the third level of SOUL
The philosophers perceived that this top level was the source of all, but they could not describe it. They could not comprehend it. It seemed to be hiding from them. They sensed that God was more than communication, creation, and the life-force, but they could not understand it. The philosophers sensed a block to this top level, and they determined that the block was there because the top level was something beyond comprehension. This level was so wonderful that it could not be conceived and articulated.
The philosophers developed a technique of describing this top level by saying what it was not. For example, they said it is not MIND, and it is not SOUL. It is not accessible. It is not describable in words. This is called “negative theology”—trying to describe God by saying what He is not—attempting to create some kind existence in whatever area is left after they negate everything else.
This three-tier description of God—this vertical stack of three gods—is completely contrary to the description of God in the Old Testament. It in no way matches how the Jews conceive of God and how they interact with Him. But this three-tier description of God surrounds the people of Israel, both in the Old and the New Testaments. And in the New Testament, the message of Jesus Christ will go out into these surrounding cultures, and the proponents of the message of Jesus will have to address this three-tier belief and refute it. They will have to challenge this belief and call it incorrect, because when talking about Jesus, it is necessary to talk about God, the Father of Jesus, and a proper description of God is very important.
For example, twice in the New Testament Book of Acts, we can read the Apostle Paul's discussion with people in Greco-Roman cities, and we can see that he refutes this three-tier conception and combines all three roles into the description of the one God. (See Acts 14:8-18 for Paul's discussion with the people in the city of Lystra, in the area of central Anatolia, and Acts 17:16-31 for his presentation to the people in Athens, Greece.)
When speaking to the people in Athens, Paul acknowledges that through the ages, the people have not known this God. The people have not been following the sacrificial system set up in the Old Testament, and thus it is not possible for these people to approach a holy God. But now things are different, Paul tells them, and because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, people can repent of their sins and find forgiveness. And this repentance is for the purpose of helping their conception of God:
"Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." (Acts 17:29-31.)
God is not divided into layers. He does not consist of a vertical stack—or a horizontal row. God is a unified whole.
This website affirms that ALL OF GOD is the Father of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the mingling of all of God and a human mother. He became the sacrifice that was needed for God to forgive our sins, so that we could have access to and open communication with God.