Was God Revealed As “Father” Only In The New Testament?

Some Christians assert that in the Old Testament, God was never known as “Father” until Jesus came to earth and revealed him as such. But is this assertion true? Were the people of God really oblivious to the truth that God was their heavenly Father before Jesus came into the scene? I do not think so.

First of all, there are many passages in the Old Testament which testify to the fact that the people of God knew him as father, and considered themselves his children. Here are a few examples:

• In Exodus 4:22–23, God tells Pharaoh: “Israel is my son, my firstborn, and I say to you, release my son so that he could serve me!”
• In Isaiah 1:2, speaking of Israel, God says: “I have made great and raised sons, and they have rebelled against me!”
• In Isaiah 63:16, the righteous remnant of Israel says to God: “You are our father. If Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not recognise us, you, Jehovah, are our father!”
• In Malachi 1:6, God says: “If I am a father, where is my honour?” In order for God to challenge the Israelites in this way, it must have been that they acknowledged him as “father.”
• In 1 Chronicles 29:10, David prayed to God: “Blessed are you, Jehovah, God of Israel, our father from eternity and unto eternity!”

Probably one of the more prominent passages which might come to mind is Malachi 2:10:

Malachi 2:10 Is there not one father to us all? Has not one God created us?
Why is a man treacherously dealt with by his brother, to profane the covenant of our fathers?

According to the parallelism, it is indisputable that the “one father” here is the “one God” who “created us.” This is none other than Jehovah himself.

Some might argue that this fatherhood of God here is based upon creation; in other words, God is the father of every human being only because he created them. However, that misses the point which Malachi was trying to make. Notice that this creation which Malachi speaks of here is the basis upon which he exhorts his audience—the people of Israel—that they should not be dealing treacherously with each other. He reminds them they are brothers; not just because they are descended from the same ancestry, but because they all have “one father”—Jehovah God himself.

The creation which Malachi speaks of here is a covenantal creation. In other words, Israel is said to be “created” by God when he adopted them as his covenant people. Consider the following passage:

Deuteronomy 32:6 Is it not to Jehovah you reward this, O people foolish and not wise? Is he not your father? He acquired you, he made you and he established you!

In verse 6, we see Jehovah being referred to as the “father” of Israel. Why? Because he “made” them. The Hebrew verb “to make” here is synonymous with the verb “to create” in Malachi 2:10. Later on in verse 18, God is referred to the one who “begot” Israel, and “gave birth” to them. Israel was “born of God” in that sense when he adopted them as his own children. This “adoption” is what the Apostle Paul talks about in Romans 9:4, where he says that “to them [the Israelites] belong the adoption” (ESV).

The prophet Isaiah also appeals to this concept of covenantal creation and fatherhood. In Isaiah 34:1, he referred to God as the “creator” and “former” of Israel. In verse 10, God reiterates that he is the “creator of Israel.” Notice how God’s covenantal creation of Israel leads naturally into his fatherhood over them. In verse 6, God refers to individual Israelites as “my sons” and “my daughters,” implying that he is indeed their father! In Isaiah 45:11, God again implies his fatherhood over Israel in the context of his covenantal creatorship of them: “Thus said Jehovah, holy one of Israel and his former, ‘Ask me the signs about my sons, and about the work of my hands.’ ” In 64:8, remnant Israel prays, “And now, Jehovah, you are our father; we are the clay and you are our former, and we all are the work of your hand!” Again, notice the relation between God as covenantal creator and therefore as father.

Once we grasp this concept of covenantal creation and fatherhood in the Old Testament, the fatherhood of God in the New Testament starts to make more sense. The Israelites, the Old Covenant people of God, were the prefiguring shadow of the New Covenant people of God. When we became part of the New Covenant, we became “new creations” (2 Corinthians 5:17) in Christ. We were “born again” of God (John 3:3, 5–8) and received the “adoption” to become “children of God” (Romans 8:15, 23; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5).

When Jesus came to earth and talked to his people about God as their “father,” he was not teaching them anything new that they did not already know. Rather, he was drawing upon their prior knowledge of God as father in the Old Testament Scriptures, in order to bring that concept of covenantal creation and fatherhood to its logical fullness. He was reminding them of their privileged status as the covenant people of God.