Access To The President

If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is.   John 14:7

It is very significant that when Jesus spoke about the Father, he regularly said “my Father”: “There is more than enough room in my Father’s home” (John 14:2). “When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (14:20).

Jesus distinguished clearly between his relationship with the Father and the disciples’ relationship with the Father: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father” (John 20:17). Why didn’t he just say “our Father”?

There’s only one occasion when Christ used the phrase “our Father,” and that was when he was teaching his disciples how they should pray (see Matthew 6:9-13). Christ never referred to his relationship with the Father and the disciples’ relationship with the Father in the same way—the distinction is always preserved.

If you wanted to see the president of the United States, it would be hard because he’s not easily accessible. But there are options. If you knew his wife, she could help you. If you knew his father or mother or one of his brothers, they might be able to arrange a meeting. If you knew the secretary of state or the chief of staff, he or she might grant you access. The reason there are many ways to the president is that there are many people who are close to him and who know him.

But who knows God the Father? Jesus makes it clear—no one is close to the Father except the Son. He’s the only one who has ever seen the Father, and he knows the Father: “No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us” (John 1:18).

The good news is not that God is everyone’s Father. The good news is that Christ knows God as his Father, and for that reason, he is able to bring us to know God as our Father too. “But when the right time came, God sent his Son . . . to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children” (Galatians 4:4-5).

For further reading, see Galatians 4