The Old Testament God as Father: in the Book of Job (Old Testament Continuity)

The topic of Old Testament/New Testament continuity and discontinuity I find interesting, as I notice more of the continuity that is there.  From my recent readings and audio sermon series, a few observations regarding the concept of God, Our Father, as revealed in the Old Testament.

That God, the first person of the Trinity is our Father (in a personal, individual sense), in the New Testament is clear and undisputed, starting with the gospel accounts and the Lord’s prayer.  Yet today some teach that this is strictly a New Testament understanding, completely unknown before Jesus expounded the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer.  The reasoning here is that the Old Testament’s only explicit references are to God as Father in a general, national sense; therefore Old Testament believers had incomplete notions about God and related to Him in some true ways but not as we would in this New “enlightened” age.  Here also is the logical fallacy of looking for a truth to be taught explicitly and directly, and in particular words—and if not found, that voids the very idea itself.

Online articles have responded to this, pointing out the many references to God as Father in the Old Testament (and the clear meaning behind it all).  Al Mohler, in his book The Apostles’ Creed: Discovering Authentic Christianity in an Age of Counterfeits, writing about the phrase ‘God, the Father Almighty’ observes:

The revelation of God as “Father” has roots in the Old Testament, where God is described as the Father of Israel (Deut. 32:6).  The fatherly love of God is also present throughout the Old Testament.  The prophet Hosea spoke of God as a Father carrying Israel as a child (Hos. 11:1-4), and David described God as a “Father of the fatherless” (Ps. 68:5).

From Danny Hyde’s sermon series on the book of Job, Whom Do I Trust? (see this previous post), comes another interesting example.  After the many chapters in the book of Job, the three cycles of speeches from Job and his friends, God finally answers Job, in a ‘wrestling match’ of wits.  ‘Job, you think you can be God?  Okay – where were you when ….?  And several more chapters of questions for Job to respond to.  The analogy here is like that of parents with their children.  God is here dealing with Job as a father with his son, and like parents do with their children.  When the kids get uppity and start thinking they can do everything, the parent responds with this same type of attitude:  okay, you think you can do all this, then you (the child) go ahead – you go to the grocery store, you carry in all the groceries; you pack the towels and everything needed for the trip to the beach.

Yes, the New Testament clearly reveals more directly the truth about God as our personal Father, but God is the same and His way of relating to His people has always been the same.  Though the Old Testament does not explicitly teach the doctrine of God as our Father, or the doctrine of our adoption, yet the concepts are clearly there, if shown indirectly through the historical narratives of the lives of the saints and in the wisdom literature such as the Psalms, and even the book of Job.

Christ’s Burial and the Apostles’ Creed

Continuing through the 1689 Exposition series, the in-depth study of chapter 8 of the confession (Christ’s mediatorial work) includes a lesson on the question of Christ’s burial (available here) and time in the grave, specifically looking at the issue of the Apostles’ Creed (see this recent post that also mentions the Apostles’ Creed) and its statement that “he (Christ) descended into hell.”

This statement did not appear in the earlier forms of the Apostles’ Creed, but showed up by the 4th century.  Later Christians have considered the importance of this early creed, desiring to show the continuation of the orthodox faith from its early history — and have thus attempted to explain what the early church meant by this statement.  This lesson in the 1689 series mentions six “interpretations” of what was meant by “he descended into hell”:

1. Rufinus  – the first interpretation, from A.D. 390:  it means “he descended into the grave, the abode/realm of the dead.”  Yet this is redundant, as the previous phrase has already told us that “he was buried.”
2. John Calvin – the view described in the Heidelberg catechism.  Jesus suffered hell on the cross; the sufferings, felt in His soul, an infinite amount of wrath in a finite period of time.  Certainly this is true, but does not fit with what the Apostles’ Creed meant—the sequence is wrong.  If they had meant this, the line would have been earlier in the creed, instead of after the part about being crucified, buried and dead.
3. The view of the Westminster confession and the 1689 London Baptist Confession, also stated in the Westminster Larger Catechism:  “He remained in the state of the dead; the realm of the dead.” Again, redundant to say buried and descended into being dead.
4. The “Roman Catholic” view, which is also commonly taught in Arminian Baptist churches: this view expands into much speculation, though at least they come up with scripture references, as for instance the story in Luke 16 of the rich man and Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom.  Here is the idea that Christ during this time went in His soul (not His body) into the holding place where OT saints were waiting for the application of redemptive work; He preached the gospel to them (“got them fully saved”) and then brought them out from there into heaven.  Other proof-texts for this view include Ephesians 4:8-9 – “He descended into the lower regions” (some think this means hell, below Earth, instead of the Earth itself).  A better way to understand this, though, is the contrast between the lower regions as the earth, versus the higher regions (ascending to heaven).  Additional texts for this view include 1 Peter 3:18-20 and 1 Peter 4:4-6, and the above lesson explains the supposed idea here as well as other ways to understand these texts.
5. The Lutheran view: Jesus went to hell, to the place of torment for the damned – not to suffer, but to preach judgment upon them and declare His victory and Lordship, as somehow an inauguration of His victory march. The problem here is complete speculation with no proof from scripture, plus the fact that Christ’s burial was part of His humiliation; this was before the resurrection, and not at all the time of His exaltation.
6. The Anglican view: Jesus went down to the place of the dead, and gave a fuller explanation of the gospel to the OT saints who were waiting there. Again, this is only speculation, with no proof from scripture or any indication that the writers of the apostles’ creed believed this.

As Hodgins observed, in quoting Wayne Grudem on this subject, certainly we should appreciate the Apostles’ creed as an early statement from the historic church.  But the historical importance alone is not a good reason for “keeping” this phrase and seeking to somehow explain it away.  We don’t really know exactly what the early church meant by it, and a survey of early church history does tell us that the early church fathers were wrong on some of their theology.  This is certainly brought out in the RTS Christian History series, including the fact that understanding of the Trinity, and even the nature of the Father and Son, was not fully developed until the Arian controversy in the mid-4th century; before that time, even Tertullian held onto some idea of the Son being subordinate to the Father and just didn’t develop his thoughts to the full level that is now considered an orthodox view of the Trinity.