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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.