The Fatherhood of God is the Pinnacle of all relationships. It is what makes inheritance and reproduction possible. The highest revelation of the devil is as a deceiver. The highest revelation of God is as a Father. In all of experience, there is no relationship more transformative, more intimate, or more eternal than God being our Father. Not merely a cosmic Creator. Not just a distant Sovereign. Not only a Transcendent Being. Father. This relationship is not symbolic. It is real. It is eternal. It is heavenly DNA. The proof of this fellowship — the seal of this covenant — is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
When Jesus walked the earth, He did something radical. See, God had mentioned that He was a Father several times in the Old Testament but it was never a continuous personal reality to any individual. Jesus called God Father over 165 times in the 4 Gospels. He introduced a relationship with God that no Old Testament prophet had ever dared to define so personally: Abba, Father. Not just “God of all Creation” or “God of Israel” but Father. In fact, when He taught His disciples to pray, the very first line was, “Our Father who art in Heaven…” It was a revelation of identity that we are not talking to a Wind or Invisible Being; we are talking to a Person who is really our Father.
To know God as Father is to know your origin, your identity, your inheritance, and your eternal home. A Father doesn’t just give commands; He gives life. You don’t only serve Him; you have access to Him. It’s not a formal relationship. It is a cordial one with all due respect, love and affection. This is the relationship God the Father has with God the Son. We were created to participate in the relationship that exists within the Trinity.
Jesus: God the Son, Eternally from the Father
Now here lies the mystery that grounds this revelation: Jesus, who is Himself God, is called the Son of God. Why? Not because He was created — for He existed from eternity. Not because He was born later — for He is the Word that was with God and was God. He is eternally begotten, not made, as the Church has confessed for centuries. If you believe Jesus was created, you are not even a Christian. This Sonship speaks not of time, but of relationship. He is God the Son — not merely in title, but in nature.
He is the Son and therefore, everything is done through Him, by Him and for Him. He is the visible image of the invisible God. He did not become the Son when He was born in Bethlehem. Yes, a time came when He was begotten in the flesh as the Son of Man but He always pre-existed as the Son of God. He has always been the Son, because God has always been the Father. The sonship of men is a replica of the Sonship of Christ with God, not vice versa. Giving birth to a son makes us understand the eternal relationship that exists between God the Father and God the Son.
The Original and Replica of Fatherhood & Sonship
You cannot be a father without a child. You cannot be a master without a servant. You cannot be an employer without employees. Proof of your fatherhood is your reproduction of sons. Herein lies the depth of this truth: God has always been Father, not because He is the Father of Spirits, but is God the Father in the Trinity. That means He was Father before anything was created. He is the only Being in the entire universe with 3 persons so it becomes difficult to understand the Triune Nature of God. The Father is not the head of the Trinity. Remember that the Father and Son existed before there were fathers and sons. Our replica of having fathers and sons does not and cannot fully depict the relationship between the Father and Son.
For instance, the Trinity does not have or need a mother. Also, in ours, the father is always higher than the son although the son grows to also become a father. A foreshadow is never a full depiction. The Trinity is not a hierarchy of importance, but a perfect unity of Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — co-equal in glory, distinct in person. Therefore, not every aspect of our replica is exhibited in the Trinity and vice versa.
Also, even the arrangement of their names – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit – is simply because of how they were revealed to us. It is strategically and intentionally arranged that way but it has no ranking or hierarchy within. God the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, and the Holy Spirit was poured out when Jesus left the earth. Immediately we begin to think that God the Father is greater than God the Son, that means we make God the Holy Spirit the smallest of them all. That is not just a bad idea o. It’s an erroneous and evil one. How about when Jesus said the Father is greater than He, when He walked the earth? You’re right to ask for precision. Let me clarify.
Is the Father Greater than the Son?
When Jesus said, “The Father is greater than I”, He was not denying His divinity or eternal equality with the Father, but speaking in the context of His incarnation—as the Son who had taken on flesh and entered into the limitations of human life. As at the time He hadn’t died and resurrected, the Bible said He was even made a little lower than the angels as clearly written in Hebrews 2:9. He suffered every affliction known to man and had to fully rely on the Holy Spirit. Though He was God, He did not think that by force He should try to remain equal with God. Instead of this, of His own free will He gave up all He had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. Imagine God being hungry, tired, travelling on two legs, tempted, surprised etc.
He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death— His death on the cross. In becoming man, He willingly accepted a lowered position (not a lesser nature), humbling Himself to obey the Father’s will in the work of redemption. The statement reflects the functional distinction within the Godhead during His earthly mission, not an ontological difference. As God, He is equal with the Father. He was fully and truly God as He walked upon the earth as the incarnate Son sent into the world. However, because He laid down many of His God-abilities so He could carry our burdens, He acknowledged the Father as greater in position and authority within the redemptive order.
📖 “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” – Matthew 3:17
In this relationship, we see eternal love. The Father loves the Son. The Son honors the Father. The Spirit reveals and glorifies the Son. There is no competition in the Godhead. Only love, only joy, only truth.
The Son of God & the Son of Man
When Jesus is called the Son of God, it affirms both His divinity and His mission. What He did can only be done by Him. He is the Son of God as God — and He is also the Son of God as Man, born of a woman, born under the Law, to fulfill the promise made to David. The Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of men will become the sons of God.
📖 “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” – John 1:14
He is not God pretending to be man. He is God made man, who took on flesh and yet remained divine — the perfect Son, the obedient Lamb, the image of the invisible Father. By Him, we understand what God intended when He created man. Through Him, we understand who God is. By His Sonship, we are drawn into this family. He reconciles God with man, fully representing God and embodying the fullness of the original intention of man as planned in Genesis 1:26.
God the Father is the eternal God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the only begotten Son from eternity, shared perfect fellowship with the Father before the foundation of the world. Yet in love, Christ humbled Himself and took on flesh, becoming the Son of Man, so that through His life, death, and resurrection, He might bring many sons to glory. By uniting Himself with humanity, He opened the way for us to share in His relationship with the Father—no longer distant or estranged, but reconciled and adopted. Now, through Him, we can boldly call God our Father, for the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has become, through grace, our God and our Father (John 20:17), drawing us into the same covenantal love and divine fellowship that the Son has eternally enjoyed.
Abba! Father!
You can know God as a Judge and still be lost. You can know Him as Creator and remain outside the garden. You can even fear Him as Almighty, yet never know Him as Abba. But when you know Him as Father — truly know Him — everything changes.
The Spirit of Sonship is what confirms our adoption. It is what makes us heirs with Christ, co-seated with Him in the heavens. It is what heals our orphanhood and silences the lie that we are abandoned. It is what gives us boldness to pray, to hope, to wait — because we are not begging strangers. We are coming to our Father.
In ancient Jewish culture, adoption was not a common legal practice as it was in Roman society, but the concept of being chosen and placed into a familial relationship held deep covenantal significance, especially through inheritance and lineage. Unlike modern adoption—which often involves bringing an unrelated child into a new family out of compassion—the biblical idea, particularly in the New Testament, emphasizes the act of God legally placing us as sons with full rights and privileges. Paul, writing to both Jews and Gentiles familiar with Roman law, uses the term “adoption” (huiothesia) to express the profound truth that, through Christ, we are not just forgiven but brought into God’s family as full heirs (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:4–7). This spiritual adoption is not based on need or pity, but on divine purpose and covenantal grace—granting us the same status and access to the Father as His own Son.
This sits at the heart of the Gospel: that God is not only holy and powerful — He is Father. And through Jesus the Son, He is your Father too.
