Names of God

O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand– Isaiah 64:8

God is the father of your very existence. You would not be here if it were not for his creating, sustaining power. You enjoy what Sinclair Ferguson calls the “staggering privilege” of being.

It is for this reason the psalmist writes, “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker” (95:6). All creation owes God praise and submission, because of his unique and august position as our maker.

Our obligation to our maker is so plain and so complete that Isaiah pronounces a curse upon all those who question God’s authority: “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! …Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou?” (Isaiah 45:9-10).

But God is also the father of your salvation, if you are one of his children. Have you felt the Spirit of God drawing you to God in repentance and faith? If so, then your situation is as Paul describes in Romans 8:15: “ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

Jesus encourages those who are adopted into the family of God to address him in prayer in this warm and intimate language: “our Father, which art in heaven.” Even more than the staggering privilege of existence is the astonishing favor of salvation! By the perfect work of Christ on the cross we are enabled to call the God of the universe “Father.”