IN their occasional, or more frequent contact with modern religious leaders, our readers must have noticed how prevalent belief in the universal fatherhood of God has become. This is very noticeable at funerals and other occasions. At such gatherings the minister is the spokesman of the people, and on behalf of the people assembled he addresses God as “Our Heavenly Father.” The departed, no matter what kind of life he spent in this world is referred to as, “Thy dear servant who is now with Thyself,” while his surviving relatives are spoken of as “Thy children,” no matter how far they might be in their practice from what God’s Word requires of them. We remember with pain one such instance where the dead man never darkened a church door for many years, and shortened his own life through drunkenness, while the father was so much under the influence of strong drink that he could not stand unsupported at the side of his son’s coffin during the service, yet the minister who conducted that service evidently felt no qualms of conscience when, in addressing the Most High, he referred to both father and son as “Thy servants,” and “Thy dear children.” We cannot conceive how any, with an open Bible, could be deceived by such things, yet it is a fact that many place such value on prayers of that kind that, no matter how irreligious their life had been, when death comes into the home they must have a religious service both at the house and at the grave, and are quite satisfied when they and their departed relative are spoken of as God’s children.
It is true that all are God’s children from the point of view that He is their Creator. “Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.” Psalm c. 3. In this respect Paul, in addressing the people of Athens, quotes approvingly the words of one of the Greek poets, “For we are also his offspring.” Acts xvii. 28. Yet the very fact that these Athenians, like the other Gentiles, were thinking that the Godhead was “like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device,” shows that the mere fact of their being the offspring of God did not entitle them to a place with Him throughout eternity. In the same sense the devil and the fallen angels are the offspring of God yet we read that He has them “reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day.” Thus the Word of God clearly shows that God being our Father, in the sense that He created us, is not going to save us, and that any hope based on this view, or any other view of the universal fatherhood of God which men may embrace is but a figment of the imagination and a deception from Satan.
This universal fatherhood of God which has become, almost universally, the creed of modern religious circles, though so pleasing to poor sinners, shelters many soul-ruining heresies under its cloak. There is in it a denial of the Fall of Man. If all are “God’s dear children” what has become of sin? If this Holy Being who is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity,” can be called “Father” by the whole human race, surely neither original sin nor actual transgression has any existence. Alas! the contrary is too apparent, for as we multiply expressions which teach the universal fatherhood of God, we multiply evidences that we are fallen in Adam. Again it denies the need of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus. If all are in a position to call God their Father there is no separation between them and God, and they can approach God without a Mediator. It denies that they are the objects of God’s wrath, and represents them in the way in which the elder son in the parable of the prodigal represents himself, “Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment.” It also denies what the Scriptures plainly reveal that there are two classes of people in the world and that there is a separation between them in this world, that that separation shall be seen at the Judgment Seat, and throughout eternity. Lastly, the doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God, leads to the view, which is so largely put in practice in our day, that all have a right to church privileges. Men may live in open ungodliness, and neglect the public and private worship of God; they may frequent the theatre, picture-house and dancing hall; they may often be heard singing vain songs, but never heard singing the praises of God; they may vie with each other in their uttering of fearful oaths at the drunkard’s table; they may continue all their life to walk in “lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries,” and no kirk-session holding the universal fatherhood of God, can consistently claim to keep them back from the Lord’s Table, for in spite of all these things they are still “God’s dear children” and as such they have a right to be at His Table. Thus we find hundreds and thousands of poor deluded men and women in Scotland to-day sitting down at a communion table to eat and drink damnation to themselves.
The Bible, however, brings before us a fatherhood of God in relation to His creatures which is not universal, that is, God is the Father of all who are true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. This infers that they have been separated from the rest of mankind, through having heard the voice of the Son of God, accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit in their effectual calling. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” II. Cor. vi., 17, 18. Those who have in this way heard the voice of the Son of God live a life which is different from the life led by the rest of mankind. They have ceased to trust in themselves, and have learned by a bitter experience “that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Jer. x. 23. This throws them on God Himself with the prayer of one of old, “Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth and teach me.” Psalm xxv. 4, 5. They will not thus plead in vain, for, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” His ear is open to their cry and He is ever ready to answer their prayer; and the way He leads them in His own way proves them to be His children in whom He delights, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God.” Rom. viii. 14. These are a people who have the great—the inestimable privilege of being adopted into the family of God, who have Christ as their Elder Brother, and who have received the Spirit of adoption which enables them to cry, “Abba, Father.”
Those who hold the doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God appear to be oblivious to the sinfulness and danger of holding that doctrine. They are fathering on God what He will not acknowledge, and deceiving poor sinners into believing that they are God’s children, and that all will be well with them at last. Thus instead of embracing many opportunities of being watchmen for souls, they are helping poor sinners on in the way to eternal ruin. God’s favourable dealings in providence with the unregenerate are taken by themselves and their guides as evidences of His fatherly love and care, when in reality these things are received with His curse. They forget that outward prosperity given by God to His creatures instead of being an evidence of their sonship, is, in a great many cases, the very opposite, while He gives evidences of His fatherly love and care to His own, in the afflictions and sorrows which fall to their lot in the world, and should be received by them as fatherly chastisements. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” Heb. xii. 6—8.