For many in our day, it seems unremarkable to call God our Father. This is driven by false assumptions about what it means to be God’s children. Today, R.C. Sproul underscores the exclusive privilege of our adoption in Christ. Request R.C. Sproul’s book The Prayer of the Lord, plus lifetime digital access to his teaching series The Lord’s Prayer, for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3938/donate Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Chapter 1: What is the concept of the fatherhood of God?
The fatherhood of God is extended to those who are adopted into His family by virtue of their union with Christ. And so, so far from teaching the universal fatherhood of God, the Bible teaches the particular fatherhood of God. The idea of the universal fatherhood of God is not a biblical concept.
You've heard it said, I'm sure, that we're all children of God. But is that true? Is God really the Father of everyone? This is the Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Before moving on to the next petition in the Lord's Prayer, today, R.C. Sproul will bring additional clarity when it comes to speaking of God as our Father. This week's messages are from Dr. Sproul's series, The Lord's Prayer.
Don't forget that you can own this entire series plus receive a copy of The Prayer of the Lord book from Dr. Sproul when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org in support of Renewing Your Mind. As always, we're grateful for your support as Renewing Your Mind would not be possible without the generosity of you, the listener. Well, here's Dr. Sproul on the fatherhood of God.
Our Father who art in heaven. That's the opening address of the Lord's Prayer. We've already looked briefly at the significance of this form of personal address that begins, Our Father. But I'm not quite finished with this. I don't want to move on to the first petition until I spend a little bit more time on this form of personal address.
In the 19th century, a new discipline was added to the curriculum of the study of religion called comparative religion. an attempt at understanding the great religions of the world, not in isolation from each other, but as the term comparative religion suggests, in terms of the interconnectedness and comparisons of the various world religions. This interest was brought about
in part because of the shrinking of the globe. In the past, because of difficulties of travel and immigration, we would seem to find clusters of religion in certain geographical portions of the world and limited to ethnic groups or nationalities.
But as the world became smaller and more interaction took place between the West and the East, Christians had to deal with Islam and with Buddhism and Shintoism, Confucianism, and so on. And so, the nineteenth-century field of comparative religion tried to look at the various religions of this world and find common denominators among them.
It was during this period that the famous mountain analogy was first coined. The idea that God in the image sits at the apex of a high mountain. and that there are many roads that go to the peak of that mountain. Some of them go more or less directly from the base of the mountain to the top, while others bend and wind and twist and turn into a circuitous route to the top.
But the basic idea was it doesn't really matter ultimately which road you take because all of the roads lead to the top and will eventually get you to the top. So if you're trying to get to God, you can go on the road of Buddhism or Taoism or Shintoism or Judaism or Christianity. These are just different roads all going to the same place.
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Chapter 2: Is God the Father of everyone?
This, of course, was before sexist language was condemned, and today we would have to say brotherhood and sisterhood or whatever. But in any case, this really is a deduction from the first premise, not from the New Testament. Now let me say something else that is shocking to you. I don't think the Bible teaches the universal brotherhood of men at all.
Now you say, wait a minute, doesn't the Bible teach us to love everybody? Yes. And shouldn't a brotherhood be a community where people love each other? Yes, of course, obviously. But just to have a community where people are obligated to love each other doesn't mean that you have a brotherhood or a sisterhood. That concept goes deeper.
And again, in biblical categories, the brotherhood of which the New Testament speaks is the brotherhood or sisterhood, a fellowship of all of those who are adopted into the family of God and who are in Christ, who becomes the firstborn of many creatures and of whom the Bible describes as our elder brother. I am in the brotherhood when I am linked to Christ by adoption. He's my adopted brother.
And every other Christian who is in that special fellowship, the fellowship of the church, the fellowship of the bride of Christ, are people who are participating in this special brotherhood. And you're not born into it naturally. You must be reborn or regenerated to be in this fellowship, to be in this brotherhood or sisterhood.
And when we speak about the universal brotherhood of man, we weaken or cheapen this crucial point that the New Testament makes about the church and about the body of Christ with respect to its singularity. Now, why would anybody come to this conclusion of the universal brotherhood of man? I've suggested one reason as a deduction from the first premise, the universal fatherhood of God.
But there's another reason why this conclusion is reached as erroneous as it may be, and that is there is something that the Bible teaches in terms of its universality, and that is the universal neighborhood of man. Not brotherhood. but neighborhood. All men are not my brothers. Only those who are in Christ are my brothers in Christ. All men are my neighbors.
And I am required of God to treat these people as well as I could be expected to treat a I am required to love my neighbor as much as I love myself. And Jesus made it clear that the neighborhood is not restricted to the brotherhood. That was the mistake the Pharisees made.
The Pharisees believed that all of these obligations to love the neighbor and to be kind to your neighbor and to be gracious to your neighbor and all of that was limited or restricted to their fellow Jews, to the brotherhood. But they didn't have to be loving, for example, to the Samaritan. Now, you remember the parable of the good Samaritan.
where Jesus tells the story of the man who goes down to Jericho and falls among thieves and is beaten and robbed and left for dead, and how the Levite and the priest pass by and leave the man suffering and stripped and humiliated. And it is then the passing Samaritan who stops, who has compassion, who anoints the man's wounds with oil,
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