“To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater.”
— J.I. Packer, Knowing God
The Forgotten Member of the Trinity
Among the persons of the Trinity, it is often the Father who remains most misunderstood—or tragically misrepresented. The Son we see in the Gospels, walking among us, touching the leper, dying on the cross. The Spirit we experience inwardly, as the Helper, guiding, convicting, and comforting. But God the Father? To many, He remains distant. Remote. Abstract. A hard figure cloaked in glory—more throne than heart.
But this is not how Scripture presents Him. In fact, the entire redemptive plan begins and ends with the love of the Father. The Father sends the Son (John 3:16). The Father pours out the Spirit (Acts 2:33). The Father adopts us into His family (Ephesians 1:4–5). To know the Father is to taste the very fountainhead of love.
And yet, many of us project our worst assumptions onto Him.
Not Like Kronos: The Devouring Father
In the myths of the ancient Greeks, Kronos, the titan-father of Zeus, devoured his own children. He feared being overthrown, so he swallowed them one by one. Power and paranoia corrupted his vision of fatherhood. To be a child of Kronos was to be consumed by him.
Some of us view God this way—if not consciously, then instinctively. We think of Him as a relentless taskmaster. A being who crushes with commands. A judge who waits for us to trip up. We fear that He’ll take more than we can bear—that He demands perfection and offers no patience.
But this is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Father does not devour; He gives. “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). He doesn’t hoard power; He delights to share it. He doesn’t steal joy; He gives it in abundance (John 15:11).
Where Kronos consumed his children to preserve himself, our Father gave of Himself to preserve His children.
Not Like Zeus: The Absentee Father
Zeus, though powerful, was capricious and absent. Aloof from human affairs unless provoked, he ruled from afar, wrapped in clouds and thunderbolts. He was a father by name but not by nurture. His character was undependable, his morality shifting.
Many people, especially those who have known neglect, think of God in these terms. Distant. Cold. Preoccupied. They believe in His existence—but not in His affection. He’s “up there,” they suppose, but not here. Perhaps they think they’re too small for Him to notice—or too sinful for Him to care.
But Jesus corrects us with a whisper: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8). He knows your anxieties. He numbers the hairs of your head. He sees when a sparrow falls—and you are of more value than many sparrows (Luke 12:6–7).
He is not absent. He is “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). He is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). He is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1). He is not like Zeus; He never leaves nor forsakes His own.
Not Like Many Earthly Fathers
Even good earthly fathers are flawed. Some raise children with rigidity instead of grace. Others create a home where love feels like a reward instead of a refuge. Some are proud. Some are passive. Some are unstable—emotionally distant one moment, emotionally volatile the next.
For those wounded by such fatherhood, it can feel like an almost impossible task to call God “Father” without flinching.
But God is not like our fathers, either. He is what every earthly father should be and more. He is strong, but never oppressive. Tender, but never indulgent. Present, but never smothering. He disciplines—but always for our good, that we may share His holiness (Hebrews 12:10). He speaks truth—but always in love. He does not provoke His children to wrath, but raises them in nurture and instruction (Ephesians 6:4).
No father on earth is perfect—but our Father in heaven is. And Jesus taught us to pray to Him with those startling words: “Our Father.”
J.I. Packer once wrote, “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much they make of the thought of being God’s child and having God as their Father.” If we truly understood this—if we believed it down to our bones—everything would change. Our anxieties would dissolve in His presence. Our fears would bend before His promises. Our worth would rest not in what we do, but in whose we are.
The Father Who Sent the Son
At the center of God’s love is the cross. And at the center of the cross is Christ Jesus, the exact imprint of the Father’s nature (Hebrews 1:3).
We often think of the crucifixion only in terms of Jesus. But Scripture says it was “the will of the Lord to crush Him” (Isaiah 53:10). That is, the Father sent the Son—not in anger, but in love.
This is perhaps the most staggering thought in all of Scripture: the Father loved us so deeply, He gave His beloved Son.
Not like Kronos, devouring his own to protect himself.
Not like Zeus, far removed from the cries of earth.
Not like so many of our earthly fathers, uncertain and self-centered.
But like the God who said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”—and yet did not withhold Him for our sake.
The Wondrous Name: God, The Father
When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God proclaimed His name: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). This is a God who binds Himself to His people in covenant. A God whose name is not a sword but a song.
And when Jesus rose from the grave, He said to Mary Magdalene, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17). That name—Father—has now become our inheritance.
No longer a distant title, it is now our comfort. Our assurance. Our anchor.
To be a Christian is to know God not only as Creator, King, and Judge—but as Abba, Father. The Spirit within us cries out this very name (Romans 8:15), teaching us to approach the throne not in terror but in trust.
His name is Father—and not merely metaphorically, but eternally. Before the foundation of the world, He was the Father loving the Son. And now, through the Son, we are brought into that love.
Come to the Father
So come.
Come not to Kronos, who consumes, nor to Zeus, who forgets.
Come not to the memory of your earthly father, however broken or beautiful it may be.
Come to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Come to the one who runs to meet prodigals, who clothes them in robes, and who says, “This my son was dead, and is alive again!” (Luke 15:24).
Come to the Father of lights. The Father of mercy. The Father of glory. The Father who names you His own and never lets you go.
He is not like them. He is better. Infinitely better.
He is the Father. And in Christ, He is yours.
Reformed Faith Insights 