civic
Well-known member
An old friend of mine Jeff Shirton posted this and I found it to be very good.
In the NT, we frequently find the phrase, "God the Father". We never find this phrase, the OT, only in the New, after the incarnation of the Christ.
So if only the Father is God, then why did the Biblical authors need to DISTINGUISH the phrase, "God" with "the Father", instead of simply saying "God" as they did in the OT?
Why wasn't "God" sufficient?
Why the need for "God the Father"?
I will suggest an answer, it was to distinguish the Father from the Son, since the Son is also (the same) God.
Secondly, Paul created a convention of calling the Father "God" (without denying His Lordship), and calling Jesus "Lord" (without denying His deity). What many people don't realize (or at least appreciate is that the Jews CONSTANTLY referred to God as "Lord" in the OT. Taking the commandment to not take the Lord's name in vain to the extreme, they had a habit of NEVER uttering it. So when they were talking about Him to each other, or reading His name in Scripture, they would substitute His name with either "HaShem" ("the name"), or "Adonai" ("Lord"). In fact, that's how the name "Jehovah" came about, by taking the Tetragrammaton, "YHWH", and adding the vowel points for "adonai", and getting "Yahovah". So when the first century Jews were constantly referring to Jesus as "Lord", there were strong connotations of deity.
Finally, the major daily prayer for the Jews is the Sh'ma, Deut. 6:4-5:
Deut. 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
...............................................................YHWH......elohim.......YHWH
So not only were "Lord" and "God" deeply associated with each other in the Jews' daily prayer, this is associated with a New Testament passage, written by a very devout and knowledgeable Jew, namely Paul:
1 Cor. 8:6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
This isn't Christian theology, it's Jewish theology, expanded with Christian revelation.
In the NT, we frequently find the phrase, "God the Father". We never find this phrase, the OT, only in the New, after the incarnation of the Christ.
So if only the Father is God, then why did the Biblical authors need to DISTINGUISH the phrase, "God" with "the Father", instead of simply saying "God" as they did in the OT?
Why wasn't "God" sufficient?
Why the need for "God the Father"?
I will suggest an answer, it was to distinguish the Father from the Son, since the Son is also (the same) God.
Secondly, Paul created a convention of calling the Father "God" (without denying His Lordship), and calling Jesus "Lord" (without denying His deity). What many people don't realize (or at least appreciate is that the Jews CONSTANTLY referred to God as "Lord" in the OT. Taking the commandment to not take the Lord's name in vain to the extreme, they had a habit of NEVER uttering it. So when they were talking about Him to each other, or reading His name in Scripture, they would substitute His name with either "HaShem" ("the name"), or "Adonai" ("Lord"). In fact, that's how the name "Jehovah" came about, by taking the Tetragrammaton, "YHWH", and adding the vowel points for "adonai", and getting "Yahovah". So when the first century Jews were constantly referring to Jesus as "Lord", there were strong connotations of deity.
Finally, the major daily prayer for the Jews is the Sh'ma, Deut. 6:4-5:
Deut. 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
...............................................................YHWH......elohim.......YHWH
So not only were "Lord" and "God" deeply associated with each other in the Jews' daily prayer, this is associated with a New Testament passage, written by a very devout and knowledgeable Jew, namely Paul:
1 Cor. 8:6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
This isn't Christian theology, it's Jewish theology, expanded with Christian revelation.