The Love of the Father in Sending His Children into the World

Does the Father love His children?

Jesus said, “…for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father.” -John 16:27

The world thinks that God loves everyone, and if this is not true, they say, then they want no part in Him. The latter wish has already been granted.

The mere fact that God has revealed Himself in terms of loving family suggests an exclusivity to His story of love. You either relate to the family or you do not.

In the aforementioned text, we observe a few aspects of this love arrangement.

First, Jesus reassures His disciples that God loves them.

Second, the reason for the Father’s love for the disciples is their love for Jesus.

Third, the reason for the Father’s love for the disciples is their faith in the truth that Jesus came from the Father.

The principle is “we love because He first loved us (1 Jn 4:19).” Thus, our second and third observations are not telling us that God’s love is conditional upon something we produce, like faith in or love for Jesus. No, God loves, then we love. He pours out His love into our hearts (Rom 5:5) when He gives us the token of His love, which is the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 5:5).

So what is Jesus saying then? Jesus is reassuring His disciples of God the Father’s love for them (point 1). There are two facts that support this proposition.

The first evidence to assure them of the Father’s love is that He has instilled within them a love for Jesus. If you love the son, you cannot help but love his father. Jesus’ disciples (Judas has already departed) clearly loved Him. In this garden scene, on the night He was betrayed, Jesus broke their hearts by announcing His departure. They needed some assurance.

The second evidence to assure them is that the Father has instilled within them a faith in Jesus, as the Son of God, who has come into the world from the Father. The Father gives faith to the ones He loves (Gal 3:22; 5:22). Not all men have faith (2 Thess 3:2), therefore, we must know that faith is granted as a gift of God (Eph 2:8–9; Phil 1:29). If one has faith in Christ, then it is evidence that the Father has loved him. The unbeliever has no love for God in his heart (Jn 5:42)…only hatred (Jn 7:7; 15:15–16, 24–25; Rom 1:30).

Do you love Jesus? Do you have faith that He has come from heaven? If yes, then be assured that your Father in heaven loves you.

Dads in this world, like their Father in heaven, instruct the children they love with the knowledge of God’s love for His children. No greater love can a dad bestow upon his children than the love his heavenly Father has bestowed upon him in the measure of God’s choosing (Rom 12:3; 1 Jn 3:1).

This love, evidenced by faith in Christ and love for Christ, is one’s comfort and assurance that God has set His love upon him…and God the Father does not change, which means this love is not only exclusive, it is also eternal (Ps 136).

“As the Father has sent the Son into the world” tells us that love constrains us to go and bear witness of this love relationship (Acts 1:8; 2 Cor 5:14).

Jesus Christ, as the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:16), always does the will of God the Father. It was the will of the Father that the Son would come into the world to be the Savior of the world (Jn 4:42; Eph 3:11).

At first glance, we imagine the glory of an action hero, but we learn from Scripture that Christ’s first advent was suffering, affliction, and death. The cup which the Father gave the Son was bitter, in the way that sour medicine is the remedy for healing.

Jesus Christ is the icon of obedient sons. He knows the Father and does the will of the Father, even when the task is costly unto death (Eph 2:16; Phil 2:8).

Every man must learn the Father’s will: sanctification from sin, the world, and enslavement by the devil (1 Thess 4:3; 1 Pet 1:15–16; 1 Jn 2:15–17). It was for this reason Jesus Christ came into the world, so that by His work, God’s people might overcome these nemeses in Christ’s victory parade (2 Cor 7:14) believed in by them (1 Jn 5:4). In other words, Christ has overcome God’s enemies, and the people He came to save share in His victory by faith.

Dads, filled with the Spirit of Christ, must learn God the Father. In focusing on Christ, men are conformed to the image of Christ (Rom 8:29). If one sees and knows the Son, he will know the Father who sent Him (Jn 6:29).

Spirit-filled dads, walking in Christ (Col 2:6), in order to know God the Father, will lead their children in the way of righteousness. This is the narrow way of life, and there are few that find it (Mt 7:14); but blessed are those children who are found in the household of a friend of God, a man after God’s own heart, an unshaken reed, a true prophet, a faithful priest, a valiant warrior, strong and courageous, and the humblest man on earth.

Believer dads are being fit for heaven, and they grow into their purposeful work by God’s design. One of their noble tasks, along the way, is to prepare their children (Prv 22:6). They, too, will send their sons and daughters into the world…prepared or not.

The mission is in concert with Christ, the Son. As He showed the Father to the world, so we and our children preach the Son (Rom 1:16–17; 1 Cor 1:18; 2:2, 4). To know Him is our salvation, and to preach Him is our stewardship.

Dads prepare their children for a world of suffering, a life of service, and an eternity of glory. Dads do this by living in holiness before their children. Knowing that holiness is a work of God’s Spirit (1 Pet 1:2), therefore, dads draw near to Christ by grace and through faith (Eph 2:8–9).

As dads draw near to God, they bring their children with them. As Abraham brought Isaac to the altar of God, and then sent him into the world, with the knowledge of God’s provisional sacrifice, so dads bring their children to Christ, and send them into the world and also into the next generation. Knowing Christ is their blessed inheritance from their dads…and, of course, from their Father in heaven.

Faithfulness in these tasks is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22), so we must rest in Him to give the increase, according to His will (Eph 1:11). We end with the words of a Spirit-filled dad from of old, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

David Norczyk

Spokane Valley, Washington

February 17, 2022