Why Did Jesus Call God Father?

In my 20s, a friend gave me Julian of Norwich’s 14th century book in which she writes of God as mother. I told my friend I wasn’t ready for it. What I knew was that Jesus called God Father. And I was at least 95% devoted to Jesus and what He did. Though I knew it was probably okay with God if I called Her Mother, I just wasn’t gonna do it.

One of the things I learned a few years later in seminary was that it’s crucial to understand the early readers of the books of the Bible. As Rev. Paul R. Smith writes, “If we do not ask what a Biblical word meant during the time it was written, we will end up with a false conclusion every time.”

Given that, why did Jesus choose Father and not Mother? And what did He mean when He called God Father?

Powerless Mothers

Using Mother would have had a strong Scriptural basis, but would have confused his patriarchal audience. Most women in Jesus’ time and place had little personal power. Here are three reasons why:

1. Jews in the Roman empire of Jesus’ time adopted the Roman family law, pater familias. This gave fathers “the power of life and death” over their families. Wives and mothers, assuming marriage, were the legal property of the husband/father.
2. Within Judaism, wives and women followed strict rules of conduct that limited what they could do. For example, wives usually could not initiate divorce, could not talk to or touch a man in public, and had to be careful to keep their hair covered. In the Greek-influenced household codes that Paul writes of in his letters, wives were to be under the authority of the pater familias, along with children and slaves (e.g. Eph. 5:22-6:9).
3. Fathers were the “corporate personality”, says Paul R. Smith. They spoke for the entire family. The family derived their sense of worth and meaning from the father. Smith writes that “father and mother together come closest to something of this sense for today’s family.”

Jesus’ Motherly-Father

What Jesus did was take a familiar, understood concept of relational power and authority and transform it. His idea of Father was not the one that most fathers of the Roman Empire would want to convey about themselves. He usually did not emphasize judgement, authoritarian discipline or even honor when He spoke of the Father, but rather unconditional love. Jesus’ Father was a “motherly-father” as Dr. Tim Bulkeley calls Him. He was the approachable Abba (Mk. 14:36).

One example is the story of the Lost Son in Luke 15:11-32. The rejected, dishonored father (representing God) withholds his power to judge, and instead acts like a mother would. He literally runs to meet his lost son, throws his arms around him and kisses him. Bulkeley writes, “In the ancient context, the father breaks almost all the cultural expectations, and even requirements of his role, to welcome the return of the errant son.”

Bulkeley points out other motherly-father passages such as the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew, for example, Jesus paints a picture of “your” Father who “feeds the birds of the air” and therefore will feed you (6:26). It was typically mothers who fed every one. Likewise, “your heavenly Father” is aware of your need for clothing and will clothe you (6:32). Again, it was mothers who had such an intimate knowledge of and provision for their children and husband in a family.

Other images include the Father as revealing special wisdom to children and providing the protection of angels for each one (Mt. 11:25; 18:10). These words of Jesus show a close-by, caring parent, and not a powerful-but-distant one.

The Old Testament Father Verses

The Father verses of the Old Testament, which Jesus would have drawn from, are fewer than one would think (there are 12 verses vs. nine verses where God is explicitly a human mother). And, surprisingly, the picture of God as Father is not the disciplining or judging authoritarian parent one might expect in the Old Testament. Jesus actually derives his sense of a life-giving, compassionate personal Father from Scripture itself:

“ …There you saw how Yahweh carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” Deut. 1:31

“Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?” Deut. 32:6b

“Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?” Job 38:28

“I will proclaim Yahweh’s decree: He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have become your father.” Psalm 2:6

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.” Psalm 68:5

“He will call out to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior.’” Psalm 89:26

“As a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh has compassion on the one who fears him.” Ps. 103:13

“For to us a child is born…And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Is. 9:6

“But you are our father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us; you, Yahweh, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.” Is. 63:16

“because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son.” Jer. 31:9

“‘I thought you would call me ‘Father’ and not turn away from following me,’ declares the Lord.” Jer. 3:19

“Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?” Mal 2:10

Father and Mother Reveal God

Jesus relied on the Father metaphor because it made sense within His culture and time. He transformed the meaning of the word for his time to call His people and the Gentiles to a true relationship with a caring, personal God, as Scripture affirmed.

Today, if we’re willing, Mother too describes a powerful God and continues to have Scriptural roots. As Lady Julian wrote, “Just as God is truly our Father; just so is God also truly our Mother. A mother’s service is nearest, readiest, surest. This office no one person has the ability or knows how to or ever will do fully but God alone.”