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IS GOD THEIR FATHER?

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 14, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 29, No. 26.

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IS GOD THEIR FATHER?

By Dudley Marvin Canright

UNIVERSALISTS often argue that God will not punish the wicked so severely as we say he will. They say that the Bible represents God as dealing as tenderly with his children as earthly parents do with theirs; that no parent, however wicked their children might be, would be so hard as to destroy them entirely. So they say it is with God. He will bear with all his erring children, and only chastise them enough for their good.
By the term, his children, they mean all the human race. Now we agree with them that God will indeed thus deal with all his children. But are the wicked his children? Is he their father? What saith the Scriptures? Hear Jesus: “They (the Pharisees) answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man, how sayest thou ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. I speak that which I have seen with my Father, and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication, we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me, for I proceeded forth, and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father, the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” John viii, 33, 34, 38, 41-44.
Here is a class of individuals who claimed to be children of God, though they were wicked men. But what did Jesus say to their claim? Did he admit that God was their father? Not exactly. He told them that the Devil was their father. He gave them a test by which we may know who are the children of God. If God were your father, you would love me. Then those who do not love Jesus are not the children of God. The righteous only are his children. The Devil is the father of all the rest. This cuts off the Universalist argument about the tender compassion of a father. It does not apply to the wicked, for God is not their father.
D. M. CANRIGHT.
Rochester, N. Y.