E. L. WILLIAMS, graduated from the College of the Bible in 1928, then proceeded to the Melbourne University, graduating with Master of Arts Degree. Ministries with Churches in Victoria and Auckland, N.Z. followed. Mr. Williams commenced lecturing at the College of the Bible in 1939 and was appointed Principal in 1945.

      Faith and conduct cannot be divorced. There may be some beliefs which have no practical implications, but there is no question that, in general, our philosophy of life determines our way of life. While there may be atheists who live like Christians, and Christians who live like atheists, in the last analysis, what we believe about God and man makes all the difference to the way we live.

      Our view of God determines our view of man and life. A low conception of God leads to a low doctrine of man and a low standard of morals. A Biblical doctrine of God and man lifts our sights and places constraints and restraints upon us.

      None can doubt the Biblical teaching of the Fatherhood of God with its correlatives of the sonship and brotherhood of man. But in what sense is God a Father and men sons and brothers? It seems clear that the Bible presents the ideas of Fatherhood, sonship and brotherhood in different senses.

1. The God and Father of Israel.

      According to W. R. Smith, who made a special study of the religion of the Semites, in Semitic religion generally men and their gods formed a family in which god was regarded as father in a physical sense. However, it is pointed out that in the spiritual religion of the Hebrews the idea of divine Fatherhood was dissociated from the physical. Man was created in the image of God, not begotten.

      With this understanding the Old Testament presents God as the Father of Israel in a special sense. Israel is the elect nation chosen by God for a special purpose.

      In the contest with Pharaoh, Moses is directed to say: "Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, 'Let my son go that he may serve me.'" (Exodus 4:22-23). At the close of his life Moses sang a parting word to Israel in which he rebuked them for their perverseness. "Do you thus requite the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?" (Deut. 32:6).

      Isaiah prays that God will deliver His people from their present calamities. "Look down from heaven and see . . . For thou art our Father" (Isa. 63:15-16). He acknowledges Israel's sins, "Yet, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are all the work of thy hand." (Isa. 64:8).

      In Jeremiah the unfaithfulness of Israel is lamented and its tragedy is given point in view of the intimate relationship between God and His chosen people. "Have you not just now called to me, 'My father, thou art the friend of my youth?'" "And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me." (Jer. 3:4, 19). Later the prophet dwells on the recalling of Israel and the Lord says, "I will make them walk by brooks of water . . . For I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn." (Jer. 31:9).

      God's yearning for His wayward people is depicted in Hosea in terms of a father-son relationship. "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son." (Hos. 11:1). Malachi presents the pleading of the Lord who is styled a father and master. "A son honours his

father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honour?" (Mal. 1:6). The prophet then protests against the breach of family relationships. "Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us?" (Mal. 2:10). So David prayed, "Blessed art thou, O Lord, the God of Israel our Father." (1 Chron. 29:10).

      There is no question that God is presented as father of Israel in a special sense. The Jews were wont to trade on this, to boast their heritage and to accept their calling as wholly privilege and to fail in the responsibility of election. But even in their failure and blindness they reflected their understanding of their proper relationship with God. When our Lord charged them with failure to live up to their heritage they protested: "We have one Father, even God" (John 8:41). Then Jesus answered them: "If God were your Father, you would love me . . . You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires" (John 8:42-44). Does this mean that Jesus denied the Old Testament doctrine that God was the Father of the Jews or Israel in a special sense? In Hosea, Israel is figured sometimes as sons, and more often as wife, and in this mixture of figures the Israel that is spoken of as children, is also spoken of as children of harlotry (Hos. 2:4). This is a way of describing Israel in her unfaithfulness and is not a denial of the doctrine of God's Fatherhood. An unfaithful child is still a child even if unfaithfulness cancels the proper inheritance. We often use the expression, "He is no son of his father," meaning that he does not walk in the footsteps of his father. Surely this is what our Lord meant in John 8:44. By their desires and actions these sons of God and Abraham were behaving as sons of the devil. He sought to stab them broad awake by telling them that they were of their father the devil. In practice they were repudiating their true Father.

2. The God and Father of All Men.

      God's special Fatherhood of the Jews was in part based on the doctrine of creation. This is clear in some of the passages previously cited (Deut. 32:6; Isa. 64:8; Mal. 2:10).

      If it was legitimate to argue special Fatherhood from creation it is natural that we should accept general Fatherhood from the same doctrine of creation.

      "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness'" (Genesis 1:26). "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him" (Genesis 1:27). This is not applied to Israel or any particular race or nation or any group. Man as man is made in the image of God. This signally distinguishes him from the animal creation and links him in a special way with God and his fellow men. In the sense of Father-Creator God is the Father of all men. It was in line with this thought that Paul said: "In him we live and move and have our being," and he drew on a heathen poet to express the point he was making, "For we are indeed his offspring" (Acts 17:28).

      In the New Testament, the relation of God to His creation is pictured in terms of Fatherhood. "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them . . . And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field . . . But if God so clothes the grass of the field" (Matt. 5:26-30). "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will" (Matt. 10:29).

      In relation to fallen man, the evil and the unjust, His fatherly provision is undiscriminating. "He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt. 5:45). While the sermon on the mount is directed to disciples and

God is referred to explicitly as "your Father" and "Our Father", that is, as the Father of disciples, it is loaded with the suggestion of the fatherly character of God.

      John says, "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Love is characteristic of a father and fatherhood is expressed in loving concern. To say that God is love is but another way of saying that God is a Father. The love or fatherly concern is not cut off or dried up by man's sin. It abides in spite of the sinner's sin and is prior to his response. "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). While the Father-son relationship may be broken by rebellion and repudiation and cannot be fulfilled without a response of faith, love and obedience, the Father remains a Father with a fatherly concern and the son remains a son although he is no longer worthy to be called a son. This is the picture presented in the parable of the prodigal son. The younger son sank to the depths in a far country, but the fatherly concern did not fail him who had let the father go. The father was waiting and watching and ran out to meet the returning son. Can we escape the conclusion that God is the Father of all, both older brothers, prodigals in far countries and prodigals who return?

      God's Fatherhood is so characteristic and general that all children are members of His kingdom. Jesus calling children to Him said: "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God" (Luke 18:16). Cf. Matt. 18:10, 14.

      As the Creator who is holy love, God is a Father whose fatherly concern reaches to all men whom He created in His own image. This may be described as the general Fatherhood of God. In distinction from this we have already noted the special Fatherhood of Israel and must now give attention to His special Fatherhood of Christians.

3. The God and Father of New Men in Christ.

      There is some helpfulness in a distinction between childship and sonship as made by John Macintosh Shaw. "Childship is but the capacity or potentiality of sonship. Childship is born, but sonship is made. Childship is a natural endowment; but sonship is a moral and spiritual achievement. As born 'in the image of God', with the power of rational self-determined choice, we are born 'children of God.' But only as we exercise this power of choice aright, and live our lives in the Father's fellowship and under control of His Fatherly love and purposes, do we become truly 'sons of God'; just as the child in the home of earth develops into a true son of the house only through abiding in the fellowship of the parents' love and service."

      The inner secret of God's Fatherhood is only known through revelation. In making a signal claim to His own unique relationship with the Father our Lord declared that the Father is only known to those to whom the Son reveals Him. "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him" (Matt. 11:27).

      Jesus represented men as becoming sons of God by a new birth or a birth from above. Cf. John 3:3, 5. "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them which believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13).

      It is by faith that all who are led by the Spirit enter into the new sonship. "Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith" (Gal. 3:25-26). "All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Rom. 8:14).

      So radical is this change of relationship that Paul likens it to

adoption. "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (Rom. 8:15). In Galatians, Paul says that God sent forth His Son that we might receive the adoption of sons. Cf. Gal. 4:4-6. If we take the figure of adoption literally and absolutely it would mean that those who were not sons are accepted as sons. But no figure should be pressed in all its details and should always be taken in the context of the whole Biblical presentation. In the light of the special sonship of Israel and the general sonship of all those made in the image of God it is reasonable to take Paul's figure to point to the truth that the prodigal can be restored to a deep filial experience and enter into the proper heritage of a son. The proper status of a son is realised through sharing in the life of the Father.

      The Sonship of Christ is something unique, perfect and unbroken. He is the son of God. Through Him men become the sons of God in the fullest sense that men can be sons of God.

      Even though God was the special Father of Israel none among them could rest secure in this election. "And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our Father" (Matt. 3:9). Neither does the general Fatherhood of God give security. The general doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man does not cancel out the gospel of grace and the doctrine of conversion. Through grace we enter into the fullness of sonship.

1. The brotherhood of all men.

      The doctrine of the brotherhood of all men follows from the doctrine of the general Fatherhood of God. It is a way of expressing the kinship of all men, a kinship derived from the nature of man as created in the image of God. "'God created man in His own image.' It may be said that all the rest of the Bible is a commentary on that phrase, which is the presupposition of the Gospel." So writes F. R. Barry.

      This doctrine of creation in the image of God gives the clue to the distinction between man and lower orders of creation. Thus our Lord said: "You are of more value than many sparrows" (Matt. 10:31). "Of how much more value is man than a sheep?" (Matt. 12:12). Why do we dispose of aged and sick animals and care for aged and sick men? Surely because any man is made in the image of God.

      While distinguishing man from the lower orders of creation the doctrine of the image of God underlines the nature of man. Herein lies man's potentiality for good or evil. Man may become a son of God in the richest sense because he was created a child of God. On the other hand, as Brunner puts it: "Man can become even a sinner only because fundamentally and primarily he is by nature a child of God, made in His image" (Man in Revolt, p. 102). Animals do not become either sons of God or sinners. The acceptance of the Biblical doctrine of man would never allow such a notice as, "Dogs and Hottentots not allowed within."

      The doctrine of the brotherhood of man as a way of expressing the nature and kinship of men provides security for the recognition of human worth, the worth of the individual, the dignity of personality, the rights of man, and the regarding of man as an end and not merely a means. The highest expression of this doctrine is preserved in the evaluation of every man as a man for whom Christ died. We find here the true basis of democracy and freedom.

      Slavery, totalitarianism, nationalism, racialism and any system or institution that divides men into superior and inferior, or reduce: men to means, are all undercut by the Biblical doctrine of man which finds expression in the conception of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

      At its worst, the denial of the Biblical doctrine of general Fatherhood and general brotherhood is seen in the gas oven and the concentration camp.

      Two quotations will sum up what has been said. The first is from F. R. Barry in his book, "Recovery of Man," and the second is from "Christian Doctrine," by John Macintosh Shaw.

      "Man's creation in the image of God is the basis of any valid claim to freedom, education, opportunity, the right to be treated as an end in himself, or to any other charter of human rights. These rights are not intrinsic to man. His status and value are conferred upon him by gracious will of God towards him. His worth is his value in the sight of God. (Luke 12:24). Apart from that, man is 'that which is not' (1 Cor. 1:28). The 'sacredness of human personality', the respect for human dignities and decencies, which lie at the base of a Christian civilisation, depend on nothing innate in man, nor upon any concession by the State, but upon a divine endowment and prerogative which no earthly power gave nor can take away."

      "Men are brothers, to be treated as brothers, because they are first of all children of a common Heavenly Father, made in His image and likeness to His fellowship and service."

2. The brotherhood of new men in Christ.

      Whatever general brotherhood there is between men, as men made in the image of God, the fullness of brotherhood is only realised through an entrance into a fullness of sonship in which God's special Fatherhood is accepted and enjoyed. This doctrine needs no argument.

      Where our Lord used the word "brother" in its spiritual sense it was applied to the group of those who were realising their sonship through discipleship to Him. "One is your teacher, and all ye are brethren . . . One is your Father, which is in heaven" (Matt. 23:8-9). He expressly designated as brethren those who do the Father's will (Matt. 12:49, 50; Mark 3:34-35; Luke 8:21). This is the brotherhood of the twice-born.

      The privilege and responsibility of unlimited and limited brotherhood are reflected in the Pauline injunction: "Let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith." (Gal. 6: 10).