Father, Who Are You?

By John W. Williams

Father, Who Are You? is a description of God taken directly from the pages of Scripture. From the dawn of creation to the end of the age, God is the same. He has revealed Himself in the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Father, Who Are You? each personality is explainedthe Father Creator, the divine human Savior, and the Spirit worker.

As we read Williamss description of God, we come face to face with Gods divine plan to reconcile Himself to humanity. In the final chapter we realize there is a pathway to God: a pathway we must take if we are to know God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781512707519

John W. Williams

John W. Williams is the pastor of a street ministry in Wharton, Texas, where he helps men struggling to overcome substance abuse through the healing grace of Jesus Christ. John holds a master of divinity degree from Houston Graduate School of Theology. While at Houston Graduate School of Theology, he was awarded the St. Nicholas Award for outstanding character by the faculty and students. John teaches New Testament principles with practical application to daily living in the twenty-first century. John is married to his wife of twenty years. They have a daughter and son.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 John W. Williams.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0752-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0753-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0751-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015912759

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/16/2015

Contents

One Father, Who Are You?

Two Behold the Man

Three Behold the God

Four The Paraclete Cometh

Five Homecoming

Research Notes

This book was written for the glory of God.

It is dedicated to Lillian Carolan

Chapter One

Father, Who Are You?

Father, Who Are You?

In their quest to understand God men have always struggled to describe His attributes. Sophisticated men of faith have always felt that in identifying God’s attributes they would have the keys to unlocking the mystery of who God is. When Christ came He explained that among the many roles that God plays He is primarily our Father in heaven. The purpose of this book is to unlock the mystery and answer the questions. Who is this Father in heaven that Jesus spoke of so fondly? Has He always played the role of Father in the universe? What is man to understand Him to be? What does He expect of us? What should we expect of Him? He is basically unknown to man and in the midst of man’s confusion and inability to understand Him, man cries out, Father, who are You?

In addition to our understanding of God we also struggle to identify our relationship with God. The reality is we seek relationship with Him. We may even ask; Does He want relationship with us? What we will find in the course of coming to understand Him is that God wants relationship with us, so much so that He is making every effort to reach us through the presence of His Holy Spirit. In this book one will find that to know God is to be in relationship with God.

Theology is the Greek word for the study of God. It is a compound word coming from two root words which most of us know well: Theo meaning God and logos meaning word. Therefore, theology is talk of God.

The beginning of all good contemporary theological discussion begins with the question Does God exist? Since the age of reason, significant numbers of people have seriously questioned God’s existence. People of faith may not struggle with this issue but others who struggle to find their faith do. Is God merely a figment of man’s imagination? Is He a concept used to pacify an overly complicated mammal’s fear of death and despair? We look to science, philosophy, and religion to answer these questions?

Science

One cannot explain the characteristics of God unless consideration is given to His creation. Examining artifacts to determine characteristics about an ancient culture is a common method of study. Theologians use the universe as an artifact to determine what God’s creation says about the characteristics of God. Science assumes that the world of matter and space is all that exist and that nothing can exist outside of it. Therefore, since God is separate from the world of matter and space, science assumes that God does not exist. Only a few scientists would carry their argument this far. Nonetheless, the study of science does not understand or consider God. This is the conflict between science and faith. This discussion began with Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin spent his life studying the process of evolution. The results of his work were explained in his book The Origin of the Species. The study is quite ingenious. Like any good scientist, Darwin followed the three basic steps in scientific study: observation, hypothesis, and conclusion.

Darwin observed what other scientists before him had discovered. He noticed that animals experience some evolution in their anatomy given time and circumstance. He first observed this in the finch, a bird commonly found in the Galapagos Islands. Some of the members of the finch population survived a drought because they were able to evolve into a more fit species. The finches which survived were the offspring that had short, hard beaks. They were able to crack the hard-shelled nuts with the new beak (the nuts had hard shells because of a prolonged period of drought). At the same time those finches with the longer, softer beaks died because they were unable to consume the nuts the trees yielded during the drought. Darwin deduced that anatomy evolves over time usually in response to extreme circumstances such as drought, moisture, or temperature. He also deduced that only the most fit (those with the ability to evolve) survive these circumstances.

Darwin’s theory goes further than just the standard observations of a species’ anatomy evolving in a period of time as a result of circumstances. After years of extended research and study, Darwin concluded that all species had evolved over billions of years due to changing circumstances in the environment. He hypothesized that living species developed into the most basic cells. This occurred in a warm pond as the result of a chemical reaction between the elements and atmosphere. (This portion of his research remains a hypothesis because it has yet to be reproduced in a laboratory. In order for a hypothesis to become scientific fact, it must be repeated under the same conditions, with the same results). Darwin went on to say that from the evolution of that basic cell, small plant life was produced. The process continued until the species which exist at the top of the food chain were produced. This includes the human species. The presumed immediate ancestors of humans, according to Darwin, are the great apes.

The final phase of Darwin’s study involved his conclusion. Darwin concluded from his study and hypothesis that the process of forming living things was not a creative process, but a random process which occurred without preference or intent. It occurred over a long period of time (billions of years). He concluded that the universe was not created by intelligent design. Therefore, since there was not an intelligent design there was no intelligent designer. That is to say, there is no God. ¹

The faithful responded to Darwin’s theory with absolute repulsion. They rejected his theory using the testament of the Bible as evidence that Darwin’s claim was false. At first the scientific community did likewise, but over time the scientific community accepted his claims. Today, it is the leading scientific theory on human origins. The most fundamental religious believers continue to reject his theory. Other people of faith respect it in-part, but reject its ultimate conclusion. Those who accept it in-part believe that God could have created the human species, or any other species, through a process of evolution. It was God’s prerogative to use the process of evolution. After all, who are we to question the methods of God? ²

Darwin’s observation that species evolve over time is absolutely correct. This observation was not originally Darwin’s. Many scientist before him had made the same discovery, and by Darwin’s time a limited process of evolution was an accepted fact of science. On the other hand, Darwin’s hypothesis that the origin of the species began with a single living cell in a warm pond was new. This hypothesis has its problems. The first problem is that of the missing link. If evolution occurred on this level, the landscape should be littered with the skeletal remains of anatomies that occurred between the former species and the species that now exist. These remains do not exist. The second problem is the discovery of the Cambridge Explosion. The Cambridge Explosion is the term used to describe the discovery of the appearance of many species of animals on earth within a very