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In the Sacred Scriptures God is called Father in a
threefold sense: 1. in the broadest sense by reason of
the creation, thus He is called the "father of rain"
(Job 38:28); 2. in the broad sense by reason of
the adoption of men as His sons, thus He is called our
Father in the Lord's Prayer; 3. in the strict and
proper sense by reason of the generation of His
only-begotten Son. Thus Christ Himself, of whom it
was said," his is My beloved Son" (Matt.
3:17), said, not "our Father, " but "My
Father": "It is My Father that glorifieth Me"
(John 8:54); "Come, ye blessed of My Father"
(Matt. 25:34); "I must be about My Father's
business" (Luke 2:49); "No one can snatch them
out of the hand of My Father" (John 10:29);
"They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father"
(John 15:24); "I ascend to my Father and to
your Father" (John 20:17). God is not the
Father of Jesus Christ in the same way as He is the
Father of His adopted sons, for in the prologue of St.
John's Gospel we read: "The only begotten Son who is
in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him"
(John 1:18). Frequently St. Paul speaks of
God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for
instance," hat... you may glorify God and the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 15:6); and
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ" (II Cor. 1:3 and Eph. 1:3). Thus
the Father is represented as a person and moreover as a
divine person; no one has called this into doubt. The
Father is called the Lord of heaven and earth and living
God, as for instance, "Thou art Christ the Son of
the living God." Throughout the seventeenth chapter of
St. John's Gospel, Christ invokes the Father as
God, and it is clear that the Father is a person
distinct from the Son from the fact that he who generates
is distinct from him who is begotten. This will appear
more clearly when we speak of the Son.
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