Merritt: God Is Not Our Heavenly Mother

by  Dwayne Hastings                                                                                                                             Vol. VII, No. 9, November 1994

It is time to settle once and for all the question of feminizing the gospel, according to James Merritt, pastor of First Baptist Church, Snellville, Ga., and president of the 1995 Southern Baptist Pastor's Conference. Merritt, speaking in chapel services at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., said, "God is not our heavenly mother!" Merritt, who holds doctorate and master's degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., stated, "This whole matter of feminizing God, feminizing Jesus, and scrubbing the Scriptures clean of so-called male bias is not an issue of feminism or chauvinism. The real issue is inspiration and revelation.

"There is an attempt today by radical feminists, pseudo-scholars, and liberal theologians to neuter God," Merritt stated, noting, "... we are made in God's image, God is not made in our image.

"We don't tell God who He is; He tells us who He is. He has revealed Himself as our Father. Jesus did not say God was like a father. He said God is our Father." Pointing to the Lord's model prayer in Matthew 6, Merritt said, "Jesus began by emphasizing God as our personal father. The two words that open the prayer, 'Our Father,' tell us volumes about our relationship to God. It is an intentional relationship.

"The Bible refers to God as 'He.' It is in a personal way, not in asexual way," said Merritt. Noting that some, displeased with the masculine references to God, have said if God is male, then male is god. Merritt responded such reasoning was absurd.

Jesus introduced a radically different concept of God to the people of his day. Merritt remarked that the Old Testament contains no references to God as a personal father. He said, "The three greatest men in the Old Testament, Moses, Abraham and David, never called God 'Father' in a personal way. A reverent Jew would never call God 'Father."'

Yet the word abba that Jesus used for father was even more intimate than the normal term for father, Merritt said. He noted the word is more often translated, "papa" or "daddy."

Merritt indicated Jesus was saying when coming to God in prayer, "You're not coming as a slave comes to his master; you're not coming as a subject would come to a king; you come as a son does to his father."

He suggested much of contemporary theology goes beyond the notion of God as a personal father and is centered on an "excessive familiarity" with God. "God is our Father," Merritt said. "He is not our pop. God is our friend, but he is not our buddy. God is the one who sits upon the throne of the universe; he is not the man upstairs. Merritt noted many have forgotten just how powerful a God Christians serve: "We live in a society that treats God as some kind of cosmic bellhop, a celestial teddy bear that winks at sin. We live in a world where big Hollywood stars and rich, powerful politicians think they run their own lives, that they can do whatever they want."

Merritt dismissed that mind-set, saying, "No one on the planet Earth does what he pleases. He does what God allows him to do. Only God does what he pleases. God is a perfect force. He is a powerful force." He said there is a lot of misguided thinking that claims God is the Father of all and that all people are his children. "There is no such thing as the universal fatherhood of God," stated Merritt.

"I want to make it as plain as I know how to make it to every so-called theologian and philosopher: You cannot know God as Father unless you know Jesus Christ as Lord.

"If you want a successful ministry," Merritt proclaimed, "Don't base it on baptisms, buildings, or budgets. Base it on glorifying the name of God: The God who scooped out the oceans, heaped up the mountains, and hurled the stars up in the heavens and put the planets in orbit."