John 20:17—John 16:27; Matthew 7:11
Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God…For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Christ declares that we have this in common with Himself, that He who is His God and His Father is also our God and our Father. “I ascend,” says He, “to my Father, who is also your Father.”
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): We are so prone to fix our admiring and adoring gaze on the incarnate Son, so prone to attach our exclusive affections to Him, Who for us “loved not his life unto the death,” and thus come short of the stupendous and animating truth that all the love, grace, and wisdom that are prominent and striking in salvation have their fountain head in the heart of God the Father! May we not trace the holding of this bias to the hard and injurious thoughts of the Father’s character and those crude and gloomy interpretations of His government which so many of us bear towards Him?
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): He knows what little understanding we have of Him.
THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): Our heavenly Father “knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust,” Psalm 103:14; and He pities us under all our sorrows and trials.
JOHN TRAPP: So great is the goodness of God to His people, that He dealeth with us as with His little children. “I taught Ephraim also to go,” Hosea 11:3. A child he was, and like a child I dealt with him, teaching him how to set his feet—pedare, to foot it, as nurses do their little ones: “He will keep the feet of His saints,” 1 Samuel 2:9; He “guideth their feet in the way of peace,” Luke 1:79. And He takes us up in His own arms, when we come to a foul or rough place, helping us over the quagmires of crosses, and the difficulties of duties.
THOMAS SCOTT: But He will also rebuke and correct us for our sins.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Our heavenly Father is no Eli: He will not suffer His children to sin without rebuke, His love is too intense for that…When God sees men doing wrong, He often permits the wicked to go unpunished in this life; but as for His own people, it is written, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities,” Amos 3:2. Our heavenly Father’s hand still holds the rod, and uses it when necessary; but it is in love that He corrects us. Your father loves you quite as much when he treats you roughly as when he treats you kindly. There is often more love in an angry father’s heart than there is in the heart of a father who is too kind. Give me a father that is angry with my sins and that seeks to bring me back, even though it be by chastisement. Thank God you have got a Father that can be angry, but that loves you as much when He is angry as when He smiles upon you.
THOMAS SCOTT: He will indeed thwart our wayward inclinations, and will not indulge us to our hurt.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Our children, through their want of knowledge and judgment to discern between things that are good or evil for their bodies, may ask of us, and cry unto us, for things that are hurtful, yet we, who know that they would not ask for them if they had the use of their reason, and well knew their noxious quality, considering their circumstances, will not give them to them. So our heavenly Father, though He heareth us crying for such things as He knoweth, considering our circumstances, would be mischievous and hurtful to us, yet He will not give us any thing of that nature.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Earthly fathers know but what are earthly good things, and of them they give to their children such things as they judge best; but God judges as a heavenly Father, and so of what is best as in relation to heaven, and thy coming thither, and His thoughts are herein as far above earthly fathers as heaven is above earth. He hath also declared, that all things shall work together for thy good; but what particular dispensation shall work for good to thee, and how, this He says not, nor dost thou know. It may be the contrary to what thou desirest shall work for good.
WILLIAM GOUGE (1575-1653): If God speaks to them as to children, they have good ground to fly to God as to a Father and in all time of need to ask and seek of Him all needful blessings; yea, and in faith to depend on Him for the same, Matthew 6:31,32. What useful things shall they want? What hurtful thing need such to fear? If God deal with us as with children, He will provide for them every good thing; He will protect them from every hurtful thing, He will hear their prayers, He will accept their services, He will bear with their infirmities, He will support them under all their burdens, and assist them against all their assaults.
THOMAS SCOTT: And He cannot want power to relieve His afflicted children.
WILLIAM GOUGE: Though, through their own weakness, or the violence of some temptation, should they be drawn from Him, yet will He be ready to meet them in the midway of their turning to Him—instance the mind of the father of the prodigal towards his son, Luke 15:20.
JOHN TRAPP: Whereas we fall seven times a day, and in many things fail all; He taketh us up after that we have caught a knock, and cherisheth us in His bosom.
JOHANN TARNOW (1586-1629): We are supported, admonished, taught, led, guided, protected, assembled, forgiven, carried, and comforted.
THOMAS GOODWIN: If, therefore, we at any time think we may have any degree of confidence upon the mercies and pities that are in creatures, even in the nearest and dearest relation to us, as fathers—of whom Christ says, “Though evil, they yet know how to give good things to their children,” and so likewise to pity them, then how much more may we be encouraged to rely on God, who is an heavenly Father to us, the only true and loving Father, as He only is the true and living God, and is withal styled “the Father of mercies,” 2 Corinthians 1:3.
C. H. SPURGEON: Essentially, He is goodness itself—He is good beyond all others; indeed, He alone is good in the highest sense; He is the source of good, the good of all good, the sustainer of good, the perfecter of good, and the rewarder of good. For this He deserves the constant gratitude of His people. “For He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever.” When God calls Himself our Father, He means it. There are some fathers in this world, who do not act at all as fathers should—shame upon them! But that will never be said of our Heavenly Father. He is a true Father and He has a heart of compassion towards His children.
JOHN CALVIN: It is, unquestionably, an invaluable blessing, that believers can safely and firmly believe, that He who is the God of Christ is their God, and that He who is the Father of Christ is their Father. And certainly we ought to imitate the goodness of our heavenly Father.
