The Father as Father of the Son

Following the Apostles’ Creed, the answer to Q. 25 of An Orthodox Catechism begins, “I believe in the everlasting Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…” The Father is everlasting along with Son and Spirit. Or, to put it another way, the divine essence is everlasting, and that everlasting divine essence just exists in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus, everlastingness does not exclusively belong to the Father, but essentially to all three Persons. Yet, what does belong to the Father exclusively is His paternity, that is, He is Father to the Son. And this is how Father and Son are really and truly distinguished one from another—and this is the only way in which they are distinguished. As we speak about the Trinity, we need to understand that while each of the three Persons are of the same divine essence, they are nevertheless really distinct from one another by virtue of the order of processions. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit is neither Father or Son. As the Second London Baptist Confession (1689) states—

In this divine and infinite Being there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word or Son, and Holy Spirit, of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided: the Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son; all infinite, without beginning, therefore but one God, who is not to be divided in nature and being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative properties and personal relations; which doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God, and comfortable dependence on him.

The Father is Father of the Son precisely in virtue of the Son. For apart from the Son, there is no Father. And apart from the Father, there is no Son. And if this relation obtains, and it does, then there must also be a bond of love between them, which is the Holy Spirit. Augustine states it, “The Holy Spirit is He whereby the Begotten is loved by the one begetting and [by whom He] loves His Begetter.”

We might take John 1:1-2 as a point of entry to the Father’s fatherliness in relation to the Son. It reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” I suggest a theological reading of that verse might be, “In the beginning was the Son, and the Son was with the Father, and the Son was coessential with the Father,” that is, “of one essence with Him.” Thus, we see how it can be said the Father and the Son are one, i.e. one essence, while they nevertheless are distinguished according to their relations, i.e. the Father is Father and the Son is Son. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father. They are distinct Persons. This is further elaborated upon further down in John 1, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (v. 18).”