"As a professor of theology, one of my priorities is to urge my students to develop a respect for the authority of biblical metaphors. To begin with, biblical metaphors should never be mistaken for anything other than metaphors; they should always be left intact. Metaphors aren't meant to be taken literally, but neither are they meant to be ignored. It is wrong to disregard a biblical metaphor. It is wrong because the metaphors are inspired by God and therefore profitable as well as authoritative.
Let's take a look at one biblical metaphor. In John 10:9, Jesus said, 'I am the door.' Notice, there is no debate about what kind of door Jesus is. A screen door? A wooden door? A sliding glass door? People aren't squabbling about this particular metaphor, because it is obvious that Jesus isn't literally a door.
But what if people started calling him 'the window'? Would that be acceptable? No, that would be unacceptable because Jesus didn't say he is the window. Jesus said, 'I am the door.' Indeed, the metaphor of a window communicates something different from the metaphor of a door. A window is an opening, but a door is something a person walks through. Your whole self goes through the door. Your whole self enters the kingdom of God not through a window but through one special door, Jesus Christ.
On the one hand, everybody knows that Jesus isn't literally a door. But on the other hand, some of us don't know that the fatherhood of God is metaphorical. One of my students, for example, recently said, 'I can concede that Jesus isn't literally a door. But God really is our Father.'
'Yes,' I said. 'God really is our Father. That is totally true, and it's not just a figure of speech. But we must understand that God is our Father in the very same sense that Jesus Christ really is the door. It's a literal fact that there is no other way to God but through the one door, Jesus. It is also a literal fact that God has adopted us as his children. Thus you are correct--God "really is" our Father.
'But if you try to press the issue of God literally being our Father, then to be consistent, you will also have to say that the Son within the Trinity literally is God's Son. In other words, you will drive yourself into a corner by forcing yourself to say that within the Trinity, the Father is older than the Son. For if we insist on being literal, then we will have to accept the unorthodox conclusion that God as a literal father is, by definition, older than his literal son. And yet, we cannot say this and still be orthodox. Indeed this explains why orthodox Christianity has always maintained that the fatherhood of God is metaphorical .' 12
Someone else may ask,'But if the fatherhood of God is metaphorical, does that mean we can just as well refer to God as Mother?' No, it doesn't. I am opposed to calling God 'Mother,' not because I believe that God is male. I don't believe that at all. I am against it because to do so is to disregard the authority of the God-inspired biblical metaphor. To call God 'Mother' is to tamper with the text. It changes the biblical message when God is proclaimed to be our mother. If it didn't, no one would be clamoring to address him as Mother when they pray.
The Bible indicates that God indeed is motherly. Nevertheless the Scriptures do not teach us to address him or conceive of him as 'mother.' God is Father, and yet the Bible says that he mothered the children of Israel. In Isaiah 66:13, the Lord says, 'As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.'
Bearing this in mind, whenever anyone motherless asks me whether or not God can 'be their mother,' I say to them that he can be their God--which is better. With that, I explain that it's unbiblical to pray 'Dear Mother' to God. But it's acceptable to pray, 'Thank you, God, for mothering me.'
12 If we try to say the converse, that the Son is younger than the Father, then we accidentally suggest there was a time 'when the Son was not,' which is classic Arianism, an age-old heresy in the church."
- pgs 117-119
-Sarah Sumner, PH. D.
Sumner, Sarah. Men And Women In The Church. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003
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