To be near unto God - pagina 258

acknowledges that he should live for God, because God is his Lord, so that he exists solely and alone for the sake of God. In this revelation of the Name, the love of God that sought us and drew us, has made still further progress. Israel was taught to know the Father-name, which is by no means revealed for the first time in the New Testament. When God said to Malachi: If then I am a Father, where is mine honor? this one saying clearly shows that the sense and significance of the Father-name was well-known in Israel. Even the antithesis with the child was understood in it. Gr was it not said of David: I shall be to him a Father. And he shall be to me a son. Everyone feels that in the Father-name the Eternal Being comes close to us. It is as though all distance falls away, and as though by this name

God himself invites us to warm confidence, close fellowship and intimate communion. The mothername would have done this still more tenderly, but not so significantly, because the mother-name is more closely associated with childhood and early youth, while the father-name embraces all of life. The Father-name of God moreover includes both the tenderness of the mother-name and the father-name. of the confidentiality energetic "Though a mother may forget her sucking child, yet will I not forget thee. (Is. 49:15) The inner religious life awakens in all its richness and fullness only at the sound of the Fathername. For now there is family life, continuous dwelling with God, the outpouring of the heart, the holding of oneself fast by God in confidence and love, in the fellowship of prayer and in a 250

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