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Why should Believers call Elohim “Father”? Why should we pray, “Our Father which art in Heaven….”? Is Elohim called Father because He’s the collective Father of all mankind by virtue of creation? Is Elohim REALLY OUR FATHER?

      The glory intimated by the fact that we are to be called the sons of Elohim is too glorious for us to comprehend the depth, nay the height, of its meaning. Every analogy is magnified, examined in detail, verbalized: Elohim is the Creator, the Beginner, and the One who caused us to have life – and so is called our Father. He is Benefactor, Provider, and Protector. He is Love-giver, law-giver and forgiver, Punisher of sins, Rewarder of virtue, Maker of angels (and so their Father by creation), true and actual Father of Yahshua the Son of Elohim.

      Elohim the Father is our Father in every way, and we are His sons in every way…

EVERY WAY BUT ONE!

That one? TO BE Elohim AS Elohim IS Elohim. That Elohim is our Father because He is actively and presently in the process of begetting and bringing sons to birth, sons to be born in His image, spiritually perfect as He is perfect, ever living as He is ever living, Elohim as He is Elohim—the purpose of all creation, the goal of human life, the plan of Elohim!

Blasphemy?

Don’t be too hasty in your judgment. Don’t be as ancient Israel did before you – don’t limit Elohim! (Psalm 78:41.) Read on. See what the Old and New Testaments of your bible have to say on this most important question: Why is Elohim the Father called a Father?

Read what prophets and apostles of Elohim alike tell us is the plan of Elohim. Read what Yahshua said, says and will say!

Yahshua had this problem when He was here on earth some two thousand years ago! The way He answered the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees of His time- the scriptures He used are still there. They still mean the same thing today that they meant in that yesterday, and they will mean the same thing forever!

(Hebrews 13:8) No, they were NOT scriptures that just applied to Yahshua alone!

Remember when Yahshua said, “Has it not been written in your Law, I have told you, you are Elohim? [Yahshua here quoted from Psalm 82:6] If those people He called Elohim because the Word of Elohim was with them and scripture is not able to be broken. To Him whom the Father sanctified… say, You blaspheme! Concerning that I had told you that I am the Son of Elohim”(John 10:34-36.) What got everyone upset was not that He taught His disciples to pray, “Our Father who is in Heaven…” (Matthew 6:9). All the people of the book, Israelites  and Jews alike, considered Elohim as their Father. “…My son, My firstborn is Israel” (Exodus 4:22). “…O foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father who bought you? Has not He made [created] you and established you?” (Deuteronomy 32:6).

They knew the scripture which says, “For You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; You, Yahweh are our Father, our Kinsman- Redeemer; Your name is from everlasting” (Isaiah 63:16).

Also, “But now, YAHWEH, You are our Father. We are the clay, and You are our maker; yea, we all are Your handiwork” (Isaiah 64:8). The beautiful analogy was accepted by everyone. The idea of thinking of Elohim as Father-like was everyone’s doctrine. It was much like today—Hasting’s Bible Dictionary says, “… Yahshua taught His followers to think of themselves as Sons of Elohim.” The common thought of the day was not what Yahshua had in mind when He taught them to pray, “Our Father…” Neither did Yahshua at any time in His life teach His followers to conjure up the nice spiritual feeling of thinking of themselves “As IF” they were Sons of Elohim!

What stirred people up was that Yahshua literally meant what He said. And what He said was, “I and the Father are One” (John 10:30). That is what triggered the charge of blasphemy! That is what drove His listeners to attempt to stone Him! And people have not changed in two thousand years. People still get stirred up and snort, “Blasphemy!” when they hear a follower of Yahshua and His Father say that he literally believes Yahshua’s prayerful statement to His Father, spoken on that day He was sacrificed for us, when He said, “Holy Father, keep them in Your name, those whom You gave to Me, that they may be echad (united) as We are echad” (John 17:11).

Yahshua, the ONLY Begotten

The Apostle John, explaining about Yahshua, the Word of Elohim, pointed out that He was Elohim from the beginning and had always existed before His human birth (John 1:1). John went on to point out that everything that we see around us in creation was made by that one we call Yahshua (John 1:3).

And further, that Elohim was made flesh and dwelt with human beings on the face of the earth—referring to Him as “an only begotten one from the Father” (John 1:14, 18). That Yahshua Messiah was and is the Son of Elohim is a cardinal point of doctrine upon which all doctrine rests. No one who calls himself a Believer can at the same time deny that Yahshua was and is the Son of Elohim.

The One who was Elohim became man! That Yahshua of Nazareth, “Who, existed in the very form of Elohim, thought it not robbery to be the equal with Elohim, but emptied Himself, [of His glory] taking the image of a servant, having become in the image of the sons of men and being found in form like a man, He humbled Himself, having become obedient until death, even the death of the torture stake” (Philippians 2:6-8).That same Yahshua who was Elohim, yet also was with Elohim from the beginning, was also the One who confounded His fellow countrymen by saying, “Before Abraham existed, I AM” (John 8:58). And by explaining to them that He was both Yahweh the Son and yet also the Son of David (Matthew 22:41-46), Yahshua Messiah was actually telling them that Elohim became a human being. This was the same Yahshua who emptied Himself of the glory of being Elohim (John 17:5) and became a human being, fleshly, subject to death.

That Elohim could become a human being, subject to death, subject to all of the manifold temptations of physical man (as Yahshua was) was and is totally unacceptable to Jewish thinking – so they rejected outright the claim of Yahshua of Nazareth that He was the Son of Elohim. Now, before you judge that rejection too harshly, let us remember that the vast majority of those who call themselves Christian reject outright as blasphemy and consider unthinkable the fact that human beings can become Elohim! So we have on the one hand a great body of people who deny that Elohim can become man and, on the other hand, a greater body of people who deny that man can become Elohim!

In fulfilling the prophecies which looked forward to the coming of the Son of man, the Messiah in His first coming, His humble, rejected –of-men coming, Yahshua became the Only begotten Son of His Father in heaven. He fulfilled what Isaiah prophesied (Isaiah 7:14). What so many of the other prophets looked forward to as well—that is: a human baby was formed by the power of the Spirit of Elohim (Matthew 1:18) in the womb of a virgin, and so was the only human being who ever had or ever will have the Father in heaven be the one who engendered Him in the womb. In this way Yahshua is the only begotten Son of Elohim the Father.

Yahshua, the Firstborn

Regeneration—new birth—being begotten— being born again into the Kingdom of Yahweh are all principles with which every bible scholar is familiar. Yahshua explained to Nicodemus that in order to gain entrance into Yahweh’s Kingdom human beings have to be born again. He very patiently explained to him that it was not a physical rebirth that He was talking about, but a newborn spirit being (John 3, especially verse 3).

There are so many scriptures going over the details of this doctrine as Yahshua explained it to Nicodemus that it is difficult to pick any one to explain this spiritual change, regeneration, new birth. Yet of any chapter in the bible, perhaps Romans 8 best explains how it is that human beings become the Sons of Elohim in every sense of that expression.

This chapter begins by showing that as physical human beings with carnal minds in our present fleshly state we cannot obey the Laws of Elohim and please Him. First of all we have to have a sacrifice to pay for the sins which demand our death, and then, receive a new mind, a changed mind, a spiritual, rather than a physical, oriented mind so that we can begin to think and act and live like Yahweh our Father in heaven, or as Paul better puts it, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of Elohim, these are Sons of Elohim” (Romans 8:14).

The Father’s Spirit, Yahweh tells us, joins with our spirit and proves to us that we are the Sons of Elohim (verse 16). It goes on to show that by joining His Spirit with ours, Yahweh does not immediately bring us into His Kingdom, His Family, but that we have to live through experiences, which in many cases are painful, to develop character, to bring us to maturity (Matthew 5:48) so that we can finally be born as the Sons of Elohim.

Comforting advice is given to show us that despite all the trial and difficulties we have to endure while we are still human beings,

“…we know that to the ones loving Elohim all things work together for good, to those being called according to purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Paul goes on to explain in verse 29 that we might be Sons of Elohim as Yahshua is a Son of Elohim, born into the Kingdom and Family of Yahweh as Yahshua was born into the Kingdom and Family of Elohim! And so it is that Yahshua, the Captain of our salvation, is called the “Firstborn among many brethren.”

That is, Yahshua the Messiah of Nazareth, the only human being to be begotten in the womb of a woman by Yahweh the Father in heaven, is the first human being to become a Son of Elohim by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4)!

BUT ONLY THE FIRST!

Any human being, by exercising the power of the Spirit of Elohim, can join that Firstborn Son in Yahweh’s kingdom once he is called by Yahweh the Father.

It was from the beginning that the plan of our great Elohim who is the source of outgoing concern, the source of love—to share His eternal life, with all its joy and majesty!

Speaking of Yahshua, Paul quoted the book of Psalms and wrote, “What is man, that You are mindful of him; or the son of man that You look upon him? You made him a little less than the cherubs; You crowned him with glory and honor; and You set him over the works of Your hands. You subjected all things under his feet. For in order to subject all things under him, He left nothing not subjected to him. But now we do not yet see all things being subject to him” (Hebrews 2:6-8).

Certainly we recognize that all things are in subjection to Yahshua our Messiah! We all remember the scripture quoting Yahshua, after His resurrection explaining to His disciples, “All authority in Heaven and on earth was given to Me” (Matthew 28:18).

Notice in reading this quote that Paul cites from Psalms that it is not just the Son of Man (Yahshua) who is being talked about, but mankind. That Yahweh created mankind with the ultimate purpose of sharing His rulership of all things is manifest by these verses. Yahshua is not the only one to have sonship in the kingdom of Yahweh—all of mankind was created with that purpose in mind.

“But we do see Yahshua, who humbled Himself to become a little lower than the cherubs through His suffering and His death, but now is crowned with glory and honor, so that He tasted death for the sake of everyone except YAHWEH. For it was fitting for Him, because of whom are all things, and through whom are all things, having brought many sons to glory, so that from the very beginning of their salvation they are made perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:9-10).

Yes, Yahweh the Father intends, it is His will and purpose to add many sons to His Kingdom, His family to have the same glory that the captain of their salvation Yahshua Messiah, now enjoys. It is in this context that Yahshua refers to called-out human beings as brethren (verse 11). Really brethren – not just called brethren.

“In the Beginning…”

In the first verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:1, Yahweh introduces Himself to mankind as the Almighty Creator.

In the English translation of the Hebrew it is unfortunate that the term “Elohim” is not fully described because in the Hebrew from which it is translated the word it is not singular! Yahweh introduced Himself to mankind with a plural name! Yahweh uses this plural name exclusively over and over throughout the first chapter of Genesis and through verse 3 of chapter 2. That plural word in the Hebrew is “Elohim”.

In English we use “s” as a pluralizing letter on words. In Hebrew they use “im” as a pluralizing form. In some cases this is confusing. One example of this is in Genesis 3 and verse 24 where the Hebrew word “Cherubim” is transliterated from the Hebrew. In order to make people understand that there is more than one individual involved, this word is Anglicized and spelled “cherubim’s”! Although this conveys the idea to English-speaking people that there was more than one cherub involved—and so helps us understand the original language in which the bible was written – it is also misleading in the sense that this practice is not consistently exercised throughout the bible.

If the translators had been consistent with this form of translating, then the first verse of your bible would read, “In the beginning Elohims…” So the word translated Elohim in Genesis 1—Elohim in the Hebrew—means the ever living, Eternal Creating, All Powerful, Governing Family—Kingdom of Yahweh. Elohim does mean one Elohim not many Elohims – but that one Elohim is a family and Kingdom! It is similar to Yahweh’s Congregation. There is but one true Congregation—one Congregation, but many members (1st Corinthians 12:20)!

The Greatest Creation

As far as is revealed in your bible there are only two beings presently in Yahweh’s Kingdom— the ones we call Yah Yahweh the Father and Yahshua Yahweh the Son. Those two, in that beginning chapter of Genesis said, “And Elohim said, let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26.)

Mankind at that time was created physically in the form of Elohim—“And YAHWEH Elohim formed the man from the dust of the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). He did not have eternal life, or immortal life, at that time, but, as Yahweh said to him, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).

Physical creation was completed in the record we read in Genesis 1, but the greatest creation—the very purpose for the physical creation— was not complete. The great process of spiritual creation was just begun with the creation of two human beings to produce the entire race of mankind which was to be offered Sonship in the Kingdom of Yahweh!

The Purpose of life is that in us Yahweh is really re-creating His own kind—reproducing Himself after His own kind—for we are, upon real conversion, actually begotten as sons (yet unborn) of Elohim; then through study of Yahweh’s revelation and His word, living by His every word, constant prayer, daily experience with trials and testing, we grow spiritually more and more like Yahweh, until, at the time of the resurrection we shall be instantaneously changed from mortal into immortal—we shall then be born of Yahweh—we shall then be of the Elohim family!

The Father Greater than the Son

When Yahshua Messiah was here on this earth as a human being He constantly referred to the Good News of His Father—the Good News of the Kingdom of Elohim—constantly turned people’s attention to the fact that there was a Father.

He revealed the Father. He never hesitated to show that He could do nothing except the Father guide, lead, support and sustain Him (John 5:19, 30). He said, “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).

Just as some human beings have greater jobs, responsibilities and authority than other human beings, so it is that that great Yahweh called Father has the greatest responsibility of any being—is greater in every way than any other being.

Yahshua Messiah, who is next in responsibility, authority, and office to His Father is joyfully, willingly, and properly submissively fulfilling His responsibilities as second in command in the great Yahweh family.

Yahshua gladly admits the Father’s superiority. He focuses all His called-out ones’ attention to that fact. He does not chafe under that authority but lives in perfect harmony with it.

It was through Yahshua the Messiah in a total unanimity with His Father that all things were created—the invisible things as well as the visible, that is, Great Spirit beings such as cherubim. It was that Yahshua who by living His perfect life example through the power of the Holy Spirit showed us, manifested to us, made visible to us what the invisible Elohim is like! It is that same Yahshua whom Yahweh has made the Head of the body He calls the congregation. That same Yahshua who is the firstborn from the dead—the first to receive total sonship in the Kingdom of Yahweh (Colossians 1:15-18).

Yahshua Messiah, who is the word of Elohim, was the one who spoke, and all the great universe we see came into being. It was He as well that created the vast world of spirit beings that we do not see. It was He who called out Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

This was Yahshua who came, born of a virgin, begotten by Elohim, who lived an entire lifetime perfectly within the Spirit of Yahweh’s Torah, died as a perfect sacrifice, shedding His blood, pouring out His life— having already emptied Himself of being Elohim, He now emptied Himself even of His human life. He gave His life’s blood to pay for our transgressions, our spiritual sins, He gave His body, beaten, pummeled and bruised as a payment for our physical sins, so that we might be healed.

(Have you ever wondered why the sacrifice of Yahshua can pay for the sins of all the world? Well obviously, if all the world and all that are in it and all of the created spirit beings and everything we know about was created by that one life, then the payment of that life was certainly sufficient!)

This same Yahshua, Yahweh the Father in heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit, resurrected from the grave to be His Firstborn Son.

This same Yahshua began Elohim’s one true Congregation on the day of Pentecost in 30 A.D. This same Yahshua has been with that same Congregation all these years, and death and the grave have not prevailed on that little flock, as He promised.

This same Yahshua is coming again as King of Kings and Master of Masters to rule, on this earth, all the nations in the wonderful world tomorrow, which is just around the corner!

If Yahshua, then, did all of these great things and fulfills these magnificent prophecies— what greater things is it that the Father does? The Father begets and brings to birth very sons of Elohim! Yahshua Messiah does not beget us as the Sons of Elohim, The Father does. Of course it is only through Yahshua Messiah that we know about the Father, that we can go before the Father, our sins paid for by Yahshua’s blood.

Father and Son = Perfect Unison

Yahshua Messiah, with His father, in a perfect unison, works out the purpose for which creation was made. But only Yahweh theFather can beget sons! And so Yahweh the Father is greater than Yahshua Messiah. And Yahshua Messiah, as any true Son of Elohim, is the first to admit that His Father is greater than He—the last to want it to be any other way!

Listen to this statement from the Apostle John as translated by J.B. Philips in his New Testament in modern English: “See what manner of love the Father has given us, that we may be called ‘sons of YAHWEH’” – and that is not just what we are called, but what we are. Our heredity on the Elohim ward side is no mere figure of speech—which explains why the world no more recognizes us than it recognized Yahshua (1st John 3:1.)

Continuing “Beloved, now are we the Sons of YAHWEH [begotten now, but not yet born] and it was not yet revealed what we shall be [that is, the manifestation of the Sons of Elohim, the time in which they will appear, has not yet come—Romans 8:23]. But we know that if He is revealed [that is at the second coming of Yahshua Messiah to be King of Kings and Master of Masters], we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is” (1st John 3:2). No human being can see Elohim as He is and live. Even Moses, who was permitted to see Elohim, saw Him only from behind, and Elohim in His mercy would not allow Him to see Him as He is!

But at the time of the resurrection—when the promise of Yahweh the Father comes to pass and we are born from the grave—when our mortality puts on immortality and our corruption puts on incorruption—when we are changed from flesh to spirit and we become the living sons of the living Elohim—when we become Elohim as Elohim has willed—then we will be able to see Yahshua Messiah just like He really is in all His spiritual splendor and glory!

The Example Oneness of Father and Son

That perfect unison that Yahweh the Father and Yahshua the Son work in by the power of their Holy Spirit is fascinating to behold. Yahshua said,

“No one is able to come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). And yet Yahshua also said,

“I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life: No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Yahweh the Father on His throne in heaven— active, living and in charge of His entire family – decides whom He wants to call when He wants to. He causes those individuals to be drawn to Yahshua Messiah, His Son. Yahshua Messiah in turn directs them to the Father in heaven! What Beauty! What Unity!

We do not see here any conflict between Father and Son. We do not see a Yahshua Messiah who this world teaches rebelled against His Father and recommended some different way. We see total agreement and unity, peace and the perfect work of spiritual creation of which the Father is in charge.

Believe it or not, the time of your salvation is in the hand of Elohim the Father. Yahweh the Father and Yahshua the son [the Elohim of creation] have established a seven-thousand- year plan to bring mankind from the human level to the divine level (2nd Peter 1:4)!

Six thousand of those years allotted for mankind to rule himself, for Satan to have free reign.

Then comes Yahweh’s Sabbath rest. The thousand-year term of His Kingdom here on this earth ruling mankind under His Government, His way. Each week that passes bears a foreshadowing of that plan. And finally a resurrection of all who have ever lived—who will be judged by their works according to Rev 20:11-15.

We see human suffering around us. We see a history of human suffering for thousands of years. Only here and there throughout that history did the Father intervene in the lives of a few human beings. The Son followed that lead in perfect harmony as always, working with, guiding, leading, prospering, educating, blessing certain individuals whom the Father had chosen out of a world living in rebellion, led by Satan the devil, against Yahweh’s Government!

It was to that rebellious world that Yahweh the Father sent His Son Yahshua Messiah to live in the flesh and, “…As many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become sons of Elohim, to the ones believing into His name, Those who neither by blood nor by the will of a man, rather were begotten by Elohim” (John 1:12-13.)

Why haven’t you heard before that your true destiny as a human being is to become a true child of Yahweh and part of His very family?

The disciple Apollos, back during the early days of the New Testament Congregation, was an enthusiastic and eloquent speaker whose zeal at first exceeded his wisdom and understanding. He had heard, and he repeated certain things he had heard about Yahshua Messiah and John the Baptist, about the message they preached.

He preached it himself and convinced many of its merits. Thus many were baptized, believing in the message Apollos had taught. But when Paul came to question the people who had been taught and instructed by Apollos, he found there was a key ingredient missing in Apollos’ teaching. He had failed to instruct them regarding Yahweh’s Holy Spirit!

His mind, His power, His very essence which He grants and gives to us to beget us as His children, to give us the power to overcome our human tendencies. The power that will raise us from human beings to Elohim beings!

Apollos himself needed further instruction and got it from a dedicated couple in Yahweh’s Congregation, and from the ministers in the Congregation. And, of course, those individuals to whom he preached needed further instruction, which they received from Yahshua’s ministry of that day and were all re- baptized! (Read this in Acts, Chapter 19.)

Surely you can see that there have been great areas left out of the Christian instruction from the ministers you have heard in the past—no matter how zealous and sincere they may have been. In fact, it seems that in preaching the Father and the Son they have left out— perhaps vociferously rejected – the most important reason why Yahweh is called our Father, and why Yahshua is called His son!

For a fuller understanding of this subject. If you have any specific questions don’t fail to write them to us. If you feel you would like to talk to one of Yahweh’s representatives about this most important of subjects—or any other subject of importance to you—don’t hesitate to ask!

You’ve heard it said, I’m sure, that Yahshua Messiah promised the Holy Spirit to His followers, but have you ever heard it said that Yahshua, in giving that very promise, labeled it the promise of His Father in Heaven? Read Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:4, and see it there with your own eyes!

Yahweh is called a Father because He is a Father. And it is His will, purpose and plan to become the Father of untold millions – to become your Father to share in His life, His glory, His majesty, His Kingdom—Yahweh as He is Elohim!

In these last days Yahweh is turning the hearts of the children back to Him as the Father.

He is calling the lost scattered tribes of Israel that have been scattered throughout the earth back into covenant relationship with Him.

He is calling His children out of paganized religion and into covenant relationship to become a very child and member of His very family.