What does “God the Father” mean?
Jesus prayed to him, called out to him, and even taught his disciples to make his name holy, and called his Father their Father. Jesus also said that he was sent by his Father and received glory from him, which Jesus gave to his disciples. When Jesus stated that the father of the Pharisees was the Devil, this shows the term is used in a spiritual way along with a literal way. Just as the Pharisees were not their figurative father, the Devil, Jesus was not his Father, as some think.
17 Jesus said these things, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you; 2 even as you gave him authority over all flesh, he will give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ. 4 I glorified you on the earth. I have accomplished the work which you have given me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed. 6 I revealed your name to the people whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you have given them to me. They have kept your word. 7 Now they have known that all things whatever you have given me are from you, 8 for the words which you have given me I have given to them, and they received them, and knew for sure that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I don’t pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are.12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you have given me I have kept. None of them is lost, except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I come to you, and I say these things in the world, that they may have my joy made full in themselves. 14 I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 I pray not that you would take them from the world, but that you would keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, even so I have sent them into the world. 19 For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. 20 Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me. 22 The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one; 23 I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 Righteous Father, the world hasn’t known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
46 Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Having said this, he breathed his last.
9 Pray like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.10 Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
Just with these few verses, it is rather easy to see that this is a Father-Son relationship. They are two different individuals. Jesus is not the Father. He would not pray to himself or call out to himself. He taught his followers to pray to the Father, not him. Jesus made it clear that the Father is Yahweh and that he is the Messiah:
Jesus questioned his disciples who they thought he was. Peter said, “The Messiah.”
29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”
30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.
Jesus, when talking to woman at the well, openly revealed that he was the Messiah:
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
When Jesus questioned the Pharisees at Matthew 23:41-45, he identified the Father of the Messiah as Yahweh, and the Lord of king David, as the Messiah. Jesus quoted this psalm of ancient king David recorded at Psalms 110:1. In the original or even the slightly older manuscripts, the first occurrence of the title “Lord” is actually Yahweh. Some translations use the English translation, Jehovah, some use Yahweh. Other translations will capitalize “LORD” to indicate that this is the Almighty God, Yahweh (Psalms 83:18). The Psalms originally have the name of the Almighty hundreds of times. It was man thoughts to remove it, not the Almighty’s. He had it placed there in the first place.
18 That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth.
Psalm 100:1 (DARBY) Notice placement of the Divine name;
110 Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put thine enemies [as] footstool of thy feet.
41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, “What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?”
They said to him, “Of David.”
43 He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying,
44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
sit on my right hand,
until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’? Psalm 110:1
45 “If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”
Notice the relationships here. Jesus asked the Pharisees who the father of the Messiah was. Jesus then says that King David, speaking by the spirit, called the Messiah “Lord.” Jesus identifies the “Lord,” in Psalms 110:1 as the Messiah and the Lord of King David.
The blindness of the Pharisees is all too evident. If they said that “Yahweh” (Or the LORD) was the father of the Messiah, they would have been in harmony of Psalms 100:1. But then they would have found themselves in a position to have to seriously consider Jesus claiming to be the Son of God and the Messiah. Other’s, including demons, could see that. But the Pharisees could not see it. They did not want to see it. Jesus called their father the Devil (John 8:44). This term “Father” takes on a figurative meaning.
39 Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind.”
40 Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?”
41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.
44 You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father.