God The Father The term for God in Genesis one that is most often used in the Hebrew is (ELOHIM).  This term begins the revelation of God to man, His unique creation, where ELOHIM said, “Let US make man in OUR image according to OUR likeness… So ELOHIM created man in His own image” (Gen. 1:26-27).  Immediately, the Hebrew scholar is faced with a problem.  You see, ELOHIM is plural.  How can the one true God be plural?  “Hear, O Israel: The LORD (JEHOVAH) our God (ELOHIM) is one!” (Deut. 6:4).  This is never answered in the Old Testament.  There are some shadow things revealed, but the fullness of how the one true God can be in some sense plural is never directly dealt with.   As His people grow spiritually, God reveals more and more of Himself to His people that they might more fully understand Him.  God in this sense is seen as   reasonable in that He reveals to man only what man can comprehend.  In this sense we can say that there is from Genesis to Revelation an ongoing, progressive revelation of our God unto us.  God in the Old Covenant did reveal Himself as being multi- personal simply in the use of the Hebrew terms He chose to use to make His presence known.  This brief study will focus primarily on what is revealed to us of the Father in the Old Covenant.  If this can sufficiently be done, then we can understand more clearly the relationship that the Son, who lived as a faithful Jew, did have with His Father at the end of the Old Covenant.  This also will help us to see the reasonableness of our message to the Jews who do not understand the harmonious and complementary relationship between the Father and the Son. Christians understand from the New Covenant that the Godhead, Divinity, or Divine Nature (Rom. 1:20, Ac. 17:29, Col. 2:9) represents the one true God to man in His fullest form.  The term “Trinity” is a Latin term that does not appear in the Bible.  The term “Trinity” does communicate what is revealed to us about our one God, but because it is not a Bible term it is avoided by many.  The one true God who has all power, all authority, and all  knowledge, has chosen to reveal Himself to us in a personal way.  God is not distant but is close to His people.  Three persons always in harmony, always           cooperating  perfectly, always unified in what is revealed.  Frankly, it is not possible for the Father and the Son and the Spirit to be in disagreement.  There is only one  exception to this idea and that is when the Son chose to wear flesh like us and dwell among us for some thirty-three years.  He was genuinely tempted like us in all ways (Heb. 4: 15) — God as a person, not a holy “IT.”  God can be related to by His creatures.  As a person, God is conscious of Himself and is conscious of others.  God has an intellect, emotions and a will.   Consider now some passages of the Old Covenant which speaks of the God of Israel as being a Father or as having a son relationship. Isa. 63:15-16:  “Look down from heaven, And see from your habitation, holy and         glorious.  Where are Your zeal and Your strength, The yearning of Your heart and Your mercies toward me?  Doubtless You are our Father, Though Abraham was ignorant of us, And Israel does not acknowledge us, You O LORD (JEHOVAH), are our Father; Our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name.”  Jesus in the New Testament addresses God as His Father who is in heaven (Mt. 6:9) when he teaches the model prayer. Isa. 64:8:  “But now, O LORD (JEHOVAH), You are our Father; We are the clay, and      You our potter; And we all are the work of Your hand.”  Isaiah clearly gives the Father a personality who has a relationship with the work of His hand. Deut. 32:6:  “Do you thus deal with the LORD (JEHOVAH), O foolish and unwise         people?  Is He not your Father, who bought you?  Has He not made you and         established you?”   Here, Moses makes it clear to all Israel that they have a personal  Father/son type of relationship with their God. Malachi 2:10:   “Have we not all one Father?  Has not one God created us?  Why         do we deal treacherously with one another By profaning the covenant of the         fathers?”  Malachi continues to emphasize the truth that there is but one God  and one Father.  God can rightly be referred to in the Old Covenant as Father;  and it then comes as no surprise to us that Jesus, the Son, being separate and   distinct from the Father addresses Him with the term Father.  Our Father/God  is not Adam but is rather the one who created us. Exodus 4:22-23:  “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the LORD         (JEHOVAH), ‘Israel is My son, My firstborn.  So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me.  But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn.’”  Here, we have Moses being directed to speak to Pharaoh the king of Egypt.  Israel to God is spoken of as His son, His firstborn.  Observe the personal and endearing communication from the Father  to Pharaoh. Finally, observe how the Messiah is referred to as God’s Son in passages like Psalms 2:7 and Proverbs 30: 4.  God is the Father (source of life) for all created in His image and uniquely so for His spiritual and eternal children.