Don’t read if you are squeamish.
Every now and then, I feel a little grouchy. The filters come down, and I mention the elephant in the room — or at least, the one I think I can see.
Call it what it is: lack of self-control. But even so, there’s something here that needs to be said. Something that needs to be brought under the microscope. We are all called, welcomed, invited to draw near to God in intimacy and to enjoy Him forever… but before we dare to draw near to God with any sense of such intimacy, we are first summoned to behold Him in all His untouchable majesty — His burning holiness, His vast and terrible beauty.
The prophets didn’t stroll into His presence, coffee cup in one hand, mobile phone in the other. They trembled. The heavens themselves shout His glory. The seraphim, those blazing creatures nearest His throne, cover their faces even as they cry, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3), and the cherubim, ophanim, archangels and thousands upon thousands of angels, accompanied by all the other celestial beings that we have no idea about. The roar of worship across heaven is twelve steps beyond awesome, and that is before the saints join in!
True intimacy is born here — not in familiarity, but in holy wonder. Not in sentiment, but in the kind of holy fear that undoes the beholder and remakes them at the foot of the throne.
We must not, dare not, cannot rush past this life-transforming awe, hurrying to domesticate God into something more manageable, something that fits our cool, hip, Gen A–Z lifestyles.
Before He is our Father, He is our Sovereign. Before we speak of sonship, we must bow under His Lordship supremacy. It is the One who dwells in unapproachable light whom we now dare, and are invited, to call Father — and that is no small miracle. When the Spirit moves us to cry from the depths of our being “Abba, Father,” it is not a downgrade from trembling awe to casual familiarity — it is a call upward into the very life of Christ.
We do not drift into the Father’s embrace by the softness of our feelings; it’s not our initiative — we are carried there by the resurrection might of the Son.
And so, having seen the King in His blazing splendour, it would be no small misstep — and something we must seriously consider — to trivialise that glory by calling Him “daddy,” or “papa,” as though the cross had merely bought us a seat at the children’s table.
And now we arrive at it — the “daddy” issue.
The one who has truly beheld the Lord, high and lifted up, does not then fit Him into their back pocket. There’s literally nothing to be lost either in intimacy or relationship in not calling Him ‘Daddy’ and nothing to be gained?
The intimacy of the gospel does not soften God’s holiness — it exalts it — with a profound sense of awe and reverence. Remember this is God, not someone a little better than humanity. We are not drawn into His life because He has come down to our level. We are drawn up because Christ has, by His actions, raised us from the dead. We do not find a smaller, friendlier God. We find ourselves caught up into the eternal love the Father has for the Son, carried along by the Spirit, washed clean by the blood. To reference Narnia; we never find an Aslan that we can cosy up to — he’s not a tame lion!
“Abba, Father” is the supreme, privileged cry of those who have walked through fire and emerged as sons and daughters. It is the Spirit’s song in our hearts — not skipping past the cross, but plunging us deeper into its blazing heart and is the shout of the redeemed, appreciating, marvelling and beginning to know the full extent of what it cost.
This is why heaven does not waste its breath on songs about how cuddly God is. Heaven rings with the anthem of the Lamb — “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12). Eternity will not find us slouched on God’s lap, casually doing “daddy” prayers over our shoulders — we will stand, faces lifted, hearts ablaze, mouths filled with the song of the Lamb. Awestruck. Here is love, vast as the ocean…
To call God Father is to tread on holy ground — and you are called to do it, often. To cry Abba is to declare that the vast divide has been crossed, the blood has been spilled, and the grave has been broken open. But to reduce it to “daddy” — in my opinion — is to needlessly shrink it down to sentiment — to forget the nails, the thorns, the wrath borne in our place. We’ll never walk through Heaven skipping along, holding on to His finger.
My encouragement is to let us then draw near to the throne of grace with confidence (Hebrews 4:16) — but let that confidence be shaped by awe. Let us rejoice that we are sons and daughters — but never forget the infinite gulf the Son bridged to bring us home. Let us cry Abba, Father — but let it be the cry of those who have seen the King in His beauty and fallen at His feet, undone and remade.
This is the wonder of the gospel: the God who shakes the heavens, whose voice thunders across eternity, now hears our trembling cry — and calls us His own.