Is it not possible to call God Father?

If we take the books of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Psalter, we will see that in many places in the Old Testament God is called the Father. For example, "My Father" is in Isaiah and Jeremiah. It would seem that the first words of the prayer "Our Father..." taken from the Old Testament. A similar form can be found in the Jewish prayer book – the Siddur, where half of the prayers begin, if not with the words "Blessed is our God, King of the Universe...", then with the formula "Our Father". This means that for someone who was at least somewhat familiar not even with the Sidur, but simply with the Old Testament, these words were not something absurd and did not give cause for indignation. So, this is not the case.

In solving this riddle, we will probably be helped by the Epistle to the Galatians and the Gospel of Matthew, in their part that speaks of Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and where the Aramaic "abba" is used, i.e. not just "Father", but an affectionate word from everyday life, something like "daddy" or "tyatenka" (in the Russian language there are no words that would accurately convey the appeal of Jesus to the Father). "Abba," Jesus addresses God in prayer, and presumably this is how He calls God when He speaks to the Jews. The Greek translator did not have the courage to convey Jesus' address as it sounds in Aramaic: "My daddy..." That is why the Jews were furious—they heard Jesus address God "fraternally." That is the reason for their anger.

Jesus had a predecessor, a semi-legendary Galilean miracle worker named Hanan Ganehba. In the Talmudic tractate Taanit, several stories have been preserved about this strange eccentric, through whose prayers God performed miracles. In particular, there is such a story. Children during a drought asked Annas to pray that God would send rain. The children say, addressing him: "Daddy, daddy, send us rain." And then Annas prayed. "Send rain," he said to God, "on the earth, that they may understand the difference between a daddy who sends rain and a daddy who can't do it." The situation is somewhat similar to the Gospel. In the center of it is a rather original man, a simpleton from Galilee, almost illiterate, but whom God hears because of his purity. But Hanan is more of a legendary figure than a historical one.

As for the Jerusalem crowd, they simply perceived the words of Jesus as something inadmissible, provocative, familiar. In verse 18 of the fifth chapter, it should not be translated "making Himself equal with God," but "speaking to God in a brotherly manner" (defiantly, as with a friend, as a capricious child with his father, and so on). It is not about the equality of the Son with the Father, but about a special, unique and inimitable relationship between God and man, the meaning of which is simply impossible to understand from the outside.

One of the French writers of the 20th century was indignant at new translations of the Bible and Liturgy. He said that the Bible, where God is addressed as "You," should not be read, just as one should not go to church, where the same thing happens. The fact is that in the old French Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments, God the Father, Jesus and the Mother of God were always addressed only as "You". Therefore, today reading biblical texts in old French editions is simply funny. It is enough to try, for example, in a verse sounding in Slavonic: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to the command of Thy mercy...", to replace "have mercy" with "have mercy" and "Yours" with "Yours"... Such a text will evoke nothing but a smile in us.

Meeting the healed man in the temple, Jesus says to him: "Sin no more, lest something worse happen to you" (5:14). We will hear similar words again soon. In chapter 8, Jesus says to a woman who has been brought to Him while she was meeting with her lover: "And I do not condemn you, go and sin no more" (8:11).

These words – "sin no more" – are the all-encompassing formula of repentance. Through the mouth of Jesus, God calls the sinner not to return to sin. This is said in the Proverbs of Solomon with crude imagery: "As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness" (Proverbs 26:11). Then the Apostle Peter repeats this verse: "Do not return to your sin, as a dog returns to his vomit" (2 Pet. 2:22). In general, in the book of Proverbs of Solomon, wisdom is quite archaic, thought is not dressed here in elegant clothes, everything is called by its proper name. And Peter, a simple man, easily uses these crude aphorisms that he likes. Therefore, do not sin any more, do not return to what you have left behind. In this call there is something core, connected with repentance in general and with the sacrament of repentance in particular.

Speaking about the topic "Sin no more", we can draw another parallel. In the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 12) and in the Gospel of Luke (chapter 11) a parable is told. When an unclean spirit goes out of a person, it "walks in dry places, seeking rest, and does not find; Then he says, "I will return to my house from whence I came." And when he comes, he finds it unoccupied, swept and tidy; then he goes and takes with him seven spirits, which are more evil than himself, and having entered, they dwell there; and for that man the latter is worse than the first." This means that if a repentant sinner returns to his sin, he falls into something worse. Do not sin, "lest something worse happen to you," says Jesus in the Gospel of John. From our own experience, we know that when a person returns to his weaknesses, vices, etc., as they say, "on the next turn", the misfortune acquires more terrible outlines than before. If, for example, the first time a person stole, offended or killed someone out of ignorance and repented of it, and then again began to steal, offend, kill, then he is doing it quite consciously. And this is much scarier.

… Having sent the healed man, Jesus continues the dialogue with the Jews. "Do not think," He says, "that I will accuse you before the Father: there is an accuser against you, Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me also, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (5:45-47).

If we read this text carefully, we will remember that the same thing is said in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man, after death, in hell, begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his father's house, to his brothers, so that Lazarus would warn them that they lead a bad life, and lead them to another life. To this request, Abraham answers: "They have Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them." To this the rich man says: "If anyone from the dead comes to them, they will repent." But Abraham objects: "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then if someone were to rise from the dead, they will not believe."

This parable is about the people of Israel obeying Moses. And this is understandable, because the Law is given in order to listen to it and fulfill it. But in the Gospel of John, although it seems to be about the same thing, a new verb is used, and several times: "For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me also. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"

From the point of view of an orthodox Jew, should we believe Moses or not? The Jews do not think about faith, but about doing what is written in the Law. And the Law given by God is generally the same as the laws that are written by people. Moreover, the Jews have no other law than that formulated in the Pentateuch. Property relations, criminal law, etc. are determined by this Law. So for a Jew, the problem of believing or not believing Moses does not exist. The law is not written to be believed, it must be obeyed. In Orthodox Judaism, it is as if there is no faith.

This means that here, in the Gospel of John, we are talking about something else. Not about the Law, but about trust. If you had trusted the experience of Moses, the experience of touching God, then you would have believed Me, you would have accepted My experience of touching Him—that is what Jesus is saying to the Jews. This is a new turn in relation to the Pentateuch, to the Law, to the Holy Scriptures.