The Universal Fatherhood of God

Liberal Theologians have always tried to thrive under the banner of the universal fatherhood of God. In this endeavor, these theologians taught that God is the father of His creation and loves it all the same and accepts all the people of the world and their efforts at morality. Since they are His children, God accepts the worship of all people, as long as it meets some minimal liberal ethical standard, no matter who they claim Him to be and what they claim Him to be like; and He obviously gives them all life after death. It would be abhorrent for God to send someone to hell in their system and understanding.
The ethic they sought to advance was the simple commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself," a commandment given by Jesus and the Old Testament, and almost every religion throughout the world. This command was to be the unifying factor. Under this banner, these theologians sought to bring all people together under a brotherhood, to stop all forms of religious exclusivity, and to create a world in which peace and harmony ensued because we all just got along. Obviously this has failed, as most all religions still claim to be the sole heirs of God, war still exists, and people clearly do not just love one another. In spite of this, the succession of liberal theology has infected far and wide the understanding of many people, as is seen by the way they claim that all religions teach fundamentally the same thing.
This way, however, does not work because it cannot. People do not need just a new perspective on life, but a whole change of their will and their hearts. Outward calls to brotherhood cannot and will not bring this about. Jesus never saw loving one's neighbor as the primary goal of life. To Jesus, that act is always secondary to "love the Lord your God" (Matthew 22:36-40). Jesus, as well as the whole Bible, claims exclusivity, and no Christian can claim otherwise. However, God's Fatherhood is universal, at least in one sense.
1 John reveals to us clearly both who are the children of God and what it means to be a child of God. The book of 1 John was written, in part, to help perfect the fellowship of a community of believers. Those who are to have fellowship together are not the Church and the world, for, as the apostle Paul rhetorically asks, "what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?" (2 Corinthians 6:14) Fellowship for believers is with other believers (not that Christians are not to associate and spend time with those who are not believers (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:10, John 17:14-18)), as 1 John 1:7 states clearly, "if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin." All who walk in the Light have fellowship both with God and with the communal body, the Church.
Starting chapter 2, John tells his "little children," the disciples for whom he is the shepherd, that they have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the One who is righteous and who is their righteousness. Yet He is not only their Advocate, but the Advocate for the whole world, every believer regardless of the restraints of space and time. Thus there is community between all believers; thus they are all able to approach the Father.
Not only can believers approach God the Father, He is their Father (cf. Galatians 4:3-7). There is a clear distinction drawn in first John between those who are the children of God, and those who are the children of the devil. These are the only two class distinctions made by John; one is either a son and heir of God, or a son and heir of Satan. John makes a clear distinction throughout chapters 2-4. There are the people of the devil, the world, and the people of God, the Church.
John gives both clear guidelines on how the children of God are to live, and how they are to be known. The children of God are not to sin, for "the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning." Christ appeared for the purpose of destroying the work of the devil (3:8). Thus believers ought not live as the children of the devil. If they do, they prove themselves to be children of the devil. "No one who is born of God practices sin [continual action is shown hear by the present tense of the verb], because His seed abides in Him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God" (9). The children of God and the children of the devil are distinguished by this: those who practice righteousness and love their brother are children of God (here brother means something like, fellow Christian; cf. John 13:35) (1 John 3:10). We know that we have passed from death in sin to life in Christ by our love for the brethren, the Church (14). If we do not love the brethren, we have no confidence before God (19-21).
On the other hand, those who do not love are dead; these are the children of the devil, these are the world (14). The world loves its own and listens to its own (John 15:18-19, 1 John 4:5). The world hates those who are not its own. Those of the world do not listen to the gospel, but reject it (6), for they are children of the liar, the devil, and they are in his icy grip (5:19). Because they are not born of God they do not love Christ, His Son. If they were of the Father, they would love His Son (5:1).
The children of God love because God loved them and sent His Son to be the propitiation for their sins (9-11). They have been forgiven much and so they love much (cf. Luke 7:36-50). God, who had reason to hate them loved them, and so they ought to love in the same manner (1 John 4:11). The children of God need not fear the wrath of God, for it has been appeased in Christ, the "Savior of the world" (where world does not mean the "world" as in the people of the world, but rather every race, creed, and clan of mankind). Those who love God can therefore not help but love their brother (19-21).
We know the children of God because they observe God's commandments, and by this we know that they love the children of God (5:2). If they do not keep God's commandments, they do not love the brethren (Christians) nor do they love their neighbor (everyone in the world). Those who are Christ's, however, will walk just as He walked and will keep His commandments (2:3-6). The children of God are not to love the world (its principalities, its powers, its rulers, and its system) nor the things of the world (its lusts and pleasures). "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (2:15). Those of the world love the world and they do not love God. In fact, all who even seek to be on good terms with the world are living in hatred toward God (James 4:4).
All of this does not mean that we are not to love our enemies and love the people who still abide in the world practically (for we do not know whom the elect children of God who have yet to be saved are). What it does mean is that our love is primarily and characteristically for the children of God (cf. Galatians 6:10 and 1 John 3:23). Believers in Christ are willing to lay down their lives for the Church, just as Christ Himself did (1 John 3:16). John wrote this to those "who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that [they] may know that [they] have eternal life" (5:13). This has not been written for those of the world.
Thus, according to John, those who are the children of God are those who "received [Christ]," those who "believe in His name," those who "were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13). This absolutely contradicts the teaching of the liberal theologians of the universal fatherhood of God.
Jesus did not teach the universal fatherhood of God, as the liberals understand it. Jesus taught the disciples to say "Our Father who art in heaven," not those who just belonged to the crowd. In the sermon on the mount Jesus referred to God as "your Father" sixteen times, according to Robert H. Stein. We must take note that the "you" to whom Jesus was speaking were "his disciples" (Matthew 5:1).(1) As R.H. Stein relates, "It is evident, therefore, that Jesus did not teach a doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God, and we do not find anywhere in the sayings of Jesus that since God is the creator, we are through creation his children and he is thus our father. On the contrary, there are some persons who can be described as having the devil as their father (John 8:44; cf. Matt 12:34)!"(2) (also see Galatians 4:6 and Romans 8:15-16).
God is, however, universally the Father of the world. How so? As John made clear, Christ is the propitiation for all who believe throughout the world, not just one community (1 John 2:2). Jesus came not just for the lost sheep of physical Israel, but for the true Israel, spiritual Israel. Thus we are now "one flock with one shepherd" (John 10:16). God is the Father of all who are in Christ, and only all who are in Christ, for He is the only way to the Father (John 14:6). These are universally brothers in Christ (I do not use sisters because we are all coequally heirs, whether men or women). God is the Father of the Bride of Christ, the Church universal. Praise be to God through Jesus who in His will has brought this about; how unsearchable are His ways?!

1 Robert H. Stein, The Method and the Message of Jesus' Teachings, Revised Edition, in the chapter "The Fatherhood of God" (82-89) (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 86-87.
2 Ibid., 87-88.