Having just returned from a few days in Boise, Idaho, where my wife and I spent Thanksgiving this year with our daughter and two of our grandchildren, I am reminded once again of the importance of family and why God gives such credence to this institution throughout His written Word.
God shows, in Exodus 20:12 that we are to show honor and respect to our parents, even stating that obedience to this command is rewarded with long life, no doubt taking into consideration that obedience to this command is a requirement for eternal life in His Kingdom. He illustrates in Malachi 4:5-6 that He intends sending the prophet Elijah, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord for the purpose of turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers.
In Ephesians 5:22 God shows that wives are to submit to their husbands and in verse 28 that husbands are to love their wives as they love themselves. In chapter 6 of Ephesians, verses 1-3 children are told, again, to obey and to honor their parents and, in verse 4, fathers are admonished not to provoke their children but to bring them up in the Ways of God. Additional instruction is given to family members as to the way they should conduct their lives together as they seek to build the family relationship in obedience to their God.
Man was created some 6,000 years ago with the ability to reproduce himself after his own kind and able to replenish the earth and to rule over it (Genesis 1:26-28). Prior to the creation of man, this world was inhabited by angels (Psalms 148:1-6). Angels ruled on the face of the earth under the leadership of the arch-angel, Lucifer, whose name was changed, later, to Satan, after his rebellion from God’s Ways (Isaiah 14:12-14). Satan continues to rule this world, today (John14:30). (See also, Luke 4:5-9; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2-3).
However, it is not God’s purpose that the world should be under the rule of angels, forever. In fact, angels are created to be helpers to mankind, especially as men are called to God’s Way for the purpose of salvation. Angels are created beings who will never have an opportunity to be part of a family. They neither marry nor are given in marriage and they are not capable of the reproductive process (Luke 20:34-36).
Yet, God has an ultimate plan of rulership which will exist down through eternity. The Family of God will rule this world throughout eternity, and God is presently in the process of creating sons and daughters to be a part of that family. God is reproducing Himself through the conversion process of which we now have a part. And when one is called of God, it is for that very purpose! We read in Ephesians 3:14-15, “For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” Of course, the present family in heaven consists of God the Father and Jesus Christ. The family present on earth today includes all of those who are begotten members of the family who received God’s Spirit upon baptism and the laying on of hands, whether living or having died “in Christ” and now awaiting the resurrection. These, along with any who are called and chosen in the future and remain faithful to God and His Way will be born of God at the time of the “resurrection of the just” which will occur at Christ’s second coming.
In Hebrews chapter 2, verses 10-11 we read; “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren…”
John tells us in 1 John 3:2; “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” And Paul reveals in Ephesians 1:4-6; “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.”
In the meantime brethren, we must ourselves continue to be faithful to God’s Way, faithfully building and caring for our own family relationships. If we do these things we are destined to become members of the Family of God!
