Why did God join His Human Family?

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Why did God join His Human Family?

Series: Why Did God Create Us?

What Does The Bible Say?

What did we learn in God’s three attempts have a human family?

We need God’s presence to follow Him.

6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. (Isaiah 53:6 NLT NLT)

Following rules cannot save us.

21 Is there a conflict, then, between God’s law and God’s promises? Absolutely not! If the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it. 22 But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ. (Galatians 3:21–22 NLT)

God’s heart was broken in all three attempts, but he knew the pain and still wanted a relationship with you!

18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. 19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. 20 God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake. (1 Peter 1:17–20 NLT)

There is more to the Christian story than the cross, the birth is just as important.

Why did God join His human family?

God needed to conquer death.

19 For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, 20 and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. (Colossians 1:19–20 NLT)

Only God could fix the problems we created.

15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, 16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. 17 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. (Colossians 1:15–17 NLT)

God had to keep His promise to both Abraham and David.

This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham. (Matthew 1:1 NLT)

We needed to see the perfect imager of God!

4 Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. (2 Corinthians 4:3–4 NLT)

We learned that God’s heavenly and human family did not know God’s plan.

12 For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12 NLT)

7 No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. 8 But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. (1 Corinthians 2:7–8 NLT)

How Can You Obey?

Do you fully understand that God wanted you in His family?

Do you fully understand that God wants all your friends and family in His family?

Additional Notes:

If you would like to use your home to disciple others, check out our training at www.crosswaveschurch.com/host. Cross Waves has produce short videos to train you how to use your home to reach others for Christ. So please check it out.

Explore:

This series comes from the book, What Does God Want? Michael S. Heiser and Blind Spot Press, 2018.

Explore:

There’s one more twist in this story that I don’t want you to miss. You may have wondered something. I know I did (more than once). If the death and resurrection of Jesus overturned the effects of what the serpent (Satan) had done, and impeded the wickedness that permeated the world, and amounted to taking away the authority of the defiant gods of the nations, why in the world would Satan and the other evil spirits ever kill Jesus? It seems blazingly stupid.

Think about it. The key to everything in God’s plan was Jesus’ death, because you have to have a death in order to have a resurrection that overcomes death. And Jesus could not have gone back to be with God the Father if his mission was not accomplished—which means the Spirit could not have come to deal with depravity. If Satan and all the other powers of darkness had just let Jesus alone, God’s plan would have failed. Are they supernatural idiots?

I’ve written a lot about this topic. It’s fascinating. The New Testament actually answers this question. In talking about the good news (“gospel”) of Jesus that he preached, the apostle Paul said:

But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Cor 2:7–8)

“Rulers” is a word Paul used elsewhere for evil members of the spirit world (Eph 3:10; 6:12; Col 1:16). The point is simple: Satan, demons, and the rival sons of God didn’t know what God’s plan was. For sure they knew who Jesus was when he started his ministry. They called Jesus the “son of God” and “son of the Most High” (Matt 4:1–11; 8:29; Mark 1:12–13, 21–24; 3:11; Luke 4:1–13, 31–37; 8:28). The Old Testament made it pretty clear that God still wanted a human family to rule with him just like the original idea of Eden. Satan and his buddies could have guessed Jesus was here to get that ball rolling. But they had no idea how. The logical thing in their view was to kill him. But that was the key to everything. God played them like fools.

It’s easy to chuckle about how much smarter God was than any of his supernatural enemies. But let’s not miss the point. God joined humanity not to make Satan or demons look silly. He did it because he wanted you in his family. He needed no other motive. You were enough.

Heiser, M. S. (2018). What Does God Want? (pp. 35–36). Blind Spot Press.

Explore:

Because God became a man in Jesus, he could die. That was important because death could only be defeated by resurrection. You can’t have resurrection without a prior death. Since Jesus was also God he had the power to bring himself back to life (John 10:17–18). Since the death of Jesus was God’s plan, God knew from before the foundation of the world that he would raise Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:23–24, 32; 3:15; 10:40; Gal 1:1).

Because of the resurrection, our distance from God was bridged. Death was overcome. Those were the effects of the rebellion in Eden. The Adam and Eve problems, caused by the temptation of the serpent (Satan), were solved. Everyone who believes that Jesus’ death and resurrection provided forgiveness of sin and everlasting life will be in God’s family forever (Rom 4:16–25; 8:10–11; 10:9–10; 1 Cor 6:14).

Once Jesus rose from the dead he had to return (“ascend”) to heaven. Jesus ascended to heaven and took his throne next to God the Father (Mark 16:19; John 20:17; Col 3:1; Heb 12:2). This was a precursor to sending the Holy Spirit, who would indwell believers (Acts 2:33; Rom 8:9–11). Jesus had to leave so the Spirit could come (John 14:25–26; 15:26; 16:7; Luke 24:49).

The coming of the Spirit was the fulfillment of the new covenant described by Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Jer 31:31–34; Ezek 36:22–28). It would be the Spirit who would provide victory over depravity (Gal 5:16–17), and whose works would be “greater” than Jesus’s own (John 14:12). Jesus knew his death and resurrection were key to the new covenant coming to pass. This is why at the Last Supper Jesus told the disciples that his blood was “the blood of the covenant” poured out for them (Matt 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). Once Jesus ascended back to heaven and the Spirit descended to earth, humanity was not helpless against depravity.

The bottom line is that for God to clean up the problems with having a human family—the perpetual failures and rebellions—he had to become a man and fulfill all the terms of the covenants himself.

Think about my original question in this book: What does God want? He wants you. And he sent his unique Son to earth as Jesus to fix the problem of death and sin, to fulfill his covenants with humanity, so he could bring you home forever. God joined the human family. There was no other way. There are a lot of reasons why the gospel has nothing to do with our behavior—earning God’s love and salvation. This is the biggest of them. It’s insane to think our imperfect behavior could ever be adequate. The coming, death, and resurrection of Christ would never have been necessary if we could earn salvation.

Heiser, M. S. (2018). What Does God Want? (pp. 34–35). Blind Spot Press.

Question 1 of 5

Why do atheists and evolutionists have problems with the moral argument for God?

Question 2 of 5

Why do people reject living for God?

Question 3 of 5

How do you answer someone who says, “I've lived a good life and I will go to heaven?”

Question 4 of 5

Is it important to you that God knew from the beginning of time that His three attempts to have a human family were going to fail?

Question 5 of 5

What are some actions you can take to help your friends and family know that God wants them in His family? How can you be that imager for them to know this truth?