All In the Family
Introduction:
There is no story more epic than the one you personally are playing a role in right now, the great story that engulfs all stories—the story of what God is doing to glorify Himself by redeeming His fallen creation.
This big story of Scripture—the metanarrative of the Christian worldview—contains many highs and lows. God created us in His own image and honored us with the task of ruling His world—that’s a height. But we have rebelled against His goodness—and there’s nothing else as low as that.
We can’t tell you the whole epic story—that’s what the Bible is for. But we can go over the high points to show how that epic story flows through the whole of Scripture.
The purpose of God is to have his glory spread and be known.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
God’s passion for His glory fuels His plan to spread His glory throughout the earth he created - by investing His image into humanity
Image of God
Old Testament Data for the Image of God
Transition
Before we get to the New Covenant where these themes of glory and the image of God are developed I want to follow onto this third theme - the family. And at this point I’m not going to separate out our temporal earthly families with the larger body the true family of God.
Adam and Eve’s first two sons were Abel, who “did well,” and Cain, who did not “do well” (see Gen. 4:4–7). And so it has always been ever since Eve picked fruit from the forbidden tree. Cain’s family, Genesis shows, proved wicked (Gen. 4:23). His brother Seth’s family, by contrast, was marked by people calling on the name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26).
By the time we reach Genesis 5, there are already two distinct people groups living on the earth: those who have rejected God and those who cling to God—the members of God’s true family. God saves this true family by sparing Noah and his lineage in the Flood. After that, the Bible records a remarkable history of how God continued to preserve His family, particularly through Abraham and his descendants, the nation of Israel. God even referred to the nation of Israel as His family, often calling them His sons and daughters (e.g., Exod. 4:22; Isa. 43:6; Jer. 31:9; Hos. 1:10; 11:1).
Adam and Eve’s first two sons were Abel, who “did well,” and Cain, who did not “do well” (see Gen. 4:4–7). And so it has always been ever since Eve picked fruit from the forbidden tree. Cain’s family, Genesis shows, proved wicked (Gen. 4:23). His brother Seth’s family, by contrast, was marked by people calling on the name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26).
By the time we reach Genesis 5, there are already two distinct people groups living on the earth: those who have rejected God and those who cling to God—the members of God’s true family.
We need a New Covenant
The people needed new hearts. They needed God to redeem not just their surroundings or their government but their innermost beings.
The New Covenant makes obedience not the condition of the covenant (as it was with the Mosaic Covenant) but the certain result. In the New Covenant, people don’t obey God in order to be His people; they become His people, and they therefore obey Him.
New Testament Data for the Image of God
Paul argues that believers are destined to be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom 8:29). We are to live as God would, to represent him and his character. Paul elsewhere refers to Jesus as the image of God (2 Cor 4:4). The writer of Hebrews uses the same verbiage, calling Jesus “the express image of God” (Heb 1:3). As humans gave visible form to God, so Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15). Jesus was truly incarnate, becoming human to atone for humankind, but also an example for humankind (Phil 2:6–10; 1 Pet 2:21).
These New Testament passages convey that Jesus was the imager of God. As Jesus imaged God, we must image Jesus. In so doing, we fulfill the rationale for our creation. This process is gradual: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18). Paul also links our resurrection to Jesus as the image of God in 1 Cor 15:49.
Jesus is the glory of God
God’s Glory is on display (Imaged) in Christ because He is God
The desire to know God, love God, and follow God is now realized through the power of His Holy Spirit, now empowering us to image Him and enjoy His Presence
We are being transformed into His image - 2 Cor 3:17-18
FAMILY VALUE
Family is a good thing, something of great value. But it is not an ultimate thing. It is a means to an end. That end, that purpose, is that the glory and knowledge of the Creator would spread throughout the world. Families are the temporary means by which God is bringing about that larger purpose. Families are God’s way of filling the earth with those who are in full fellowship with Him and with one another.
So when we order our marriages and order our families according to the principles God has set forth in Scripture, we are not obeying random, made-up rules. We are participating in redeeming something God has made for His glory, and we’re doing it by fulfilling His original plan.
Since the Fall, God has been always about the business of bringing His true family back into fellowship with Him. There has always been a true family of God throughout history, comprised of all those who know God through faith. And ever since the first members of that family (Adam and Eve) were put out of the garden, God has been about the business of restoring that family to a place of peace with Him and with each other. The final meeting place of that restored fellowship is the new earth.
Family (save for the Family of God discussion)
10.1 THE HISTORY OF REDEMPTION IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Readers love to be swept up in epic stories. Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s famous Foundation trilogy, for example, covers a thousand years and the fate of millions of planets. The Lord of the Rings is pretty epic by itself, but author J.R.R. Tolkien gave it a backstory going back centuries (which true fans can read in The Silmarillion), and he even invented languages for it. The Star Wars saga claims to be an epic that happened “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”
There is no story more epic than the one you personally are playing a role in right now, the great story that engulfs all stories—the story of what God is doing to glorify Himself by redeeming His fallen creation.
This big story of Scripture—the metanarrative of the Christian worldview—contains many highs and lows. God created us in His own image and honored us with the task of ruling His world—that’s a height. But we have rebelled against His goodness—and there’s nothing else as low as that. God’s image within us is now twisted, and our calling to have dominion has been frustrated.
But this is not the end of the story. The Bible not only tells us what we have done to ourselves and our world; it also tells us the remedy for our predicament. The actual events of Creation and the Fall take up just a few pages of the Bible (though they remain important to all the pages that follow). But the Bible takes its time telling the history of Redemption. It begins in Genesis 3 and doesn’t end until Revelation 22.
The Bible’s heavy emphasis on Redemption presents us with a significant challenge that you may have already noticed: it’s not easy to figure out the main point of a story that lasts many hundreds and hundreds of pages and covers thousands of years of history. But the purpose of this chapter is to identify that main point. We need to learn what Redemption is all about, and then we need to examine its implications for how we understand the world.
We can’t tell you the whole epic story—that’s what the Bible is for. But we can go over the high points to show how that epic story flows through the whole of Scripture.
THE SEED OF THE WOMAN
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1) He gave man and woman, His highest creations, a unique status and a unique job—they were made in His image, and they were to fill and rule the earth for His glory.
One marvelous proof of God’s grace is that the same passage that records the Fall of those image-bearers into sin also records the beginning of Redemption. While God is speaking a curse on the Serpent (Satan, according to Rev. 12:9), He gives a whisper of hope to the human race. In Genesis 3:15, God tells the Serpent that he is cursed to fight a long war he cannot win. A seed given to the woman will oppose Satan and frustrate his plans. There will be times when it appears that the Serpent is winning the war, but his victories will prove to be nothing more than bruises on the heel of the woman’s seed. In the end, the seed of the woman will leave the head of the Serpent crushed.
Genesis 3:15 is the thesis statement for the whole Bible. It expresses in just a few poetic lines the whole history of Redemption. It’s a verse thick with meaning. And it is possible to uncover this meaning, but you have to look at the rest of biblical history to do so. That is, after all, how a thesis works. But before we work through what Genesis 3:15 leads to, we need to consider where Genesis 3:15 came from.
Before the Fall, God had stated that man was to rule over the world while still under God’s greater rule over him. But now man has sinned. So God promises to send another man into this broken world: the seed of the woman. This man will do what the first man was supposed to do: he will subdue and have dominion. And in order to do that, he has to crush the enemy’s head. The dominion God commands humans to take in Genesis 1:28 will not be set aside. It will be restored—by a man, the seed of the woman.
But who is this Seed, and how will he subdue and have dominion? Those are the questions that the rest of the story answers. The authors of the Old Testament begin to answer them by unfolding a series of covenants.
But not all Israel was true Israel (Rom. 9:6–7). Being born as Abraham’s seed didn’t make you a member of God’s true family. And on the flip side, God never intended for Israel to be His whole family. He made them, instead, a “light” to all the nations, calling all people to come back into fellowship with God and His family. One of God’s first promises to Abraham was, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).
Hidden in that last sentence is Jesus Himself. He was the Seed of Abraham, who blessed all the families of the earth by offering a way back to God. And Jesus made the “family of God” concept clear. One day, as he was teaching in a house, someone told Him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” Jesus paused and asked, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then, looking around the room at those who were listening, He said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:31–35).
The church—which Jesus Christ brought about through His death and resurrection—is a visible expression of this same family. The church is “the household of God” (1 Tim. 3:15), and Christians are spiritual “brothers” and “sisters” to one another (cf. 1 Cor. 4:14–15; 1 Thess. 2:7, 11; 1 Tim. 5:1–2). The church is full of people who enjoy oneness with God because they have embraced God’s Son, Jesus. The church is a “foretaste of glory divine,” a big sign pointing to the day when the whole world will be reconciled to God.
I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (1 Cor. 4:14–15)
But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you. (1 Thess. 2:7, 11–12)
Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity. (1 Tim. 5:1–2)
What does all of this mean for us? It means that when the world looks at the church, it ought to see a family of people in fellowship with one another because they have been brought into fellowship with God through a common family member, the Lord Jesus. And just as the marriage union is a way to demonstrate that fellowship, the other relationships in the family prove it too. When parents fulfill their God-given role in the lives of their children, and children respond to their parents as God intended, it is a visible sign that God is indeed redeeming the world, reconciling the families of the earth to Himself one family member at a time, until all believers are united with God as one family on the new earth.
The book of Revelation describes the events leading up to the restoration of the earth. The apostle John is given a vision of God’s throne in heaven. He sees God on His throne holding a scroll filled with the judgments that God has determined to pour out on a world of unbelief and sin. But the scroll is sealed, and no one is found worthy to take the scroll and break open its seals.
Until Jesus steps in. “Worthy are you to take the scroll,” the elders in heaven say to Jesus, “for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). Jesus has brought the blessing God promised Abraham to every family on earth, and Revelation tells of the time when He will fully cleanse the earth from sin, destroying all the works of the Serpent (1 John 3:8).
When you get a hole in the knee of your pants, you have several options. You can patch it, but that will look funny. You can pay to have it rewoven, but that’s very expensive. Restoring something broken is often more costly, in fact, than just replacing it outright. But restoration is precisely what God has in store for His broken creation.
One of the main lessons to learn from the history of Redemption is that God is sparing no expense, not even the cost of the lifeblood of His Son, to restore His good creation. And it isn’t just people that God plans to redeem. He has committed Himself to giving His people a particular land—in fact, to restoring the entire globe. All of God’s creation will get restored, including our cultural life.