In previous posts we've noticed that the Scriptures chronicle the story of how God strategically weaves His purposes into human history by bringing events into alignment with His will.
In Ephesians 1:9-10, we read that God made known to us the mystery of His will, which was according to His purpose, and that purpose, He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time.
Could it be that from the beginning of creation God foreshadows that His plan for reconciliation with humankind would be through the crucifixion death of his very own Son, and would be the means by which man would most profoundly understand His profound love for us?
Could it be intentional that the sacrificial crucifixion death of God’s One and only Son should be the center point of all revelation, and the solution for the entire human race, whose relationship with God was corrupted by the sin of the first Adam.
To be clear, the efficacy of the sacrificial death of Jesus is profound in its application to our lives. For centuries, much attention has been given to Jesus' sacrificial death, and rightly so.
But what if, as equally important is the Father-Son familial relationship through which Jesus' sacrificial death comes. Did God intentionally, with much forethought, create human beings with the capacity to live and love within the context of emotional family-bonding framework, especially the father-son relationship, and then use that emotional family-bonding framework as the means to communicate the profound depth of his profound love for mankind by sacrificially offering his own Son in the context of His own Fatherhood, even for His One and only Son to be the sacrificial propitiation of our sin, which ultimately is the definitive cause of the corruption of our relationship with Him?
Could it be that God purposely created humans as emotional beings in order for us to grasp the depth of His personal grief and sorrow at the death of His beloved Son, and conversely to grasp the height of the greatness of His mercy and grace offered to us through that crucifixion death of His One and only Son?
Is there no greater tragedy in life, no greater sense of loss to the human soul, no greater heartbreak than losing a loved-one to death, nonetheless a tragic, horrifying, and undeserved crucifixion death? There is no greater demonstration of love than to lay down one’s life (and be crucified) for one’s friends. (Jn 15:13)
Was God’s plan from the beginning of time to create us in family groups with emotional family-bonding relationships who respond to death with such grief and heart-rendering emotion for the sole purpose of demonstrating to us His great love through the crucifixion of His very own Son, and in that way to
“bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…Was this (excruciating Father-Son crucifixion) according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord…? (Eph 3:9-12)
Is that the reason Paul bows his knees before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant (them) to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in (their) inner being, (in order that they) may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that (they) may be filled with all the fullness of God? (Eph 3:14-19)
Could we have ever understood the "breadth and length and height and depth, and come to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge," without understanding the heart wrenching agony of a Father, that our Father Himself offered to undergo on our behalf?
Did our Father in heaven, specifically create and name every family on earth for us to specifically understand the depth of the riches of His glory specifically through the medium of the sorrow of death, specifically the death of a family member, specifically the death of His One and only Son?
Did God design all of humanity to experience the traumatic emotional impact that death has on our lives, specifically so that we would fully comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of His love for us, specifically by volunteering to sacrifice His One and only Son through crucifixion as the means by which reconciliation would be accomplished?
Was the familial Father-Son relationship the perfect “communicative key,” so to speak, that would unlock the confines of our comprehension and provide a small glimpse into the magnanimous heart of God?
So, which came first, the "Father" or "human familial relationships?" Did God design Himself according to humanity or did God design humanity according to Him. Or did God design, plan and create all human familial relationships according to "his mysterious will hidden for ages and now realized in Christ Jesus our Lord according to His eternal purpose…?
That question is not out of sorts when we consider how many times the familial word “FATHER” is used in the Bible.
In both the Old and New Testaments, the word “FATHER” is used very frequently. The word occurs in 28 of the 39 books in the Old Testament and 26 of the 27 books in the New Testament. Of the 1,189 chapters in the Bible, the word “FATHER” occurs 1,153 times, averaging an occurrence of almost one time per chapter. That is an amazing repetitive pattern. Could it be that there is intentionality in the frequency of occurrence? Perhaps this is evidence of an important concept. If so, why?
If that is not enough, if we consider the familial word “SON,” we learn that the word occurs in 34 of the 39 books in the Old Testament and 21 of the 27 books in the New Testament. Of the 1,189 chapters in the Bible, the word “SON” occurs 2,371 times, averaging an occurrence of almost two times per chapter. That is even a more amazing repetitive pattern. Could it be that there is intentionality in the frequency of occurrence? Perhaps this is evidence of an important concept. If so, why?
What’s more, if we consider the word “CHILDREN,” another familial term, we learn that the word occurs 511 times, averaging an occurrence of almost one time per every two chapters. That still is amazing repetitive pattern. Could it be that there is intentionality in the frequency of occurrence? Perhaps this is evidence of an important concept. If so, why?
If we combine the sum total of occurrences for all three familial terms, “FATHER,” “SON,” and “CHILDREN,” then we would learn that there would be some form of the aforementioned emotional family-bonding framework over 4000 times in the 1,189 chapters of the Bible. That is an astounding occurrence averaging approximately four times per chapter. That is the most amazing repetitive pattern we’ve seen so far. Could it be that there is intentionality in the frequency of these occurrences? Perhaps this is evidence of an important concept. If so, why?
All this without even a mention of all the other word counts that could be done for the myriad of other familial terms used in the Bible (abba, adoption, ancestor, brother, genealogy, husband, offspring/seed, sister, wedding, wife etc.). If we add these to the mix, then we have a phenomenal amount of emphasis of a biblical framework that includes an emotional family-bonding experience. Again, could it be that there is intentionality in the frequency of these occurrences? Perhaps this is evidence of an important concept. If so, why?
With this emphasis in mind, we learn that immediately after communicating the corruption of our relationship with Him in Genesis, God promises a plan of reconciliation through an injury/death of the seed of the first woman (Gen. 3:15). In this episode, God is speaking to Satan who appears in the story as the snake. God tells Satan,
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring/seed and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
On this end of time, Christendom understands Gen 3:15 to refer to the crucifixion of Jesus that became the ultimate and final blow to Satan's defeat. In Gen 3:15, not only is the family relationship in focus with the usage of the word seed, but could it be that here God begins His entire redemptive plan by placing the redemptive plan in the context of the emotional family-bonding framework? The word seed, as in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, is σπέρματός – spermatos, from which we derive the English word “sperm,” the genetic DNA-carrying-fluid engineered by God for the reproduction of the human race via the family bond of a husband and wife.
The word generally is used as a figure of speech (Synecdoche) to refer to offspring or children of a family. Here, it is used specifically to represent a descendent of the lineage of Eve. Here more specifically, we know it means one specific descendent of the lineage of Eve. The apostle Paul tells us so in Galatians 3:16. Even though Paul is referring to a different story of Genesis, the same word is used in both places as reference to the crucified Christ.
“Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring/seed. It does not say, “And to offsprings/seeds,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring/seed,” who is Christ.”
Paul also makes a specific reference to this Gen 3:15 passage making it clear that the seed is a reference to the victorious Christ who would ultimately strike defeat to Satan, who himself would be stricken with injury through the crucifixion. In Romans 16:20, Paul assures us that the God of peace will ultimately crush Satan under foot. And then Paul goes on to invoke the name of the Christ in blessing his readers “through the grace of Christ.”
So, the beginnings of God’s redemptive plan through the crucifixion death of His One and only Son is undeniably couched in the context of a family relationship, and ultimately we know that it is specifically couched in the tragic and emotional crucifixion death of a Father’s Son.
Later in the Genesis story, God chose a man named Abram, whose name was later changed to Abraham to become the ancestral father of the nation of Israel, and specifically through his genetic DNA, this seed would ultimately emerge on the historical scene through his lineage.
In the book of Genesis, we learn that God chose Abraham specifically to be the ancestral father of this seed, the One through whom His plan of reconciliation would, centuries later – “in the fullness of time,” come to fruition as a blessing to all nations/families of the earth (Gen. 12:1-3). And it is Abraham’s son who becomes the Old Testament focus and type of Christ that we know today.
Of all the stories chronicled in the Old Testament, there is none more infamous for emotional trauma than the one that characterizes the Father-son, Abraham-Isaac story in which God asks Abraham to offer his one and only son as a ritual sacrifice upon a blood offering altar. It so happens that Isaac is the one and only son God promised to Abraham and Sarah to be the generator of generations through whom this seed would ultimately be born. In Genesis 22:2 God tells Abraham,
“Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.
Later in the chapter, after Abraham demonstrates his heart wrenching willingness to obey God, and voluntary sacrifice his one and only son, God tells him in 22:12 "not to lay a hand on the boy" because,
”in your offspring/seed shall all the nations/families of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” Gen 22:18
Could it be God’s purpose that this seed should become the Old and New Testament interpretive key to understanding His plan for world history; a plan originally set in motion at the beginning of time and ultimately coming to fruition, as we come to learn, in the New Testament, “in the fullness of time, through the Father sacrificially offering His Son to be the propitiation for our sin?”
Paul also tells us in the New Testament that
“when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:4)
Again, notice the familial language Paul uses, “son”, “born of a woman”, “adoption.”
Does this language indicate an intentional emotional family-bonding framework attributed to God’s plan for the fullness of time? Did God intentionally create humans in the context of an emotional family-bonding framework as the means to communicate the profound depth of his profound love for mankind by sacrificially offering his own Son in the context of His own Fatherhood so that in this way, man may profoundly understand the depth of that
love He has for His creation?
It’s a question to deeply probe in future blogs.
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