God’s Blended Family
|
Key Verse: “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Selected Scripture: |
THE APOSTLE PAUL SAID, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” (Gal. 3:6,7) Continuing in verse eight he explains that God declared his purpose when he first preached the Gospel to Abraham. He said, “The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” (Gal. 3:8) What is the Gospel of Christ? Paul answers this question clearly. He tells us that God made this wonderful promise to Abraham concerning a “seed” which was to be the channel of blessing. (Gen. 22:18) Christ was the ‘seed’ he had in mind. That is why he used the expression, ‘Gospel of Christ.’ He presents additional information concerning this seed when he said, “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” He then adds, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (vss. 27-29) When the apostle speaks of those who are ‘all one in Christ Jesus’ he assures us they are intimate associates of our Lord in the work of his coming thousand-year kingdom. This definitely points out that the church of Christ will share with him in the privilege and honor of being God’s channel of blessing to “all the families of the earth.”—Gen. 12:3
Abraham, through his faith in the promises of God, became God’s friend. We do also, and we enjoy his friendship and fellowship. But we become more than friends. We become the “sons of God,” his children. (Rom. 8:14) Observing this, Paul adds, “If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”—vs. 17
As ‘heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ’ what is to be our mission? Touching upon this subject, soon after Pentecost the Apostle Peter preached, “He [God] shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.”—Acts 3:20,21
Restitution means restoration, or reconstitution. Life was lost through sin and God’s penalty, “Thou shalt surely die,” (Gen. 2:17) fell upon our first parents, Adam and Eve. All their descendants have continued to die, but Paul reassures us, “In the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.”—Eph. 1:10-12
The children of faith in the present Gospel Age include Jew and Gentile, bond and free, male and female, as a blended family in Christ and as Abraham’s seed. Through these, together with their Lord and head, Jesus, the children of faith will be expanded to include all the faithful mankind of the world, a larger blended family.