02.10.06

God and the Family (1): God Created the Family

Posted in God and the Family at 7:26 pm by dowboy

Genesis 1:26 – 2:3
Last week, I happened to be speaking to someone who works for an organisation called ‘Campus Crusade for Christ’. She is an older Dutch lady and she and her husband have spent many years talking at Christian conferences on the topic of Christian marriage. We spoke for some time and I learned a lot – but perhaps the most alarming thing I heard was that in Holland, as I suspect in Britain too, the Satanist Church has, as its number one priority, the breakdown of Christian marriages. And so the Satanists pray fervently to their master that he would break up Christian husbands and wives. Unfortunately, we only see too well how many Christian marriages are breaking up – according to one American report, Christian marriages are just as likely as non-Christian marriages to end in divorce.
And so, aware of the considerable pressures there are upon Christian families, over the next few months I want to take a broad brush survey of what the Bible has to say about the family. I want to begin today by noticing that whereas the family is a social unit sociologists define and measure, it is in fact a unit which God created – mankind was created to live in marriage and family. Broadly basing our study on Genesis 1:28, I want to state two facts about families:
[A] God Makes the Family
In an age of increasing secularisation and godlessness, asserting the Biblical concept of the family is more than ever important. And the Bible says that the family comes directly from God – and that in two ways:
1. Family Beginnings – in Genesis 1:27 we are told, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Families find their beginnings in the authoritative command and creative action of God. They aren’t merely sociological phenomena, they are divinely instituted. And this in two ways:
a. Family as the Image of God – the image of God, according to Genesis 1:27 is only perfectly seen in the compatibility of male and female. The male by himself is not the image of God, neither the female, but male and female together. They together constitute the image of God. Surely here we see something terribly mysterious – that the union of man and wife is a reflection of something innate within God. In Genesis 2:24 we are told of the man and the woman that together they constitute not two flesh, but one flesh. There are two of them, but they are one flesh. In the same way, there are three persons in the Godhead but only one God. There is a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit, but only one God. There is a husband and a wife but there is only one image of God. And what I’m saying, mysterious though it is, is that only as we are united together in the most basic family do we and can we reflect who God really is. That is not to disparage the noble state of singleness, merely to elevate marriage. Do you want to show God to the watching world? Then have the strongest marriage you can possibly have. Work at your marriage and you will be reflecting who God is. That commitment of Father to Son, of Spirit to Father, you will be reflecting that to a world in which commitment is a bad word. But notice also the basic unit of family – it is man and woman, husband and wife – it is not mother and child, or father and child. The most important relationship in any Christian family is that of the husband and the wife – its more important than the relationship the parents have with the children or with their parents. The greatest gift you can give your children, the greatest reflection of the image of God in your family, is when you love your wife.
b. Family as the Creation of God – in Genesis 2 we are given a more in depth analysis of how God created the man and the woman. We read in vs. 7 that He formed the man out of the dust of the earth, where this word ‘form’ is most often used to describe the work of an artist with his canvas or a potter with his clay. Then we read in vs. 22 that God ‘made’ or literally ‘built’ the woman from the rib of the man. Here we have the work of the Divine Artist, carefully forming and building the first family unit. Your family, even though at bed-times you perhaps don’t think this way, is a work of God’s art. It is the expression of His creative mind and ability. Over this man and woman, God took special care, so much so that after He had created the woman He pronounced over His creation ‘it was very good’. And notice where the woman was formed from – from the rib of the man. I don’t think the comments of Matthew Henry have ever been beaten on this creation; he writes, “the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.” God took special care over the apex of His creation – the family unit. And to God, that is to be a unit characterized by love and security. And over that family God took pleasure – the same pleasure He takes in your family today – the most precious thing in creation.
2. Family Blessings – so far, we have talked of the most important relationship in the family, that of husband and wife. But now, we move on to talk of the children. Although Genesis 1 and 2 don’t give us much information about children, the rest of the Bible does, and so I want to notice two broad points about how God makes the family with respect to our children:
a. Family as Divine Action – we tend to think of children as a natural thing – a man and a woman make love and the product is a child – it’s a natural thing right? Well, we may see it like that, but the Bible talks of the conception of children as being an act of God – it is something that God does. I will give you a couple of examples: first, in Genesis itself. In Genesis 29:31 we read that “When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son.” Here we see that the opening of Leah’s womb, and the subsequent birth of Jacob’s firstborn, Reuben, was a result of God’s divine action. Again, in the next chapter, Genesis 30:22 we read, “Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son.” Again, we are seeing that the fertility of Rachel depended upon the sovereign decision and action of God. Then think about what is probably the most famous example, that of Hannah and Samuel, where in 1 Samuel 1:19, 20, after years of heartache and fervent prayer, we read that, “Elkanah lay with Hannah his wife and the Lord remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son.” It may seem to us a natural thing, but there is nothing ‘natural’ (whatever that word means) about the bringing forth of children into the family. Children are conceived because of the sovereign decision of God and the powerful activity of God. Your children are not purely ‘natural’ phenomena – just as surely as you were involved in their production, so God was too. God made the first man and woman, God made their children. God makes us and forms us together in our mother’s womb. That’s what Psalm 139:13 tells us – “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” That’s what makes abortion such a terrible thing – not just the murder of a helpless child, but the destruction of a sovereign work of God.
b. Family as Divine Gift – we so often take our children for granted – we say, ‘it’s not convenient for me to have a child just now. My work is more important to me than children.’ Underlying such a way of thinking is that we have a right to have children when and where we so desire. But the Bible speaks differently – God tells us in Psalm 127:3 that “sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.” We cannot take our children for granted – they are a gift, a heritage, a reward from God. God, the Divine Father, blesses us, His spiritual children, with our own children. They are a gift from God, a covenant blessing God gives to us.
God makes the family – He made you and your wife, He makes your children. And the Psalmist says in Psalm 128 of family life, “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots round your table. Thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord.” We so often look at families with pity because we see the hard work the parents have to put in and how they are constantly tired, and we as families sometimes envy the ability of those who aren’t married to do what they want to do, when they want to do it; and we may envy the ability of those who are married but have chosen not to have children to enjoy the pleasures of this world. But the Bible tells us that as tired as we are, and as economically challenged as we are, and as hassled as we are with our kids, we are truly blessed – God, in the greatness of His love and care for us, has given us a special privilege – family.
[B] God Tasked the Family
Everything God does is done with a purpose in mind – and this is no different when it comes to the issue of families. Families exist in order to do something – and that something is listed for us in Genesis 1:28 when God tells the first family unit – “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” And God, by giving these commands to the first family, is telling us that it is through having families as the basic unit of human society that it is possible to obey these commands and live according to God’s blessings. We can divide what God tells this first family into three sub-sections, each section of which is best achieved through God-given and God-blessed family life:
1. Reproduction – now it may seem like an oxymoron to suggest that it is through family life that we, as human beings, obey the first of God’s commands ‘be fruitful and increase in number’. Surely marriage exists in order to be fruitful and to increase in number! What we are meant to understand here is that population growth is intimately linked to family life – that is the way God has made it. But we live in a society in which family life is daily being eroded – what impact is this having upon the population growth in the United Kingdom? Using a set of statistics for England and Wales easily gleaned from a Google search on the internet I looked for 3 statistical values – births, marriages and population changes. And I averaged out the annual values into two subsets – 1993-1997 and 1998-2002. When you do the arithmetic, the statistics are alarmingly clear and totally vindicate what God says in His Word about the impact family life has upon population growth. In a nutshell, what we see is that the number of marriages has dropped in the five years from 1998-2002 as compared to the previous five year period – but so has the birth rate and the growth of the population. The Bible tells us that God designed the family in order to optimise population growth in accordance with His command to ‘be fruitful and increase in number’ – and what we see from secular statistics is that as marriage declines, so does birth rate and so does population growth. Marriage and Family is good for a growing population! Where marriage declines, so does the number of children born and the population remains static or even drops. Again, God’s Word is shown to be true to fact – God has tasked and uniquely equipped the family to be the agent by which populations grow.
2. Achievement – God’s second command to mankind is that we ‘fill the earth and subdue it’. This is commonly understood to be a reference to God’s command that, as the human race, we explore all the different avenues of science and the arts – we learn about and use this great creation God has gifted us with. Here God is telling us to become the best scientists we can be, the best artists we can be, the best doctors we can be, the best engineers we can be, the best mathematicians we can be and so on. He is telling us to achieve. But, subsuming this point under the idea of the family, what we are being taught is that the best environment in which to achieve greatness in any human discipline is within the family. It is the love and security of the family which provides the best foundation for the pursuit of the sciences and the arts. If Adam was not secure in his love for Eve then he could not have worked the garden as God commanded him to. If our children are insecure and unloved they will simply not achieve – they will live broken and driven lives and will be incapable of the determined thought required to pursue greatness in whatever they are seeking to do. What I’m saying is that the pathway to truly great science, the pathway to truly great literature, the pathway to truly great management comes through the love and security which only a family can provide. If you want your children to succeed in their fields of study, the best gift you can give them is a loving and affirming family environment where they can feel safe and supported.
3. Stewardship – God’s final command in vs. 28 is that mankind is to ‘rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ We have been tasked with the stewardship of God’s Creation. It is not our creation, it is not our world, it is God’s and we are stewards of all that God has made. We are to carefully harness the resources God has given us and be careful not to break the environmental laws He has set in place. We must not abuse His creation through over-pollution or over-exploitation of this world’s resources. Immediately, this links back to our previous point about science and the arts, since it is through the scientific endeavour that we learn how to harness and use the natural resources God has provided for us in this world. But again, remember that this command is being given in the context of the family. To live in families is to optimise our usage of natural resources – it is to rule and steward the world as God intended it to be. What is being said here is that as society breaks down and marriages and families become less common, there will be an attendant increase in pollution and exploitation. Again, this is a verifiable truth and is common sense. If you have two single people cooking tea for each other they will use double the packaging, double the energy with the cooker and double the washing up liquid as a married couple will. I know this seems a small point, but multiply that usage a couple of million times and you run into a serious pollution problem. Family life is far more energy efficient and therefore far more environmentally beneficial than any other form of societal life. Our stewardship of God’s Creation is best fulfilled in a family setting.
God makes the family, designing it with loving care. God tasks the family, setting objectives for it in accordance with how He has made it. No wonder Satanists pray against the Christian family, since by destroying that, they destroy the bedrock of Christian civilization, and, in the end of the day, they destroy the world itself. But they won’t win will they? They can’t, because Jesus has already defeated their master upon the cross at Calvary. And He has sent His Spirit into our hearts to enable us to live family lives which are pleasing to Him. And so, if you aren’t a Christian today, submit now to the God who created you and who loved you so much that He sent His One and Only Son to die upon the Cross for all the sin of mankind; And if you are a Christian, remember the importance of God created and God tasked Christian families; rely daily through prayer and determined trust in God’s grace, and make sure that your family is strong and points to Christ. AMEN

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