I have been building the case for each individual being a redemptive gift from God. This is accomplished through redemptive families, who are engaged in redemptive marriages. Eve in Genesis 2 is called Adam’s wife. God did not give Adam a concubine, nor did he give him several wives. Jesus references the passages in Genesis when speaking in Matthew 19. He states, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:4-5.
It is through the family system that God was determined to redeem the Earth. Adam and Eve cooperated with this process. They are banished from the Garden but they never banish themselves one from another. Each child we see born to them in the scriptures is celebrated. The fruit of the womb is a blessing.
Marriage becomes covenantal through a number of different processes. In the case of first time brides it is through the blood-shed during the first marital union. In many cultures marriage is not just the joining of a man to a women but a family to a family. Its purpose has been to bring together kingdoms during various times in history. It is the first and greatest institution established by God. He tells us in the book of Ephesians that marriage reflects the union of the Jesus to the Church. Every step away from the God ordained pattern of this institution is a step away from the redemptive gifts God established himself. “for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5; 31-32
Prior to the fall men and women lived together without shame without condemnation. They were naked but unashamed. Some commentators have tried to explain their lack of shame based on a covering of Glory. This may be true but what is certain is that Adam and Eve did not have knowledge of shame. We can see this lack of shame in contemporary times in different individual’s lives. One thinks of the naked newborn babe. Life is glorious and shame is not present when one rejoices at the site of a bear bottomed baby. Some have been privileged to minister to the infirmed the ill and the weak. They carry in them the gift and anointing to aid the sick. These individuals, Certified Nursing Assistants, Nurses and others like them cover shame with compassion.
Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
Genesis 3:20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
Genesis 4:1 Adam] lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man."
Eve the Mother of All Living
God’s intension to grant Adam and his progeny a life of freedom is intricately tied to the family structure and the birth of children. It was a child that was to crush the head of Satan. It is important to note that he was not born to the virgin within years, or decades, but millennia separated the prophecy and the birth of the child. What was mankind to be doing in the meantime? They were to have babies within a family structure, build communities, and filling the Earth. The Lord continues to expect us to be doing the same thing. The reason is that every life born on the planet has a redemptive purpose; every family has a redemptive purpose and every nation as well. Dr. Henry Morse makes the case that this patriarchal system and the family structure were the only form of governance that the Lord had established prior to the flood. He expected the family system to be strong enough and obedient enough to follow his simple command of being fruitful multiplying and filling the Earth.
The Seed of the Women
“When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” Matthew 2: 16-18.
In expectation of the redemptive event of Christ coming into the world both Satan and malevolent men partnered together to destroy the seed of the women. In one of the most deplorable moments in human history King Herod fulfills the prophecy of Rachel’s weeping. Here are the Magi searching for the Messiah to worship Him based on general revelation through a star in the sky. In contrast, a King in charge of the Jewish nation uses the scriptures as the source to commit genocide because he is concerned for an Earthly throne. Herod efforts were designed to destroy the seed of the women. Whenever men and nations fail to recognize the value of life redemptive gifts are destroyed. We will see several variations of this theme throughout this text. The genocide in Bethlehem is simply the most overt example.
Saved Through Child Birth 1 Timothy 2:15
David Guzik of the Blueletterbible.org provides the following commentary on this passage. His preferred approach to the passage is, “Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control. 1 Timothy 2:15
“based on the grammar in the original Greek language. In the original, it says she will be saved in the childbirth. This has the sense, “Even though women were deceived, and fell into transgression starting with Eve, women can be saved by the Messiah - whom a woman brought into the world.” Probably, the idea here is that even though the “woman race” did something bad in the garden by being deceived and falling into transgression, the “woman race” also did something far greater, in being used by God to bring the saving Messiah into the world.”
This interpretation I believe is correct and supports the idea the each child is a little promise from God that says, “The Messiah is (or has) come” It supports to point that each one of us have redemptive purpose on the Earth. Christ’s genealogical background is central to the promise. Every child is a gift to the genealogical background that God’s places them in, as Christ was a called to “the lost sheep of Israel” Matthew 15:24 and by extension to the world. We also are called to a people group and by extension to be a blessing to the world.
Water and Blood as a Sign of the Covenant 1 John 5:6
“This is the one who came by water and blood-Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 1 John 5:6.”
This passage is a difficult one to interpret I would like to align my interpretation with one cited by David Guzik again. He states, that there are some theologians that: “believe the water spoke of Jesus’ first birth, being born of the “waters of the womb,” and blood speaks of His death. If this is the case, John would be essentially writing, “Jesus was born like a man and died like a man. He was completely human, not some super-spiritual being who had no real contact with the material world.” This passage becomes important to our discussion on the Redemptive Gifts of Children as it supports that Jesus was born in a natural manner. He is God communicating to us the importance of humanity by clothing himself in humanity. The incarnation of Christ communicates the Redemptive value of all humans on the Earth, “being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,” Philippians 2:7b-8a. One of the miracles of the Scriptures is that Jesus becomes human eternally. It speaks to the value God places on humanity and therefore children. Holy men in every generation and in many different places have wrestled with the idea of the God’s work in the world and even his incarnation. They have made efforts to reach up to God. These efforts are often noble and profound; they serve as preparation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ when it is introduced by Apostles and Evangelist. George Lorimer, in his 1894 work The Argument for Christianity captures the nobility of man’s efforts to find God without the revelation of the Bible or the person of Jesus of Nazareth well.
“Men and women may fail to perceive that while only one religion can be true. There may be and must be something that is true in every religion. Unfortunately this simple distinction has been overlooked by multitudes of devout souls and consequently they have considered every other system than Christianity as and unadulterated mass of pernicious error… They have discerned in them no ray of light to relieve their blackness and hideousness and no way of deliverance for their multiplied adherents from the quenchless fires of perdition.”
“One thing already has been made perfectly evident: It can no longer be assumed that there are no flashes of heavenly light in the Eastern world, and that no stars glimmer in what may be considered as its canopy of night. However impotent for good the venerable cults of the East may be, they are not altogether destitute of wisdom, lofty longings, or some sound principle of morality. To denounce them as systems of lies and only lies is to betray either extreme ignorance or intolerance. The facts do not warrant the accusation and were it tenable there would be involved in it a very severe crimination both of God and man. It would imply that the largest portion of the human family was incapable of discovering or prizing truths, and that the Almighty had left it entirely to itself while he lavished his attention on a few million in the West.”
People in all places and in all times have sought God. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ we have God seeking man. His means of doing this was to send a child through the institutions that most reflects his nature, marriage that he created in the Garden.
Safe Haven, “Chasing the Glory of God”
http://www.safehavenonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=59
Henry M. Morris, God of the Nations, (Master Books, 2002) pg 28
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=8056&commInfo=31&topic=1%20Timothy
http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=2&contentID=8099&commInfo=31&topic=1%20John
http://www.gurusfeet.com/forum/veda-says-one-blessed-soul-sees-god-directly
George Lorimer, The Argument for Christianity, (American Baptist Publication Society, 1894) pg 414
George Lorimer, The Argument for Christianity, (American Baptist Publication Society, 1894) pg 416
No comments:
Post a Comment