With One Another – Forever!!! (2)

 

 

Our Father desires a family with Jesus Christ as the Elder Brother, the Firstborn. The nature of family is koinonia, it is knowing and being known – it is a glorious feast of love and joy and mutual edification. There are no invisible people in God’s Family in Christ, there are no unacknowledged people – for we were each formed in the image of God, and we were each formed to display a special dimension and facet of the Image (we’ll explore more of this in forthcoming reflections). Jesus Christ has redeemed us by His blood and the Cross and Resurrection, He has redeemed us individually and collectively.

 

“For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons [and daughters] to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both He [Jesus] who sanctified and those who are sanctified [us] are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren…” Hebrews 2:10 – 11.

 

Jesus came to bring His brothers and sisters home to their Father. This is a story that we can title, The Faithful Elder Brother. Unlike the elder brother in the Prodigal Son who not only remains at home but who begrudges the younger brother’s reconciliation to his father, Jesus our Elder Brother leaves the Father’s House to search for us, to die for us, to redeem us, and to bring us back home to the Father’s House. O how Jesus loves us! O how our Father loves us! Our Father sent His firstborn Son to bring us home!

 

Because we have one Father, Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brothers and sisters. Can we see this? Can we see the nature of our relationship with God the Father and with Jesus Christ? Can we see that we share their very life because of the Cross and Resurrection?

 

Note that the Father is “bringing many sons to glory.” Jesus says to the Father, “The glory which You have given Me, I have given to them…” (Jn. 17:22).

 

In Romans 8:17 and 18 Paul writes of us bring glorified with Christ and of God’s glory being revealed in us. Then in Romans 8:29 – 30 we read:

 

“For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified, and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

 

Can we see, once again, that Jesus is “the firstborn among many brethren,” that Jesus is our Elder Brother, that our Father desires a Family. Can we also see that our Father glorifies us in Jesus Christ?

 

In 2 Thessalonians 1:10 we read that Jesus is coming “to be glorified in His saints on that day.” Then in verse 12, “…so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

Here again it is important to see the nature of God’s Family, the nature of the Body of Christ, the nature that lives within us – for it is none other than the Nature of God. For our Father to share His glory with His Family is not inconsistent with His statement that, “I will not give My glory to another…” (Isa. 42:8b) for His sons and daughters are not “other” than He is, for He has given them His very life through and in Jesus Christ – Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches (John 15:1ff). In Revelation chapters 21 and 22 we see the Heavenly Bridegroom sharing His glory with His Bride – we are bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh (see also Eph. 5:27).

 

To be continued…