Joint Heirs
Joint Heirs
In these pages we are constantly reminding readers that the family plays a starring role in God's drama. God covenants with families, not individuals. Families are the gardens His children are charged with tending. And families are God's primary vehicle for raising up new believers. But if we believe this, then what do we make of it when Jesus declares that He has come to set son against father and daughter against mother, to set a man at odds with the members of his household? (Matt. 10:34-36) The answer is straightforward—there are families, and there are families. Godly families are fine; Jesus likes them. Ungodly families are not only not fine, Jesus came to dash them to pieces for the sake of His Kingdom, with some of the shards consigned to destruction and others prepared for glory. It is a good thing to become the enemy of your household—if as a result you become a friend of God.
In this atomic age, when we think "family" we go nuclear—father, mother, children. Some might be generous enough to include aunts, uncles, and grandparents. But God's idea of family is broader, being both multi-generational and multi-leveled, extending to tribes, nations, even races. All are fair game for King Jesus, who plunders ungodly families of all sorts to gather the material from which he will form one new tribe, one new nation, one new race—the Christian one.
And let's not fool ourselves into thinking that Jesus intends to somehow carry over our favorite tribal, national, or racial distinctions as He builds His kingdom. As citizens of the kingdom our connection to Jesus is not only forensic but familial—to do the will of the Father is to resemble Jesus as a brother (Matt. 12:48-50). And if both you and I bear a brother's resemblance to Jesus, then we bear a brother's resemblance to each other, with no tribal, national, or racial characteristics distinguishing us.
This can be hard to swallow in an age where diversity is celebrated, where we are somebody, where our desperate yearning to be our own person leads us to submerge ourselves in one or another crowd that defiantly distinguishes itself from all other crowds. When we find our self-worth in those special distinctions that set our group apart from (and above) all other groups, how excited can we be about God's invitation to set all that trendy outerwear aside and don a garment that everyone else in the room is wearing? If not our own garments, then can't we expect God to permit some measure of accessorizing?
We are confused about this because we have been trained to think of our virtues in a zero-sum manner, to weigh them against the corresponding shortcomings of others. My thriftiness or diligence or sense of rhythm or business acumen is special only in contrast to your extravagance or slothfulness or tin ear or economic ineptness. The truth is that our virtues are special only to the extent that they please God—and in the consummated kingdom, all that will remain in us is that which pleases God. The specialness of your virtues will be found in their excellence, not in a brother's lack of it.
Rather than moaning about the lack of diversity in God's kingdom, or waxing nostalgic over the beautiful mosaic we never were, let us instead rejoice in the power and mercy of a God who condescends to root around in the devil's diverse dung pile, choosing some according to His good pleasure to pass through His refining fire, purging them of the dross in which they take such pride and fashioning them into the likeness of His beloved Son.
At Saint Peter Presbyterian Church we are frequently privileged to observe as God adds children to His kingdom in the sacrament of baptism. Often these are covenant children, who were blessed never to have been slaves of the enemy. Some of them are children of believers who are finally persuaded that God's covenant extends not just to them but to their children. And some are those whom God has sovereignly chosen to deliver out of unbelief.
And then there are those who are the objects of personal rescue missions, children whose parents have snatched them boldly from the enemy's hand—these are the adopted ones, and we cry especially joyful tears as we welcome them into our community, because we know that there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth in hell that day. The enemy had thought them quite safe, shielded from prying eyes by hedges of nationality, language, and race—only to despair as the faithful, despising those differences, came crashing through those hedges to spirit those children away and embed them within their own covenant families.
In my mind, these parents are deserving of double honor. Not only have they gone to extraordinary lengths to extend the reach of the kingdom, they have laid the groundwork for purifying our community of a particularly ugly denial of imago Dei, the doctrine that we are all created in the image of God. For these children will have been raised as covenant children, the image of God nurtured and refined in them, and so their superficial differences from our biological children will eventually be shown up for what they are—adiaphora, matters of indifference, characteristics that are trumped by a godly upbringing. The image of God will shine forth brightly in each and every one, regardless of origin.
There will soon come a day when a godly young man, Southern in upbringing and Southern in outlook, will come to ask for the hand of my daughter. Because of the valiant efforts of these parents, this godly Southern young man may very well have been born in Haiti, or India, or Cambodia, or Korea, or China, or inner city America. And it pleases me now to know that his national or racial heritage will be of absolutely no concern to me. Because of the valiant efforts of these parents, his last name will be Hays, or Kiser, or Brockmyre, or Wellons, or Cottrill, and as a result I will be deeply familiar with his cultural heritage, since it will be the heritage that we bestow upon every covenant child around here.