Identity is important. This is important for our culture, flooded with identity policies and impregnable callings provided by the concept of identity, and that is important among Christians. We call people to live according to and along with what they are in Christ: pilgrims and strangers, salt and light, members of the body of Christ or wife of Christ, temple of the Spirit, new creation, etc. another to put on the new man.
However, New Testament identity markers are often more informed by our own context and cultural assumptions than by biblical intrigue. The intrigue of the pilgrim and the stranger can become the intrigue of the cultural fundamentalist who justifies his disengagement. The bride’s plot can easily become the plot of self-centered sentimentality in which, as with American brides every Saturday, we are the center and center of everything.
The history of membership
However, if we are to learn how to use the Identity Markers of the Bible in our counseling and discipleship training, we must understand the broader biblical intrigue of our identity as sons and daughters of God. This plot is a powerful tool to combat narcissistic discipleship that permeates much of Christianity.
principles
From the creation of Adam and Eve according to God’s likeness to their responsibility to represent God as vice-leaders of creation (Genesis 1:26-28), to their privilege of intimacy with God (Genesis 3. 8) and their unique ability to reflect for God their glory, their obligation to obey (Genesis 2:15), Imago Deise projects in the form of kinship. From the beginning the model was established: as a father, as a son. Just as God governs creation, the son must represent this government.
Obviously, the first son, Adam, disobeyed his Father The image of God has not been lost, but now it comes with the cursed legacy of our earthly father, a nature corrupted and ruined by sin. Hence inclusion in God’s family is nothing. longer by birth, but by adoption.
A new beginning?
In Genesis 12, Abram, the son of an idylather, is adopted by God to become the father of a new nation, given a new name: Abraham, we promised him a son and, more than that, a legacy for this son.
Time and again, this promise is questioned: by infertility, by betrayal, by hunger, by death itself. When God calls Abraham to sacrifice his son in the Holocaust (Genesis 22,2), it seems that the promise and history of the son is over. , because the son is always the son of Adam who deserves to die.
But God is not finished. He saved Abraham’s son, Isaac’s son, and Jacob’s children until the son became the entire nation of Israel.
In Exodus 4, God told Moses to say to Pharaoh, “Let my son adore me?(V. 23, NVI). Then God saves his corporate son, Israel, from the Snake King and leads his son to his inheritance, the Promised Land, a second garden in Eden.
God also raises up a king, a man after his own heart, named David, and promises him that his son will rule a kingdom that will have no end. The son of David will be the son of God, who will represent both God and God. He will reign with justice and do the work that the Father has entrusted to him, saving his people from the hands of their enemies.
But neither David’s corporate son nor his children are faithful; continue their rebellion. At the end of the Old Testament, David’s throne is empty.
The Son comes and makes us children
Then came the true Son of God, Jesus is the Divine Son incarnate, the true King, the Messiah who came to do the work entrusted to him by the Father (John 4. 34, 5. 19, 6. 38), claimed to represent God: if you had seen Him, you would have seen the Father (John 1:49). Jesus is the true imago Dei, the second Adam, the true Israel. Anyway, as Father, as a Son.
Surprisingly, the corporate son turned him down. However, God raised the Son from the dead and made him sit on the throne of heaven, so that all children of disobedience who may turn away from their sins and unsote the true Son by faith may receive the power to become children of God. , adopted in God’s family.
Once adopted, they conform to the image of the God-loved Son. This process will not end until the day we see it, when we will finally be as it is. Look how much love the Father has for us, to the point. to be called children of God? (1 John 3. 1). And when we are finally like him, we will reign with him as sons and daughters of God (2 Timothy 2. 2; Revelation 20. 4, 6).
Disciples and tips based on the affiliate’s scenario
What impact does this membership story have on how we use this biblical identity in our discipleship and counseling?I want to highlight four things.
1. The Father loves children because the Father loves the Son
First, the Father loves children because the Father loves the Son. God’s love for us as children does not begin with us, it begins with his love for the Son, Jesus Christ. Why? For the Son has always been and will always be obedient to the Father (John 10:17) and it is this love that overflows with love for us, the children who are united to Christ by faith.
We need to instill this in our minds as disciples and counselors. Can we say: God loves you? all day, and it’s no use, because people know deep down that they don’t deserve God’s love. But when they tell me that God loves Christ and that I have been adopted into Christ by faith, I now have something to trust in, something that does not contradict my knowledge of myself.
Christian, you are loved, not because you are loving or obedient, but because Christ is loving and obedient and you are in Christ. You’ve been adopted.
2. A son glorifies his Father by representing him before the world
Second, the role of a son is to give glory to his Father by representing him before the world. Jesus made this statement about his own life many times. John 5. 19: the Son can only do what the Father comes to do; because everything he does, the Son does the same. And all this is to give glory to the Father, How did Jesus pray: Did I glorified you on earth, doing the work you entrusted to me?
But what is true of Christ is also true of the children who are in Christ. Matthew 5. 9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. “Matthew 5: 44-45: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may become children of your heavenly Father?Ephesians 5. 1: “Be imitators of God, as beloved children”. high vocation and privilege.
3. The child’s privilege is a sure legacy
Third, the Privilege of the Son is a sure inheritance. Jesus said this: “The slave is not always in the house; the son, yes, forever?”(John 8. 35). Paul assimilates the same idea: “And, because you are Sons, God has sent to our hearts the Spirit of his Son, who cries: Abba, Father, you are no longer a slave, but a son; and, as a son, also heir to God?(Galatians 4. 6). Much more than an emotional and psychological experience of love, this verse promises us a legacy and a permanent place in the family. This legacy is true and safe.
What is this legacy? The main image in the Old Testament is that of a land; in this day and age, we are not given a land, but by the Spirit; and, incredibly, the Spirit is just a commitment. Our complete heritage still awaits us, because our complete heritage is the same Trígon God in a new creation perfectly planned for our fulfillment and glory.
4. The purpose of the Son is obedience
Fourth, the goal of the Son is obedience. This should have been the goal of Adam, Israel, and David, but that was definitely Jesus’ goal, he was obedient to the Father to the end, it was not obedience reluctantly, wishing there was another way, it was not insignificant obedience. , in the hope that perhaps the Father would love you for obeying. Wasn’t it proud obedience, like, “Hey, look at me!” Was it voluntary obedience?”Do I give it to you spontaneously? (John 10:18). Was it trusting obedience?Why did you love me before the foundation of the world?(John 17:24). Was it humble obedience? Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers (Hebrews 2:11). Obedience was his joy.
When we use the language of belonging to our discipleship and our counsel, if we simply convey the promise of intimacy and open access taught to us by Romans 8, then we tell only part of the story. Children aren’t just love vases, empty glasses. of love that must be filled. They are also the ones who actively love their Father. And John said unto us, “And this is love: That we walk according to his commandments?(2 John 6).
You could go so far as to say that the dominant theme of Old Testament and New Testament membership is not intimacy, access, affection, or even security, is obedience.
Everything goes in Romans 8, God predestined us to conform to the likeness, in the image of his Son, that he would be the firstborn among many brothers (Romans 8. 29). And that is why Paul said, in debt, not with the flesh, to live in his own to it; For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; But if by the Spirit they cause the works of the body to die, they will live, because all who are led are children of God by the Spirit of God?(Romans 8: 12-14, NVI) The goal of children is obedience.
The next thing Paul says is that through the Spirit weep?Abba, Father? (Romans 8. 15). And so the circle closes: intimacy and obedience go hand in hand in the history of the Son.
A new story
We live in a therapeutic age, an era of broken relationships and fractured families, where parents are foolish, buffoons, supervisors or simply absent. Children grow up as adults using images from the Internet and television. Frankly, it’s even worse with girls. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that in the biblical language of sons and daughters we find a powerful antidote to a deadly poison.
But in fact, in our identity as sons and daughters of God, we receive something far more powerful than an antidote to the failures of our time: we are given an identity that calls us beyond ourselves and our emotional needs toward God’s plot. Glory.
One day our hope will be rewarded; our work will end. “Does the fiery expectation of creation await the revelation of God’s children?(Romans 8. 19). And that expectation will not be thwarted. On this day, a new story will begin: the story of the glorious freedom of God’s sons and daughters.
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At the XIII Conference of Faithful Youth, come and reflect with us on “the Church for which Christ died”. We look forward to seeing you among us!
This article is part of the 9Marks Journal
Translation: Vin-cius Silva Pimentel. Review: Vin-cius Musselman Pimentel. © 2014 Faithful Ministérium. All rights reserved. Website: MinistryFiel. com. br. Original: Biblical theology and identity: Children of God.