Second week into the Family Month celebration (the Singles and yet-to-marry week) at Strong Tower Parish, the topic of creation and the concept of, and God vision for, the Family as a spiritual entity is examined. Preaching Pastor Emmanuel Olowokere.
Every July we celebrate the family at Strong Tower Parish. The reason is simple: We believe in God’s plan and understand His purpose for the unit. Throughout the month, we shall be looking at “God’s Vision for Family.” Today, our focus is on how family started out; the spiritual and physical manifestation of family; and the implications of these.
Family did not start when Adam and Eve came together; it started with God in heaven. Ephesians 3:14-15 states: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.”
God is family-oriented and He’s the Father of all the families in heaven and earth. A pointer to God as the Father of all heavenly and earthly families is the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus states in Matt 6:9: “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” Before this time, God was prayed to as a Master or God but Jesus illuminated Him intimately as “Our Father.” If He was just our God or Master, barriers or limitations may exist in our relationship, but as Our Father, such are absent.
To break this down further we’ll go to the very beginning in Genesis 1:24:28 to shine light on the root of family. But before we do that it’s important to understand that God didn’t stop working on the “Sixth Day”. A close reading of the first chapter of Genesis will show that.
While the “Work of Creation” was concluded in six days, the “Work of Formation” is on until Jesus comes. God only needed six days to create all things that would then be formed eternally. He stopped creating but He’s still in the formation work till Jesus comes!
Genesis 1:24-28 says:
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Note the following from the passage:
- At creation God pronounced blessing on “Man”. Verse 28 says “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” This blessing is on all of humanity whether or not they are Christians. That’s why Believers as well as Unbelievers can be fruitful!
- God created all humanity on the Sixth Day: Adam and Eve, and your lineage from the beginning of time till now, and those who will come after you until Jesus returns
- At creation we were all just “Male” and “Female” in God’s image and likeness; and we were ageless; but at formation we take on individual identities and are time-bound. That’s why your grandfather is older than you, and you are older than your children. Creation of Man was on the Sixth Day (Genesis 1:28) but our formation is at different times starting with Adam, then Eve (Genesis 2), and is still ongoing.
- God’s vision for family comes clear through His command of the blessings of “Fruitfulness”, “Multiplication” and “Replenishment” on “Male and female” (Genesis 1:28). It takes both to be fruitful, to multiply and replenish the earth.
- Family (male and female) was part of creation, and was first spiritual before being physical:
- The devil has no power over anything spiritual; since family was first spiritually it can exist forever
- Family doesn’t end here, even after Rapture, it continues in heaven.
- Only those who make it to God through Jesus will belong to this family, otherwise you become an enemy of God
- Since family started out being spiritual; it means family problems have spiritual implication which takes God to solve
- The Bible establishes a married couple as “one flesh” in Genesis 2:24 because at creation “Male” and “Female” were just one unit: “Man” (Genesis 1:27).
- In essence, the first chapter of Genesis illuminates the spiritual existence of Man (Creation) while from the second chapter we see our Formation out of Creation
- If man had remained as Creation, we would have had spiritual existence like the angels. But we were formed and became a tripartite being: we are a spirit that has a soul and lives in a body.
- With the formation of Adam, man’s existence became time-bound.
From Genesis 2:5-7, the formation of Man begins and what existed as spirit at Creation became physical at Formation:
And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
