FAMILY OF GOD
God is a family. It sounds strange because God is a pure Spirit. Is God married with children? How can God be a family? God is not just a family but in the act of creation he left his imprint in our very fabric so that we on earth would mirror what he is in heaven.
We read from the first book of everyone's Bible about the creation of our first parents. Adam and Eve were both created in God's likeness or image. Not that God has an image. He is no grandfather figure with the big santa beard. God is more than a benign grandfather. But he is the Father.
The Father is one of three Persons in one Godhead. We are told by heaven itself that Jesus is God's Son the second Person of the Trinity. Note that we are told, it is a revelation that is divine that Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father. The word begotten does not mean created but given. Jesus was eternally begotten that is there was never a time when he was not the Son of the Father. If the Father is the thought then Jesus is that thought uttered as the Word.
So God in giving us his Son was always a Father and once a father always a Father. So God sounds fairly family orientated with the Father-Son relationship. Note too that it existed eternally. Before the incarnation when the Son took a human nature from Mary he and the Father were pure uncreated divine Spirits who are eternal, infinite, all powerful, all knowing etc. So the family imagery is devoid of bodies and thus genders. The Father is body less yet he bears all the characteristics of fatherhood such as strength, creativity, provider.
Every human family comes from marriage and it consists of a husband and wife, male and female. Both genders are equal yet different. God created them to complement each other in every respect. Before the Fall when there was only innocence, immortality and happiness - perfect bliss existed in Eden. When Eve eventually became pregnant then she became a mother and Adam a father. So we have the original earthly family.
The question then is asked if that is how God created us where is the female component in the heavenly family? First, there is no marriage in heaven. Marriages are to get us to heaven. Once there we won't want to be married because there will exist a more intimate and personal bond than human marriage. But is there a motherly image in heaven? There is no goddess in heaven as there are no genders in heaven. God is the fulness of being and as such bears within his divine nature all the hallmark characteristics of both genders. We can perceive in the Holy Spirit who is equally God and bodyless certain feminine traits such as life giving, nurturing, comforting, and so on. So God being above our nature possesses all that is good in both genders without being of a specific gender himself.
We call God Father also because the work of creation is attributed to him, but not exclusively. Being a transcendent Being, outside of the cosmos he casts his power into the universe, as an imminent Being to bring forth life within the womb of the universe. I suppose that is why some refer to the world as mother Earth. It is a mother in the sense that it receives life from without. How? Let true science tell us and not Dawkins. Recently at Lake Eire after much rain we witnessed the vast array of animal and plant life that poured forth from the womb of nature.
Furthermore, Christian teaching sees in Mary the perfect feminine image and model for all women. She is both Virgin and Mother and the Queen of all heaven. So the reality of the Kingdom that awaits us is familial, Mother, Son and Father. We of course who are reborn in Baptism are the adopted sons of the Father in the order of grace. God has only one true Son who partakes of his nature and we know that is the Lord Jesus, to think otherwise is to fall into error – such as mormon teaching. But as adopted children we should trust our Father in heaven and pray his prayer often asking that Kingdom will one day come.
God is a family. It sounds strange because God is a pure Spirit. Is God married with children? How can God be a family? God is not just a family but in the act of creation he left his imprint in our very fabric so that we on earth would mirror what he is in heaven.
We read from the first book of everyone's Bible about the creation of our first parents. Adam and Eve were both created in God's likeness or image. Not that God has an image. He is no grandfather figure with the big santa beard. God is more than a benign grandfather. But he is the Father.
The Father is one of three Persons in one Godhead. We are told by heaven itself that Jesus is God's Son the second Person of the Trinity. Note that we are told, it is a revelation that is divine that Jesus is the only begotten Son of the Father. The word begotten does not mean created but given. Jesus was eternally begotten that is there was never a time when he was not the Son of the Father. If the Father is the thought then Jesus is that thought uttered as the Word.
So God in giving us his Son was always a Father and once a father always a Father. So God sounds fairly family orientated with the Father-Son relationship. Note too that it existed eternally. Before the incarnation when the Son took a human nature from Mary he and the Father were pure uncreated divine Spirits who are eternal, infinite, all powerful, all knowing etc. So the family imagery is devoid of bodies and thus genders. The Father is body less yet he bears all the characteristics of fatherhood such as strength, creativity, provider.
Every human family comes from marriage and it consists of a husband and wife, male and female. Both genders are equal yet different. God created them to complement each other in every respect. Before the Fall when there was only innocence, immortality and happiness - perfect bliss existed in Eden. When Eve eventually became pregnant then she became a mother and Adam a father. So we have the original earthly family.
The question then is asked if that is how God created us where is the female component in the heavenly family? First, there is no marriage in heaven. Marriages are to get us to heaven. Once there we won't want to be married because there will exist a more intimate and personal bond than human marriage. But is there a motherly image in heaven? There is no goddess in heaven as there are no genders in heaven. God is the fulness of being and as such bears within his divine nature all the hallmark characteristics of both genders. We can perceive in the Holy Spirit who is equally God and bodyless certain feminine traits such as life giving, nurturing, comforting, and so on. So God being above our nature possesses all that is good in both genders without being of a specific gender himself.
We call God Father also because the work of creation is attributed to him, but not exclusively. Being a transcendent Being, outside of the cosmos he casts his power into the universe, as an imminent Being to bring forth life within the womb of the universe. I suppose that is why some refer to the world as mother Earth. It is a mother in the sense that it receives life from without. How? Let true science tell us and not Dawkins. Recently at Lake Eire after much rain we witnessed the vast array of animal and plant life that poured forth from the womb of nature.
Furthermore, Christian teaching sees in Mary the perfect feminine image and model for all women. She is both Virgin and Mother and the Queen of all heaven. So the reality of the Kingdom that awaits us is familial, Mother, Son and Father. We of course who are reborn in Baptism are the adopted sons of the Father in the order of grace. God has only one true Son who partakes of his nature and we know that is the Lord Jesus, to think otherwise is to fall into error – such as mormon teaching. But as adopted children we should trust our Father in heaven and pray his prayer often asking that Kingdom will one day come.
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