Introduction
This teaching, “The Father of Families and Nations”, has a missions orientation which derives from the very nature of God as a Father. It is based on an understanding of the interaction between the visible earthly realm and the invisible spiritual realm or “heavenly places”.
In describing his apostolic ministry in Ephesians Paul makes a number of references to “the heavenly places”; in the first part of the book these concern where Christ is and our exalted fellowship with him (1:3, 20; 2:6), but in the second part of the book his references are to demonic powers. “To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in2 God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places…. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph 3:8-10; 6:12).
This is consistent with Paul’s thinking, where he seems to make a distinction between “heaven” where God, Christ, the holy angels and redeemed humans dwell (1 Thess 1:10; 2 Thess 1:7), and the “heavenly places” as a spiritual realm where evil powers are allowed to operate in confrontation with the kingdom of God. From this framework we can begin to understand that the spiritual conflict that is raging across the ages is cosmic in scope.
The Father of All
At the centre of his letter to the Ephesians Paul describes a posture he adopts in prayer; “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,” (Eph 3:14-15). This seems to suggest that the Father is the origin of angelic families as well as human families. There is Old Testament support for this interpretation. Psalm 29, which is a psalm describing God’s sovereignty over the natural world, starts like this. “Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of God, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. 2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendour of holiness.” (Ps 29:1-2). This is a call for angelic forces to recognise and praise the Lord for his wonderful rule. A similar call goes up to the peoples of the world in Psalm 96; “For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods.5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.6 Splendour and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. 7 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!” (Ps 96:4-7). The “families in heaven and earth” that owe their origin to the Father are angels and nations. It is important however to remember that in biblical thinking “nations” are not political bodies but people/ethnic groups. (For example, there were about 250 aboriginal “nations” in Australia at the time of white settlement.) What did God the Father have in mind in creating heavenly and earthly families and were they originally to relate?
The answer must be found in terms of Christ, as Paul says about Jesus in Colossians, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” (1:15-18). God’s purpose in creating a heavenly and earthly world was that his Son might have first place in everything. To understand more deeply what this was meant to look like we need to go back to the very beginning of the Bible.
Born to Rule with Wisdom
“Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”” (Gen 1:26-28).
An essential part of the image of God is to rule. But human beings were not to rule alone. Deuteronomy reads; “When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” (Deut 32:8). In various places in the Old Testament God is picture ruling over human affairs in council with spiritual powers (e.g. Deut 33:2; 1 Ki 22:19-23). The Lord happily involves angelic beings in his government of the universe (cf. Jer 23:18-22). Being “sons of God” the angels have an inheritance in the nations. It seems that angels and humans were to be united in ruling together by divinely inspired wisdom; it was said of David, “But my lord has wisdom like the wisdom of the angel of God in discerning good and evil.”” (2 Sam 14:20). This wisdom to “discern good and evil”, the very thing required of Adam and Eve in Eden (Gen 2:17; 2 Sam 14:17). Ruling together in holy wisdom angels and humans would worship the Lord in unity.
The passages from the psalms we looked at earlier picture the heavenly and earthly sons of God worshipping the Lord in an environment of beauty and splendour (Pss 29:1-2; 96:4-7). Revelation picks this up dramatically with scenes of the heavenly court room of God with the angelic host and “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them” exalting the reign of God, and of the Lamb, ““To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!”” (Rev 4; 5:13). All the creatures close to the throne call out for a display of divine wisdom on the affairs of the earth (5:12; 7:12). (In the context of Revelation, this can only mean, as we will discuss later, the wisdom of the Lamb killed and resurrected (Rev 5:6).) Since all that God does in creation he does by his creative Word, angels and humans were called to be joint witnesses of the wisdom of his might and power in all things. This would have been to truly honour him as Father of all (Eph 4:6). However this was not to be.
Rebellious Sons
In various places in scripture we read of how some of the angelic powers “did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling” (Jude 6). The cause of this rebellion is exposed in a passage directed to the prince of the pagan nation of Tyre, but whose language is symbolic and prophetic of the ways of Satan. Ezekiel 28 speaks of an “anointed guardian cherub/angelic guardian” (Ezek 28:14) full of “the beauty of your wisdom” who deceived the nations (Ezek 28:7 cf. Rev 18:23; 20:3, 8). This ruler was intoxicated with its own beautiful wisdom, ““You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.” (Ezek 28:12). Overtaken by self-worship and a desire to rule in its own right this power was judged by God, “Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendour/radiance. I cast you to the ground” (Ezek 28:7, 12, 17). The impulse behind the demonic thrust for power is summed up in Satan’s words to Jesus in the wilderness; “the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”” (Matt 4:8-9). Whereas God’s Lordship wants to share his rule with his creatures the devil wants to dominate everything.
The extent of this corrupted rule is unveiled in Daniel chapter ten, where an angelic messenger explains he has been resisted by “the prince of Persia”, after whom will come “the prince of Greece” (vv. 13, 20). These are heavenly powers that seek to control the history and destiny of the nations; but God is Lord of all and rebellion happens in the heavenly realm brings divine judgement. Where there is unjust rule the Lord declares, “I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; 7 nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” 8 Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!” (Ps 82:6-8). And in Deuteronomy we see how these fallen powers corrupted Israel so she was judged, “They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. 18 You forgot the Rock that fathered you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth…. a fire is kindled by my anger… And I will heap disasters upon them; hunger…plague…pestilence…” (Deut 32:17-18, 22, 23). The judgement of God upon rebellious powers takes in heaven and earth; “In that day the Lord will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below.” (Isa 24:21). Punishment however is not however the end of the story, God can never totally abandon his people, in compassion he will deliver them from the forces of evil.
Unfathering Wisdom
The superiority of the Lord’s Messiah is prophesied in Psalm 89; “For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings/sons of God is like the Lord, 7 a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him?… He (Messiah) shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’” (Ps 89:6-7, 26). The Lord’s anointed Messiah will know God intimately as his Father. But there is another side prophesied about the fate of the Messiah in the Old Testament.
God’s chosen Son must however be treated as fatherless and wholly undesirable; “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa 53:2). Whereas the evil powers fell intoxicated by their own sense of beauty and wisdom the Servant of the Lord became completely unappealing; “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isa 53:3-5).This is a prophetic description of the cross.
What is it that is so powerful about the cross that it, in Paul’s words, “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame,” (Col 2:15). The key can be found in Jesus’ cry of dereliction; ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34). If the cosmic struggle between God and the powers of evil is over who will inherit the nations, the sacrifice of Christ is a testimony that it is not the inheritance which matters but who grants the inheritance. A person can have great wealth and power but if they have no love in their life they are nothing (1 Cor 13:1-3). There is nothing so shameful for a son of God, on the earthly as well as heavenly plane, as to be without father or mother. To be rejected by father and mother on a natural level is to lose one’s glory. The psalmist says, “Even if my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will hold me close.” (Ps 27:10). This is a true promise, but this was not Jesus’ experience on the cross, everyone abandoned him and for our sake he had to experience the abandonment of God. There is something extraordinary about this sort of love, something the evil rulers and authorities cannot understand or imitate.
Some years ago I was praying in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem gazing at a painting of the crucified Christ when I was engulfed with a sense of immeasurable beauty. It was as if I could hear the Father speaking about the sacrifice of the Son, “This was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” The infinite beauty and wisdom of the Son’s sacrificial submission to the will of the Father exposes all the demonic claims to beauty and wisdom as shallow and loveless. They have no glory because they have no nurturing Father, no God who has begotten and delivered them in pain. They have no inheritance in God or he in them; this is their eternal disgrace (cf. Eph 1:10; Rev 21:7).
This is the sort of thing Paul is driving at when he speaks of, “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Eph 3:9-10). The faithfulness of Christ through his Church unveils to the powers that they are fatherless, motherless, disinherited beings with no future destiny. No living connection to “the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,” (Eph 3:14-15)
One Family
The heavenly angels long to share with the saints on earth the wisdom they have received from God. While there are many angelic messengers throughout scripture this is most strikingly clear in the introduction to the book of Revelation; “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,” (1:1 cf. 22:6, 16). That this wisdom is concentrated in the death of Jesus comes out later in the structure of Revelation, but it was present already centuries earlier in the commissioning of Isaiah. The prophet has a vision of the glory of God in the temple surrounded by winged seraphim, then he hears a commission, ““Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”” (Isaiah 6:1ff). Isaiah is commissioned as a prophet by the Lord and by his heavenly divine council. In quoting from this passage in John 12 John tells us that, “Isaiah saw his (Jesus) glory and spoke of him” (12:41). In John the glory of Jesus is to die on the cross to bring glory to the Father (John 12:27-31). It is the suffering love of the Son of God which captivates, enraptures and motivates the angelic sons of God to work with the human sons of God in the Church in bringing the nations into God’s inheritance. It is the wisdom of the Lamb, “standing as slain” that is at the centre of the unity of angels and humans (Rev 5:6). The holy angels’ message to us, most clearly communicated in Revelation, is that suffering for Christ’s kingdom is the beautiful wisdom of God which undermines the false authority and lies of the demonic powers. The beautiful submission of the Church to her Bridegroom exposes the false ugly loveless wisdom of the evil powers which is only deception (Eph 3:10).
Conclusion
Australia, like Myanmar, is a nation of many nations, many people groups. Jesus commissioned us to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19), but there is a dimension to all this we often miss. Before giving this commission Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18), or as Peter puts it, Christ “is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.” (1 Pet 3:22). We do not have to guess what is in the mind of the angels as they long to cooperate with the Church in the spreading of the gospel to the nations to the glory of God the Father.
Some years ago when I was driving along the Swan River which runs through the centre of Perth and I had a very clear and strong sense of God the Father’s pleasure over our city. Then the Lord started to share with me from Psalm 87, The psalmist speaks of the day when all the nations will be spiritually born in Zion, “On the holy mount stands the city he founded; 2 the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.3 Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. Selah 4 Among those who know me I mention Egypt and Babylon; behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia— “This one was born there,” they say. 5 And of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in her”; for the Most High himself will establish her. 6 The Lord records as he registers the peoples, “This one was born there.”Selah 7 Singers and dancers alike say, “All my springs are in you.”” (Ps 87 cf. Heb 12:22-24).
This speaks prophetically of God’s building a world-church from heaven. This was a Body not bound by the limits of any particular culture, Western or Eastern, but bonded together by an intense deep experience of our union in Christ. A Church whose heavenly dimensions would rise above natural barriers of race, age, and personal spiritual preference. This was the “wisdom of God in its rich variety” threading together the nations of the world into a single tapestry of many colours.
The angels in heaven already see into this wonderful radiance, the eternal city of God that will come down from heaven “having the glory of God” (Rev 21:11). They are all “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Heb 1:14). We and they share the common inheritance of living forever in fellowship of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ which will be revealed “in the fullness of time” when “all things…in heaven and earth” will be united in Christ (Eph 1:10). This is an astonishing vision and one for which we be willing to sacrifice anything in submission to Christ to bring honour and glory to God.