Family and Christian Liberty

By P. K. Chamberlain

Families are a heavenly idea. God the Father established the first family of the human race, and has spoken of the human race as a collection of families. (Genesis 12:3)

Normality

God created a supernatural union between a man and a woman such that they are joined to one another as a couple and become “one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)  Out of two individuals in their individual lives, He forms a single structure—the core of a family—capable of fulfilling His purposes for the next generation. 

God intends that families be sheltering refuges (holy tabernacles) within which children learn wisdom, knowledge and virtue from their parents. He declares He has made a husband and wife one in the covenant of marriage so that there could be godly offspring.  (Malachi 2:15)  Proverbs, especially—like Proverbs 22:6 (“train up a child”), and many other parts of Scripture testify to God’s intent, and to the role godly parents should play.

The Law given to Moses plainly underlines the importance of family in life:  “Honor your Father and Mother.”  (Exodus 20:12)  Scripture says much of the role of godly children in a family’s life. 

The Scripture also speaks of childhood’s end:  that children grow to be men and women and go on to lead their own lives.  Earthly childhood is temporary.  The dominance of a family over a person’s choices—is temporary.

Genesis 2:24 speaks of a man leaving father and mother, and with his wife establishing a new household.  Similarly, Sarah went out with her husband Abraham from her family and all that was familiar.  So did Rebekah, and so did Leah and Rachel in their generation.  In all the stories of the patriarchs, the Bible focuses on the choices the patriarchs themselves made, good or bad—NOT on choices and agendas forced upon them by parents or grandparents.

Generations later, Ezekiel double-underlined this basic fact for Israel in Ezekiel 18:5-20.  A righteous man’s son can go astray and be lost; they are two distinct lives with distinct choices.  Even more telling (verses 14-17), an unrighteous man’s son can observe the father’s sins, consider them—and deliberately refuse to do likewise!  His choice to be righteous in the face of his father’s ungodly doings has God’s stamp of approval—”he shall not die for the iniquity of the father, he shall surely live.”  (v. 17)

Calamity

But, like every other part of the first creation—Adam and Eve’s children—sinful men and evil spirits have worked long and hard at turning the family into an instrument for evil.

As the human mouth often turns to cursing, and the human body turns to serving sin, so the “fallen family” often sets itself to oppose God. 

God meant families to pass down wisdom and knowledge from one generation to the next.  (For a positive example, see Timothy’s family in 2 Timothy 1:5)  Too often, families pass down evil, too. 

How, you ask?

First, family members pass traditions down, deliberately and often with great zeal.  Some traditions are helpful, and some harmless, but some are very harmful.  Yet all are passed on, often as a package.

The enemy, working through evil spirits, also labors hard to pass curses down to the next generation, some embedded in traditions, some pushed down in spite of the family members’ own best intentions. 

Calamity in Curses

What do I mean by family curses pushed down outside of its traditions?  A history of family violence, of drunkenness, of child abuse, of overriding love of money—these multi-generation patterns of trouble are no accident.  The enemy is a cynical destroyer, and loves nothing better than to push the calamity of one generation into the next.  He is pragmatic, and will exploit any particular susceptibility he may find in a family.

Calamity in Traditions

Even sadder, if that were possible, are the curses wrapped in ungodly, anti-Biblical traditions passed on by parents to children as if they were blessings.  I will list some of them:

  1. Family idolatry—altars, statues, crucifixes, charms, amulets, and more;
  2. Family loyalty claims that override the claims of Jesus;
  3. Family demands for obedience that do not yield to the Word of God;
  4. Family projects and objectives that have nothing in common with God’s Kingdom;
  5. Family pride and boasting that deny the Gospel, the Cross, and the Risen Savior;
  6. Family prejudice—racial, ethnic, or religious;
  7. Family rivalry, resentment and hostility directed toward outsiders.

 

No wonder Jesus said (Matthew 10:35-38):

35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

36 And a man’s foes [shall be] they of his own household.

37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

Redemption and Family

What about family in the new Creation?  Jesus is the second Adam (1 Cor. 15) and every born-again believer is, by rebirth-right, a member of that new creation.  Unlike the families of the first Adam, the descendants of the Second Adam share a common Father, God, and are members of a single family, God’s family, His household.  (Ephesians 2:13-19)

Does that make the natural family obsolete for believers?  By no means!  Personal experience as a Christian father has only confirmed and deepened my appreciation for God’s wisdom in creating the family and its relationships as the principal provision for all the needs of childhood. 

Family is also God’s provision to care for older, needy or infirm family members, as Paul writes:   “But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and acceptable before God. … But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. … If any man or woman have widows, let them relieve them….”  (1 Timothy 5:4,8,16)

If we can’t care for and pray for and love the people we have grown up closest to, how are we going to do all that for people we don’t even know?  1 John 4:20, 21 applies to natural family as well as to God’s household:

20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

Jesus didn’t throw out the Law; He fulfilled it.  Consider how he cared and provided for His mother, even as he hung on the Cross.  “Honor thy father and thy mother” is fulfilled by loving them with a pure heart for Jesus’ sake, and doing everything that God gives you to do for their benefit.

God’s Word on the Fallen Family

At this point, we come to a crunch, at least for some believers.  Many believers have grown up in traditions where the family is practically everything, and the younger serves the older—period.  That claim rests on bedrock tradition in many countries:  Buddhist tradition, Confucian tradition, and Hispanic Catholic tradition are examples.

That family tradition juggernaut rolls to crush the believer, at times, because it rolls against God and His Christ.  Here are five examples I know of personally—and not the most extreme, either:

  • A Roman Catholic family forbids a young believer to attend Christian meetings and Bible studies—basically house arrest on Sundays!
  • A Protestant family tells a young man he is disinherited if he continues as a believer.
  • A Protestant family cuts off another university student’s tuition because he insists on spending time with other believers instead of staying home with the family.
  • A Roman Catholic family claims continuing authority over their adult, believing, unmarried daughter well past age 21
  • A Protestant family calls a university dean in to attack their son’s “extreme” claims of a personal walk with God

 

A little later, I’ll describe how these five situations turned out.  The fact is, the bedrock family traditions always crumble when hauled into the light of God’s truth.  The Scripture speaks to you as a believer in this crunch:

18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, [as] silver and gold, from your vain conversation [received] by tradition from your fathers;

19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

 

Peter declares to you that the “conversation”—the way you went about your life according to the tradition—was “vain:” the King James word and the Greek word there both mean “empty!” 

A life based on human tradition is EMPTY—and God has rescued you from it!  He bought you back—redeemed you—by the blood of the Lamb, our Lord Jesus.

We all know the Scripture, “He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1 John 5:12)  Jesus reminded us of that when he answered the man who stood at the crossroads of discipleship, and family tugged at him.  (Matthew 8:21,22)

21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

Jesus kept his disciple to the point of discipleship: “Follow me.”  He showed that by contrast, the competing family claim was a detour to pointless, unfruitful use of the life.  “He that hath the Son of God hath life!”  Be sure that when Jesus moves on to the next step—into a ship, across an ocean, whatever—you are following Him, uncompromised.

Practical Liberty for You

So as the juggernaut rolls toward you, threatening to crush your liberty in Christ, what do you KNOW?

  1. This domineering tradition is not of God.
  2. The way of life it commands is empty.
  3. Jesus paid the ultimate blood-price to set you free from it. He is your liberator.
  4. God’s purpose for your natural family works in spite of, not in line with, these dominating traditions.

 

Now that you know that, what do you DO?

  1. Inspect the Word of God on the subject.
  2. Once you are persuaded of His Word, choose to obey God rather than man.
  3. Draw near to God for His help, illumination and strength to stand.
  4. Resist and refuse the principalities and powers that have gloved their oppression against you inside these traditions.
  5. Speak to the family members with a mixture of love, respect—and absolute liberty in Christ. As the Lord leads, take occasion to show them, by words or deeds, that Christ is your Lord, your only Lord.

 

He who is the Lord’s servant, as Jesus said, is free indeed.  Let me go back to the examples I gave earlier, and how they turned out:

  • The young believer housebound on Sundays?—never grew bitter with the family, but found quiet ways to slip out and attend meeting after meeting, growing in the Lord. The long-term result was a vigorous, mature believer with a warm continuing family relationship.
  • The disinherited young disciple?—held faithful to the Lord through it all, and over the years has become closer and dearer than ever to his family. He has been a minister of the Gospel to his family, which came to know and believe his love.
  • The university student with the cut-off tuition?—went right on with God, graduated, and found the Lord made a way to both restore and deepen his relationship with his family, as he prayed and patiently believed.
  • The adult, unmarried daughter?—left her parents’ house, found an apartment with Christian sisters in the Lord, later answered a missionary call, and found the Lord both led her on and kept the lines open to minister to her family.
  • The son with the “extremist” walk with God?—survived the Dean’s interview, and went on to find a path to both ministry and a secular career so sensible as to pull the rug out from under the family’s fears. Little by little, he found enlarged opportunities to minister to his family.

“If ye know it, happy are ye if ye do it...”

To sum up:

If you have given yourself to the Lord Jesus, then claim your freedom, your permanent liberation in Christ.

Insist on that freedom; it is your inheritance in Jesus.

Make freedom in Christ the foundation for your continuing love, prayer and ministry to your natural family, as the Lord leads.

Amen.

© 2012 P. K. Chamberlain.  All rights reserved. 

This message was given to the New Testament Fellowship in the meeting on Sunday, November 24, 2002.