Father and Son
This is the ninth study in a series of studies about shadows in scripture
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
John 1:1-4 (NKJV)
The Apostle John is confident in placing the Jesus he knew back in the Genesis account – the Word and God together. (John 1:1). Within the triune Godhead, the father-son relationship is perfectly exemplified in the mutual love revealed between the Father and Jesus the incarnate Son, and is itself the foundation stone on which salvation is built. Jesus alluded to this when he spoke of the desire a father had for the well-being of a son – warmth, food, and protection from harm: “…what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?” (Matthew 7:9-10). This puts into some perspective the enormity of the sacrifice that the godhead made – despite the immeasurable love between the Father and the Son – a sacrifice to some degree modelled, at God’s direction, by Abraham and Isaac.
This relationship is pictured throughout the Genesis record, and because we have the gospel records of Christ’s life, death and resurrection, the imagery in those stories becomes clearer. From Adam to Joseph, Christ is referenced. He is the being who will defeat evil, saying simply at his death, “It is finished!” (John 19:30); as a son, obedient to a loving father: “…not My will, but Yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42); submerged in the waters of baptism (1 Peter 3:20); a shepherd protecting and feeding his flock (Matthew 18:12-14); a bridegroom waiting and looking forward to his marriage (Revelation 19:7); a protector and provider to hungry people, despite being betrayed by them, perfectly articulated by Jesus’s outburst: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37); a provider of life-giving water (John 4:10); a blessing on people throughout the world; the bridge, the ‘Advocate’ we have between the earthly and the heavenly realms (1 John 2:1).
None of the parallels are perfect, but what is perfect is that the story never stops being told. It was, and is, always on the mind of an all-knowing, all-powerful and loving God who has a plan to rescue his creation, that from the beginning he described as ‘good’.
Genesis finishes with a nation in a foreign land, although not yet in captivity, still waiting for the promises – promised so many years before to Abraham and repeated by Jacob to Joseph: ‘…Israel [Jacob] said to Joseph, “Behold, I am dying, but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers.” ’ (Genesis 48:21). And Joseph, looking beyond his death, revisits the promises when he reminds his family, ‘…“God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” ’ (Genesis 50:25). The spiritual destination to which these physical stories point, is our destination: it is our story. It is a story told through the lives of imperfect human beings: Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
And as Genesis ends, the story continues. Exodus is Moses’ story.
Prayer
Father, thank you for the perfection that is in your scriptures – wherever we look we can see Jesus and the future that you, as a loving father, and Jesus as a loving and obedient Son, have secured for each one of us. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
Study by Maggie Mitchell
About the writer:
Maggie Mitchell attends the Market Harborough congregation of Grace Communion International
Local congregation:
GCI Market Harborough
9 The Point
Rockingham Road
Market Harborough
LE16 7QU
Meeting time:
Sunday 4.00 pm
Local congregational contact:
Sinead Henderson
Email: sinead.henderson@gracecom.church
Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church