Today we are turning a corner in this series. So far we have focused exclusively on the marriage union and have seen the purpose, pattern, & problem of marriage followed by a look at how God is redeeming marriage through and for the gospel (manhood, womanhood, sexual intimacy, etc.). The reason for this exclusive focus is because the ultimate purpose of the marriage union is to display the covenant love between Christ and His bride, the Church. There is however a secondary purpose to the marriage union that we have not mentioned, and that is procreation. Ideally, the marriage union is meant to result in children. We read in Genesis 1:28 that after God created man and woman in His image, He gave them the command to “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.” This duty to procreate that is also part of God’s original pattern for marriage was also corrupted by the fall and is in need of redemption. So after a laying an introductory foundation, we are going to focus on what redeemed parenthood and childhood look like in these next two messages.
FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES:
i) Children were meant to expand God’s Kingdom (Genesis 1:28)
Before we deal with what parenthood and childhood is supposed to look like, we need to take a second and put procreation in its place within the framework of the Bible as a whole. We need to understand that before the fall, procreation was intended to fill the earth with worshippers of God so that God’s glory would be multiplied to the ends of the earth. Children were meant to expand God’s kingdom. And before the fall, Adam and Eve would have reproduced both physically and spiritually at the same time by having children. This is not the case after the fall, as man dies spiritually and God’s image is corrupted in man. The fall wrecks this design.
ii) God’s Kingdom now expands through spiritual Children (Matthew 28:19-20)
Though the Old Testament is constantly moving towards and anticipating redemption, this idea of God’s kingdom expanding to the ends of the earth doesn’t come to fruition again until the coming of Jesus Christ, Who Colossians 1:15 says “is the image of the invisible God.” And what Jesus Christ accomplishes in His life, death, and resurrection is that spiritually dead men and women can now be born again by faith in Himself and His finished work. And now with the gospel, God desires to expand His kingdom through the church by making disciples. Matthew 28:19-20 reads, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Now our mission is not to multiply physically, but spiritually by preaching the gospel and making disciples to the ends of the earth. This is essentially the same command to fill the earth with worshippers of God.
iii) Implications:
If we connect these two kingdom realities (procreation & missions), I think we come up with at least four very important implications that we need to consider before diving into out passage in Ephesians 6:1-4:
Our marriages have a mission, not ultimately to procreate, but to make disciples. God desires that our marriages result in spiritual children that expand His kingdom. The idea behind this series is not everyone having nice and neat little marriages and families, but that God’s glory would be displayed and multiplied in and from the homes of His people to the ends of the earth.
Though disciple making is ultimate, procreation must be seen as a valid way to make disciples. This point really serves the balance the first one and reminds us that having children is consistently celebrated in the Word of God. Psalm 127:3-5 is one such place: “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver full of them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” In the Bible, children considered a gift and blessing from God. And having and raising children is presented as a valid way to reproduce and preserve spiritual heritage. This does not mean that if a Christian family has a lot of children, that all of them will be saved and expand God’s kingdom. But I do think a child being reared in “discipline and instruction of the Lord” may be evidence that God is sovereignly at work to save that child and expand His kingdom through them, and in that sense, having and raising children can be a way that God expands His kingdom.
Because disciple making is ultimate, parenting is ultimately about disciple making. The point of parenting is to see God’s kingdom expanded for the glory of God. I know that you can’t save your children, but I do think that you can assume that since they belong to your home there is a good chance that God is at work to save them and that you will be one of the divine means that He uses to bring that about. So your ultimate focus should be on making disciples of your children. Your primary focus should be on their spiritual formation. This is seen here in Ephesians 6:4 and also in passages like Deuteronomy 6:4-7: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” As John Piper so eloquently says, “Marriage is for making children into disciples of Jesus. The purpose of marriage is not merely to add more bodies to the planet. The point is to increase the number of followers of Jesus on the planet. God’s purpose in making marriage the place to have children was never merely to fill the earth with people, but to fill the earth with worshippers of the one true God.”[1] This also indicates that parents are the true children’s and youth ministers found in the Bible.
Because disciple making is ultimate, someone doesn’t have to be a parent to have and raise “children” in God’s family. I think this is some of point of Mark 10:29-30, where Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.” In the church, there can be spiritual parents to spiritual children, like we read about in Titus 2:3-5. So we see that someone doesn’t have to have children to make disciples of them. They can be a spiritual parent to children in the church and to “spiritual orphans” who don’t have godly parents to raise them in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord.” I would say that this also touches adoption, which is an area that the church should be leading the charge as a way to make disciples of orphans. But however this plays out, my desire for our church as a whole, and families in particular, is that we would be resolved to equip the next generation for the sake of God’s glory.
2) FOUNDATIONAL PASSAGE: Ephesians 6:1-4
It is important to understand that what is going on in this portion of Ephesians is the fleshing out of the Spirit-filled submission (5:18-21) of the new man (4:20-24) that springs from the new hearts that we have been given by the gospel.
i) GOD’S CALL UPON CHILDREN (6:1-3)
(1) OBEDIENCE (1) – “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”
This is what Spirit-filled submission looks like in the heart of a son or daughter: them obeying their parents. In a parallel passage in Colossians 3:20, both the scope and the reasoning behind this command are amplified. There we read: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” The most fundamental and important thing for a child to understand is that their obedience to their parents “pleases the Lord.” Their obedience is “in the Lord” (6:1), which is equivalent to “as to the Lord” (6:5), means that in obeying their parents, children are ultimately obeying the Lord. This obedience is commanded by Scripture from cover to cover. Consider the following passages from the book of Proverbs alone:
· Proverbs 1:8-9 – “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”
· Proverbs 6:20-24 – “My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching. Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, to preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.”
· Proverbs 23:22 – “Listen to your father who gave you life, and do not despise your mother when she is old.”
· Proverbs 30:17 – “The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by vultures.”
OK, so that last one was a little brutal. But are you beginning to see what a big deal this is to God that a child honors and obeys their parents? Did you know that excessive rebellion against parental authority actually carried the death penalty in the Old Testament (Leviticus 20:6)? Why is this command so important?
What we are really talking about here is one of the most important issues in life: the issue of authority. Scripture teaches that all authority comes from and is ordained by God (Rom. 13:1-2, 1 Pet. 2:13). This implies two things. First, God’s authority is always ultimate (this balances, “in everything”). Secondly, how we treat any horizontal authority is automatically a vertical issue, meaning that to rebel against authority is to rebel against God Himself. Authority exists to teach us submission to God, because if we can’t submit to horizontal authority that we can see, how are we going to submit to God?
I also want to point parents to this vertical reality as well. You must enforce your child’s obedience to you because a vertical issue is at stake when they are disobeying you. When your child disobeys you, they are disobeying God. This is why you should never lower the “bar” because the function of the “bar” is to teach them that there are consequences for disobedience and to show them their inability to measure up to the bar so that this hopeless & helpless desperation develops that sees the gospel as their only hope.
[1] Piper, John, “This Momentary Marriage,” pg. 138-139
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