FAMILY

                                                                            Family

Not to be confused with The Munsters, The Addams Family was a popular TV comedy show back in the 60s. Not the best example of a ‘nuclear family,’ the creepy and zany Addams family lived together in a spooky house, where one might expect to find a skeleton in every closet! Indeed, what family doesn’t have a skeleton in their closet? The trouble with the Bible is that it doesn’t let any family (or any individual) hide their ‘skeletons’.

Includes the extended McKinlay family (Down Under branch)

The original Adam’s family produced the first ever murderer on the planet earth when Cain shed his brother Abel’s blood. Adam and Eve went on to have other children, ‘sons and daughters’ (Gen. 5:4b). Indeed, Scripture says that we all are part of Adam’s family. ‘And He made from one man [or blood] every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. He did this so they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us’ (Acts 17:26-27). There you have it, we’re all one big happy family! (Our use of the word happy is simply to convey a sense of irony!) Does Adam’s family have any family secrets? Yes, and God knows where all the bodies a buried.

What is wrong with the human family that we try to hide things from God’s all-seeing eye? Why don’t we simply ‘seek God’ and ‘reach out and find Him’? It is because we ‘supress the truth in unrighteousness’ (Rom. 1:18b). We all know that we each have a creepy and spooky side to us. The Addams Family TV show, for entertainment purposes, made us laugh at their abnormalities and eccentricities. But is God entertained by Adam’s family? Does He get a good laugh out of watching our antics? No! Why? It has to do with our sin. ‘Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned’ (Rom. 5:12b). Sin, and its wages (i.e., death) is no laughing matter. It needs to be removed from our family before God can enjoy us and we can enjoy God. That is why God began a new family, the new and ‘last Adam’s’ family. ‘But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s [i.e., Adam’s] offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many’ (Rom. 5:15).

How do we join the new Adam’s family? ‘But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God’ (John 1:12). Like Adam before Him, the second Man, the last Adam was the Son of God (Luke 1:35; 3:38). We become part of the family of God only through believing in His Son, Jesus Christ. ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him’ (John 3:36). We are one blood with Adam through descent. We are one blood with the last Adam through belief. Thus, we are adopted into the new Adam’s family, for ‘you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God’ (Rom. 8:15b-16).

There is nothing spooky about the house of God. It has no skeletons in its closets or bodies buried in its back yard. ‘In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also’ (John 14:2-3).

To join the new Adam’s family, simply ‘Repent and believe in the gospel’ (Mark 1:15).