"Only in placing himself in servitude is the Prodigal Son (as Jesus unfolds the story) returned to the status of sonship. The first expectation of salvation is an attitude of servanthood, and a person who does not recognize this attitude of servanthood as reflecting 'the image of God' is a person who does not understand the themes under which Creation was formed."
There is much more to this business of servanthood, and it is particularly important in that it must be understood to take precedence over the idea of son-ship or daughter-ship. The idea of being a child of God is an idea that must be carefully examined. There is not even a direct warrant to assume that the concept of "son" applies to Adam in view of his relationship to God. (One can always say that God foreknew Adam's fate, including his incompleteness without Eve and his siring of God's "grandchildren," but that is a philosopher's game, and a blasphemous one at that. The God of the Bible is continually asserting that he does this or that because of how his creatures have acted, and his creatures are not automatons.)
The Gospel of Luke, thousands of years after Eden, calls Adam the "son of God," but that phrase is not in Genesis. We do not even know what the concept of "family" would mean in Genesis, at least until we read of the immediate family of Abram. We cannot know if Cain's monstrous utterance, "Am I my brother's keeper?" was all that we take it to be. Was he--in light of any concepts he absorbed--his brother's keeper? Certainly both Cain and God subscribe to wretched Cain's notion that "every one that findeth me shall slay me" (4:14, KJV). So even his closest relatives would slay him for a previously un-thought-of crime? Even his father, who yet lived? Or perhaps that monumentally horrible "family" was simply in the habit of seeking each other's blood?
Perhaps a better question than the famous "Where did Cain get his wife?" would be "Where would Cain expect to encounter his brother's avenger?"
Even the more benign aspects of Adam's growing family exist only in the sketchy framework of an ancient story. A point is made that in the time of Adam's grandson Enos, "then began men to call upon the name of the Lord" (4:26). This name of God seems to come out of the blue centuries later to Moses--when it comes out of the burning bush--leading many to wonder if the Genesis reference is an anachronism. It would perhaps be more important to note that "the Lord" as a name of God has been--not without reason--attributed to God's covenant relationship with his people, the Israelites that Moses is expected to champion. They are to be God's servant people. Certainly there is nothing about "the Lord" as a name that particularly connotes family ties or God as Father.
So the sons and grandsons of Adam do not, as far as we can tell, call upon God as their father. It might be said that the "son"-ship of "man"-kind was to be fleshed out in "unfolding revelation"--that perpetual invitation to spew balderdash--but Jesus did not as a rule take kindly to such an approach, preferring instead to reflect persistently on how things existed from the beginning. I try to do likewise, and so I must contend that the Father role of God--implicit always in his character of Creator and Master--is not understood correctly by us when--firstly--we seek to understand what we must do to be saved, and then--secondly--we insist on finding a formula for adoption by a Father who would be surprised to learn that he has not been father all along.'
What God has been--unquestionably--all along is Master. He was Adam's master, and he was Adam's master before Adam started acting like a spoiled child rather than a faithful servant. If Adam had done what he was told by his master, Adam would have enjoyed an eternity of not-very-sinful, not-often-frustrated existence. That is what Eden was, for Adam and Eve--as surely as Eve was a sinner for sharing blasphemous conversation with the snake, whether she had eaten of the tree or not.
None of this seems to have been lost on Jesus, who knows perfectly well that it is the obedient heart of the servant, not the mercy-seeking heart of the aspiring, grown "child", that constitutes the definitive aspect of salvation. To be a "child of God" is what we should seek as a result of what we do, but what we must actually do is follow the commands of our Master. The master-servant relationship (perhaps better referred to as a "commission") is that which determines a person's status; on the other hand, the parent-child relationship is an inspiring illustration, but it is malleable and evocative while the servant requirement is not.
In Matthew, Jesus says:
"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. . . .Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:44-48).
Which is it then? That you must do well enough on the loving, blessing, do-gooding, praying scale so that you can be a child of God? Or that you must be perfect to be a child of God? Can you attain that family status? Can you lose that family status? I should suggest that we look straight at the text and note what is constant and unquestionable: it is the servant status that matters, and it is the servant status that controls. The "child of God" status is flexible and evocative, and it is entirely lamentable that the "child of God" imagery has been employed to usurp and deny so much of God's authority over the believer.
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