The Concept of Sonship underpins all of God’s dealings in human history. We will only briefly mention some for the purpose of illustration. But first, the concept of first-born or first-fruit needs to be briefly mentioned.
Let’s take a closer look at Colossians 1:15:
He is the image of the invisible God, which was stated by the author of Hebrews as “the exact representation of His being.” We can see that the invisible world includes angels and spiritual entities of various forms and ranks. A whole array of spiritual beings exists in the spiritual world and they are all created through Christ, by Him and for Him, and certainly besides these is the whole universe. This clearly implies the concept of first-born. He is the first born of the eternal life into creation. When death entered the visible world, the world was separated from Him, thus it fell into the dominion of darkness. But by God’s grace, a physical seed was preserved – even though it wasn’t able to become one with the spiritual seed. This means Man’s life unto the eternal life of God was denied because of sin. This can only be taken away by the perfect atonement required by God’s justice and His law of a spiritual life of Holiness.
What is the concept of first-born in relation to Sonship?
God, as the creator of all things is self-sufficient, which means He does not conform to Man’s roles and characters, but instead, Man is a dim reflection of who He is. So in the Fatherhood of God, His being the Father is never to be considered as a separated person like our earthly father from our mother. No, His Fatherhood is much more about His being the progenitor of all things. God the Father can create a body out of dust, as He did with Adam, and He gives His Spirit with His breath. The Son becomes the image of His Father, not merely to the visible universe, but also to the invisible spiritual realm. The Bible names these as the heavens and the earth.
In this light, Sonship also should be regarded as a positional and conceptual term, rather than one of Man’s genders. Sonship is something expressed through both genders. That is why Paul mentions several times in His epistles that “there is not male or female” as a son of God when you are born again of God.
This post is _Part 3_ in a series Restored Back to the Father: Son and Orphan. To continue with this series, click on Part 4. To use this as a growth tool to better understand your own calling, you might start by reading the explanation of this series and then read Pt 1 and Pt 2.
Photo credit: Swet!