What the Bible says about God's Household
(From Forerunner Commentary)
How would we like to be accused as Moses was, then witness God Himself make a dramatic entrance and hear His voice boom out in poetry in our defense, saying that we are without peer amongst all the people? God says to Moses, "There is no one like you." He was without peer among the holy. That is pretty impressive! It has not happened very often in mankind's history.
But, on the other hand, there has only been one Moses. There were a number of ordinary prophets, who had to be content with visions and dreams, but God spoke to Moses personally. Moses was in a class by himself. Nobody on earth was more intimate with God than Moses, and, as a result, Moses was entrusted with God's estate. And Hebrews 3:2 comments, "Moses also was faithful in all His house."
"All His house" is a figure of speech, indicating that "house" is put for itself (that is, the building) and everything in it. What is normally in a house is a family. Moses, then, was faithful—he was without peer—in all of God's Household, God's Family.
Nobody was faithful like Moses was faithful, therefore he could interpret God's will to Israel with full authority. God backed His prophet up, saying that Miriam and Aaron were completely out of line. This is why He says, "Why were you not afraid to speak against [or, accuse] My servant Moses?"
It is clear what set Moses apart from others: He was faithful. This can be seen when he is contrasted to the rest of Israel, the very people that he was leading, who comprised God's Family at that time. They were anything but faithful! In fact, the reason that the Israelites failed was because of their lack of faith. And without faith, of course, one cannot be faithful.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Conviction and MosesRelated Topics: All Saints Day | Faith | Faithfulness | God's Family | God's Household | Moses | Moses, Faithfulness of
Only a little more than a generation had passed since the church's founding, yet false gospels, perversions of the truth, were making serious trouble for those early Christians. Paul warns those in Galatia not to listen to those trying to persuade them away from the true doctrines of God, which they had learned when the apostles had preached the true gospel to them.
After warning them, Paul defends himself against the unwritten question, "How do we know that you preached us the truth?" He asks in return, "From what you've seen of me, do I try to seek the favor of men or God? Do I seem to be a men-pleaser?" Clearly, he always put the truth of God before pleasing people, and he had had to pay the price for it in persecution and peril (see II Corinthians 11:23-33). He considered these sacrifices proofs that he was a true servant of God.
Then, in Galatians 1:11-12, he lets them know where the message he had taught them came from. He was taught, he writes, not by any man (verse 16), but by Jesus Christ Himself. Once God had called him on the road to Damascus, and after he was baptized, he went down to Arabia (verse 17) and stayed there for three years (verse 18). There, Christ taught him the truth as an apostle "born out of due time" (I Corinthians 15:8). Christ had a unique job for Paul and wanted to give Him the same kind of instruction He had given the Twelve.
No one knows if Christ came down and appeared to him, teaching him directly, or whether He opened Paul's mind and revealed the truth out of Scripture. However, when he went up to Jerusalem three years later and talked with Peter, James, and John, he found out that they agreed completely on the gospel of God (Galatians 2:9). These apostles understood that Paul was a fellow apostle with them and that he would preach primarily to the Gentiles.
By his personal history, Paul shows that he had received the same revelation from God that the original disciples had been given. Thus, the gospel that Paul preached was the same gospel that Peter, John, and the other apostles were also preaching. They all preached from the same Source: Jesus Christ. Our beliefs should rest on that same foundation, now printed in our Bibles. Notice Ephesians 2:19-22:
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
In terms of revelation from God, this passage informs us that a true understanding is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. In the past, God revealed certain things to the prophets in Old Testament times and to the apostles in New Testament times, and they wrote those things down for our learning (see Hebrews 1:1; Romans 15:4; I Corinthians 10:11). Jesus Christ is called "the chief cornerstone" because He is the true Foundation and Source of all revelation. He is the One who joins all the revelation together and makes it work. We, then, having this sure foundation, not only learn the truth but also grow by it into the image of Christ.
The apostle continues in Ephesians 3:
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles—if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets. (Ephesians 3:1-5)
Paul uses the subject of God's grace toward the Gentiles as a way to get across not only that he preached the true gospel but also how truth comes into the church of God. It is very simple: God revealed something to him, and he then wrote it down in a few words so that we could read and comprehend his understanding of this mystery of God's way.
That is how it works. God inspired a prophet or an apostle, and he wrote it down. Over time, it became Scripture, and now we read it, using the Holy Spirit God has given us, to understand the truth.
At the end of the Bible, in Revelation 22:18-19, John warns the reader not to add to or take away from the words written in the Book. Essentially, he is telling us that revelation from God to man is closed; the canon of Scripture is complete. What we need to know for salvation is in the finished work of the Bible. Anyone who claims to have a new revelation—that he has some "new truth" beyond Scripture—is a false teacher, one of those who "pervert the gospel of Christ."
So, the Bible is the collected writings of the apostles and prophets to whom God gave His precious revelation for all of us to learn and use. God's converted children do not need advanced degrees, higher-thinking and logic courses, or any worldly help to understand God's truth. All they need is the Word of God and a humble mind that can reason normally, and God, by the gifts of His Spirit, provides the understanding.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
How Revelation Enters the Church
This statement would have been a bombshell - and high heresy - to the average Jew of Paul's time, who would have had it in his mind that the people of Israel were the only children of God. Paul here is beginning to explain that physical lineage is not relevant where God's calling is concerned, because under the New Covenant only God can give the summons (John 6:44), and if He summons a Gentile, it is just as valid as if He gave it to an Israelite.
The faith of Jesus Christ is the important factor rather than heredity. This faith is also a part of what God gives (Ephesians 2:8) - again, only to those whom He chooses. But if God has given this living faith (James 2:20) to a man, that man is then a begotten - but not yet born - child of God. God is the real father, rather than Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob.
David C. Grabbe
Related Topics: Abraham | Abraham's Seed | Abraham, Descendants of | Abrahamic Covenant | Begettal of Holy Spirit | Begettal of the Holy Spirit | Children of Abraham | Children of God | Children of Israel | Faith of Christ | Faith, Living | God's Children | God's Family | God's Household | God's Promises | God's Promises to Abraham | Israelite, Spiritual | New Covenant | Promises of God | Promises to Abraham | Promises to Gentiles | Promises to Israel | Promises, Spiritual | Spiritual Israelite
We become children of Abraham once we are justified by faith in Christ's sacrifice. The Abrahamic Covenant and the promises God made, then, are still in effect. He is going to fulfill those promises. Abraham will have multiple billions of descendants. Now we see the real purpose of the covenant: Abraham's children actually, under God's spiritual purpose, also become God's children.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Twenty-Seven)Related Topics: Abraham | Abraham's Seed | Abraham, Descendants of | Abrahamic Covenant | Children of Abraham | Children of God | Children of Israel | God's Children | God's Family | God's Household | God's Promises | God's Promises to Abraham | Israelite, Spiritual | Promises of God | Promises to Abraham | Promises to Israel | Promises, Spiritual