A Father-Saving Son

The word prodigal means, spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant; having or giving something on a lavish scale. I was that prodigal, as I wasted God’s provision and His inheritance. I didn’t realize I was rebelling against Him. But God is a gracious, heavenly Father. His lavish provision for me included the extravagant generosity of His Son, Jesus.

My first forty-six years were simply the generational epidemic of a prodigal father walking in the footsteps of his prodigal father, who is now raising his prodigal son.

Hundreds and thousands of years of this generational perversion called independence is from the same deception (and Deceiver) that led to humanity’s falling in the garden long ago. It’s nothing new under the sun. It’s the very godlessness of a compromising world living in separation, perversion, and the brokenness where we find ourselves wading today. Yes, it is the fallacy of the self-life,and a lie that we can be our own gods!

Let’s face the facts—every naturally created being to walk the face of the planet came into the world as a son or daughter separated from God through the lineage of Adam and the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We are the seed that chooses against God’s best for what appears to be greener pastures. So our “in the beginning” story is merely how we belong to a much greater story: the story that existed before “in the beginning.”

Humanity didn’t come onto the scene until the second chapter of History. Before “in the beginning” and the creation of the universe, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit enjoyed an eternal relationship, characterized by His essence: love and glory. Before creation, the heavenly host (angels) and the kingdom above were formed. Before our “in the beginning,” a third of them followed the leadership of the greatest of them, Lucifer (a.k.a. Satan), who rebelled against heaven and the Almighty Father of light, His Son, King Jesus, and the living, breathing voice of the Holy Spirit. Before creation as we know it, the Triune God knew that humankind would join this rebellious movement of the fallen angels and would be ruined to the point of death by the fall, becoming unholy, evil, corrupt, and spiritually bankrupt. It would become separated from its Creator.

But God had a redemptive plan for all humanity before “in the beginning!” The plan involved the begotten Son of God’s incarnation, His perfect life, and His perfect sacrificial death. His plan was life in the form of a gift of grace to be received or rejected by choice through faith so the world He so loves could be restored. A remnant of human beings would/will choose to be united with their King and become the holy and blameless sons and daughters of God, spiritually fit companions for the eternal glorious God.

So what is our response to God’s glorious purpose in creating us, redeeming us, enriching us, and glorifying us for all eternity? It is to be holy, set apart, and sanctified vessels who live to reflect our callings and divine purposes as sons and daughters of the Almighty God, created in His very image before the foundation of the world. Our response leads us to praise, adore, and honor our Master with worship and surrendered hearts. And we go out into all the world and echo the light, love, and life of Christ to all creation.

Author Erich Sauer wrote,

“These mighty words stand in the Scripture not for the satisfaction of curious inquisitiveness, nor even for the intellectual completion of our picture of history of the world’s salvation, but in order to show us the greatest of the divine love. Even before the ages of time, the Highest concerned Himself with your glory and with mine. Before the sea raged and swelled, before the earth was built or its foundations were sunk, yea, before those morning stars exulted and those sons of God shouted for joy, God, the Almighty, even then had thoughts on me. On me, the worm of the earth, who have given Him so much trouble and labor with all my sins; on me, He Who is God, the Ancient of days. Truly these are depths not to be fathomed, and which the heart of every man despairs of being able to describe in words. Here we can only bow and worship, and lay our life at the feet of Him, the All-Loving.” ^[1]

The story I share with you is one of faith, hope, and love. It’s a story lived out by many but proclaimed by few. It is the story of a multitude of rebellious fathers rearing rebel sons and daughters who live out of darkness in a deteriorating world that is perishing and spiraling out of control. It’s a story about the realities of what the Father has done for the world He so loves. It’s a story of both truth and freedom bestowed upon all creation simply to choose from what is black or white, a truth or a lie, the self life or the Christ life. The free choice either to receive or reject the greatest gift ever given is the gift of life and light itself.

This eternal life is found only in the Son, who was given through the loving grace of the Father and Creator of all things seen and unseen. His is the hand of the Bridegroom. It is given in eternal matrimony to have and to be held, from this day everlasting, through the mountains and in the valleys, for richer and poorer, in sickness and health. It is to love and to cherish as we grow into oneness, even unto death on a cross. Oh, to receive the mystery hidden for ages but now revealed for all creation to partake of His divine nature, the hope of glory—Christ in you!

[1] Sauer, Erich. The Dawn of the World Redemption: A Survey of the History of Salvation in the Old Testament. London, England: Paternoster Press, 1951, 26.