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So you are no longer foreigners or upstarts,

But fellow citizens of the Saints,

and members of the Family of God

Ephesians 2:19

Theologian Wayne Grudem defines the church as "the community of all true believers of all time." 1 This, he writes, "must include equally the true believers of all time, both those of the age of the New Testament and those of the Old Testament age." I find it very appropriate and very attuned to what Ephesians, the Great Epistle of the Universal Church, teaches us.

This letter shows us many wonderful things about the Church of Christ. This community of all true believers is so versatile and special in God's plan that the Apostle Paul describes it with different phrases and words. One of those phrases that Paul applies to believers is "members of the Family of God." This phrase means that all believers, both Jewish and Gentile, are part of a single group that God had to create in Christ to show him the riches of his grace by filling them with infinite spiritual blessings (Ef. 1:3). In this big family, each person has the same rights and the same duties, just like in every family. In this article I want to reflect on three points that seem to me to be extremely important.

1 – we enter into the family of God through Christ: within the family of God, there is only one role that human beings can play, and that is the role of God's children. Being children of God means that he is our father and therefore takes care of us in all that we need, that we are included in each of the promises and blessings he has had to give his children in his word.

In the Old world, specifically in times of the New Testament, it is said that there were two ways of being part of a family. First, you were part of a family if you were born within it; This gave you the natural right to access all the possessions your parents had. The second way to be part of a family was through adoption; This way also gave you all the necessary rights, as if you were born in the family. An interesting fact is that, although at that time a father could repudiate his natural son and take his son's rights for some disobedience, it is said that Roman law forbade a child adopted to be rejected. In the family of God, we are all born and adopted; And all of this happens through the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross to save us and the work that the spirit does in each of you.

First, we are united to the family of God when we are born again to believe in Christ as our Savior. That is precisely what the Apostle John affirms in the first chapter of the gospel that bears his name:

But to all who received him, to those who believe in his name, he gave them the power to be made children of God; Which are not begotten of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)

We see here that believers in Jesus receive the power or the right to be children of God by virtue of their union with Christ. This fact is described in these verses as a birth, which is spiritual, because it does not come from the human will, but from the divine will that had to well regenerate and make us born again to be part of the family of God. Therefore, we can say that if we are part of the great family of God that is the church, it is because we are born again through the Holy Spirit to believe in Christ.

Second, we are united to the family of God through the spiritual adoption that he in his grace bestows upon us. As pastor John MacArthur says, "Adoption" is the act of incorporating one's own family into a person who has been begotten by another person. Since non-regenerated human beings are by nature children of Satan the only way they can become children of God is through an act of spiritual adoption. 2 and that is precisely what Paul writes to the Galatians:

But when the fulfillment of time came, God sent his son, born of woman and born under the law, to redimiese those who were under the law, so that educated the adoption of children. (Galatians 4:4-5)

Human beings are born physically and we spend our lives in a state of spiritual death. The law condemns us, for none of us can fulfill the things written in the Word of God in our own strength. Only through the sacrifice that Christ has made, the debt we have with God has been paid and we have been adopted to the family of God.

This truth of Galatians is very well embodied in a sentence attributed to the writer C.S. Lewis, who prays more or less like this:

"The Son of God became a man for men to become children of God"

So these are the two ways that human beings are united to the great spiritual family of God that is the Church: the new birth and adoption. As a last note we can only say that both are and must be reality in all the true members of the family of God.

2 – Being part of the family of God gives us the right to enjoy all the blessings of our Father: right at the beginning of the letter to the Ephesians, Paul Exploits in worship of the Lord for the Spiritual blessings he has bestowed upon his children in Christ (Ef. 1:3). These blessings are specifically reported in verses 4 through 14 and throughout the entire letter.

As we have already stated before, being part of a family, whether by birth or by adoption, gives the person the right to receive all the possessions and gifts of the father. And this is precisely what happens to all believers, for we have been born again and have been adopted to the family of God (Ef. 1:5), for which he is our father and we are the undeserving beneficiaries of all the gifts and blessings flowing from his GRA Cia.

In our natural state, we are like the prodigal son who in Luke 15 rebels shamefully against his father, moves away from him and wastes everything his father gives him. We are rebellious, ungrateful and constantly disobedient to our creator. However, our God is like that Father who when the son returned put ring in his hand, gave him the best clothes, and made banquet to celebrate his return. This does not reflect anything other than the total acceptance by the father and that the full rights of son are given back to this rebellious son.

By the sovereign and sweet grace of God, once we are adopted to the family of God, we are creditors of all kinds of spiritual blessings in heavenly places by virtue of our Union with Christ.

3 – Being part of the family of God implies responsibilities towards other members of the family: Another passage where Paul speaks of the Church as the family of God is Galatians 6:10, where he writes: So, as we have opportunity, let us all do well , and mostly those of the family of faith (Gá. 6:10). In this text we are given an idea of the sublime responsibility that believers have in sharing with others the precious privilege of being part of the family of God.

As people who have been created in Christ to do good deeds (Ef. 2:10), we are in the responsibility of doing good to all people, as we have opportunity. Of course, if God has given us that capacity by his spirit, we must also trust that he will give us the opportunities to do so. Now, one of the main emphasis we have to make is to do the members of our spiritual family well. That is a direct responsibility that we have as members of this Assembly of the redeemed that Christ bought with his blood on the cross.

Our prayer must be that we can experience every day more the blessing of being aware that we are part of the great family of God, that we have a good father who fills us with blessings, and that we have a direct responsibility towards our brethren.

And you, are you part of God's family?