The Building Block of God’s Government

The Family Unit

In both spiritual and secular government the family is the primary building block of the governmental society. We can look at history and see that any secular government that lasted any length of time had a fundamental respect and support of the family. Any government that moves away from basic building block of the family, which is done by moving the responsibilities from the family father to the State, quickly begins to become a declining society with increasing violence, abuse, sexual deviancy, and other forms of social upheaval.

When God made Adam, He also said that is was not good for Adam to be alone.¹ He made Eve to be an appropriate helper and companion and commanded them to be fruitful and reproduce. This reveals to us that God’s primary structure of society is family not individuals. Healthy families functioning in God ordained structure and order produce a healthy society. When governments forget or ignore this and try to make the primary societal unit the individual, they create an over-emphasis on individual rights and personal freedoms, which results in an environment that equates good morality with anything that doesn’t interfere with an individuals right to do as he pleases as long as “it doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

When one understands and applies the dynamics of relationships learned in a healthy family operating under the precepts of God, there is a laying down of one’s rights and freedoms for the benefit of family members. This process begins with husband and wife who must become “one flesh”, that is, each forsakes their individual identity and merge into a new “corporate” identity where each is defined in their relationship with the other.

Gen 2:24 NASB

(24) For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

If both husband and wife each insist on “their rights”, they can never become “one flesh”. There must be a laying down of rights in order to make the new family unit function properly. Jesus exemplifies this type of mindset or outlook when He laid aside His heavenly rights and became a human person.

Phi 2:5-8 NASB

(5) Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,

(6) who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

(7) but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

(8) Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

We are told to have the same type of mindset or outlook in our life. This starts with our relationship with each other in the family. We don’t strive to get all that we can or to have our every whim catered to; instead, we look out for the good of the other family members and lay aside our rights, desires, ambitions, etc. to achieve the best for them. The generations prior to this one all desired something better for their children than what they had and willingly sacrificed so that their children would have the opportunity to move on to better things.

However, this generation has yielded to the lies of the Enemy and the world system. These lies are reflected in every aspect of our society, especially in the advertising area. You may recall some of the commercials over the past several years. Do these phrases sound familiar? “You only go around once in life. Grab all of the gusto you can.” “Get up and get away! You deserve a break today!” “It is expensive, but I am worth it.”

You determine the things that motivate the people of a society by the type of advertising that is effective. It is the advertisers job to change, sway, or re-direct a person’s desire. The current generation has had the full focus of Madison Avenue’s gurus to change their inherent desires. This process has primarily been related to a person’s rights and indulgences resulting in the lie that each one has the right to indulge himself or herself in whatever way desired.

As this has been carried over into our spiritual lives, the result has been confusion and a perversion of some of God’s basic principles for government. The first lie the Church implemented from the world system strikes at the family building block. This lie becomes a deception in the area of husband and wife relationship and perverts authority and submission. We have equated “value” with “function” and then confused this with “identity”. We must re-apply God’s Truth to the family structure if our society is to survive and if we are going to accomplish God’s purpose and calling.

Submission

Consider the idea of “submission” which we all know is a scriptural concept—we are told to submit to one another and that the wife is to submit to her husband. Yet, in practice, we don’t implement submission because we fear losing “our identity” and “value” as a person. This is because we have bought into the worldly lie that “absolute submission” is “complete obedience” to the desires of another. This is not true. Submission is an attitude of the spirit and is absolute to the Lord. Obedience is an action and is not absolute. One can be submissive without being obedient. The Scriptures verify this.

Act 5:27-29 NASB

(27) When they had brought them, they stood them before the Council. The high priest questioned them,

(28) saying, "We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man's blood upon us."

(29) But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men.

Peter’s words are the key to our understanding. Our obedience is always to God. If man contradicts God, we must disobey men in order to obey God. The submissive attitude comes when we accept the consequences of being disobedient which Peter did because he understood that God establishes all authority. Just because the authority over us is wrong doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility of submission even though our conscious leads us to disobey.

By God’s commandment, Adam was to become a father. God’s promise to Abraham was that he would be a father of nations. Being a father undoubtedly plays a primary role in God’s purposes.

God established the family for man to learn to exercise Godly rule within it. This is the classroom to learn authority, submission, responsibility, and how to exercise dominion properly.

The Father’s heart

God structured His government in such a way that it expresses His nature and character. The key element of this is the concept of “Fatherhood”. Our God expresses Himself as “Father”. That is why we know that He always desires our good.

Gal 4:6 NASB

(6) Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"

Fatherhood is one of the three eternal principles of the Godhead. The other two are “fellowship” and “headship” [discussed in other lessons available on the website]. It is God’s intention that His people reflect the full working of these three principles in their relationships just as He does within the Godhead.

To become a leader in God’s government requires that one develop a father’s heart. Only “spiritual fathers” can operate within the Kingdom of God as leaders. This is how God protects His government from the contamination of the world system.

The Scriptures divide our spiritual growth to maturity into three stages.

1Jo 2:12-14 NASB

(12) I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name's sake.

(13) I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you know the Father.

(14) I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

Jesus said that those who had seen him had seen the Father. The writer of Hebrews said that the Son was “the express image of his person”. Isaiah called the Son “everlasting Father”².

It is the Father’s intention that we become conformed to the image of Christ.

Rom 8:29 NASB

(29) For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

As this happens, we are being conformed to the image of the Father also. This process means that we must be conformed in three areas: our character, our actions, and our thoughts or intents of the heart.

We begin to understand God's government when we understand how we grow up in a family. Our first role is that of a son. As a son we learn from our father. We learn how to be obedient to his rules; we partake of his love; we model his example. [This is the way it should be; however, I know that many of us did not have loving fathers and it has affected our relationship with the Heavenly Father.] After learning how to be a son, there comes a time when we, too, become a father, then, we begin to express to our son the things that we learned as a son ourselves. This same process works in the spiritual realm, also. We learn as sons from spiritual fathers so that we too can became spiritual fathers to others. This is the organic government of the Kingdom of God.

FOOTNOTES