God Redeems Family

The language of family is one of the ways by which God explains himself and his church. We learn that God is our heavenly Father, that we are his adopted children, and that the church is the family of God. But we shouldn’t think that it is God who borrows from us. God doesn’t take our concept of family and apply it to himself; it is we who have borrowed from God. Fatherhood derives from him. Family is rightly understood only in relation to him. A day is coming when everything good about family will find its fulfillment in him—and on that day family will finally and fully be all that it was ever intended to be.