How do you compare the Heavenly Father & Son relationship with man's family?

[Artfuldodger]

I was just thinking how all of us really picture the meaning of a Father and Son or a family for that matter. How or what do you think that relationship means between Jesus and his Father compared to a man and his earthly father?

Ephesians 1:5
God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

 

[Artfuldodger]

Jesus had a Heavenly family and an earthly family. The home of Mary and Joseph was the Son of God's home away from home. It was perhaps an image of the Trinity or Heavenly Family. Jesus constantly talked about his Father in Heaven.

God gave us His only Son.

 

[Artfuldodger]

How can we not view the human family in the same way as we view the eternal family of God the Father and His Son. God gave us His Son long before his incarnation, actually it's eternal with no beginning. A loving Father, a Father who punishes, a Father who forgives, etc.

John 17:3

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

 

[Artfuldodger]

Jesus often illustrates God’s kingdom by using pictures that we are familiar with: seeds and soils, sheep and the Shepherd. When Jesus calls God a father, we might think this is another metaphor, that God, while not being an actual human father, shares some similarities to earthly dads.
Actually it's the other way around. We should see God as the actual, literal father. Earthly fathers have similarities to our Heavenly Father, not the other way around.

I will admit it's hard to explain and I do know that certain mysteries abound.

 

[gordon 2]

I would compare it from the perspective of a Jewish family native to the cultural world that was to Palestine 2000 yrs ago.

I suspect that the Father is the patriarch and the son is very active on his ( the family's) behalf.

 

[Artfuldodger]

The Father is most high and Jesus is the Son of the most high. Christ eventually turns the kingdom over to his Father.
Maybe the Father and Son is presented as a way to show in humans the relationship roles of the Father and his Son.

But God the Father and his Son were before human fathers had sons. That means our father/son image is based on God's Father/Son image. Heaven's Father/Son relationship predates that of human father/son relationships.

There is something human about the father & son relationship but the spiritual Father & son relationship came first. Is it more than God doing it for us to have an example such as with marriage or sheep or seeds?

John 5:26
For as the Father has life in Himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.

 

[StriperAddict]

Birthright aka being born into God's family by faith brings us into the closeness observed in our heavenly Father's bond with Jesus His Son.
What Christ has by merit we also have by His grace, unmerited. A bond as complete as the tender love bond expressed in the words,
"This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."
One Spirit with Him ... one unbreakable bond forever.

 

[gordon 2]

In Chinese mythology it is said that the creator of male and female is the father. It seems that this reference that the creator of man is "the father" references possibly with dates back to 5000BC.

Also, which is not related to this, however you might like this, the first two humans male and female in Chinese mythology are the creators of heaven and the earth... and get this: they are represented pictorially as having serpent bodies lower extremities with human torsos, heads, arms, and hands.