Humanity Was CREATED By God So That They Might Choose To Be PROCREATED By God

create — to bring into existence; to bring about by a course of action; to cause or make; to produce through imaginative skill.
procreate - to produce offspring by generation, i. e. a body of living beings constituting a single step in the line of descent from an ancestor.
Webster’s Dictionary

One of the first things I began to understand about God in the epistles of Paul was that God desires to be a Father - to be a PROCREATOR - to all who believe. Before the creation, the desire of God’s heart was to procreate true children with His divine nature. And from that desire came the purpose for which He created heaven, angels, the universe, the earth and people.

Out of His desire for divinely natured offspring came the purpose of the new birth of which Christ speaks in John chapter 3, and of which Paul speaks scores of times. The new birth was a mystery that had never been revealed to me at this point in my spiritual walk. Though I had been born again for many years, I had no understanding of the true meaning of the birthing. It is sad to be alive in union with the indwelling Christ and not know what it means.

“…the heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all...” (Galatians 4:1). Maturity and immaturity are conditions of the mind. There is a period of time in the walk of each believer when he does not comprehend the procreative aspect of the new birth -and it may remain that way for many years. The believer may remain ignorant of who he is as a true procreated child of God for an indefinite period of time, as seen in the phrase “as long as”. This period is contingent on mental maturity, not on the number of years, months, days, etc. The child will remain a child “as long as”.

I believe the phrase “child of God” has been used much too loosely in the world and even in the Christian community. We hear: “All people are children of God” or “God is the Father of the human race.” Not technically correct!

The truth is: All people are CREATURES of God - by a creative process. God is the CREATOR of the whole human race.

The terms “children of God” and “God the Father” should only be applied to those who have chosen to accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and thus have been born again. Only in that case is God the true “Father” – by PROCREATION.

Without a Holy Spirit revelation of Christ’s indwelling union in the believer, there is only one God that can be known - the God of the Old Testament depicted by law, bondage and fear. Without the understanding of Paul’s epistles, believers will never really comprehend the true nature of God. They will remain in condemnation and fear to the judgmental God of the Old and some of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament except in Paul’s and John’s writings. What, then, is the difference? His nature did not change from a judgmental God to that of Father. The difference between the God of the Old and New Testaments is the revelation of the true circumstances of the new birth in Christ. And this is known by the renewal of our minds. The new birth makes Him, not just our Creator, but our Procreator Father and it is here that the difference is found.

Recently I re-evaluated the use of Father in John’s gospel and found an amazing thing. The term father is used 139 times. Seventeen times it has no reference to God at all. Father is used 122 times referring to God as father. Jesus uses it 112 times referring to God as Jesus’ Father and 9 times when He is speaking directly to the Father. Though the term Father is used quite extensively in John’s gospel, it nonetheless leaves the believer without knowing that God is the believer’s very own father. In John’s gospel, God is called “the Father” referring to Him being the father of Jesus only. There is only one verse in John’s gospel that refers to God being the father of anyone other than Christ. “. . . I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17). Granted that in Jesus private prayer to His Father, He asks to “. . . keep through Your own name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are one.” This indirectly intimates a procreative status for believers.

In the other three gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke together, the term father is used 121 times. 59 times it has no reference to God at all. Jesus uses it 34 times referring to God as Jesus’ Father. Only in the “Sermon on the Mount” is the term “your Father” or “our Father” used 28 times.

The point I make is that the gospels give us a beautiful insight into the fact that God is a father, but almost exclusively a Father to Jesus Christ our Lord. We learn of the Father-Son relationship that exists exclusively between the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the first step in coming to understand that God desires to be your father!

NOT UNTIL WE GET INTO PAUL’S EPISTLES DO WE REALLY LEARN THAT GOD IS OUR FATHER THROUGH CHRIST IN US! If you desire to know God as your procreative Father and not just as Creator, you must turn to Paul’s epistles. There is no other option. Though Peter tells us that God has a divine nature which believers share, he gives no clue as to what kind of nature it is!

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus…“ (Romans 8:1). For many years, this verse surely sounded good but it was not a reality to me. There were short periods when there was no condemnation, but these were the few times when I obeyed the letter of the law and thought I was acceptable to Him because of it. The moment that I failed to comply with the letter of the law I felt condemnation rush in like a stormy wind. Periods of no condemnation were always short lived. Why did Romans 8:1 not work for me?

As long as I was without the understanding that God was my procreative Father by a new birth and not just my Creator, I reverted back to my understanding of God where He was the omnipotent, righteous, holy, unapproachable God of the Old Testament. I reasoned that the above verse meant, “Sure, I ‘m not condemned to hell as long as I don’t sin. But when I sin, it separates me from Christ and the Father and then I AM condemned to hell. I must constantly repent and confess my sin in order to get back into God’s good graces.”

Not until I came to an understanding by the epistles of Paul that God is my procreative Father by my new birth did the condemnation leave. Romans 8:1 is one of the greatest confirmations of this attribute of God as my Father by procreation. Condemnation does not come from Him who is our true Father by rebirth! There are many sources of condemnation but none from Him who procreated us into His Family!

At this point I am reminded of what the younger son said while he was still in the pigpen. “[I]…am no more worthy to be called your son. . .“ (Luke 15:19). These are the words of one who has a penitent heart; that is good, but it is not the answer. When the son arrived at his father’s house he repeats the statement that he is no longer worthy. His understanding of his relationship with his father was based on his understanding of worth. As long as he remained at home and followed his father’s rules he thought he was worthy to be his father’s son. He didn’t do anything wrong while there, and upon this he based his understanding of his worth. For many years this was the basis of my understanding of my relationship with God. What is wrong with this logic? This is the understanding of a believer who looks at himself through his own eyes and has never understood the difference between creation and procreation.

Our understanding of our worth must go beyond ourselves into the glory of the Christ indwelling us. It is true that when we were outside of Christ we found ourselves unable to come to the unapproachable God who was too holy and righteous for us to be allowed into His presence. But that unapproachable God now lives in us through Jesus Christ in us! Make Galatians 2:20 your spiritual battlecry: “I am crucified with Christ - nevertheless I live - yet not I, but Christ lives in me - and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

The believer needs to know how his procreative Father God sees him. Read Ephesians chapters 1,2 and 3 until this knowledge is indelibly written in your mind. Not only must it be written in your mind, but it must become life to you.

If you can look at Christ, point a finger at Him and condemn Him, then you can condemn me also. If you can find nothing to condemn Him for, then you will not be able to condemn me FOR HE LIVES IN ME AS MY LIFE. This is not my human concept of myself, but it is God our Father’s perception of me. If you look at me and can find reason to condemn me, then you are seeing me through your own eyes and not through the eyes of Him who is my procreative Father.

Since I have been born again procreatively by a new birth into God’s Family and am now His true child, the basis of who I am is found only in Christ and I am not separated from Him for a moment. I am persuaded that nothing can separate me from Christ who is in me (Rom. 8:39). I am in an eternal union with the indwelling Jesus Christ. He has promised to never leave me or forsake me (Heb. 13:5).

Does this mean that everything that I think and do after my new birth will be “Christ-like”? Certainly not. Learning to live completely by God’s standards for His child is a PROCESS. It is a process of trial and error. All of our human life is a schoolhouse to teach us the lifestyle of a procreative child of God.

I am impressed at how our heavenly Father constantly offers us courses of action from which to choose - good or evil, his way versus our way. God made a choice also. The most awesome choice God made was giving us the ability to choose.

If you look on the inside of an old piece of furniture, you will often see dovetail joints where two pieces of wood meet, particularly in drawers. It is a work of superb skill and efficiency. This is a fine illustration of how God’s sovereignty (I like to call it “God’s persuasive sovereignty”) and man’s will work in union, though just where and when they do is not clear. Their place of meeting is a mystery. I suspect that is the Father’s plan, for if we knew we would no doubt work up a formula to follow. Instead, by faith we choose to believe that just as dovetailing assures smooth, solid and stable furniture, so the fusion of our will and God’s, although more pliable than the analogous dovetailed joint, is the key to the life of the procreated child of God.

The moment by moment decisions of any given day are a combination of my choosing and His persuading. The Scriptures clearly indicate this. First in Romans 12:1-2, Paul exhorts the readers to: “...present your bodies a living sacrifice… and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that acceptable and perfect will of God.” All these active verbs dictate first our participation and then the unveiling of His will.

In yet another of Paul’s epistles we are assured, “For it is God who works in you (who sovereignly persuades you] both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). We need never be twisted in confusion wondering what we should do when we remember that the persuasive direction comes out of the union we have with the mind of Christ. Neither need we fumble toward fatalism when we understand that our will works in persuasive compliance with the Father’s will. No hint of being robotically engineered here.

The collision of situations and circumstances in the life of a child of God that brings us to a crisis of confidence in our human ability requires choices. Crises in and of themselves are no guarantee that we will quickly relinquish our self-reliance for dependence on God. Many people, INCLUDING PROCREATED CHRISTIAN CHILDREN, become bewildered, buffeted, and grow bitter under life’s pressures. Whatever choices though that we make, we are comforted in knowing that our Father will work all things together for good (Rom. 8:28).

However, that does not diminish our responsibility of making Christ-conscious choices for there are consequences to our actions, of that we can all testify. The same apostle of grace to whom the emancipated, exchanged life was revealed, also says that we will reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7-8). There are fewer scars, regrets, and repercussions when we are persuaded to follow the lifestyle of Christ rather than waiting for the sky to fall.

Choosing is the outworking of human and heavenly union - Christ’s life and mine in harmony. Our heavenly Father gives us options from which to choose. And although He will never violate either our choice or His decision that gave us free will in the first place, God our Father in all His perfection is the perfect persuader. Through the indwelling Spirit of Christ, He will use whatever powers of persuasion are needed to bring us our needed spiritual growth in His Family. Do you see the mystery of the dovetailing of God’s sovereign perfect persuasion and our God-given human free-will? What else can Paul’s exciting statement mean: “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28)?

It is a constant conflict within the mind of a Christian child of God whether to stay aware or to temporarily forget who we are in union with Christ. Our Father knew that this would happen. In fact, He planned that this would happen - he wired our minds to that this would happen! Why? So that faith and dependence on Him would necessarily grow in His child.

None of us know how many grade levels there are in this schoolhouse of life that we are in. None of us know how far along the growth in lifestyle of God that we will get.
Our length of human life is so uncertain.

But what we can know is that we are eternally secure as procreated children in the Family of God.

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