In God's Image

“But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and striving about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.” Tit. 3:9.
“Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith.” 1Tim. 1:4.

It’s interesting that Paul would so diverge from the scriptures on this issue, when the scriptures, which was the Old Testament in Paul’s day, were full of genealogies as confirmation to the promises of God for Israel. But herein lies the reason to discount them. Israel’s birthright was transferred to the followers of Christ. So although a genealogy had been used as one evidence of Christ’s messiahship (Matt. 1:1-16), once Christ came in the flesh, there existed no future need for genealogical documentation and research, their purpose in scripture having concluded. Their objective had found its goal. As a shadow of good things to come, they were then nailed to the cross with the rest of the ceremonial law. They might continue, but they were divested of divine purpose and promises.

My father became interested in his roots. But just as he began to look into his heritage, he discovered someone had already done the research and published a large volume. All the hard work had been done for him, beginning with Robert Burdick who arrived in the New World in 1651 and ending in 1937 with my father’s family, among hundreds of other families, Dad being listed as 7 years of age. That book is how Dad learned his true middle name. All his life he had thought his middle name was “Ace” when it had really been “Asa.” So, there the book was in his lap, like a gift from the sky, 3 ½ inches thick and full of Burdicks! It’s from that book that I found out that I am a 10^th generation Sabbatarian, having come from a long line of Seventh-Day Baptists. What a discovery for me! Not too many people know they are the 10^th generation of anything. I take this mantle as the sign of a pretty high pedigree. :)

Yet, be that as it may, I also began to see a trend. Someone is born, lives a lifetime, dies and is buried somewhere, and that’s it. Nothing really spectacular about that, is there? Case after case I found the same thing. No matter how far back into antiquity you go, it’s no different. What is the curiosity to dig deeper into the misty past? It will be just the same thing again and again. “That which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything wherein it may be said, See this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us.” Ecc. 1:9, 10.

So what’s the purpose of this endless carousel of life cycles? Am I special because of my father, Edward Burdick? Is he special because of his father Asa Burdick? What’s so special about Asa? Or his father Curtis? Do they all make their sons special? Does the name Burdick have any special merit? Not really.

I like what the Bible says, “Cainan, which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.” Lk. 3:37, 38. It wasn’t being the son of Enos, Seth or Adam that held any significance or attained any merit. It was the attachment to the Creator that made all the difference. Christ was the beginning and the end of Luke’s geneology. All of our geneologies begin and end with Jesus. Once we meet Him, that’s the beginning of life. If we must die before He comes, He keeps us in loving memory until the day He can call us back to life. So, if we’ve met, Jesus becomes the starting and ending point of our existence.

It isn’t really significant that I am the son of Edward or that he is the son of Asa; what is really important is that we are the sons of God, made by Him. He does the creating; the human parents are only the vehicle for His creations.

“Thou hast possessed my reins: Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb....marvelous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought…. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” Ps. 139:13-16.

Christ “was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.” Jn. 1:9, 4. Being made by Him, made in His image, a living testimony of His character, a witness to His power, which Satan cannot dismiss nor controvert, is why Adam had Seth, and Seth had Enos, and thus billions in His image, all the way down to our day.

All things were made by Him: and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Jn. 1:3.