33. Brother, Sister, Mother
Matthew 12:50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
Mark 3:35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.
Jesus is obviously referring to the spiritual family of God promising that believers will be His brother, sister, and mother. He is contrasting this family to His earthly family by contrasting true believers with His physical brothers, who are looking for him. Jesus often turns earthly incidents into an opportunity to reveal a spiritual truth. That we are brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ is not something that we could know by sight or feeling on this earth; therefore, the invisible must be revealed to us. Jesus uses a universal human experience: family. This is quite a promise to be considered a part of the very family of God and to be brothers of Christ.
The condition for entering the family is “doing the will of my Father.” Jesus answers this question: “What is the will of the Father?” Answer: to believe in Christ. Identifying with Jesus by faith is “doing the will of the Father.” Christ has pleased God the Father completely and finished the will of God; He did that for us. Now we who believe have the complete performance of the will of God. That makes us members of the family. We have the same spiritual DNA as Jesus, the Son of God.
A surprising aspect of this promise is that we shall be “mother.” What can that mean? How can that be? It means intimate love. It is hard to imagine a closer relationship between two people than that between mother and child. We are in fact closer to Jesus Christ than we can ever become to any other person on earth. The ideal relationship between mother and child is one of unconditional, total love. This family metaphor is set alongside the Biblical picture of the intimate relationship between husband and wife (bride and Lamb). The Bible gives us both of these pictures so that there could be no doubt, ever, at all, that Jesus Love Me.