The Great Reordering: Christ and True Kinship Text: Matthew 12:46-50
Introduction: A Calculated Affront
We live in an age that is profoundly confused about the family. On the one hand, our secular overlords are doing everything they can to detonate the institution of the family as God designed it. They redefine it, subvert it, and mock its traditional form. In response to this, faithful Christians have rightly rushed to the defense of the family, recognizing it as a foundational building block of any healthy society. We defend biblical marriage, parental authority, and the blessing of children. And this is good and necessary work.
But in our zeal to defend the family against the pagans, we must be careful not to make an idol of it ourselves. We can become so focused on the goodness of the created institution that we forget the Creator who instituted it. We can make the family the ultimate thing, when it is meant to be a penultimate thing. It is a signpost, not the destination. And when we get this wrong, we are just as confused as the culture warriors on the other side, albeit in a more respectable, church-going sort of way.
It is into this very tension that Jesus speaks in our text today. At first glance, His words seem jarring, almost disrespectful. His mother and brothers, his natural, biological family, are standing outside, wanting to speak with Him. This is Mary, the one who bore Him, nursed Him, and raised Him. These are his brothers, who grew up with him under the same roof. And when this is brought to His attention, Jesus appears to brush them off. He asks a radical question and gives an even more radical answer, redefining the very nature of kinship. He is not being callous. He is being surgical. He is performing open-heart surgery on our loyalties.
Jesus is not dishonoring the family here; He is putting it in its proper place. He is showing us that all earthly relationships, even the most sacred ones like mother and brother, are subordinate to a higher, deeper, and more permanent reality. He is establishing the principle that the family of God is constituted not by blood and water, but by faith and obedience. This is a calculated affront, not to His mother, but to every ideology that would place earthly ties above heavenly ones.
The Text
While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. Now someone said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.” But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”
(Matthew 12:46-50 LSB)
The Earthly Interruption (v. 46-47)
We begin with the scene as it is set for us:
"While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. Now someone said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.”" (Matthew 12:46-47)
Jesus is in the middle of His ministry, teaching the crowds. There is a press of people, a spiritual intensity to the moment. And then comes an interruption from the outside. His family arrives. It is important to look at the context. In the parallel passage in Mark 3, we are told that His family had come because they thought He was "out of his mind" (Mark 3:21). They were likely concerned, perhaps embarrassed, and wanted to take charge of Him. They were operating on a natural, familial level. They heard their son and brother was causing a stir, confronting the Pharisees, and they came to manage the situation.
So this is not a simple social call. There is an implicit demand here. They are "outside," separate from the disciples who are "inside" with Jesus. They expect that their biological relationship will grant them special access and authority. The well-meaning person who interrupts Jesus certainly thinks so. "Behold, Your mother and Your brothers." The assumption is plain: "You must stop what you are doing. Family business takes precedence."
This is an assumption our culture understands perfectly well. "Blood is thicker than water," we say. Family first. And in its proper sphere, this is a biblical concept. We are to honor our parents and provide for our relatives. But Jesus is about to show that the gospel introduces a new calculus. The claims of the Kingdom of God are higher than the claims of family. The water of baptism is thicker than the blood of the womb.
The Redefining Question (v. 48)
Jesus's response is not what anyone expected. He does not say, "Excuse me for a moment." He does not get up and go outside. Instead, He uses the interruption as a teaching moment, starting with a piercing question.
"But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, 'Who is My mother and who are My brothers?'" (Matthew 12:48 LSB)
This is a rhetorical thunderclap. He is not denying that He has a mother and brothers. He is challenging the definition of what constitutes true family in His kingdom. He is forcing everyone present, including us, to examine our foundational loyalties. What is the primary identifying relationship in your life? Is it your surname? Your bloodline? Your ethnicity? Or is it your connection to the Father through the Son?
Jesus is throwing a bomb into all our neat categories of identity. He is telling us that our spiritual identity is more fundamental than our physical identity. This is not to say our physical identities are meaningless. God made us male and female, and He places us in families and nations. These are good gifts. But they are not the ultimate reality. They are not the basis of our standing before God. The question is not, "Whose child are you?" but rather, "Whose disciple are you?"
The True Family Identified (v. 49)
Having asked the question that shatters all earthly presumptions, Jesus now provides the answer. He redefines the family right before their eyes.
"And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, 'Behold My mother and My brothers!'" (Matthew 12:49 LSB)
The gesture is as important as the words. He stretches His hand, not toward the door where His biological family is waiting, but toward His disciples. These were the men who had left their nets, their tax booths, and their own families to follow Him. They were fishermen, zealots, and common laborers. By earthly standards, they were a motley crew. But by heavenly standards, they were now the household of the King.
This is a revolutionary declaration. Jesus is creating a new family, a new community, a new humanity, with Himself at the center. The church is not a club you join or a building you visit. It is a family you are born into. This is why the New Testament is filled with familial language. We are brothers and sisters. God is our Father. We are children of God, heirs of the promise. This is not sentimental metaphor; it is ontological reality. Our spiritual DNA has been rewritten.
This means that your relationship with the Christian sitting next to you, if you are both in Christ, is more real and more permanent than your relationship with an unbelieving parent or sibling. That earthly relationship is temporary; it ends at the grave. But the bond you share in Christ is eternal. This should radically alter how we view the church. We are not a collection of individuals who happen to show up at the same place on Sunday. We are a family. We are to bear one another's burdens, rejoice with one another, weep with one another, and admonish one another as beloved family members.
The Condition of Kinship (v. 50)
Finally, Jesus lays out the single condition for entry into this new family. It is not ethnicity, not social status, not biological connection. It is obedience that flows from a transformed heart.
"For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother." (Matthew 12:50 LSB)
Here is the heart of the matter. True kinship with Christ is defined by doing the will of the Father. But we must be very careful here. This is not a new legalism. Jesus is not saying, "If you pull yourself together and follow a list of rules, you can earn your way into My family." That would be to misunderstand the entire gospel. The Bible is clear that in our fallen state, we are utterly incapable of doing the will of the Father. Our hearts are corrupt, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.
So what does He mean? He means that the evidence of being in His family is a life of obedience. And a life of obedience is the fruit of a new heart. When God saves a man, He does not give him a new will; the will works just fine, always choosing what the heart most desires. No, what God does in salvation is give us a new heart with new desires. He takes out the heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). And out of that new heart, we begin to desire what God desires. We begin to want to do the will of our Father.
So, doing the will of the Father is not the cause of our adoption, but the consequence of it. It is the family resemblance. You know someone is a child of God because they start to act like their Father and their elder Brother. And what is the will of the Father? The will of the Father is that you believe in the Son whom He has sent (John 6:29, 40). It begins with faith, with trusting entirely in the finished work of Jesus Christ. And from that root of faith, the fruit of obedience naturally and necessarily grows.
Notice the beautiful inclusivity of it. "Whoever does the will of My Father... he is My brother and sister and mother." This new family is open to all. Male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. The only thing that matters is your relationship to the Father through the Son, evidenced by a life of joyful obedience.
Conclusion: A Higher Allegiance
This passage forces a crisis of allegiance. Jesus stands before us and asks, "Who is your family?" He demands first place. He demands ultimate loyalty. If your loyalty to your earthly family causes you to disobey the will of the Father, you must choose the Father. If your spouse or child asks you to compromise on God's Word, you must choose God's Word. Jesus said it even more starkly: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26).
This is not a command to be cruel or unloving to our families. It is the Semitic language of ultimate preference. Our love for Christ must be so absolute, so all-consuming, that by comparison, all other loves look like hatred. Our primary identity must be "in Christ."
When we get this right, something wonderful happens. We do not destroy our earthly families; we sanctify them. A man who loves Christ more than his wife will, as a result, be the best husband his wife could ever have. A woman whose ultimate allegiance is to the Father will be the most faithful mother to her children. When we put the first thing first, all the second things are not abolished; they are put in their proper, glorious order.
So the call today is to answer Jesus's question. Who is your mother? Who are your brothers? Is your identity found in your bloodline, or in the blood of the Lamb? Are you standing outside, trying to get Jesus's attention on your own terms? Or are you inside, seated at His feet, a disciple, a brother, a sister, a mother, because by the grace of God, you have been given a new heart that delights to do the will of your Father in heaven?