Who Are My Mother and Brothers?

David W Palmer

(Matthew 12:46 NKJV) While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him.

In this encounter, Jesus finally gets to explain who he considers his true family. He was concluding his discussion about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and dealing with demons. Suddenly, someone burst in and announced that his mother and brothers were outside, seeking to speak with him. As he was in the full flight of ministry, not only was he fully focused on his Father’s work—flowing with the Holy Spirit and not wanting to break the flow—he was speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit. So what he said about this situation came directly from heaven:

(Matthew 12:47–50 NKJV) Then one said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.” {48} But He answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” {49} And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! {50} “For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus’s response needs a little explanation, so we need to do some more digging to fully understand why he answered this way.

Most of us are steeped in Western culture with a Western mindset. To prove parentage or descent, we think in terms of biology. For example, if asked who our mother, brothers and sisters are, we would say, “My full brothers, sisters, and mother will have a dna match with me.” But that’s not the way Jesus thinks. Let’s look at some other statements he made along this line:

(John 8:41, 44 NKJV) “You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.” ... {44} “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

Here Jesus reveals his view of a father-son relationship: “You do the deeds of your father”; “The desires of your father you want to do.” So heaven’s view of this relationship is that a son wants what his father wants, values what his father values, and imitates what his father does. This explains one of Jesus’s proofs that he is God’s Son:

(John 10:36–37 NKJV) “Do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? {37} If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me.”

For evidence that he is the “Son of God,” Jesus pointed to the fact that he did the works of his Father. He further explained his relationship to his true Father like this:

(John 5:19–20 NKJV) Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. {20} For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.”

This translation uses the phrase, “In like manner,” to describe how Jesus copied his Father. The original language could equally be translated as, “In the same way.” In other words, Jesus imitated what he saw his Father doing. Naturally, we have all seen this: a little boy copying his Father, or a child—whether knowingly or unknowingly—mimicking his parent’s mannerisms, voice inflections, speech patterns, habits, or actions. In the area where I grew up, I often heard the saying: “He’s the spitting image of his father.”

The Eastern culture of Bible times didn’t have dna testing; their view of the father-child relationship was based on whether the child acted, spoke, and did the deeds of the father. So when questioned about his parentage, Jesus didn’t go into a long explanation about the virgin birth; instead, he demonstrated the actions of God as proof the he is God’s son.

So, going back to today’s original passage … our Lord said, “For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” In other words, Jesus sees his true family as those who do the will of God; he knows and is familiar with them and their characteristics. Heaven’s perspective is that true Christian family members are those who all imitate the same spiritual father—God the Father.

Obviously, Jesus’s interlocutors also had a spiritual father; one way or the other, we all do. However, their spiritual dad wasn’t Jesus’s spiritual Father. They imitated a different spiritual progenitor—one that spawns lying, murder, and destruction. Their true father was the devil: they desired what he wanted; they did his deeds; they put a halt to Jesus’s ministry. Ultimately, they imitated what Satan showed them was a way to remove Jesus all together; they crucified him!

This also helps us understand Jesus’s clear and impassable statements about who “shall enter the kingdom of heaven,” and who shall not. He bases this decision on those he “knew”:

(Matthew 7:21–23 NKJV) “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. {22} Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ {23} And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

This is a puzzling passage until we understand what Jesus said about his Father’s family members. Jesus knows, and is intimately acquainted with, his Father’s family in heaven. He knows their culture, their desires, their characteristics, and their deeds. He knows this because he knows his Father, and he can instantly recognize those who also know and imitate him. Others may be “sheep in wolves clothing”—in fact, they may do mighty miracles and wonders in Jesus’s name—but they don’t have the characteristics of those who are in God’s family (See: Luke 13:24–27). In other words, they are not imitators of the same Father. That’s why Jesus says he doesn’t know them. The same principle applies in the following passage about being locked out:

(Luke 13:24–25 NKJV) “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. {25} “When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from.’”

Jesus says that, although he knows God and God’s family characteristics intimately, he doesn’t know these people. After all, they didn’t respond to love when the door was open. Later, they called, “Lord, Lord,” but he didn’t open for them because he neither knew them nor recognized the traits of their family of origin. In other words, they wanted to get into God’s kingdom, but they were imitating a different father. On the other hand, the following passage sums up the character of those who will be welcomed in:

(John 10:27–28 NKJV) “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. {28} And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”

Those Jesus says he knows are those who both “hear” his voice and who “follow” him. The book of Ephesians instructs us clearly along this same line:

(Ephesians 5:1 NKJV) “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.”

Jesus says to hear and follow him; the Holy Spirit says to imitate God. In one sense, the oldest brother in a family is like the father’s number one follower. If others want to know how to imitate and follow their father, they can look to the older brother to see how to do it. So if we hear and follow Jesus, by default we are imitating our heavenly Father, God.

Today, I encourage you to watch both Jesus and Father so you can mimic the traits of God’s family. Children don’t always need to make the conscious choice to imitate; they just do and follow the example they look at every day. So as we read and meditate on God’s word, as we gaze upon Jesus and picture him in action, and as we commune and fellowship with God in prayer, worship, and conversation; we will both knowingly and unknowingly begin to copy what we see. Like Jesus, we too will do what we see with our Father.

I also encourage you to recognize and avoid the pictures shown to you by the alternative spiritual father—the father of lies. He will try constantly to flash before your mind’s eye pictures of deception, theft, control, shortcuts, and accusations, etc. Let’s drive these out of our minds, and take the advice of another awesomely successful follower of God about what to allow in our thoughts. Note: Paul’s uses the word “brethren” (brothers and sisters) in his first line to emphasize that this instruction is for those who desire to imitate God:

(Philippians 4:8–9 NKJV) “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. {9} The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you."