The stepfather, who is the enemy, promises the son a paradise right away in the house they already live in. There is no need for the heartbreak of desire and hope he says, and so he steals desire and hope away from the son.

Further, he convinces the son that his actual father — who is in search of a real paradise for his son — has abandoned him and doesn’t love him. The stepfather accomplishes all of this by the time the son reaches proper adult age.

The stepfather operates on deception, denial, and never takes responsibility for breaking his word. So when the son begins to rebel against the stepfather for all of his broken promises, the stepfather moves into the shadows which forces the son to now appear to be in charge. This distributes all failure and blame onto the son, while the stepfather can continue to call the shots from the background.

The stepfather has full confidence that the son is the stepfather’s son, so he knows the son will simply distribute the blame onto others and it will be business as usual. In the mind of the stepfather, it would be unthinkable for the son to do otherwise.

The only way for the son to take responsibility for the failure would be to become his father’s son again. And in order to become his father’s son again, he would have to accept an even deeper personal and moral failure to his father. Up to this point, the son had denied all his father’s calls to be reunited, convinced he was doing what was good by turning away from his abandoner.

In Genesis 12, we are introduced to Abram who is later called Abraham. He is known as the father of faith, but why?

The title of Genesis 12 is matter-of-fact: Abram was called by the lord. He didn’t turn away from or deny the call. This means, after denying his father’s call for his entire adult life, Abram accepted a deep moral failure, became his father’s son again, and heard the call - an impossible move at his age. He was seventy five years old.

“No one gets to the father except through the son.”

Knowing the son and connecting with the father happen simultaneously. You cannot get to the father without knowing the son, and you cannot know the son, observing his flaws and failings, without using the eyes of the father.

Christianity celebrates and worships the perfected son. The finished product who is victorious. This is useful but only to the degree that the Christian can identify with the perfected son in order to view, know, and accept the flawed son.

At the same time, accepting and knowing the flawed son is only useful in pursuit of the perfected, united son and father in paradise.