Bloodlines used to mean a great deal in society. Many a Regency-era romance involves a highborn person who falls hopelessly in love with someone who is wonderful and kind, but off-limits because of their low birth. Even now we speak of someone being from “a good family.”

I’ve often been curious about my ancestry, but I’ve never investigated how to research family history. I don’t know much about relatives who lived before my grandparents. It’s fun to hear others talk about what kind of people they came from. Well-thought of ancestors can make us feel good about ourselves. But it’s embarrassing to find out we come from a criminal or some otherwise unfavorable lineage.

Recently someone reminded me of John Harper, one of the men on the Titanic who died in the icy waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. He was a Scottish pastor who spent his last hours clinging to wreckage from the ship, sharing the gospel with everyone within earshot, refusing rescue so others who weren’t ready to die could have more time to be saved.

I think one of my husband’s relatives once told us we were related to John Harper. I found myself hoping we were, as if something of his character could rub off on our family through his bloodline.

In Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot, she shared this from her grandfather, Philip E. Howard, from his book, Father and Son:

Do you remember that encouraging word of Thomas Fuller’s, a chaplain of Oliver Cromwell’s time? It’s a good passage for a father in all humility and gratitude to tuck away in his memory treasures:

Lord, I find the genealogy of my Savior strangely checkered with four remarkable changes in four immediate generations.

Rehoboam begat Abijah; that is, a bad father begat a bad son.
Abijah begat Asa; that is, a bad father begat a good son.
Asa begat Jehoshaphat; that is, a good father begat a good son.
Jehoshaphat begat Joram; that is, a good father begat a bad son.

I see, Lord, from hence that my father’s piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me. But I see also that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son.

A godly heritage is a blessing in many ways, but godliness isn’t passed through our bloodlines. The family we come from doesn’t guarantee heaven for us. We can’t coast on their faith. We have to repent of sin and believe in Jesus as our Savior and Lord for ourselves. We need to read and love His Word and develop our own personal relationship with Him.

A bad family is a problem in many ways, but it doesn’t doom us for life and eternity. God’s grace is available to all who will receive it.

Genealogies have a purpose in the Bible, but not as a predictor of who will or won’t believe on the Lord.

It’s not whose blood flows through our veins that determines our characters or our destiny. It’s whose blood flowed on the cross.

None of us is highborn in a spiritual sense. We’re all sinners to some degree. Some are worse than others, but we’re all sinful enough to receive hell.

Only the sinless Son of God could live a life of perfect righteousness before His Father. How amazing that He took our sinfulness on Himself so His righteousness would count for us. What a wonderful Savior to love us even when we were His enemies and sacrifice so much so we could be saved and transformed.

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