A Timeless Testament: The Lasting Impact of Generational Faithfulness

“One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts” (Psalm 145:4).

At times I have longed for a testimony like Paul’s, whose thunderous tale of redemption seemed to encase the full weight of God’s glory so much more boldly than my own seemingly dull testimony of generational faithfulness. Yet what I have learned in time is that like the Israelites who proclaimed the goodness of God to future generations—even as they waited for the fruition of Messianic hope, so too God is glorified in the persistent faithfulness of generations of Christ-followers today.

The Lord’s Promises to Future Generations

God’s promises have always been generational. After the flood, God’s promises to Noah and his sons that He would never again flood the earth was a covenant not only with them, but “for all future generations” (Genesis 9:12). Later, God created a covenant of blessing not only with Abraham, but also with the offspring of the generations to come (Genesis 17:7,9). It was an “everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:7). And even as God’s people fled Egypt and wandered in the desert, God reminded them of His everlasting promises throughout all generations in the traditions of the Passover (Exodus 12:14,17) and the festival of booths (Leviticus 23:41-43).

In turn, God’s people passed down through the generations a deep testimony of God’s love.

“Give ear, O my people to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done” (Psalm 78:1-4).

The psalmist goes on to recall how God created a covenant with His people and how He gave them His law. But even more the psalmist will tell of God’s mighty acts and of His loving kindness, so that the generations to come may “set their hope in God and not forget the works of God” (Psalm 78:7).

The prophets of old commended the Israelites to tell their children of God’s faithfulness to them (Joel 1:3, Deuteronomy 32:7). It was their duty and their joy to proclaim God’s goodness to their children and their children’s children. And in this, God was glorified.

With this proclamation came the Messianic Hope—that one day God would send the Messiah to earth, to uniquely bring about God’s fullest blessing not only to Israel through the ultimate sacrifice and atonement of sins, but to the nations of the whole world.

Generations of Waiting with Messianic Hope

Though described as an elderly man and woman in scripture, Anna and Simeon, who were the first to proclaim Jesus Christ as the Messiah himself, were indeed the youth of Israel who had been told these promises again and again. Anna and Simeon were the children’s children who were included in the covenants given to Abraham and Noah and to all the Israelites. Even when the ancestral line of their promised Messiah had long since been thrown out of power, Anna and Simeon clung tightly to the promises told to them by generations before.

This son and daughter of Israel knew however that this was not only a promise for them as Israelites. They were looking for the “consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:4) and the “redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38), but also for Christ who would be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32). For the first time, through Christ’s sacrifice, the promises carried down through the generations were not only for Israel’s children’s children, but for all children of all nations.

And the command to share the promise with future generations did not stop there with Christ—in fact it expanded. The disciples were told to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). This time a promise was proclaimed not of Messianic Hope, but of Christ’s second return, not to abolish sin, but to be with His beloved church (Hebrews 9:28). And so now as we wait, the Church proclaims not only God’s covenant love as originally proclaimed to the Israelites, but also Christ’s redemptive salvation.

Carrying On a Long Testimony of Love

I come from a long line of believers who have faithfully proclaimed Christ’s redemptive salvation. As the Israelites proclaimed the goodness of God from one generation to the next, I have been raised in a long testimony of Christ’s love proclaimed and lived out in a strong testimony of faithfulness.

My testimony may not be a bold story of transformation, but it is the tale of a mother who clung to Christ and prayed fervently for her children to do so as well even while her body slowly dwindled and decayed until she could no longer hold her own babies in her arms. My testimony is the tale of grandparents who clung to Christ even as they hid on a tiny farm in the Netherlands, evading the prying eyes of the Nazi Army during WWII. My testimony is that of another set of grandparents who, raised in deep poverty, scraped together the mere pennies that they had and went wherever God called them to minister and proclaim the Gospel. My testimony is that of a great-grandfather who, when his young bride passed suddenly, held his five small children close on their tiny midwestern farm, and said “and God, we will yet praise you.”

This long line of love for the Lord, or proclamation of His goodness despite poverty, tragedy, sickness, and persecution is the solid testimony on which my own faith stands. It is the same generational testimony on which Noah watched the waters part and how the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. There is no greater testimony than one generation calling to the next of God’s deep love and of the greatest sacrifice He could ever have made by sending His own son to bear the full burden of our sin on the cross, and then to rise again to return one day and dwell with us. As believers, may the testimony of those who have gone before us encourage us on our own walks of faith as we eagerly await Christ’s return and the advent of the new creation.