There are different relationships in which the saints of God are with God and with our Lord Jesus Christ. Having entered into death, and having come out again, the risen Son of God sent a message to His disciples by Mary Magdalene, saying, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17). Hitherto, the Lord had spoken of His disciples as His sheep, His servants and His friends, but now, as risen from the dead, He speaks of them as His brethren. Before the cross, Jesus had so often spoken to His own of the Father, and His Father, now He can add, “your Father,” as having associated the disciples with Himself in relationship with His God and Father.
The Revelation of the Father
One of the great reasons for the Son of God coming into the world was to make the Father known. When rejected by the cities in which “most of His mighty works were done,” Jesus turned to the Father and said, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight” (Matt. 11:25-26). Here is made known that there was a favoured company, called babes, to whom the Father had been pleased to reveal the secrets of His hearts, and these babes were the disciples who followed the Son of God.
The Lord then added, “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (verse 27). There is a certain knowledge of the Son which cannot be communicated to any, that belongs to the Father only, but there is a knowledge of the Father that the Son was able to communicate to those whom He chose. Until the coming of the Son there was no knowledge of the Father, but the Son brought with Him a divine revelation, something that had been hidden from past generations. The Name of the Father was not something that had been assumed when the Son became Man, but the revelation was of the Father Himself, the One who was with the Son in the unity of the Godhead.
This same great revelation is brought out in John’s Gospel. In chapter 1, the Spirit of God writes, “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). There was the declaration of the Father in the only One who was capable of making Him known, and that was the Son who had eternally dwelt in His bosom. Knowing the Father in the holy intimacy and affection of His unique and eternal relationship with Him, the Son, in His own Person expressed the Father, even as He said, “he that has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). All the words of the Son, and all the works of the Son belonged to the Father, and in them the Son expressed the thoughts of the Father, and His disposition of grace towards men.
Born of God
From John 1:12-13 we learn that those who received the Son of God, come into the world, were given the authority to take their place as children in the family of God. Such did not enter the divine family because of their blood ties with Israel or with Abraham, nor was it because of any desire in the human heart, or by the will of any man for himself or for others, it was entirely by God’s will, as born of Him. Blood, the will of the flesh and the will of man, have all their place in relation to natural birth, but they have no part whatever in the spiritual birth that brings one into the family of God.
In the Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus He shows that those who are born of God have been born again, and of water and the Spirit. It is an entirely new birth, and is brought about by the word of God, which the water sets forth, and by the mighty operation of the Holy Spirit. Nicodemus, who was a master of Israel could not understand how the new birth could be achieved, thinking only of natural generation. In this Scripture, John 3:3–8 the Lord taught that the new birth gives those who are born again the sight to perceive the Kingdom of God, and the entrance into the kingdom.
James writes that it was of God’s own will that He begat us “with the word of truth,” so that “we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures” (James 1:18), and confirms what had been written by John in chapter 1 of his Gospel, and also the words of the Lord in John 3, that it is by the word of God that this divine work is accomplished in the soul. Peter also writes of the same precious truth in his first epistle, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives, and abides for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). Like the word of God, the incorruptible seed, that which is produced by it lives and abides for ever.
John’s 1st Epistle tells us, “If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that does righteousness is born of Him” (1 John 2:29). Doing what is right in the sight of God can only be practised by those who have God’s nature, for by nature “there is none righteous, no, not one,” so that the manifestation of the righteousness that is according to God is the proof that God’s nature is in the one who so lives. Moreover, “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for His seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9). In this passage the Christian is viewed abstractly, as if he only had the divine nature, which is born of God, a nature that is incapable of sinning, and can only practise righteousness.
Love is another feature of the divine nature, and the Christian is exhorted to allow the new nature free expression, and this can only be by keeping the flesh in the place of death. So John writes, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God” (1 John 4:7). The new nature God has given us expresses divine righteousness and divine love, and the one who is born of God has the knowledge of God. Man naturally cannot know God who has been revealed in Jesus: there must be a work of God within us to produce the nature that has the capacity to know God and the things of God.
Faith is yet another trait of the divine nature, for “Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1). This takes us back to what is written in John 1:11-12, that those who believed in the Word come in flesh were born of God. The divine nature, that which is born of God, “overcomes the world,” and this is achieved practically by faith, the eye resting on God’s dear Son, for it is written, “Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:5). This is how Paul lived, with His eye on the Son of God, who loved him, and gave Himself for him (Gal. 2:20).
Already John has said that “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin,” now he adds, “We know that whosoever is born of God sins not; but he that is begotten of God keeps himself, and that wicked one touches him not” (1 John 5:18). The enemy can work on the flesh of a Christian, but he cannot touch the divine nature, and the believer who is living for God in the divine nature keeps himself free from the wiles and fiery darts of the wicked one.
The Family of God
With the coming into the world of the Son of God there was a very blessed privilege conferred on those who believed on His Name: they were able to take their place in God’s family as His children, even as it is written, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His Name” (John 1:12). This is an immense privilege for the Christian, one that did not belong to Abraham the friend of God, or to Moses who witnessed the glory of God on the mountain of Sinai, or to David the man after God’s own heart. These Old Testament saints of God were no doubt born of God, but they could not say as we can that they were God’s children, and in His family.
Our being able to take our place in God’s family as His children could only come through the knowledge of the Father, and is the expression of His love towards us, even as the Apostle John wrote, “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God” (1 John 3:1). We have not to wait until we get to heaven, or to the day when we shall be like Christ, to learn that we are God’s children; we have this relationship now, with the knowledge of it, and the knowledge of the Father and His love, the love that has given us the privilege of being called His children.
In 1 John 2 we learn that in the family of God there are fathers, young men, and babes, and writing to the babes the Apostle says, “I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father” (verse 13). When the Lord was on earth He said, “Among them that are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matt. 11:11). In privilege, the babes in the family of God have a much greater place than John Baptist, for John could not lisp the Name of Father as can the babes in the present day.
The features of those born of God are the features of the children of God, and righteousness is one of the outstanding traits that manifests the children of God, and after writing, “Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for His seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God,” the Apostle adds, “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever does not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loves not his brother” (1 John 3:9-10). Cain is then shown to be “of that wicked one, and slew his brother…because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” Cain manifested the nature of the children of the devil, and Abel manifested the nature of the children of God.
Our love towards the children of God is not evinced by our going with them in ways that are contrary to the will of God, for “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments” (1 John 5:2). This is a divine safeguard for us at all times. We do not ask ourselves, What would the brethren like us to do? but What has the Lord commanded us to do? Doing God’s will at all times is not only the way of righteousness, but also the way of love, love to God and love to His children. Is it love to the children of God to go with them in a way displeasing to God? to lead them away from the will of God?
When the high priest of Israel prophesied “that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not” (John 11:50), he little thought of the implication of his words, for the divine commentary on them is, “And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also He should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” The death of God’s beloved Son has brought together into one family the children of God, all who have been born of Him. Jesus never could have said, “My Father, and your Father” without His having died and risen again.
The Apostle John almost invariably uses the term children, an exception being “sons of light” (John 12:36), but Paul uses both children and sons, and both are found together in Romans 8. Both are terms of relationship, children being born into the family of God as born of Him, whereas sonship is by adoption and faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:26). As children we have the knowledge of God and the Father, and as sons He has disclosed to us the knowledge of His counsels and secrets. We are heirs of God both as children and as sons.
If, as sons, we have “the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father, the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:15-17). This Scripture shows that although the two terms are distinct, each conveying its own particular divine thoughts of relationship, yet they are not to be separated, for those who are sons are also children in God’s family. From 1 John 2 we learn that even the babes know the Father, here, as in Galatians 4:6, our saying Abba, Father is by the Spirit of sonship, for God has made us His sons.
Since Adam fell the whole creation under him has suffered, groaning, but waiting expectantly for “the manifestations of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19). In that day, when the church comes out with Christ, the creation will be delivered “from the bondage of corruption” and brought into “the liberty of the glory of the children of God” (verse 21). Here again we learn of the distinctive character of the two aspects of the divine relationship of sons and children, and yet of how they are but different aspects of our relationship to God. When the sons are manifested, the glory of the children is displayed.
Our relationship with God as His children is to have a very practical effect on our lives, for we are exhorted to be “followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour” (Eph. 5:1-2). The lovely traits of the divine nature, so perfectly seen in the Lord Jesus, and especially in the giving of Himself in death for us, are to be manifested in us as children of God. What Christ was in life, and as brought out here in His death, a sweet odour, we are also to be as manifesting the beautiful traits of the nature God has given us.
The relationship of children is also shown in Hebrews 2, where Christ says, “Behold I and the children which God has given me” (verse 13). They are God’s children, yet given to Christ, and accounted to Him as His children, so that we can view the language of the Hebrew servant as applicable to Christ, “I love my Master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free” (Ex. 21:5). So Christ took part in “flesh and blood” in which the children were partakers, so that He might “deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:15).
R. 8.1.71
‘The Old Testament saints were quickened surely, but if you take Galatians 4, you find that they were not in the condition of sons.’ C.W. 31, p. 247.