THE CHILDREN OF GOD
THEY SHALL BE CALLED THE CHILDREN OF
GOD.
In
these words the glorious privilege of the saints is set down. Those who have
made their peace with God and labour to make peace among brethren, this is the
great honour conferred upon them, They shall be called the children of God'.
They
shall be (called)', that is, they shall be so supposed and esteemed of God. God
never miscalls anything. He does not call them children which are no children.
Thou shalt be called the prophet of the Highest' (Luke 1:76), that is, thou shalt be so. They shall be called the
children of God', that is, they shall be accounted and admitted for children.
The proposition resulting is this: that born again children
are the children of the most High. God is said in Scripture to have many
children:
1.
By eternal generation.
So only Christ is the natural Son of his Father. Thou art my Son: this day have
I begotten thee' (Psalm 2:7).
2.
By creation.
So the angels are the sons of God. When the morning stars sang together and all
the sons of God shouted for joy' (Job 38:7).
3.
By participation of dignity. So king and rulers are said to be children of the high
God. I have said, ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most High' (Psalm
82:6).
4.
By visible profession.
So God has many children. Hypocrites forge a title of son-ship. The sons of God
saw the daughters of men that they were fair' (Genesis
6:2).
5.
By real sanctification.
So all the faithful are peculiarly and eminently the children of God.
That
I may illustrate and intensify this, and that believers may DRAW much sweetness
out of this gospel-flower, I shall discuss and demonstrate these seven essentials:
1 That naturally we are
not the children of God.
2 What it is to be the
children of God.
3 How we come to be made
children.
4 The signs of God's
children.
5 The love of God in
making us children.
6 The honour of God's
children.
7 The privileges of God's
children.
Naturally
we are not the children of God. As Jerome says, we are not born God's children
but made so. By nature we are strangers to God, swine not sons (2
Peter 2:22). Will a man settle his estate upon
his swine? He will give them his acorns, not his jewels. By nature we have the
devil for our father: Ye are of your father the devil (John 8:44). A wicked man may search the records of hell for his
pedigree.
What
it is to be the children of God. This child-ship consists in two things.
Adoption; infusion of grace.
1 Wherein
does the true nature of adoption consist?
In
three things:
(i) A transition or translation from
one family to another.
He that is adopted is taken out of the old family of the
devil and hell (Ephesians 2:2, 3)
to which he was heir apparent, and is made of the family of heaven, of a noble
family (Ephesians 2:19).
God is his Father, Christ is his elder-brother, the saints co-heir, the angels
fellow-servants in that family.
(ii) Adoption consists in an
immunity and unwilling to help somebody from all the laws of the former family.
Forget also thy father's house' (Psalm
45:10). He who is spiritually adopted has
now no more to do with sin. Ephraim shall say, what have I to do any more with
idols?' (Hosea 14:8).
A child of God has indeed to do with sin
as with an enemy to which he gives battle, but not as with a lord to which he
yields obedience. He is freed from sin (Romans 6:7). I do not say he is freed from duty. Was it ever heard
that a child should be freed from duty to his parents? This is such a freedom
as rebels take.
(iii) Adoption consists in a legal installing somebody in position into the
rights and royalties of the family into which the person is to be adopted. These are chiefly two:
The first royalty is a new name. He who is divinely adopted
assumes a new name; before, a slave; now, a son; of a sinner, a saint. This is
a name of honour better than any title of prince or monarch. To him that
overcometh I will give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written' (Revelation
2:17). The white stone signifies
remission. The new name signifies adoption, and the new name is put in the
white stone to show that our adoption is grounded upon our justification; and
this new name is written to show that God has all the names of his children
enrolled in the book of life.
The second royalty is a giving the party adopted an interest
in the inheritance. The making one an heir implies a relation to an
inheritance. A man does not adopt another to a title but to an estate. So God
in adopting us for his children gives us a glorious inheritance: The
inheritance of the saints in light' (Colossians
1:12).
1.
It is pleasant; it is an inheritance
in light.
2.
It is safe; God keeps the
inheritance for his children (1 Peter 1:4),
and keeps them for the inheritance (1
Peter 1:5), so that they cannot be hindered
from taking possession.
3.
There is no disinheriting, for the
saints are co-heirs with Christ (Romans
8:17). Nay, they are members of Christ (Colossians
1:18). The members cannot be
disinherited but the head must.
4.
The heirs never die. Eternity is a
jewel of their crown. They shall reign for ever and ever' (Revelation
22:5).
\
2 How do
God's adopting and man's adopting differ?
1 Man adopts to supply a defect,
because he has no children of his own, but God does not adopt upon this account.
` He had a Son of his own, the Lord
Jesus. He was his natural Son and the Son of his love, testified by a voice
from heaven, This is my beloved Son' (Matthew
3:17). Never was there any Son so like
the Father. He was his exact effigy, the express image of his person' (Hebrews
1:3). He was such a Son as was worth
more than all the angels in heaven: Being made so much better than the angels'
(Hebrews
1:4); so that God adopts not out of
necessity, but pity.
2
When a man adopts, he adopts but one
heir, but God adopts many:
In bringing many sons to glory' (Hebrews
2:10). Oh may a poor trembling Christian
say, Why should I ever look for this privilege to be a child of God! It is
true, if God did act as a man, if he adopted only one son, then you might
despair. But he adopts millions. He brings many sons to glory'. Indeed this may
be the reason why a man adopts but one, because he does not have enough estate
for more. If he should adopt many his land would not hold out. But God has
enough land to give to all his children. In my Father's house are many
mansions' (John 14:2).
3 Man when he adopts does it with
ease.
It is but sealing a deed and the thing is done. But when God
adopts, it puts him to a far greater expense. It sets his wisdom on work to
find out a way to adopt us. It was no easy thing to reconcile hell and heaven,
to make the children of wrath the children of the promise; and when God in his
infinite wisdom had found out a way, it was no easy way. It cost God the death
of his natural Son, to make us his adopted sons. When God was about to
constitute us sons and heirs, he could not seal the deed but by the blood of
his own Son. It did not cost God so much to make us creatures as to make us
sons. To make us creatures cost but the speaking of a word. To make us sons
cost the effusion of blood.
4 Man, when he adopts, settles but
earthly privileges upon his heir, but God settles heavenly privileges
justification, glorification.
Men but entail their land upon the persons they adopt. God
does more. He not only entails his land upon his children, but he entails
himself upon them. I will be their God' (Hebrews
8:10). Not only heaven is their portion,
but God is their portion.
God's filiating or making of children is by infusion of
grace. When God makes any his children he stamps his image upon them. This is
more than any man living can do. He may adopt another, but he cannot alter his
disposition. If he be of a morose rugged nature, he cannot alter it; but God in
making of children fits them for son-ship. He prepares and sanctifies them for
this privilege. He changes their disposition. He files off the ruggedness of
their nature. He makes them not only sons, but saints. They are of another
spirit (Numbers 14:24).
They become meek and humble. They are partakers of the divine nature' (2
Peter 1:4).
3 How we come to be the children of God.
There
is a double cause of our child-ship.
The impulsive cause is God's free
grace.
We
were rebels and traitors, and what could move God to make sinners sons, but
free grace? Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children according to
the good pleasure of his will' (Ephesians
1:5). Free grace gave the casting
voice. Adoption is a mercy spun out of the bowels of free grace. It were much
for God to take a clod of earth and make it a star, but it is more for God to
take a piece of clay and sin and instate it into the glorious privilege of
son-ship. How will the saints read over the lectures of free grace in heaven!
The
organic or instrumental cause of our son-ship is faith. Baptism does not make
us children. That is indeed a badge and livery and gives us right to many
external privileges, but the thing which makes God take cognisance of us for
children is faith. Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus' (Galatians
3:26). Before faith be wrought we have
nothing to do with God. We are (as the apostle speaks in another sense)
bastards and not sons (Hebrews 12:8).
An unbeliever may call God his Judge, but not his Father. Wicked men may draw
near to God in ordinances, and hope that God will be their Father, but while
they are unbelievers they are bastards, and God will not father them but will
lay them at the devil's door. Ye are the children of God by faith'. Faith
legitimates us. It confers upon us the title of son-ship and gives us right to
inherit.
How
then should we labour for faith! Without faith we are creatures, not children.
Without faith we are spiritually illegitimate. This word illegitimate, is a
term of infamy. Such as are illegitimate are looked upon with disgrace. We call
them baseborn. You who ruffle it in your silks and velvets, but are in the
state of nature, you are illegitimate. God looks upon you with an eye of scorn
and contempt. You are a vile person, a son of the earth, of the seed of the
serpent'. The devil can show as good a coat of arms as you.
This
word illegitimate' also imports infelicity and misery. Persons illegitimate
cannot inherit legally. The land goes only to such as are lawful heirs. Till we
are the children of God, we have no right to heaven, and there is no way to be
children but by faith. Ye are the children of God by faith'.
Here
two things are to be discussed:
1
What faith is. If faith instates us into son-ship, it concerns us to know what
faith is. There is a twofold faith.
(i) A more lax general faith. When we believe the truth of all that is revealed in the
Holy Scriptures, this is not the faith which privileges us in son-ship. The
devils believe all the articles in the creed. It is not the bare knowledge of a
medicine or believing the sovereign virtue of it that will cure one that is
ill. This general faith (so much cried up by some) will not save. This a man
may have and not love God. He may believe that God will come to judge the quick
and the dead, and hate him, as the prisoner believes the judge's coming to the
assizes, and abhors the thoughts of him. Take heed of resting in a general
faith. You may have this and be no better than devils.
(ii)
There is a special faith, when we not only believe the report we hear of
Christ, but rest upon him, embrace him, taking hold of the horns of this
altar', resolving there to abide. In the body there are sucking veins, which
draw the meat into the stomach and concoct it there. So faith is the sucking
vein which draws Christ into the heart and applies him there. This is the
filiating faith. By this we are made the children of God, and wherever this
faith is, it is not like physic in a dead man's mouth, but is exceedingly
operative. It obliges to duty. It works by love (Galatians
5:6).
But
why does faith makes us children? Why should not other graces, repentance, love
etc., do so? I:answer: Because faith is instituted of God and honoured to this
work of making us children. God's institution gives faith its value and
validity. It is the king's stamp makes the coin pass current. If he would put
his stamp upon brass or leather, it would go as current as silver. The great
God has authorised and put the stamp of his institution upon faith, and that
makes it pass for current and gives it a privilege above all the graces to make
us children.
Again,
faith makes us children as it is the vital principle. The just shall live by
faith' (Habakkuk 2:4).
All God's children are living. None of them are stillborn. Now by faith we
live'. As the heart is the fountain of life in the body, so faith is the
fountain of life in the soul.
Faith
also makes us children as it is the uniting grace. It knits us to Christ. The
other graces cannot do this. By faith we are one with Christ and so we are akin
to God. Being united to the natural Son, we become adopted sons. The kindred
comes in by faith. God is the Father of Christ. Faith makes us Christ's
brethren (Hebrews 2:11),
and so God comes to be our Father.
The fourth particular to be discussed is to show
the signs of God's children.
It concerns us to know whose children we are. Augustine says
that all mankind are divided into two ranks; either they are the children of
God or the children of the devil.
1 The first sign of
our heavenly son-ship is tenderness of heart:
Because thy heart was tender' (2
Chronicles 34:27). A childlike heart is a tender
heart. He who before had a flinty, has now a fleshy heart. A tender heart is
like melting wax to God. He may set what seal he will upon it. This tenderness
of heart shows itself three ways.
(i) A
tender heart grieves for sin.
A child weeps for offending his father. Peter showed a
tender heart when Christ looked upon him and he remembered his sin, he wept as
a child. Clement of Alexandria says, he never heard a cock crow but he wept.
And some learned writers tell us that by much weeping there seemed to be as it
were channels made in his blessed face. The least hair makes the eye weep. The
least sin makes the heart smite. David's heart smote him when he cut off the
lap of King Saul's garment! What would it have done if he had cut off his head?
(ii) A tender heart
melts under mercy.
Though when God thunders by affliction, the rain of tears
falls from a gracious eye, yet the heart is never so kindly dissolved as under
the sunbeams of God's mercy. See how David's heart was melted with God's
kindness: Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me
hitherto?' (2 Samuel 7:18).
There was a gracious thaw upon his heart. So says a child of God, Lord, who am
I((a piece of dust and sin kneaded together) that the orient beams of free
grace should shine upon me? Who am I, that thou shouldest pity me when I lay in
my blood and spread the golden wings of mercy over me? The soul is overcome
with God's goodness, the tears drop, the love flames; mercy has a melting
influence upon the soul.
(iii) A
tender heart trembles under God's threatenings.
My flesh trembleth for fear of thee' (Psalm
119:120). Because thine heart was tender, and
thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this
place, and didst rend thy clothes...' (2
Chronicles 34:27). If the father be angry, the child
trembles. When ministers denounce the menaces and threats of God against sin,
tender souls sit in a trembling posture. This frame of heart God delights in.
To this man will I look, even to him that trembleth at thy word' (Isaiah
66:2). A wicked man, like the Leviathan,
is made without fear' (Job 41:33).
He neither believes the promises nor dreads the threatenings. Let judgement be
denounced against sin, he laughs at the shaking of a spear'. He thinks either
that God is ignorant and does not see, or impotent and cannot punish. The
mountains quake before the Lord, the hills melt, the rocks are thrown down by
him (Nahum
1:5). But the hearts of sinners are
more obdurate than the rocks. An hardened sinner like Nebuchadnezzar has the
heart of a beast given to him' (Daniel 4:16).
A childlike heart is a tender heart. The stone is taken away.
2 The second sign of
son-ship is assimilation.
Ye have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge
after the image of him that created him' (Colossians
3:10). The child resembles the father.
God's children are like their heavenly Father. They bear his very image and
impress. Wicked men say they are the children of God, but there is too great a
dissimilitude and unlikeness. The Jews bragged they were Abraham's children,
but Christ disproves them by this argument, because they were not like him. Ye
seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God;
this did not Abraham' (John 8:40).
You, Abraham's children, and go about to kill me! Abraham would not have
murdered an innocent. You are more like Satan than Abraham. Ye are of your
father the devil' (verse 44). Such as are proud, earthly, malicious may say,
Our father which art in hell'. It is blasphemy to call God our Father and make
the devil our pattern. God's children resemble him in meekness and holiness.
They are his walking pictures. As the seal stamps its print and likeness upon
the wax, so does God stamp the print and effigy of his own beauty upon his
children.
3 The third sign of
God's children is, they have the Spirit of God. It is called the Spirit of
adoption; ye have received the Spirit of adoption . . .' (Romans 8:15).
How
shall we know that we have received the Spirit of adoption, and so are in the state
of adoption?
The Spirit of God has a threefold work in them who are made
children:
1 A regenerating work.
Whomsoever the Spirit adopts, He regenerates. God's children
are said to be born of the Spirit'. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God' (John 3:5). We must first be born of the Spirit before we are
baptised with this new name of sons and daughters. We are not God's children by
creation, but by renovation; not by our first birth, but by our new birth. This
new birth produced by the Word as the material cause (James 1:18), and by the Spirit as the efficient cause, is nothing else
but a change of nature (Romans 12:2),
which though it be not a perfect change, yet is a thorough change (1
Thessalonians 5:23). This change of heart is as
necessary as salvation.
How shall
we know that we have this regenerating work of the Spirit?
Two ways
By the pangs: there are spiritual pangs before the new
birth, some bruisings of soul, some groanings and cryings out, some strugglings
in the heart between flesh and Spirit. They were pricked at their heart' (Acts 2:37). The child has sharp throws before the birth; so it is in
the new birth. I grant the new birth is marked by more and less'. All do not
have the same pangs of humiliation, yet all have pangs; all feel the hammer of
the law upon their heart, though some are more bruised with this hammer than
others. God's Spirit is a Spirit of bondage before He is a Spirit of adoption (Romans
8:15). What then shall we say to those
who are as ignorant about the new birth as Nicodemus: How can a man be born
when he is old . . .?' (John 3:4). The new
birth is a derision of the ungodly', though it be a great secret' to the godly.
Some thank God they never had any trouble of spirit. They were always quiet.
These bless God for the greatest curse. It is a sign they are not God's
children. The child of grace is always born with pangs.
The new
birth is known by the products, which are three:
Sensibility. The infant that is new-born is sensible of the least touch.
If the Spirit has regenerated you, you are sensible of the ebullitions and
first risings of sin which before you did not perceive. Paul cries out of the
law in his members' (Romans 7:23).
The new-born saint sees sin in the root.
Circumspection. He who is born of the Spirit is careful to preserve grace.
He plies the breast of ordinances (1
Peter 2:1). He is fearful of that which may
endanger his spiritual life (1 John 5:18).
He lives by faith, yet passes the time of his sojourning in fear (1
Peter 1:17). This is the first work of the
Spirit in them who are made children, a regenerating work.
2
The Spirit of God has a supplicating work in the heart.
The Spirit of adoption is a Spirit of supplication. Ye have
received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father' (Romans
8:15). While the child is in the womb it
cannot cry. While men lie in the womb of their natural estate, they cannot pray
effectually, but when they are born of the Spirit, then they cry Abba, Father'.
Prayer is nothing else but the soul's breathing itself into the bosom of its
Father. It is a sweet and familiar intercourse with God. As soon as ever the
Spirit of God comes into the heart, He sets it a-praying. No sooner was Paul
converted but the next word is, Behold, he prayeth' (Acts 9:11). It is reported in the life of Luther that, when he
prayed, it was with so much reverence as if he were praying to God, and with so
much boldness, as if he had been speaking to his friend. And Eusebius reports
of Constantine the Emperor that every day he used to shut up himself in some
secret place in his palace, and there on bent knees make his devout prayers and
soliloquies to God. God's Spirit tunes the strings of the affections, and then
we make melody in prayer. For any to say, in derision, you pray by the Spirit',
is a blasphemy against the Spirit. It is a main work of the Spirit of God in
the hearts of his children to help them to pray: Because ye are sons, God has
sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father' (Galatians
4:6).
But many of the children of God do not have such abilities
to express themselves in prayer. How then does the Spirit help their
infirmities?
Though they do not have always the gifts of the Spirit in
prayer, yet they have the groans of the Spirit (Romans
8:26). Gifts are the ornaments of
prayer, but not the life of prayer. A carcass may be hung with jewels. Though
the Spirit may deny fluency of speech, yet He gives fervency of desire, and
such prayers are most prevalent. The prayers which the Spirit indites in the
hearts of God's children have these threefold qualifications.
The prayers of God's children are believing prayers. Prayer
is the key. Faith is the hand that turns it. Faith feathers the arrow of prayer
and makes it pierce the throne of grace. Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer
believing, ye shall receive' (Matthew 21:22).
Whereupon, says Jerome, I would not presume to pray unless I bring faith along
with me. To pray and not believe is (as one says) a kind of jeer offered to
God, as if we thought either he did not hear or he would not grant.
That faith may be animated in prayer, we must bring Christ
in our arms when we appear before God. And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and
offered it for a burnt-offering; and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel, and
the Lord heard him' (1 Samuel 7:9).
This sucking lamb typified Christ. When we come to God in prayer we must bring
the Lamb, Christ along with us. Themistocles carried the king's son in his arms
and so pacified the king when he was angry. The children of God present Christ
in the arms of their faith.
The prayers of God's children indited by the Spirit are
ardent prayers. Ye have received the Spirit, whereby we cry Abba, Father' (Romans
8:15). Father'; that implies faith. We
cry; that implies fervency. The incense was to be laid upon burning coals (Leviticus
16:12). The incense was a type of prayer;
the burning coals, of ardency in prayer. Elias prayed earnestly, James 5:17). In the Greek it is in praying he prayed', that is, he did
it with vehemence. In prayer the heart must boil over with heat of affection.
Prayer is compared to groans unutterable (Romans
8:26). It alludes to a woman that is in
pangs. We should be in pangs when we are travailing for mercy. Such prayer
commands God himself' (Isaiah 45:11).
against sin and sin
against prayer. God's children not only pray against sin, but pray down sin.
3
The Spirit of God has a witnessing work in the heart.
God's children have not only the influence of the Spirit,
but the witness. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are
the children of God' (Romans 8:16).
There is a threefold witness a child of God has the witness of the Word, the
witness of conscience, the witness of the Spirit. The Word makes the major
proposition. He who is in such a manner qualified is a child of God. Conscience
makes the minor proposition; but you are so divinely qualified. The Spirit
makes the conclusion therefore you are a child of God. The Spirit joins with
the witness of conscience. The Spirit witnesseth with our spirits' (Romans
8:16). The Spirit teaches conscience to
search the records of Scripture and find its evidences for heaven. It helps
conscience to spell out its name in a promise. It bears witness with our
spirit.
But how shall I
know the witness of the Spirit from a delusion?
The Spirit of God always witnesses according to the Word, as
the echo answers the voice. Enthusiasts speak much of the Spirit, but they
leave the Word. That inspiration which is either without the Word or against
it, is an imposture. The Spirit of God indited the Word (2
Peter 1:21). Now if the Spirit should witness
otherwise than according to the Word, the Spirit would be divided against
Himself. He would be a spirit of contradiction, witnessing one thing for a
truth in the Word and another thing different from it in a man's conscience.
