Adoption:
the giving to any one the name and place and privileges of a son who is not a son by birth.
(1.) Natural. Thus Pharaoh's daughter adopted Moses (Exd 2:10), and Mordecai Esther (Est 2:7).
(2.) National. God adopted Israel (Exd 4:22; Deu 7:6; Hsa 11:1; Rom 9:4).
(3.) Spiritual. An act of God's grace by which he brings men into the number of his redeemed family, and makes them partakers of all the blessings he has provided for them. Adoption represents the new relations into which the believer is introduced by justification, and the privileges connected therewith, viz., an interest in God's peculiar love (Jhn 17:23; Rom 5:5-8), a spiritual nature (2Pe 1:4; Jhn 1:13), the possession of a spirit becoming children of God (1Pe 1:14; 2Jo 4; Rom 8:15-21; Gal 5:1; Hbr 2:15), present protection, consolation, supplies (Luk 12:27-32; Jhn 14:18; 1Cr 3:21-23; 2Cr 1:4), fatherly chastisements (Hbr 12:5-11), and a future glorious inheritance (Rom 8:17,23; Jam 2:5; Phl 3:21).
Adoption:
a-dop'-shun (huiothesia, "placing as a son"):
I. THE GENERAL LEGAL IDEA
1. In the Old Testament
2. Greek
3. Roman
II. PAUL'S DOCTRINE
1. In Galatians as Liberty
2. In Romans as Deliverance from Debt
III. THE CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE
1. In Relation to Justification
2. In Relation to Sanctification
3. In Relation to Regeneration
IV. AS GOD'S ACT
1. Divine Fatherhood
2. Its Cosmic Range
This term appears first in New Testament, and only in the epistles of Paul (Ga 4:5; Ro 8:15,23; 9:4; Eph 1:5) who may have coined it out of a familiar Greek phrase of identical meaning. It indicated generally the legal process by which a man might bring into his family, and endow with the status and privileges of a son, one who was not by nature his son or of his kindred.
I. The General Legal Idea.
The custom prevailed among Greeks, Romans and other ancient peoples, but it does not appear in Jewish law.
1. In the Old Testament:
Three cases of adoption are mentioned: of Moses (Ex 2:10), Genubath (1Ki 11:20) and Esther (Es 2:7,15), but it is remarkable that they all occur outside of Palestine-in Egypt and Persia, where the practice of adoption prevailed. Likewise the idea appears in the New Testament only in the epistles of Paul, which were addressed to churches outside Palestine. The motive and initiative of adoption always lay with the adoptive father, who thus supplied his lack of natural offspring and satisfied the claims of affection and religion, and the desire to exercise paternal authority or to perpetuate his family. The process and conditions of adoption varied with different peoples. Among oriental nations it was extended to slaves (as Moses) who thereby gained their freedom, but in Greece and Rome it was, with rare exceptions, limited to citizens.
2. Greek:
In Greece a man might during his lifetime, or by will, to take effect after his death, adopt any male citizen into the privileges of his son, but with the invariable condition that the adopted son accepted the legal obligations and religious duties of a real son.
3. Roman:
In Rome the unique nature of paternal authority (patria potestas), by which a son was held in his father's power, almost as a slave was owned by his master, gave a peculiar character to the process of adoption. For the adoption of a person free from paternal authority (sui juris), the process and effect were practically the same in Rome as in Greece (adrogatio). In a more specific sense, adoption proper (adoptio) was the process by which a person was transferred from his natural father's power into that of his adoptive father, and it consisted in a fictitious sale of the son, and his surrender by the natural to the adoptive father.
II. Paul's Doctrine.
As a Roman citizen the apostle would naturally know of the Roman custom, but in the cosmopolitan city of Tarsus, and again on his travels, he would become equally familiar with the corresponding customs of other nations. He employed the idea metaphorically much in the manner of Christ's parables, and, as in their case, there is danger of pressing the analogy too far in its details. It is not clear that he had any specific form of adoption in mind when illustrating his teaching by the general idea. Under this figure he teaches that God, by the manifestation of His grace in Christ, brings men into the relation of sons to Himself, and communicates to them the experience of sonship.
1. In Galatians as Liberty:
In Galatians, Paul emphasizes especially the liberty enjoyed by those who live by faith, in contrast to the bondage under which men are held, who guide their lives by legal ceremonies and ordinances, as the Galatians were prone to do (Ga 5:1). The contrast between law and faith is first set forth on the field of history, as a contrast between both the pre-Christian and the Christian economies (Ga 3:23,24), although in another passage he carries the idea of adoption back into the covenant relation of God with Israel (Ro 9:4). But here the historical antithesis is reproduced in the contrast between men who now choose to live under law and those who live by faith. Three figures seem to commingle in the description of man's condition under legal bondage-that of a slave, that of a minor under guardians appointed by his father's will, and that of a Roman son under the patria potestas (Ga 4:1-3). The process of liberation is first of all one of redemption or buying out (Greek exagorasei) (Ga 4:5). This term in itself applies equally well to the slave who is redeemed from bondage, and the Roman son whose adoptive father buys him out of the authority of his natural father. But in the latter case the condition of the son is not materially altered by the process: he only exchanges one paternal authority for another. If Paul for a moment thought of the process in terms of ordinary Roman adoption, the resulting condition of the son he conceives in terms of the more free and gracious Greek or Jewish family life. Or he may have thought of the rarer case of adoption from conditions of slavery into the status of sonship. The redemption is only a precondition of adoption, which follows upon faith, and is accompanied by the sending of "the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father," and then all bondage is done away (Ga 4:5-7).
2. In Romans as Deliverance from Debt:
In Ro 8:12-17 the idea of obligation or debt is coupled with that of liberty. Man is thought of as at one time under the authority and power of the flesh (Ro 8:5), but when the Spirit of Christ comes to dwell in him, he is no longer a debtor to the flesh but to the Spirit (Ro 8:12,13), and debt or obligation to the Spirit is itself liberty. As in Galatians, man thus passes from a state of bondage into a state of sonship which is also a state of liberty. "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these (and these only) are sons of God" (Ro 8:14). The spirit of adoption or sonship stands in diametrical opposition to the spirit of bondage (Ro 8:15). And the Spirit to which we are debtors and by which we are led, at once awakens and confirms the experience of sonship within us (Ro 8:16). In both places, Paul conveys under this figure, the idea of man as passing from a state of alienation from God and of bondage under law and sin, into that relation with God of mutual confidence and love, of unity of thought and will, which should characterize the ideal family, and in which all restraint, compulsion and fear have passed away.
III. The Christian Experience.
As a fact of Christian experience, the adoption is the recognition and affirmation by man of his sonship toward God. It follows upon faith in Christ, by which man becomes so united with Christ that his filial spirit enters into him, and takes possession of his consciousness, so that he knows and greets God as Christ does (compare Mr 14:36).
1. In Relation to Justification:
It is an aspect of the same experience that Paul describes elsewhere, under another legal metaphor, as justification by faith. According to the latter, God declares the sinner righteous and treats him as such, admits into to the experience of forgiveness, reconciliation and peace (Ro 5:1). In all this the relation of father and son is undoubtedly involved, but in adoption it is emphatically expressed. It is not only that the prodigal son is welcomed home, glad to confess that he is not worthy to be called a son, and willing to be made as one of the hired servants, but he is embraced and restored to be a son as before. The point of each metaphor is, that justification is the act of a merciful Judge setting the prisoner free, but adoption is the act of a generous father, taking a son to his bosom and endowing him with liberty, favor and a heritage.
2. In Relation to Sanctification:
Besides, justification is the beginning of a process which needs for its completion a progressive course of sanctification by the aid of the Holy Spirit, but adoption is coextensive with sanctification. The sons of God are those led by the Spirit of God (Ro 8:14); and the same spirit of God gives the experience of sonship. Sanctification describes the process of general cleansing and growth as an abstract process, but adoption includes it as a concrete relation to God, as loyalty, obedience, and fellowship with an ever-loving Father.
3. In Relation to Regeneration:
Some have identified adoption with regeneration, and therefore many Fathers and Roman Catholic theologians have identified it with baptismal regeneration, thereby excluding the essential fact of conscious sonship. The new birth and adoption are certainly aspects of the same totality of experience, but they belong to different systems of thought, and to identify them is to invite confusion. The new birth defines especially the origin and moral quality of the Christian experience as an abstract fact, but adoption expresses a concrete relation of man to God. Nor does Paul here raise the question of man's natural and original condition. It is pressing the analogy too far to infer from this doctrine of adoption that man is by nature not God's son. It would contradict Paul's teaching elsewhere (e.g. Ac 17:28), and he should not be convicted of inconsistency on the application of a metaphor. He conceives man outside Christ as morally an alien and a stranger from God, and the change wrought by faith in Christ makes him morally a son and conscious of his sonship; but naturally he is always a potential son because God is always a real father.
IV. As God's Act.
Adoption as God's act is an eternal process of His gracious love, for He "fore-ordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will" (Eph 1:5).
1. Divine Fatherhood:
The motive and impulse of Fatherhood which result in adoption were eternally real and active in God. In some sense He had bestowed the adoption upon Israel (Ro 9:4). "Israel is my son, my first-born" (Ex 4:22; compare De 14:1; 32:6; Jer 31:9; Ho 11:1). God could not reveal Himself at all without revealing something of His Fatherhood, but the whole revelation was as yet partial and prophetic. When "God sent forth his Son" to redeem them that were under the law," it became possible for men to receive the adoption; for to those who are willing to receive it, He sent the Spirit of the eternal Son to testify in their hearts that they are sons of God, and to give them confidence and utterance to enable them to call God their Father (Ga 4:5,6; Ro 8:15).
2. Its Cosmic Range:
But this experience also is incomplete, and looks forward to a fuller adoption in the response, not only of man's spirit, but of the whole creation, including man's body, to the Fatherhood of God (Ro 8:23). Every filial spirit now groans, because it finds itself imprisoned in a body subjected to vanity, but it awaits a redemption of the body, perhaps in the resurrection, or in some final consummation, when the whole material creation shall be transformed into a fitting environment for the sons of God, the creation itself delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Ro 8:21). Then will adoption be complete, when man's whole personality shall be in harmony with the spirit of sonship, and the whole universe favorable to its perseverance in a state of blessedness.
LITERATURE:
Lightfoot, Galatians; Sanday, Romans; Lidgett, Fatherhood of God; Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation.
Written by T. Rees
Adoption: General Scriptures Concerning
Gen 15:3
Adoption: Of Children
Instances Of:
Of Joseph's sons,
Gen 48:5, 14, 16, 22.
Of Moses,
Exd 2:5-10; Act 7:21; Hbr 11:24.
Of Esther,
Est 2:7.
Adoption: Spiritual
Exd 4:22, 23; Num 6:27; Deu 14:1; 26:18; 27:9; 28:10; 32:5, 6; 2Sa 7:14; 1Ch 22:10; 28:6; 2Ch 7:14; Pro 14:26; Isa 8:18; 43:6, 7; 63:8, 16; Jer 3:19; 31:9, 20; Hsa 1:9; 11:1; Mat 5:9, 45; 13:43; Luk 6:35; Jhn 1:12, 13; 11:52; Act 15:17; Rom 8:14-19, 21, 29; 9:8, 26; 2Cr 6:17; Gal 3:26, 29; 4:5-7; Eph 1:5; 2:19; 3:6, 15; Phl 2:15; Hbr 1:5; 2:10, 13; 12:6, 7, 9; 1Jo 3:1, 2, 10; 4:4; Rev 21:7
Adoption: Typified, in Israel
Exd 4:22
See GOD, FATHERHOOD OF; RIGHTEOUS, UNION OF, WITH CHRIST.
Adoption: Explained
2Cr 6:18
Adoption: Is According to Promise
Rom 9:8; Gal 3:29
Adoption: Is by Faith
Gal 3:7,26
Adoption: Is of God's Grace
Eze 16:3-6; Rom 4:16,17; Eph 1:5,6,11
Adoption: Is through Christ
Jhn 1:12; Gal 4:4,5; Eph 1:5; Hbr 2:10,13
Adoption: Saints Predestinated To
Rom 8:29; Eph 1:5,11
Adoption: Of Gentiles, Predicted
Hsa 2:23; Rom 9:24-26; Eph 3:6
Adoption: The Adopted are gathered together in one by Christ
Jhn 11:52
Adoption: New Birth Connected With
Jhn 1:12,13
Adoption: The Holy Spirit Is a Witness Of
Rom 8:16
Adoption: Being Led by the Spirit Is an Evidence Of
Rom 8:14
Adoption: Saints Receive the Spirit Of
Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6
Adoption: A Privilege of Saints
Jhn 1:12; 1Jo 3:1
Adoption: Saints Become Brethren of Christ By
Jhn 20:17; Hbr 2:11,12
Adoption: Saints Wait for Final Consummation Of
Rom 8:19,23; 1Jo 3:2
Adoption: Subjects Saints to the Fatherly Discipline of God
Deu 8:5; 2Sa 7:14; Pro 3:11,12; Hbr 12:5-11
Adoption: God is long-suffering and merciful towards the partakers of
Jer 31:1,9,20
Adoption: Should Lead to Holiness
2Cr 6:17,18; 7:1; Phl 2:15; 1Jo 3:2,3
Adoption: Should Produce
Likeness to God
Mat 5:44,45,48; Eph 5:1
Child-like confidence in God
Mat 6:25-34
A desire for God's glory
Mat 5:16
A spirit of prayer
Mat 7:7-11
A love of peace
Mat 5:9
A forgiving spirit
Mat 6:14
A merciful spirit
Luk 6:35,36
An avoidance of ostentation
Mat 6:1-4,6,18
Adoption: Safety of Those Who Receive
Pro 14:26
Adoption: Confers a New Name
Num 6:27; Isa 62:2; Act 15:17
See TITLES and Names of Saints
Adoption: Entitles to an Inheritance
Mat 13:43; Rom 8:17; Gal 3:29; 4:7; Eph 3:6
Adoption: Is to Be Pleaded in Prayer
Isa 63:16; Mat 6:9
Adoption: Illustrated
Joseph's sons
Gen 48:5,14,16,22
Moses
Exd 2:10
Esther
Est 2:7
Adoption: Typified
Israel
Exd 4:22; Hsa 11:1; Rom 9:4
Adoption: Exemplified
Solomon
1Ch 28:6
Adoption:
from huios, "a son," and thesis, "a placing," akin to tithemi, "to place," signifies the place and condition of a son given to one to whom it does not naturally belong. The word is used by the Apostle Paul only.
In Rom 8:15, believers are said to have received "the Spirit of adoption," that is, the Holy Spirit who, given as the Firstfruits of all that is to be theirs, produces in them the realization of sonship and the attitude belonging to sons. In Gal 4:5 they are said to receive "the adoption of sons," i.e., sonship bestowed in distinction from a relationship consequent merely upon birth; here two contrasts are presented,
(1) between the sonship of the believer and the unoriginated sonship of Christ,
(2) between the freedom enjoyed by the believer and bondage, whether of Gentile natural condition, or of Israel under the Law. In Eph 1:5 they are said to have been foreordained unto "adoption as sons" through Jesus Christ, RV; the AV, "adoption of children" is a mistranslation and misleading. God does not "adopt" believers as children; they are begotten as such by His Holy Spirit through faith. "Adoption" is a term involving the dignity of the relationship of believers as sons; it is not a putting into the family by spiritual birth, but a putting into the position of sons. In Rom 8:23 the "adoption" of the believer is set forth as still future, as it there includes the redemption of the body, when the living will be changed and those who have fallen asleep will be raised. In Rom 9:4 "adoption" is spoken of as belonging to Israel, in accordance with the statement in Exd 4:12, "Israel is My Son." Cp. Hsa 11:1. Israel was brought into a special relation with God, a collective relationship, not enjoyed by other nations, Deu 14:1; Jer 31:9, etc.
Adoption:
an expression used by St. Paul in reference to the present and prospective privileges of Christians (Romans 8:15; 8:23; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5). He probably alludes to the Roman custom by which a person not having children of his own might adopt as his son one born of other parents. The relationship was to all intents and purposes the same as existed between a natural father and son. The term is used figuratively to show the close relationship to God of the Christian (Galatians 4:4-5; Romans 8:14-17). He is received into God's family from the world, and becomes a child and heir of God.
Children of God:
Introduction: Meaning of Terms
I. OLD TESTAMENT TEACHING
1. Mythological Survivals
2. Created Sonship
3. Israel's Collective Covenant Sonship
4. Individual and Personal Relation
5. Universalizing the Idea
II. NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING
1. Physical and Limited Sonship Disappears
2. As Religious Experience, or Psychological Fact
(1) Filial Consciousness of Jesus
(2) Communicated to Men
3. As Moral Condition, or Ethical Fact
4. As State of Being, or Ontological Fact
(1) Essence of Christ's Sonship
(2) Men's Sonship
5. As Relation to God, or Theological Fact
(1) Eternal Generation
(2) The Work of Grace
Introduction: Meaning of Terms:
Children (Sons and Daughters) of God (bene and benoth ?elohim, literally "sons and daughters of God"; tekna theou, and huioi theou): so the King James Version; but the Revised Version (British and American) translates the latter Greek phrase more accurately "sons of God." Tekna contains the idea of origin or descent, but also that of personal relation, and is often used metaphorically of "that intimate and reciprocal relationship formed between men by the bonds of love, friendship, trust, just as between parents and children" (Grimm-Thayer). Huioi, too, conveys the ideas of origin, and of personal relation, but the latter in the fuller form in which it appears in mature age. "The difference between huios and teknon appears to be that whereas teknon denotes the natural relationship of child to parent, huios implies in addition to this the recognized status and legal privileges reserved for sons" (Sanday and Headlam, on Ro 8:14). This difference obtains, however, only in a very general sense.
The above phrases denote the relation in which men are conceived to stand to God, either as deriving their being from Him and depending upon Him, or as standing in that personal relation of intimate trust and love toward Him which constitutes the psychological fact of sonship. The exact significance of the expression depends upon the conception of God, and particularly of His Fatherhood, to which it corresponds. It therefore attains to its full significance only in the New Testament, and its meaning in the Old Testament differs considerably, even though it marks stages of development up to the New Testament idea.
I. Old Testament Teaching.
The most primitive form of the idea appears in Ge 6:1-4, where the sons of God by marrying the fair daughters of men become the fathers of the giants.
1. Mythological Survivals:
These were a subordinate order of Divine beings or demi-gods, and the title here may mean no more, although it was probably a survival of an earlier idea of the actual descent of these gods from a higher God. The idea of a heavenly court where the sons of God come to present themselves before Yahweh is found in quite late literature (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Ps 29:1; 89:6). In all these cases the phrase implies a certain kinship with God and dependence upon Him on the part of the Divine society around Him. But there is no evidence to show whether the idea of descent of gods from God survived to any extent, nor is there any indication of a very close personal relationship. Satan is unsympathetic, if not hostile. In one obviously polytheistic reference, the term implies a similarity of appearance (Da 3:25). In a secondary sense the titles "gods," and "sons of the Most High" are given to magistrates, as exercising God's authority (Ps 82:6).
2. Created Sonship:
The idea of creation has taken the place of that of procreation in the Old Testament, but without losing the sense of sonship. "Saith Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: Ask me.... concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands" (Isa 45:11). Israel acknowledges the absolute sovereignty of God as her Father and Maker (Isa 64:8). Israel's Maker is also her Husband, and by inference the Father of her children (Isa 54:5). Since all Israel has one Father, and one God created her, the tribes owe brotherly conduct to one another (Mal 2:10). Yahweh upbraids His sons and daughters whom He as their Father bought, made and established. "He forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation..... Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that gave thee birth" (De 32:6,15,18 ff). These passages reveal the transition from the idea of original creation to that of making and establishing Israel as a nation. All things might be described as children of God if creation alone brought it to pass, but Israel stands in a unique relation to God.
3. Israel's Collective Covenant Sonship:
The covenant relation of God with Israel as a nation is the chief form in which man's sonship and God's fatherhood appear in the Old Testament. "Israel is my son, my firstborn" (Ex 4:22); "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt" (Ho 11:1). And to be children of God involves the obligation to be a holy people (De 14:1,2). But Israel has proved unworthy of her status: "I.... have brought up children, and they have rebelled against me" (Isa 1:2,4; 30:1,9). Yet He will have pity upon them: "for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn" (Jer 31:9,20). Israel's unworthiness does not abolish the relation on God's side; she can therefore return to Him again and submit to His will (Isa 63:16; 64:8); and His pity exceeds a mother's love (Isa 49:15). The filial relation of Israel to God is summed up and symbolized in a special way in the Davidic king: "I will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2Sa 7:14 =1Ch 17:13; compare 1Ch 22:10; 28:6; Ps 2:7).
4. Individual and Personal Relation:
God's fatherhood to collective Israel necessarily tends to develop into a personal relation of father and son between Him and individual members of the nation. The children of Israel, whatever their number, shall be called "the sons of the living God" (Ho 1:10). Yahweh's marriage relation with Israel as a nation made individual Israelites His children (Ho 2:19,20; Jer 3:14,22; compare Isa 50:1; Eze 16:20,21; 23:37), and God's ownership of His children, the individual members of the nation, is asserted (compare Ps 127:3). Chastisement and pity alike God deals forth as Father to His children (De 1:31; 8:5; Ps 103:13), and these are intimate personal relations which can only obtain between individuals.
5. Universalizing the Idea:
In another direction the idea of God as the father of Israel tends to be modified by the inclusion of the Gentiles. The word "first-born" (in Ex 4:22 and Jer 31:9,20) may be only an emphatic form of expressing sonship, or it may already suggest the possibility of the adoption of the Gentiles. If that idea is not present in words, it is an easy and legitimate inference from several passages, that Gentiles would be admitted some day into this among the rest of Israel's privileges (Isa 19:25; 65:1; Zec 14:16).
II. New Testament Teaching.
1. Physical and Limited Sonship Disappears:
As the doctrine of Divine fatherhood attains its full spiritual and moral significance in the New Testament, so does the experience and idea of sonship. All traces of physical descent have disappeared. Paul's quotation from a heathen poet: "For we are also his offspring" (Ac 17:28), whatever its original significance, is introduced by the apostle for the purpose of enforcing the idea of the spiritual kinship of God and men. The phrase "Son of God" applied to Christ by the Roman centurion (Mt 27:54; Mr 15:39) may or may not, in his mind, have involved the idea of physical descent, but its utterance was the effect of an impression of similarity to the gods, produced by the exhibition of power attending His death. The idea of creation is assumed in the New Testament, but generally it is not prominent in the idea of sonship. The virgin birth of Jesus, however, may be understood as implying either the creative activity of the Holy Spirit, or the communication of a preexistent Divine being to form a new human personality, but the latter idea also would involve creative activity in the physical realm (compare Lu 3:38: "Adam (son) of God"). The limitations of the Old Testament conception of sonship as national and collective disappear altogether in the New Testament; God is father of all men, and of every man. In potentiality at least every man and all men are sons of God. The essence of sonship consists in a personal experience and moral likeness which places man in the most intimate union and communion with God.
2. As Religious Experience, or Psychological Fact:
(1) Filial Conciousness of Jesus.
Divine sonship was first realized and made manifest in the consciousness of Jesus (Mt 11:27). For Him it meant unbroken personal knowledge of God and communion with Him, and the sense of His love for Him and of His satisfaction and delight in Him (Mt 3:17; 17:5; Mr 1:11; 9:7; Lu 3:22; 9:35). Whether the "voice out of the heavens saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" was objective or not, its message always dwelt in the filial consciousness of Jesus. The Father's love was to Him a source of knowledge and power (Joh 5:20), the reward of His self-sacrifice (Joh 10:17) and the inspiration of His love for men (Joh 15:9).
Sonship meant for Him His Messianic mission (Mt 16:16,17). It involved His dependence on the Father and His obedience to Him (Joh 5:19,30; 8:29), and a resulting confidence in His mission (Joh 5:36; 10:36,37). It filled Him with a sense of dignity, power and glory which the Father gave Him, and would yet give in larger measure (Mt 26:63-64; 16:27; Joh 17:5).
(2) Communicated to Men.
Jesus communicated His own experience of God to men (Joh 14:9) that they also might know the Father's love and dwell in it (Joh 17:26). Through Him and through Him alone can they become children of God in fact and in experience (Joh 1:12; 14:6; Mt 11:27). It is therefore a distinctively Christian experience and always involves a relation of faith in Christ and moral harmony with Him. It differs from His experience in one essential fact, at least in most men. It involves an inner change, a change of feeling and motive, of ideal and attitude, that may be compared to a new birth (Joh 3:3). Man must turn and return from disobedience and alienation through repentance to childlike submission (Lu 15:18-20). It is not the submission of slaves, but the submission of sons, in which they have liberty and confidence before God (Ga 4:6), and a heritage from Him for their possession (Ga 4:6,7; Ro 8:17). It is the liberty of self-realization. As sons they recognize their kinship with God, and share his mind and purpose, so that His commands become their pleasure: "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous" (1Jo 5:3). They have boldness and access to God (Eph 2:18; 3:12). With this free union of love with God there comes a sense of power, of independence of circumstances, of mastery over the world, and of the possession of all things necessary which become the heirs of God (Mt 6:26,32; 7:11). "For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world" (1Jo 5:4). They learn that the whole course and destiny of creation is for the "revealing of the sons of God" (Ro 8:19,21).
3. As Moral Condition, or Ethical Fact:
Christ's sonship involved His moral harmony with the Father: "I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love" (Joh 15:10; 8:53). He accomplished the work which the Father gave Him to do (Joh 17:4; 5:19), "becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross" (Php 2:8). And sonship makes the same demand upon men. The peacemakers and those who forgive like God are His children (Mt 5:9,45; Lu 6:35). "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these (and these only) are sons of God" (Ro 8:14). God will be Father to the holy (2Co 6:18). The test and mark of the children of God is that they do righteousness and love the brethren (1Jo 3:10). They are blameless and harmless, without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (Php 2:15). Therefore their ideal of life is to be "imitators of God" and to walk in love even as Christ did (Eph 5:1). Sonship grows to its consummation as the life grows in the likeness of Christ, and the final destiny of all sons is to be ever like Him (1Jo 3:2).
4. As State of Being, or Ontological Fact:
Sonship is properly and primarily a relation, but it may so dominate and transform the whole of a man's life, thought and conduct as to become his essential being, the most comprehensive category under which all that he is may be summed up.
(1) Essence of Christ's Sonship.
It is so that the New Testament comprehends the person of Christ. Everything that He did, He did as God's son, so that He is the Son, always and ever Son. In the beginning, in the bosom of the Father, He is the ONLY BEGOTTEN (which see) Son (Joh 1:1,18). He is born a Son of God (Lu 1:35). He begins life in the things of His Father (Lu 2:49). His whole life is that of the beloved Son (Mt 3:17; 17:5). As Son of God He dies (Mt 26:63; Lu 22:70; Mt 27:40,43; compare Joh 5:18). In His resurrection He was declared to be the Son of God with power (Ro 1:4); as Jesus the Son of God He is our great high priest in heaven (Heb 4:14), and in the glory of His father He will come to judge in the last day (Mt 16:27).
(2) Men's Sonship.
Unlike Him, men's moral sonship is neither eternal nor universal. Are they therefore sons in any sense always and everywhere? All children are heirs of the kingdom of God and objects of the Father's care (Lu 18:16; Mt 18:10). But men may turn away from the Father and become unworthy to be called His sons (Lu 15:13,19). They may become children of the devil (1Jo 3:10; Joh 8:44), and children of wrath (Eph 2:3). Then they lose the actuality, but not the potentiality, of sonship. They have not the experience or character of sons, but they are still moral and rational beings made in the image of God, open to the appeal and influence of His love, and able to "rise and go to their Father." They are objects of God's love (Joh 15:13; Ro 5:8) and of His gracious search and seeking (Lu 15:4; Joh 11:52). But they are actual sons only when they are led by the Spirit of God (Ro 8:14); and even so their sonship will only be consummated in the resurrection (Ro 8:23; Lu 20:36).
5. As Relation to God, or Theological Fact:
In the relation of father and son, fatherhood is original and creative. That does not necessarily mean priority in time.
(1) Eternal Generation.
Origen's doctrine of the eternal generation of Christ, by which is meant that God and Christ always stood in the relation of Father and Son to one another, is a just interpretation of the New Testament idea that the Son "was in the beginning with God" (pros ton Theon). But Jesus was conscious of His dependence upon the Father and that His sonship was derived from Him (Joh 5:19,36). Still more manifest is it that men derive their sonship from God. He made them for Himself, and whatever in human nature qualifies men to become sons of God is the free gift of God. But men in their sin and disobedience could not come to a knowledge of the Father, had He not "sent forth his Son.... that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Ga 4:4,5): "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God" (1Jo 3:1); "God so loved the world, that he gave his ONLY BEGOTTEN son" (which see) who gave men "the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name" (Joh 3:16; 1:12). It is not the children of the flesh but the children of the promise who are children of God (Ro 9:4). The mere act of birth does not constitute men into children of God, but His covenant of free grace must be added. God being essentially Father made men and the universe, sent His Son and His Spirit, "for the revealing of the sons of God." But they can only know the Father, and realize their sonship when they respond to His manifestation of fatherly love, by faith in God and obedience to Him.
(2) The Work of Grace.
The question whether sonship is natural and universal or conditional upon grace working through faith, does not admit of a categorical answer. The alternatives are not strict antitheses. God does all things as Father. To endow man with rational and moral nature capable of his becoming a son was an act of love and grace, but its whole purpose can be communicated only in response to faith in Christ. But a natural sonship which is not actual is meaningless. A man's moral condition and his attitude toward God are the most essential elements of his nature, for a man's nature is just the sum total of his thoughts, acts and states. If these are hostile or indifferent to God, there is nothing left that can have the reality or bear the name of son. For if the word son be used of mere creaturehood and potentiality, that is to give it a meaning entirely different from New Testament usage. All men by nature are potential sons, because God has made them for sonship and does all things to win them into their heritage. Men may be sons of God in a very imperfect and elementary manner. The sharp transitions of Pauline and Johannine theology are rather abstract distinctions for thought than actual descriptions of spiritual processes. But Paul and John also contemplate a growth in sonship, "till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full- grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:13). For lit. and further discussion, see special articles on ADOPTION; GOD; JESUS CHRIST.
Written by T. Rees
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