How different is the view of the possibilities of human natm-e presented by St. Paul, who tells how the Son of God assumes our human nature, takes to Himself perfect manhood, which He exalts and glorifies, through which He manifests the life of God, showing that Divine works may be wrought in it, that God can be perfectly pleased by the service which it renders, and in His own exaltation to the right hand of God, lifting up that nature to the same place for evermore. And thus He not merely affirms such a union to be possible, but in His own Person realizes it to the uttermost, that so it may in its measure be reaUzed in all whom He had made His brethren — the Son of God becoming also Son of man, that the sons of men might in their turn become sons of God.
Not only is Christ the Ideal Man, not only is He the great Eedeemer from sin, but in Him the gift of sonship is communi- cated to God's elect, since He is the one in whom we are born unto God. And it is this gift of sonship that is the highest of the gifts of grace communicated to us in Christ Jesus. It is more than the gift of redemption. God who looks on us, creatures born .of Adam and sunk in sin, might have restored to us Adam's forfeited position through the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
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Christ. That were to redeem us ; but He adds something more. Havingredeemed, He gives to us "the adoption of sons," and so in this gift of sonship the hunger of humanity is satisfied as it is brought home to God.
1. Adoption of sons. — Adoption was essentially a Roman and not a Jewish custom. The law of Moses nowhere recognizes it, and the Jews had no word to express it. But with the Eomans it was an everyday occurrence for a person having no children of his own to adopt as his son one born of other parents. Adoption was a formal act, effected either by the process named adrogatio, when the person to be adopted was independent of his parent, or by adoptio, specifically so called, when in the power of his parent. The effect of it was that the adopted child was entitled to the name and sacra privata of his new father, and ranked as his heir-at-law; while the father on his part was entitled to the property of the son, and exercised towards him all the rights and privileges of a father. In short, the relation- ship was to all intents and purposes the same as existed between a natural father and son.
It is this that was in the Apostle's mind when he spoke of v'lodeaiav enjoyed by Christians. The word occurs nowhere in the LXX., nor is it used by any writer of the New Testament except St. Paul, who has actually been supposed to have first framed tlie word for his own use. We need not perhaps go quite so far as to assert this, although it appears to be a fact that the word is not found in any earlier Greek writer whose works still exist. It is, however, likely to have been employed as the nearest equivalent to adoptio by those Greek teachers from whom we suppose the Apostle to have learnt the elements of law ; and whatever we may think of the history of the word, there can be little doubt that it was the Eoman custom that supplied the Apostle with the illustration which he develops most fully in his Epistle to the Eoman Christians.
" That we might receive the adoption of sons," really embraces everything else. All the benefits of redemption are here con- tained. If we have " the adoption of sons," we have everything. What can a child in a father's house have more than his full place there ? His position, his privileges, his prospects are aa
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high as they can be. If a father who is good and rich and influential gives his children a happy home under his roof- tree and treats them as children in all respects, there can be no more that he can do for them — there is no more that would be good for them to receive. If this be so in the human relationship must it not be yet more so as between God and His people ? If He is the Father, and I am the child, then there is nothing between me and infinite wealth and goodness and blessedness. If He is my Father, He can give me everything I need. If I am His child, I can receive His benefaction, up to the limits of my nature and circumstances.
2. A mystery of light. — The Son had become flesh that they who dwell in the flesh might rise to be sous, but the Son stands alone even in the midst of His identification with us, and of the great results which follow for us from it. He is the Son by nature ; we are sons by adoption. He became man that we might share in the possession of God.
There are many mysteries — deep, unsolved mysteries — behind the word Incarnation. There are mysteries of darkness, and there are mysteries of light, and this is a mystery of light, for it has light at its core. And we must not lose the mystery in the light, nor the light in the mystery. As Browning :