The blessings of being sons of God ace. to Jcsu.s' teaching are forgiveness and gracious recejition when we come to God as penitents ; the assurance that God will hear our ]irayers, and give us good things when we ask him (.Mt 7") ; that he cares for our welfare, and that we can trust hira to provide for all our earthly needs, so that withotit anxiety about these we may make it our great aim to be like liim(Mt C^'-**) ; the Sjiirit of our Father to speak in and through us when wo are called to speak for Christ (Mt 10'«- =») ; and, finally, the full enjoyment of the kingdom (Lk 1'2^-, Mt 2o-")-
Jesus always uses the term 'sons,' not 'children,' of God, thus directing our attention to the nature of the relation rather than to the origination of it. His main tcacliing is that we stand to God in a relationship in which we can trust him as loving us and caring for our soul's welfare, and can speak to him with treedom and confidence. Plainly, too, this is a personal and individual relation. \Ye have such privileges each for ourselves, and not merely as members of any nation or community.
At the same time, Jesus teaches that this relation of sonship to God is connected with his own person, and to be enjoyed through him. He claimed for himself a peculiar sonsliip, speaking of God as 'my Father' in a waj' that, according to Jn 5'", exposed him to a charge of blasphemy for making himself equal with God ; and he made our entering the kingdom of God depend on our not onlj' calling him Lord, but doing the will of his F'ather in lieaven (Mt 7'^'), and that is the same as doing his words {ib. -*). He declared that no one knew the Fatlier but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son wills to reveal him (Mt U-''); and he revealed the l''atlier, not only by bis words, but by his whole character and life. Hence he invited the weary and heavy-laden to come to him and learn of him, and this was his call in general to all who would enter the kingdom of God. He desired men to see in his own person and life what real sonship to God was, what childlike trust, what loving obedience, what zeal for his Father's honour and patient submission to his will it involved, and what rest and peace it brought with it. Into this blessedness he desires to bring men, and lie recog- nizes those who will do the will of his Fathir itt heaven as his brethren (Mt I'J^'). They ore son« of God through him and with him. Their follow
218
GOD, CHILDREN OF
GOD, CHILDKEX OF
ing him implies a renonncin^ of earthly goods and even of life itself, such as is impossible to man and possitile only to God (Mk 10"). Hence to enter the kingdom of God requires a conversion and becoming as little children, which in Jn S*- ' Jesus calls being begotten anew of the Spirit.
Thus our Lord's teaching about sonship to God, though it is entirely of a practical religious char- acter rather than scientilic and theological, yet involves as its basis two ideas that he could not in his earthly life fully develop. One is that true sonsliip to God is a participation of his own unique relation to the Father, which is the archetype of all filial relationship to God, and the other is tliat it becomes ours through the impartation of a new life from God, in the strength of which we are enabled to renounce our own self-centred life. Tlie former of these ideas is suggested by the fact that while Jesus habitually calls God his own Father, he as e.\i)rossly calls those his brethren, whom he teaches to address God as ' our Father.' This shows that though he (e.^.Jn 20") makes the distinc- tion between his own relation to God expressed in 'my Father,' and ours expressed by 'your Fatlier,' he does not mean that God is our Father in a quite dill'erent sense from that in which he is liis, for in that case we would be only nominallj' and not really his brethren ; but he would intimate that while his Sonship is indeed unique as being original and absolutely perfect, we partake of it through Iiim. But this could not be fully explained as long as the truth about his own person could not be clearly revealed.
The otlier idea is implied in Jesus' teaching that God's sons are those who trust him and are like him, and that for us this implies a great change of mind and heart, a turning our back on our worldly selves, such as can be etl'ected onl}' under the inlluence of a power from God. But this, too, could not be made plain tiU the coming of the Spirit, whom Jesus promised to complete his teaching.
The outcome of that teaching is to be seen in the apostolic Epistles, and in these we find the former idea developed more especially by St. Paui and the latter by St. John.
2. The TEACHiNa of Paul. — St. Paul views Christianity chiefly in its bearing on the personal relation between man and God. Apart from the salvation of Christ, that relation is tliat of a transgressor of the eternal moral law to the righteous Lawgiver and Judge, hence it is a state of condemnation and death. From that he is redeemed by the propitiation which consists in the obedience and sacrifice of Christ the Son of God. The truth that our Redeemer is God's own beloved Son is repeatedly emphasized in connexion •with his sacrifice as enhancing the love of God and the self-emptying grace of our Lord ; and St. Paul undoubtedly regarded ChrLst's Sonship as not merely an oflicial or Messianic, but a pre-existent and eternal relation to God. But in his view Jesus' death is our redemption only in virtue of our being one with him in it by faith, so that by it we die to sin and to the law, and are freed from its curse. Since, then, we are redeemed from our natural state of condemnation as sinners bj' dying in and with the Son of God, who loved us and gave liimself for us ; since we live now only in liim, our relation to God is henceforth the same as his, we are sons of God in Christ Jesus, because by faith, sealed in baptism, we have put on Christ (Ga'. 3*' "). It has been questioned whether here and in Ro 6', where St. Paul uses the limiting!?) pro- noun 'as many as' and the phrase 'baptized into Christ,' instead of the usual one ' baptized into the name of Christ,' he refers to the outward rite of water baptism at all, and not rather to the inward