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lOD, CHILDREN OF
GOD, CHILDREN OF
canse bom or begotten of him, that in 2 P 1* they are said to become partakers of the divine nature. Also we may observe that in 1 F God is distinct- ively called the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (!'), and the notion of our being in Christ and dying with him to sin is also in the writer's mind (2" 4'). The opening sentence is formed after the pattern of that of the Ep. to the Eph.; but while St. Paul blesses God because he has fore- ordained us to adoption (Eph 1*), St. Peter seems to have expre.s.sed the same idea of sonship by divine gift, in the more concrete form of a begetting.
6. The Teaching of John.— The teaching of St. John on this subject combines the elements of the Pauline and Petrine, though it is more akin to the latter, and uses the term ' children ' rather than sons of God. The keynote to it may be found in the Prologue to the Gospel (I'"-"), 'to as many as received him (the Logos) he gave the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name : which were begotten, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.' Here we have the right to become children of God bestowed by Christ, which answers to St. Paul's statement, ' God sent forth his Sou . . . that we might receive the adoption of sons.' The word 'adoption' is not employed; but the right to become children expresses the same thing in less technical lanjjuage. Further, this is said to be given to those w-lio receive Christ by believing on his name. St. Paul had al.so wTitten, ' Ye are all sons of God by fa;'.,h in Jesus Christ ; for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ ' (Gal 3^'). Thus for St. John, as well as for St. Paul, our sonship to God is through union to Christ the only -begotten Son, and that union is efiected by faith.
But St. John adds to this the conception found in St. James and St. Peter of a birth or begetting of God, which he emphatically distinguishes from the natural birth in every aspect of it. Those wlio oelieve in Christ's name are they who were be- gotten of God ; and that this is not done by the process of natural generation is shown by a three- fold contrast : not of blood, i.e. they did not be- come sons of God through or in virtue of their being of the one blood of which God has made all mankind. Neither was it by any movement or impulse of their own nature, whether the spon- taneous tendencies of its animal faculties (' the wUl of the flesh'), or even the voluntary acts of personality ('the will of man'). The contrast is more briefly and pointedly expressed in our Lords discourse with Nicodemus as between being be- gotten of the flesh and of the Spirit ( Jn 3'). St. John seems to conceive the Divine Spirit as a principle or power of life and holiness proceeding from God, given to Jesus Christ in all its fulness and by him communicated to his disciples. It is not unworthy of notice that Iren. and TertuU. apply Jn 1'^ to Christ, apparently reading the verb in the singular ('who was bom ') ; and though that reading is only found in some Lat. MSS and cannot be received, yet in 1 Jn 5" our Lord, according to the most natural intemretation, is called ' he that was be- gotten of God.'
St. John seems chiefly anxious to show that the believer's being a child of God necessarily involves likeness to God in character and life ; and hence, while he ascribes this privilege to the wonderful love of the Father (1 Jn 3'), and to our being united to Christ by faith (Jn 1^), he dwells most fully on the truth that our sonship is due, not merely to the gracious act of adoption by the Father and our being made one witli the Son through faith, but also to our receiving a new life from ine Spirit of God, which communicates to Ufl that very principle of love which is the
essence of God. In 1 Jn 2^ he says, ' every ont that doeth rigliteousness is begotten of him,' and tlie uniform u.saL;e of the apostle seems to show that he means of God, though it is of Christ that h« has been speaking just before. Wherever there is real righteousness in any num it is deriveil from him who is the archetype and source of all right- eousness. Tlien, after expressing his joyful sense of the greatness of the Father's love and the reality of the sonship that it bestows, he returns to the subject of the inconsistencj- of that sonship with sin and its inseparable connexion with right- eousness, and at 3' lie says, ' Whosoever is be- gotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in him, and he cannot sin because he is begotten of God.' The statement is evidently an ideal one, describing the Christian life in its ultimate perfection when we sljall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (v.-). Hut it is put in the present, because that perfection is really given in principle and germ to all who are begotten of God even now. The impossibility of their sin- ning is not to be achieved by any further or additional gift or power, but by the life from God that is given at the first, when it comes to its full maturity. That principle of sinlessiiess is called the seed of God which abides in his children. This seems to denote a spiritual life derived from God, whereby, as it is put in 2 P 1', we become ' partakers of the divine nature' ; it is what Jesus indicates when he saj-s, ' That which is born of the Spirit is spirit' (Jn 3''). Tlie divine nature ace. to St. John is love (1 Jn 4*- ""), and this love is implanted in us when God gives us of his Spirit. So in a spiritual sense our being begotten of God is not a mere metaphor, but a proper statement of what is a real communication of the mo.st essential life of God. But, while giving this high transcendent view of the nature of believers' son- ship to God, St. John is careful to insist that its reality must be proved by the practical test of conformity to the moral law in the common allairs of daily life. He does not allow the mystical union with Christ and God to obscure the distinct personal relations between us and God. There is to be a day of judgment, and one of the blessings of the children of God is to have confidence in that day, and not to be ashamed before Christ at his coming. In the present life the relation of the children of God to him as their Father, im- plies confession of sin and prayer for others as well as themselves, and requires perfect truth and frankness. The blessings of sonship to God are summed up by St. John in the one great idea of eternal life.