Just to get a foot in heaven is reward enough. I see so many young people who know nothing of the consequences of sin. They live together freely, have children together outside of marriage and continue as active members of the church. Where is the firey preaching that made the sinner cringe in fear of a holy God and brought them to the altar in true repentance? I know that I am eternally secure in Christ but feel that there has to be balance and people must know the consequence of rebellion.
It is the responsibility of the ones God has called and anointed to teach not only the goodness of God but also the severity of God. Blessings to you and thank you for a great teaching. The article has elaborated the permanence of our salvation in Jesus Christ. It is deep comparison to the manner in which the Roman Culture regarded the adoption of someone as something that could not be disowned regardless. What a privilege this is mine in Jesus. Your email address will not be published.
Adoption of Believers Romans ; ; Galatians
July 12, at 8: February 20, at August 1, at 5: May 25, at 7: November 18, at 7: November 26, at July 31, at 7: Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Well, actually we are sons of God verse Let me tell you who your daddy is. You are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father you will do verses 42— Now he is not suggesting in any way, shape, or form that they are sons of mysogenation, as if humans somehow copulated with women to produce them.
It means they are acting so demonically that they belong to the demon family. They are sons of the devil himself. And, likewise, in Paul the question arises frequently: Who is the true son of Abraham? And Abraham acted with respect to God in faith. So, he becomes the father of the faithful, that is, those who are full of faith. And that sort of usage is simply endemic in Scripture. And so within that framework then what does son of God mean?
In a passage like 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 2 where the Davidic king is said to be the son of God, the idea, of course, is that God is the supreme King so that, insofar as someone is acting like God in ruling, God rules as king. He is the monarch. He is not a constitutional monarch.
Welcomed into the Family of God: Sonship in the Bible
He rules, and he rules with justice, with integrity, with righteousness to preserve the covenant, with equity, and so forth. So insofar, then, as his under-king, his Davidic king is king, then he is to rule the way God rules: And if he does so, then he is like God. So, as soon as a Davidite accedes to the throne, then God says, in effect, today I have begotten you.
Today you are my son Psalm 2: And again, it is not talking about new birth. This is said with respect to Solomon, for example 2 Samuel 7: And yet, so far as ruling is concerned, the Davidic king is to be seen to belong to the God family, to rule like God, to be god-ish in that particular respect, just as the person who makes peace is like God along another axis, the peace axis.
In other words, you cannot assume that son of God refers to the second person of the Trinity or something like that. Now, there are some passages that drive you in that direction. We will come to those in a few moments. What this means, then, is that in Old Testament expectation, sonship can refer to all of Israel, starting in Exodus 4 as we have seen and picked up in passages like Hosea And so he too is called back out of Egypt.
The same theme is picked up, for example, in the temptation narrative in Matthew 4 in the desert. But Jesus learns it perfectly and reflects it perfectly and, thus, shows himself to be in one sense the true Israel Matthew 4: But he is also the true King. He is the true Davidic King. And then the genealogy proceeds with three fourteens, the central fourteen being the years of the Davidic dynasty in actual rule. We will refer to some more passages of that order shortly.
Unto us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given. He shall reign on the throne of his father David Isaiah 9: So, he is the Son that is declared Son in line with Psalm 2 and 2 Samuel 7 where God insists that the Davidic king, thus, is his son, insofar as he is acting like God as king, ruling with integrity, and the like. So, unto us that child is born, unto us a son is given. He will rule on the throne of his father David. Of the increase of his kingdom there will be no end. But other things are said of him. Now, if that language is taken seriously, then he is more than an ordinary Davidite, a son of David.
He is a son of David because he is king like all the other sons of David who are kings. But there is something more that is being promised to him and the expectations of what this Davidic Son of God would be like are ratcheted up. Second Samuel 7 is roughly BC. Isaiah 9 is toward the end of the eighth century BC.
There Is No Future in Frustration
And then, that language is picked up, likewise, in the New Testament. In the long passage in Hebrews 1: And so the way that Jesus is superior to the angels in much of Hebrews 1 is that he alone has the right to be the Davidic King who rules.
Now, there is another element that we are coming to that is stronger yet, but it really is important to see that Jesus is Son of God by virtue of the fact that he is the Davidic king. He is Son of God by virtue of the fact that he is the ultimate Israel. There is another element, too. We have the son of expressions: And so, it is not too surprising that human beings can be called sons of God in the generic sense without necessarily being Christians. We are supposed to reflect him insofar as human beings can reflect him. And, again, the idea is not ontology.
It is the reflection of the one whom we call our heavenly Father. All of those expressions are applied to Jesus in a variety of ways. But there is another strand that does not fit into any of these categories. In the Gospels it is most powerfully drawn in John 5: It is a wonderful passage. Jesus is defending his actions in the healing of the man who has been paralyzed for thirty-eight years: And he does not defend his actions by virtue of appeal to the intricacies of the law.
The law does not really forbid miraculous healing. It is not as if I am a medical practitioner who is opening his place for office hours on the Sabbath in order to earn a little extra pocket money. What he says, instead, is that whatever God has the right to do, he has got the right to do. No sacrament, such as communion or baptism can do this. Joining the church does not make you a Christian.
The new birth is of God. What is our part in the new birth?
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Our part is to come as a sinner to the Lord Jesus and receive Him as our Saviour. When we truly believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins and we receive Him as our Saviour, we are born again.
God does many, many wonderful things for us when we receive the Lord Jesus as our Saviour. Here are just a few:.
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We are no longer in Adam, but we are in Christ. We are going to see more of what this means in our next lesson. God does something for us that He does for no other creature. He makes us His very own children. We need to make one thing clear here—our old nature is not removed when we are born again. God does not remove our old sinful nature, but He gives us His life to overcome it. Our old nature will not be removed until Jesus comes for us, but with the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we can overcome its sinful desires. He who has the Son has life; and he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
God does many other wonderful things for us when we are born again. He puts us in Christ. He joins us to His Son. He delivers us from the kingdom of darkness and from the power of sin. He makes it possible for us to have victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. We are going to find out more about these things in our subsequent lessons.
Each one of us should know for sure whether or not he has truly been born again, and God has given us some definite ways by which we can know. When we are born again , God's Spirit comes to dwell within us, and He bears witness with our spirit that we are a child of God. This is not something that we can explain or prove to someone else, but we know that it is true.
When we are born again , God's Spirit will make the Word of God real to our hearts, and we will know from God's Word that we are saved. When we are truly born again , our actions will change. We will begin to love the things that are right and to hate the things that are wrong.