THOUGHTS ON SONSHIP
God has marked us out for sonship to Himself through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will. He has predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He should be the Firstborn among many brethren. He is bringing many sons to glory. God’s will is to surround Himself with an innumerable company of sons, with such as shall be able to respond to what He is as revealed in His Son. To this end He has taken us up, is educating and working in us, to fashion us after the pattern of Christ, imparting to us the Spirit of His Son, giving us to live in His life, and thus making us capable for this position of privilege and dignity which He has given us in His Son8.
(1) The first great thing is, that we should be capable of knowing God. He delights to be known. The natural man is incapable of knowing or appreciating anything of God. He has not only revealed Himself, but has given us of His Spirit, who teaches us, enabling us to receive the light in which God is revealed, forming us in the divine nature so that we appreciate the light. “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding, that we should know him that is true, and we are in him that is true”, &c., 1 John 5: 20.
“Hereby we know that we know him”, 1 John 2: 3. “1 write to you, little children, because ye have known the Father”, v 13. “Every one that loves has been begotten of God and knows God”, 1 John 4: 7. “This is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”, John 17: 3. This knowledge of God is of the first importance, and is the foundation of all other knowledge. Hence the apostle prays that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him”, Eph 1: 17; see also Col 1: 10; 2 Pet 1: 2, 3.
(2) The result of knowing God, and being begotten of God, is that we are made capable of loving Him, we become responsive to His love. God has secured a generation that love Him. This is part of our happiness as it is the pleasure of God. “We love him, because he first loved us”, 1 John 4: 19; see also Rom 8: 29; 1 Cor 2: 9. It is the reciprocation of affection which makes happiness. That will be perfect in heaven. “He that loveth not knoweth not God”, 1 John 4: 8. To know God is to love Him. The more we increase in spiritual stature the more we love. Thus love becomes our true measure, not intelligence. Love is the divine nature, and as begotten of God we partake of the divine nature and thus become capable of loving. We grow in the divine nature as we appropriate the love of God, hence we grow by the true knowledge of God.
(3) Thus knowing God, and being partakers of the divine nature as born of Him, the result of having His Spirit dwelling in us, makes us capable of worshipping Him in spirit and in truth. We could not be consciously in the presence of God as He is now revealed and known without being worshippers. The more we grow in love, the greater our capacity for true worship. It is and will be our greatest joy to serve Him thus, Rev 22: 3. And as knowing God we can worship Him intelligently, in spirit and in truth. “We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God”, Phil 3: 3. The more we grow in the knowledge of God and in the divine nature the greater our capacity for intelligent worship.
(4) The fourth thing which characterises sons is the capacity for intelligent communion with God. This is one of the most wonderful thoughts, that God should desire to have creatures made capable of understanding and appreciating all that He is pleased to reveal of His purpose and counsels and ways, in which He displays His glory. He has abounded towards us in all wisdom and intelligence, having made known to us the mystery of His will which He hath purposed in Himself, Eph 1: 8, 9. Our capacity for communion with God is according to our spiritual growth. A child can enjoy communion with its father in the things which belong to a child, but a grown-up son is capable of communion with his father in the things which belong to a man, so that the father can unfold to him all his plans and ways. Until God had sons He could not reveal the purposes which were hidden in Himself from eternity. Man naturally has no capacity for understanding or appreciating the deep things of God. “But we have the mind of Christ”, 1 Cor 2: 16. Many Christians today are, like the Corinthians, still in an infantine condition on account of a carnal state, so that they are incapable of taking in the deep things of God; in this way their communion is limited. The apostle had to say to them, “In your minds be grown men”. Our communion is therefore according to our spiritual growth and intelligence. I cannot conceive any greater privilege than this, that creatures should be made capable of communion with divine Persons. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”, 1 John 1: 3. No doubt this was primarily apostolic, but the apostles declared the things which they knew in order that we might be brought into the same communion with them, “that ye also may have fellowship with us”.
All this originated with God, and He is bringing it about for His own pleasure and glory. He is working in us to this end now, but all will be perfected in glory.
It is important that we should understand to what end God is working in us, so that we may be in accord with what He is doing, and not hinder or thwart His work, but be submissive under His good hand. The word of God and His discipline are the means He uses. This discipline is often painful to the flesh, but when we see God’s end, namely, to make us capable for sonship, and that the full result will come out in glory, we are encouraged to submit to it, and not to faint under it. “It is God who works in you both the willing and the working according to his good pleasure”, Phil 2: 13.
Bristol
From Mutual Comfort vol 12 (1919)