SONS OF GOD
[p. 225] SONS OF GOD
Luke 20: 34 - 36; Matthew 5: 9; Romans 8: 14
I have in mind to speak on a familiar theme, namely that of sons of God, wishing to treat it from the practical or tangible features in the Scriptures, especially those that I read, that mark it. The Lord has by His Spirit called attention for some years back in a special way to this great theme, particularly as the thought is seen in Christ. And it is a divine way to present everything that we are to know or that we are to be, in Christ first. So that as presented thus and apprehended by us we may safely examine ourselves as to whether what particular thing may be presented is taking form in us in such wise as to be observable. The Father, we are told, prepared for sonship long before it actually took form. It was to take form at a certain time in the divine calendar, when the fulness of the time was come. Earlier, faith and those who had it were under governors, tutors, in the nursery of God, a very wholesome place to be under such circumstances, before full manhood came into being, but still in the nursery until the time appointed by the Father. In that time faith and those who had it were in limitations. They were minors, to use an ordinary term, not to be trusted without protection until the time appointed by the Father, but in that state of minority they were being tutored. They were being taught in so far as they could be. Some of them advanced further than others, as it says: “Prophets ... sought out and searched out; searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them pointed out, testifying before of the sufferings which belonged to Christ, and the glories after these”, 1 Peter 1: 10, 11. They searched, advanced pupils, you might say, but still in their minority, kept under tutors and governors. So there [p. 226] was particularly a foreshadowing by prophecy of sonship. One of the most striking passages is 2 Samuel 12, in which we are informed of Solomon’s birth. David his father called him Solomon when he was born, meaning ‘peaceful’. He was to be peaceful. But it is said that Jehovah loved him. It is a most remarkable thing; it is doubtful whether you can get another instance of the kind, where Jehovah is said to have loved a babe. David, who would appear to have understood the position exactly, recorded it as prophetic, not actual. That is to say, a babe in itself was hardly causative of love, “He sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet; and he called his name Jedidiah, for Jehovah’s sake”, 2 Samuel 12: 25. That is a prophetic matter. I do not deny that God could love him immediately and for good reasons, but it is for generally prophetic reasons which would develop later. A really lovable Babe was Jesus; a really lovable Boy was Jesus, answering all the necessities of divine affections. A lovable Man was Jesus, but still faith was being tutored beforehand, prepared for a great matter. Not a dying child; if Seth were to name him, he would call him Enosh. Not that his title is precluded by the circumstances, but Solomon was a dying man like Enosh. He lived a much shorter life so that he belonged to the dying, whereas the real thought of a child lovable to God is that he lived, not that he died. But faith was being prepared for sonship that it should appear in a Person extremely and infinitely lovely to the eyes of God. Beloved of Jehovah! Every time David would think of his son he would have in mind this word ‘Jedidiah’; it is only mentioned once, but that is enough for faith, faith does not need repetitions; David would always think of Jedidiah. He would say, I prefer that name. It refers to Jehovah’s love for that child, that boy, that young man. David, in this way, was being educated in sonship. And so with Solomon, his real name was Jedidiah, so to speak.
[p. 227] It should be written in large letters, Jehovah loved him. What a thought that is! — looking forward to what is prophetic because it is sent by Nathan, the prophet. I only refer to that instance, but it covers a great deal of what I had in mind; how a definite education during the minority of His people prepared them for this great matter of sonship.
He was very lovable. And then later God says, “Thou art my son”. Not a babe, not My babe, but “My son; this day have I begotten thee”, Psalm 2: 7. That was also prophetic. It was uttered long before sonship came into effect, so that in the fulness of the time, “God sent forth his Son”, and then the informative word follows, “come of woman”: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law”, Galatians 4: 4. He became, as it were, took actual form in that way; not that He actually ‘began to be’, as the word means, but that sonship began to be. The Person did not begin to be; no, He is God. The Person did not begin to be, but sonship, and it began to be through birth. And then it goes on to say, “That he might redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship”, Galatians 4: 5. That is to redeem those who were minors, and that we might receive this great matter, this great relation, namely sonship. It is a matter of reception. “But because ye are sons”, that is, because you have received sonship (verse 6), “God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”. The thing is there. It is in actual existence. It is not a whimper, it is a cry. There is power of the lungs in it. It is not the cry of a babe. It is a cry such as the Lord Jesus uttered. He said, “Abba, Father”, in the power of the Spirit of sonship; the Spirit of God’s Son was there. The thing is really there when you have that cry. Well, now, that is prefatory to what I have to say and will help in what is to follow.
[p. 228] I want to show in Luke 20 that this relationship, which is to be eternal, according to this passage is dependent upon resurrection. That is to say the passage does not teach that we are sons by faith; we are all that now, all sons of God by faith; Paul says that in Galatians 3: 26, “For ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus”, but in Galatians 4, which I have already quoted, he says we received it. It is a matter that we receive from God as a gift, and in order to make it real and substantial He sent out the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, and that leads to the cry, Abba, Father. It is real sonship now. That is what applies now. We are not sons now because we are raised from the dead, because we are not raised from the dead yet. We are still in a mortal condition. We cannot help but admit that fact. That does not imply that some of us will not die because it is possible we shall. Some of us may not. We that are alive and remain shall be changed. So that, as the Lord Jesus says elsewhere, “Every one who lives and believes on me shall never die”, John 11: 26. That is happily true, perhaps, of us. But if God is to continue His testimony for another hundred years more, which I do not expect, then it is likely that we shall all fall asleep; we shall be in good company and in a great company, too, with an immense company as falling asleep through Jesus. There is no sting in that at all. Fifty years elapsed, and perhaps most of us will have fallen asleep, and we shall not regret it. The apostle Paul says, It is far better. He does not mean to say it is far better than resurrection, but far better than present conditions. But if the testimony is not to be continued, then we shall all be changed. As the Lord says to Martha, “Every one who lives and believes on me shall never die. Believest thou this?”, John 11: 26. It is a matter to be believed. Do you believe it? She says, I do: “Yea, Lord; I believe that [p. 229] thou art the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into the world”. She is getting on in her soul. That is what these meetings are for. Martha learned quickly and the Lord came to raise Lazarus. It was a resurrection time. The whole sphere was life and Martha learns in that time. Now the scripture I read in Luke 20 is not referring to us on these lines at all. It is not present sonship because we are not yet risen. The Lord Jesus says here in answer to the Sadducees, “The sons of this world marry and are given in marriage, but they who are counted worthy to have part in that world, and the resurrection from among the dead ...”. Notice that, it is not translation from living conditions here but resurrection from among the dead. That is what the Lord is speaking about. He is speaking about those who have gone through death and those who may go through death. We have part in death and resurrection. That is what He is speaking about. He is answering infidels, Sadducees, who are denying the resurrection and the existence of angels, too, and spirits as well, dark as night. The Lord is treating of the great fact of resurrection from among the dead. So He is not treating of sonship by faith, but treating of sonship by resurrection and so He says in verse 36, “For neither can they die any more, for they are equal to angels, and are sons of God”. He is not referring to persons who never die. He is referring to persons who die and they will only die once. Wicked people who die in their wickedness die twice. They have a second death, but we do not. The Lord is speaking of people who die and are raised; they do not die any more, they only die once, and then He says they are equal to angels. Not that angels die and rise. That is not what He means. He says they are equal to the angels and are sons of God. He is not comparing them with the angels because angels are sons. He is saying we are in an undying condition when He compares us with [p. 230] angels because angels never die. But He says more by the use of the conjunction when He says, “And are sons of God”. That conjunction ‘and’ is important. But here the Lord is not stressing the idea of angels but persons who have part in death and have part in resurrection from among the dead; in addition to that, they are equal to the angels and they are sons of God because they are sons of the resurrection. It is a real thing. They have gone through death, have been raised from the dead which gives them a real palpable condition, sonship, according to the Lord’s words here. We have part in that world and the resurrection. We are equal to the angels in that we do not die again, “And are sons of God”. That is an additional thought. It is added that we are “sons of God, being sons of the resurrection”. That is to say, an angel cannot be a son in that sense. He is a son in another sense. It is a specialty. We can say to Gabriel, You are not a son in the sense in which I am a son. You are not a son by faith. You are not a son because you died as I died. You are not a son because you have been raised from the dead as I have been. One likes to visualise things as they will be, how angels are different from us, how we resemble them in the sense that we do not die, but how they are different from us. We die, but they do not die. But we do not resemble them when we say, ‘We died and rose’. We have the names of two angels now. The Spirit of God has only given the names of two angels; one is Michael and the other Gabriel. They got these names in relation to time, to the testimony down here, I could say, as it were, to either of them, ‘You are not a son of God as I am’. Not that we would rival them. Michael would say, ‘I know what a dead body is’. I can say, ‘Yes, Michael, you do, because you contended with Satan in regard to the body of Moses’. But Michael can readily say, ‘I never died like [p. 231] Moses; I was never raised but still I recognise I am a son on a different basis’. I am saying all this so that we might be practical in this matter, so that we might understand sonship, not only as an objective matter that is entered into by faith but as a practical thing. God intends it to be a practical thing, that I can point to myself at any time and say, ‘There is an evidence of my sonship’. And the great outstanding evidence eternally will be that I am a son of the resurrection. Not simply raised but I am a son of that, meaning I have acquired an understanding of that great fact. What do death and resurrection mean? Why should God go to all the pains of death and resurrection save that we should take in the idea, that we should be practical? Be practical in a thing, in this idea through education from God, like Enoch, walking with God for three hundred years. What he must have learnt from God! Amongst the things he would have learnt is the idea of death and resurrection. Enoch never died, you say; true enough, but he learnt from God nevertheless. He learnt accumulatively. He was the seventh from Adam. He came in, the seventh person in a line of educated believers. That is, whatever Adam learnt, he learnt. Whatever Abel learnt, he learnt, and Abel learnt about death. His blood was righteous blood, and his death was a righteous death, and so on down the line. Seth learnt about death, the frailty of man, dying creation, and he called his son’s name Enosh, and so all the others. Enoch came in at the end of the school. He got the benefit of all that the others had acquired because learning is accumulative in every sense. We learn how much has been discovered in all courses of learning. How much has been acquired through research! It is all a question of accumulative instruction. Enoch was the seventh from Adam, and although he did not die he had learnt the lesson of death. And so it is with ourselves before we die, we learn death,
[p. 232] learning through baptism; we are learners of it all the time. Paul says, I have so learned it, “Daily I die”, 1 Corinthians 15: 31. What a learning that was! I will tell you what I learnt last year, he would say. Three hundred and sixty-five days last year and I learnt death every day and so this year. We are not short, although we are translated without a literal death, of the knowledge of death and resurrection. Paul goes so far as to say we are raised through the faith of the operation of God who raised Christ from the dead. We learn it experimentally in that way. But the Lord is not referring to that; He is referring to the literal fact that those in that world to which the Sadducees were referring will have learnt death. They have so learnt it that they are sons of it, sons of the resurrection from among the dead. It characterises them. So they are differentiated in the most striking manner from the angels in that they have learnt death, sons of it through education.
And so we come to Matthew 5: 9, “Blessed the peacemakers”. We come now not to a resurrection condition, but a peace-making condition. We are learning war-making conditions. The world is full of them. But the Lord in Matthew is presented to us in the light of peace. Luke presents it peculiarly, too, in that way, but here it is sons of God because they are peacemakers. Now that is a word, dear brethren, for all of us, whether we are peacemakers. It is not hard to find trouble-makers. There is, alas, not one of us here without that element of trouble-making with us. There is plenty of opportunity for it. The Lord says, “Blessed the peace-makers”. Solomon is called peaceful. The name indicates that he was a man of peace, and, of course, he would make peace. The first great test put to him was the two mothers with two babes. He solved the matter being a man of peace, being a peacemaker, but his wisdom was in it. He determined who the mother of the child was.
[p. 233] When the real truth of a matter like that comes to light it takes away the foundation of the troublemakers. It is a great point in these matters of trouble to get the truth, to investigate and find out the truth. This is a most difficult problem that Solomon is faced with. He solved it. What is the truth? That woman is the mother of that child. It is incontestable; there was not a question that it was so, and peace was established. One woman loved the child and the other did not. The latter is without a child and rightly and the former has one, and the peacemaker establishes that fact. She is the mother of the child.
The Lord says a person like that gets blessing. The word ‘blessed’ is found a good many times in this chapter and amongst these is this verse 9, “Blessed the peacemakers”. They are very scarce. Our meetings, alas, are just full of trouble in a metaphorical way, there is not a meeting which is not. In a meeting like this one and the one in which I am at home, there are ten of them in New York and not one of them is without trouble. I am not making any complaints, but it is so, it is a time of trouble and the necessity for peacemakers is very, very great and very urgent and the Lord Jesus says, Blessed are they. What will they be called? The sons of God. “They shall be called sons of God”. That is a fine title. You do not ask for it. You do not register yourself as sons of God, but others do. There is no question of putting it at the end of your name as a title. It is much better to let the saints call you it. As we had this afternoon, if you say you are a christian, that is a great deal to say. Look out abroad and you may find so many million christians, but I know that is not really true. That is very misleading, a large proportion are not christians at all. It is very significant, as we had this afternoon, that the title or designation is oracular, as if God [p. 234] would say they are so. These disciples who have been educated for a whole year in the assembly are christians; God is saying it. It is a fine title. Peter says. If anyone suffers “as a christian, let him not be ashamed, but glorify God in this name”, 1 Peter 4: 15, 16. He is worthy. So that the word ‘called’ here is not quite the same word. The Lord says, “They shall be called sons of God”. Who called Jesus the Son of God? Gabriel says to Mary, “The holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God” (Luke 1: 35), not ‘the’ Son of God, but Son of God, meaning sonship became a fact in Him and it was owned. He was called Son even then, and even the centurion at the cross says, “Truly this man was Son of God”, Matthew 27: 54. Others said it too. Why did he say it? He had reason to say it. There must have been something to show it. Paul was the first one to preach it, Jesus, Son of God. So the peacemaker is called a son of God. I want to be that, to be among the peacemakers. It is a very practical thing that I am a son because I am a peacemaker, that people say that of me that I am a son of God, because I am a peacemaker. Melchisedec was a type of Jesus as Son of God. That was a great point in Hebrews. Made like the Son of God he abides a priest continually. How is he like the Son of God? One thing is he has neither father nor mother nor genealogy. He is a type of a divine Person, but certain practical things marked Melchisedec. He met Abraham. He carried in his hands bread and wine. He was no prohibitionist; neither was Jesus. He came out to bless Abraham. He was priest of the Most High God and the Spirit of God says, He was “King of righteousness, and then also King of Salem, which is King of peace”, Hebrews 7: 2. He was not only a righteous man but he was king of it. The more righteous I am, the more kingly I am in righteousness. Being King of righteousness,
[p. 235] he would enforce it. He was King of Salem, too, that is King of peace. He is not only a man who would seek to promote peace, he would command it. It is imperative that he must have peace. He had moral power enough to enforce it. There will be no movement in our meetings unless we can have peace. It is the king of righteousness first and king of peace second. So we have a man who is assimilated to the Son of God. He is like Him, righteousness first, and then peace. He abides a priest continually. His office is sure.
And then finally we have Romans 8, a familiar passage. It is a question of persons who are led by the Spirit of God. It is only a few days ago that I read a letter from a man who said he was a christian but who did not attend a certain meeting that he was invited to attend, that would have been helpful to him. He said the Spirit of God did not lead him to be there. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. I cannot blame the Holy Spirit if I do not go to a meeting. He would blame the Spirit. See how readily we get into mischief by forcing Scripture. The Spirit did not lead him to go. If there is good ground, go. If it is likely to be good for you I would ask you to go. If it is of God that you should go, then I say, Go. The truth is that if we pretend to be guided by the Spirit in these matters, we are forcing the truth; that is not so. We should be calculative. Faith measures, calculates; it puts two and two together and, as Paul says, “Assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them”, Acts 16: 10. That is the idea; do the thing by careful calculation, by dependence upon God but do not put the Spirit in the position of hindering you to do what you should do. You are slandering the Spirit of God. If you should do it, then do it. Suppose you transgress against a brother, will you wait for the Spirit to lead you to go and confess your sins to that brother? No, go and do it. We are [p. 236] told to do it. I am saying all this so as to bring out the truth of this Scripture, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. Not those who say they are sons of God. I am looking at the way they move. Verse 15 says, “For ye have not received a Spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. We have something inwardly that is a real power in the soul, and we cry, we use it. I will admit the Spirit leads in that. The first thing He does, is to acknowledge the Father. I am just going to remark that we use the hymn book in a very restrained and restricted way, restricted because of our ignorance of the hymn book. Anyone can give out a well known hymn at an appropriate time in the assembly meeting, but there are many other hymns that would fit, and if the Holy Spirit had His way and intelligence were in us the hymn book would be better used and heaven would be better repaid from it than it is. So it is as many as are led by the Spirit of God, not led by what somebody else does. He is not a copyist. One who is led by the Spirit of God is not a copyist. The Spirit of God has some place in the hymns and the Spirit of God is original; I do not say we do not follow a lead, do what others do, but I do say that a Son of God is marked by the leading of the Spirit of God, and the leading of the Spirit of God is like the Spirit; that is to say, there is variety and freshness; that is what marks us off in the assembly services as sons of God. It is practical. My point is, sonship is evidenced practically in the believer. Not what I say, because I may say many things, and there is no evidence at all but what is to be observed, what can be observed by others. One even refers to the Lord’s conversation with Peter in John 21. Peter says to the Lord, “Thou knowest that I love thee”. It is a platitude. Who would not say that? The Lord would not [p. 237] accept that. It had no force with Him. Peter repeats it, “Thou knowest”, he says, “that I love thee”. Finally, the Lord says, ‘Are you really attached to me, Peter?’ Peter says, “Lord, thou knowest”, changing the word. There are two words in that passage for that word ‘know’ in the English language. The first two replies are platitudes. Peter says the Lord knows everything. Of course, He knows everything. But He wants to know the basis of your remark. If Peter says, ‘I love Thee’, the Lord wants to know: ‘How do I know that thou lovest Me?’ Peter would say, ‘You know it divinely’. That is not good enough for the Lord. That will not do. The Lord is looking for something that His eye can discern and Peter changes the word to fit that. We can never come into conversation with the Lord Jesus but we learn something. We learn in His presence. We change our words. We cease platitudes. The assembly service is flat because of these platitudes. We want facts, the why and wherefore. And Peter says to the Lord, ‘You can look at me and see something in my eye, or a gesture perhaps, and You know that I love You because of what You see in me’. The Lord says, ‘You have learnt your lesson. You know now to say, You know I love you by something You can see in me. Do not appeal to My divinity, My intuitive knowledge of everything. Tell Me what there is about you that shows Me you love Me’. The Scriptures do not say the Lord was satisfied, but the matter is finished and the sequence shows it was a finished matter with Peter for his services were so fresh and acceptable. I am speaking about being practical in this matter of sonship. There is something about him that we can see, and say he has the character of a son of God. May God bless the word.