CHILDREN OF GOD

J. R. Surtees

1 John 3: 1–3; Revelation 1: 5 (from “to him who loves us”), 6

When the apostle John wrote this he was quite an old man, a mature man. He had had a great deal of experience in companying with the Lord Jesus Himself, and I suppose he had seen the destruction of Jerusalem. Everything as to the church publicly was beginning to break down, and as a result he was the more earnest in writing of what remains and what is of God that remains. So he says, “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God”. That means to say that we who believe derive from God; we are called the children of God as deriving character from Him.

It involves, of course, as we have read, the coming into manhood of the Lord Jesus. Have you heard of the Lord Jesus, “who did no sin”, the scripture says, “neither was guile found in his mouth” (see 1 Peter 2: 22). He had no thoughts other than the blessing of your soul in mind.

He came here in manhood, He took upon Himself the needs of fallen man; He came into a condition in which He might die. Have you ever thought of that? Scripture says, “Jesus, who was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death” (Hebrews 2: 9)—the suffering, the feelings of it. A brother was speaking last week (it remained with me and I have thought a lot of it), about the five senses that we have, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and seeing. We can trace in the Scriptures how the Lord’s senses were all used in the way of suffering, in the way of having to do with fallen man. How He felt things, how He entered into conditions in which there was need! He was here and took a bondman’s form. It would appear that He had nothing by way of what He could call His own except the clothes in which He stood. The only things which they handed out at the time He was crucified were His garments. He had no other means here naturally. He was a bondman; He was here to serve. He was here to meet needs as they arose. He was here, dear friend, to take upon Himself the liability that is due to you and to me because we are sinners.

Do you feel at a distance from God? If God was to summon you to His presence, and ask you to give an account of yourself in four minutes’ time, would you be afraid? Would you feel able for it? The Scripture says, “each of us shall give an account concerning himself to God”

(Romans 14: 12); everyone here, however young, however small, or however mature and experienced, whatever our history, wherever we live, whatever language we speak, or anything else, it makes no difference, we shall give an account of ourselves to God. What will you say? or what will I say? There are those who will come to God at the judgment seat of Christ, and there will be nothing but blessing for them because they have trusted in the precious blood of Jesus.

They have believed on the Lord Jesus; they have accepted that the sufferings with which the Lord Jesus suffered on the cross were due to them. The catalogue of guilt of our sins, if they were listed one by one, all the deceit and the self-seeking and maybe violence, take all these things added together, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from every sin.

Now that is for those who believe. Those who do not believe will have to give an account of themselves to God in a very different manner.

The scripture that we read speaks of God bringing us into blessing that we should be called children of God. One of the things about children is that they bring out the affections of those who are parents or older; they bring out sympathy and desire towards them. Now God’s love is toward you; scripture speaks of God being propitious, or that might be favourable; God is favourable to you in the glad tidings. God has desires that you and I should be with Him according to His own thoughts. I could not be there on the basis of any accomplishment of my own, for one sin, just one sin alone, is enough to constitute me unholy and unfit eternally for the presence of God.

God has provided for our guilt in the blood of Jesus, and He has provided for our state in the water; our sinful state, the state in me that can do nothing but sin. It goes on to say, “For this reason the world knows us not, because it knew him not”. Now what does that mean? I think it means that the desire, the fulness, the richness of what is in the soul of one of those called children of God is something so much greater than what is in the world. He has something in his soul so much more far-reaching than what is in the world, and he does not get himself involved. I suppose this is no better illustrated than in the apostle himself. He says that he was “in the island called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus”, Revelation 1: 9. There he was on the island called Patmos. I suppose he was a slave, left there to work, and work hard probably as an exile, somebody who was not wanted. What happened? His banishment became the means for the Revelation to be written. He says, “I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying, What thou seest write in a book, and send to the seven assemblies”, Revelation 1: 10, 11. He became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day. He was apart from all that was proceeding in the world, he was apart from all the military arrangements, he was apart from all the money making and business, he was apart from everything like that; he was alone on Patmos when he heard the voice.

Well, it says “the world knows us not, because it knew him not “, it did not know the Lord Jesus. When Pilate remitted Him to Herod, it says, “And when Herod saw Jesus he greatly rejoiced, for he had been a long while desirous of seeing him”, Luke 23: 8. He evidently had not seen Him before. There he was in the realm over which he had jurisdiction, the responsible king in the land where the Lord Jesus had served men and persons in need in a public way for three and a half years, and the king had never seen Him before. So it says, “the world knows us not, because it knew him not”. Why was that? He had something far, far greater in His soul than to be occupied with becoming known and recognised. Indeed it says at one point, when they sought to make Him king, that the Lord Jesus “departed again to the mountain himself alone”, John 6: 15.

It goes on to say, “now are we children of God, and what we shall be has not yet ben manifested; we know that if it is manifested we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”. Have you thought about that? We do not know what we shall be like. Evidently it will be possible to recognise one another, what we are like according to the work of God, in the same way, I suppose, as they recognised Moses and Elias on the mount. But in any case we shall be like the Lord Jesus. Are you looking for this prospect? Am I looking for this? Do I have in my heart what the saints will be like? For whose pleasure is it that they will be like Christ? Well, it is for the pleasure of God. It is to be suitable for the pleasure of God, to go no more at all out.

Do you know that we have on the authority of Scripture very good reason to believe that the Lord Jesus is coming for His own? Believers will hear His voice, and furthermore it will be such a penetrating voice that those in the tombs will hear His voice, although they may have died hundreds of years ago. They may have been burned, or they may have been eaten by animals, it does not matter, those who have died will hear His voice. Now the saints who are dead in Christ shall rise. I think men fear death because of resurrection. Just recently we have been impressed regarding several whom we knew, that it has pleased God that they should pass into death; they are awaiting the resurrection of the body. These are real things; it is not a myth. Scripture says, “if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one” (1 Corinthians 15: 44); they are waiting the resurrection.

What will the saints be like? They will be like Him; no longer marked by weakness, or failure, or infirmity or anything like that; but above all without a trace of sin, all having been met and removed in the death of Christ. Every trace, every element of what is unsuitable to the eternal presence of God, who has purer eyes than to behold iniquity, will have been removed when the saints are caught up, to be with Christ. Are you ready for that? Are you waiting the call of the Lord Jesus? If He called tonight, if He called the saints out of this room to meet Him in the air would you go? Would you go or would you be left behind? It would be a very solemn matter if there was anyone here left behind, because there would not be any other opportunity. I am afraid it would be, if anyone was left behind, that the time would come when such an one would stand before the great white throne to give an account of themselves to God. Now there is opportunity to be saved, to be saved from the wrath of God. It goes on to speak of, “every one that has this hope in him purifies himself”.

So there are two things, the greatness of what God has put in the hearts of the saints according to Himself, the glory of His own work in the soul of the believer, and the practical effect of that is that the world knows him not; then the practical effect of waiting and anticipating the time of manifestation is, “every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure”. That involves the Spirit of God. God has given to us of His Spirit. The Spirit of God is given to us in order that the work of God may proceed in our souls according to His purpose. One strongly desires to be among those who purify themselves even as He is pure. It says of Moab, one of the nations that has a very doubtful origin and hindered the people of God getting into the land, that his taste was not changed in him because he had not been emptied from vessel to vessel (see Jeremiah 48: 11). We may think of discipline amongst us being severe, and we may say, Why has this happened to me?

Why cannot I just settle down? God is emptying from vessel to vessel, and that is in order that the impurities should eventually be left behind. I would like to attract each one of us with the anticipation of what we shall be. The glory that belongs to Christ of course must be unique, but then there is what we shall be made as having a glorified body, that we shall be like Him as He is. The hope of that would encourage and strengthen each of us to use the Spirit, that we may purify ourselves even as He is pure. May this be so in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Preaching at Rotherham
29 October 1995