It has often been noticed that the Apostle John uses for that expression
'the sons of God,' another word from that which his brother Paul uses.
John's phrase would perhaps be a little more accurately translated
'children of God,' whilst Paul, on the other hand, very seldom says
'children,' but almost always says 'sons.' Of course the children are
sons and the sons are children, but still, the slight distinction of
phrase is characteristic of the men, and of the different points of view
from which they speak about the same thing. John's word lays stress on
the children's kindred nature with their father and on their immature
condition.
But without dwelling on that, let us consider this great gift and
dignity of being children of God, which is the object that God has in
view in all the lavish bestowment of His goodness upon us.
That end is not reached by God's making us men. Over and above that He
has to send this great gift of His love, in order that the men whom He
has made may become His sons. If you take the context here you will see
very clearly that the writer draws a broad distinction between 'the sons
of God' and 'the world' of men who do not comprehend them, and so far
from being themselves sons, do not even know God's sons when they see
them. And there is a deeper and solemner word still in the context. John
thinks that men (within the range of light and revelation, at all
events) are divided into two families--'the children of God and the
children of the devil.' There _are_ two families amongst men.
Thank God, the prodigal son in his rags amongst the swine, and lying by
the swine-troughs in his filth and his husks, and his fever, _is_ a son!
No doubt about that! He has these three elements and marks of sonship
that no man ever gets rid of: he is of a divine origin, he has a divine
likeness in that he has got mind and will and spirit, and he is the
object of a divine love.
The doctrine of the New Testament about the Fatherhood of God and the
sonship of man does not in the slightest degree interfere with these
three great truths, that all men, though the features of the common
humanity may be almost battered out of recognition in them, are all
children of God because He made them; that they are children of God
because still there lives in them something of the likeness of the
creative Father; and, blessed be His name! that they are all children of
God because He loves and provides and cares for every one of them.
All that is blessedly and eternally true; but it is also true that there
is a higher relation than that to which the name 'children of God' is
more accurately given, and to which in the New Testament that name is
confined. If you ask what that relation is, let me quote to you three
passages in this Epistle which will answer the question. 'Whoever
believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God,' that is the first;
'Every one that doeth righteousness is born of God,' that is the second;
'Every one that loveth is born of God,' that is the third. Or to put
them all into one expression which holds them all, in the great words of
his prologue in the first chapter of John's Gospel you find this: 'To as
many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God.'
Believing in Christ with loving trust produces, and doing righteousness
and loving the brethren, as the result of that belief, prove the fact of
sonship in its highest and its truest sense.
What is implied in that great word by which the Almighty gives us a name
and a place as of sons and daughters? Clearly, first, a communicated
life, therefore, second, a kindred nature which shall be 'pure as He is
pure,' and, third, growth to full maturity.
This sonship, which is no mere empty name, is the aim and purpose of
God's dealings, of all the revelation of His love, and most especially
of the great gift of His love in Christ. Has that purpose been
accomplished in you? Have you ever looked at that great gift of love
that God has given you on purpose to make you His child? If you have,
has it made you one? Are you trusting to Jesus Christ, whom God has sent
forth that we might receive the standing of sons in Him? Are you a child
of God because a brother of that Saviour? Have you received the gift of
a divine life through Him? My friend, remember the grim alternative! A
child of God or a child of the devil! Bitter words, narrow words,
uncharitable words--as people call them! And I believe, and therefore I
am bound to say it, _true_ words, which it concerns _you_ to lay to
heart.
III. Now, still further, let me ask you to look at the glad recognition
of this sonship by the child's heart.
I have already referred to the clause added in the Revised Version, 'and
such we are.' As I said, it is a kind of 'aside,' in which John adds the
Amen for himself and for his poor brothers and sisters toiling and
moiling obscure among the crowds of Ephesus, to the great truth. He
asserts his and their glad consciousness of the reality of the fact of
their sonship, which they know to be no empty title. He asserts, too,
the present possession of that sonship, realising it as a fact, amid all
the commonplace vulgarities and carking cares and petty aims of life's
little day. 'Such we are' is the 'Here am I, Father,' of the child
answering the Father's call, 'My Son.'
He turns doctrine into experience. He is not content with merely having
the thought in his creed, but his heart clasps it, and his whole nature
responds to the great truth. I ask you, do you do that? Do not be
content with hearing the truth, or even with assenting to it, and
believing it in your understandings. The truth is nothing to you, unless
you have made it your very own by faith. Do not be satisfied with the
orthodox confession. Unless it has touched your heart and made your
whole soul thrill with thankful gladness and quiet triumph, it is
nothing to you. The mere belief of thirty-nine or thirty-nine thousand
Articles is nothing; but when a man has a true heart-faith in Him, whom
all articles are meant to make us know and love, then dogma becomes
life, and the doctrine feeds the soul. Does it do so with you, my
brother? Can _you_ say, 'And such we are?'
Take another lesson. The Apostle was not afraid to say 'I know that I am
a child of God.' There are many very good people, whose tremulous,
timorous lips have never ventured to say 'I know.' They will say, 'Well,
I hope,' or sometimes, as if that was not uncertain enough, they will
put in an adverb or two, and say, 'I humbly hope that I am.' It is a far
robuster kind of Christianity, a far truer one, ay, and a humbler one
too, that throws all considerations of my own character and merits, and
all the rest of that rubbish, clean behind me, and when God says, 'My
son!' says 'My Father;' and when God calls us His children, leaps up and
gladly answers, 'And we are!' Do not be afraid of being too confident,
if your confidence is built on God, and not on yourselves; but be afraid
of being too diffident, and be afraid of having a great deal of
self-righteousness masquerading under the guise of such a profound
consciousness of your own unworthiness that you dare not call yourself a
child of God. It is not a question of worthiness or unworthiness. It is
a question, in the first place, and mainly, of the truth of Christ's
promise and the sufficiency of Christ's Cross; and in a very subordinate
degree of anything belonging to you.
IV. We have here, finally, the loving and devout gaze upon this
wonderful love. 'Behold,' at the beginning of my text, is not the mere
exclamation which you often find both in the Old and in the New
Testaments, which is simply intended to emphasise the importance of what
follows, but it is a distinct command to do the thing, to look, and ever
to look, and to look again, and live in the habitual and devout
contemplation of that infinite and wondrous love of God.
I have but two remarks to make about that, and the one is this, that
such a habit of devout and thankful meditation upon the love of God, as
manifested in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the consequent gift of
the Divine Spirit, joined with the humble, thankful conviction that I am
a child of God thereby, lies at the foundation of all vigorous and happy
Christian life. How can a thing which you do not touch with your hands
and see with your eyes produce any effect upon you, unless you think
about it? How can a religion which can only influence through thought
and emotion do anything in you, or for you, unless you occupy your
thoughts and your feelings with it? It is sheer nonsense to suppose it
possible. Things which do not appeal to sense are real to us, and indeed
we may say, _are_ at all for us, only as we think about them. If you had
a dear friend in Australia, and never thought about him, he would even
cease to be dear, and it would be all one to you as if he were dead. If
he were really dear to you, you _would_ think about him. We may say
(though, of course, there are other ways of looking at the matter) that,
in a very intelligible sense, the degree in which we think about Christ,
and in Him behold the love of God, is a fairly accurate measure of our
Christianity.
Now will you apply that sharp test to yesterday, and the day before, and
the day before that, and decide how much of your life was pagan, and how
much of it was Christian? You will never make anything of your professed
Christianity, you will never get a drop of happiness or any kind of good
out of it; it will neither be a strength nor a joy nor a defence to you
unless you make it your habitual occupation to 'behold the manner of
love'; and look and look and look until it warms and fills your heart.
The second remark is that we cannot keep that great sight before the eye
of our minds without effort. You will have very resolutely to look away
from something else if, amid all the dazzling gauds of earth, you are to
see the far-off lustre of that heavenly love. Just as timorous people in
a thunder-storm will light a candle that they may not see the lightning,
so many Christians have their hearts filled with the twinkling light of
some miserable tapers of earthly care and pursuits, which, though they
be dim and smoky, are bright enough to make it hard to see the silent
depths of Heaven, though it blaze with a myriad stars. If you hold a
sixpence close enough up to the pupil of your eye, it will keep you from
seeing the sun. And if you hold the world close to mind and heart, as
many of you do, you will only see, round the rim of it, the least tiny
ring of the overlapping love of God. What the world lets you see you
will see, and the world will take care that it will let you see very
little--not enough to do you any good, not enough to deliver you from
its chains. Wrench yourselves away, my brethren, from the absorbing
contemplation of Birmingham jewellery and paste, and look at the true
riches. If you have ever had some glimpses of that wondrous love, and
have ever been drawn by it to cry, 'Abba, Father,' do not let the
trifles which belong not to your true inheritance fill your thoughts,
but renew the vision, and by determined turning away of your eyes from
beholding vanity, look off from the things that are seen, that you may
gaze upon the things that are not seen, and chiefest among them, upon
the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If you have never looked on that love, I beseech you now to turn aside
and see this great sight. Do not let that brightness burn unnoticed
while your eyes are fixed on the ground, like the gaze of men absorbed
in gold digging, while a glorious sunshine is flushing the eastern sky.
Look to the unspeakable, incomparable, immeasurable love of God, in
giving up His Son to death for us all. Look and be saved. Look and live.
'Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on you,' and,
beholding, you will become the sons and daughters of the Lord God
Almighty.