1. Here again we have to realize that the sonship of God is no
mere metaphor, no mere name, but a deep and true fact of huge
significance: "Behold what manner of charity the Father hath
bestowed upon us that we should be called and should be the sons
of God!" (1 John 3). We become the sons of God. St. Paul very
gladly quotes the saying of a Greek poet that men are the
offspring of God, making use of a particular word which
necessarily implies that both the begetter and the begotten are of
the same nature. A sonship indeed is what Our Lord is Himself
incessantly teaching the Apostles to regard as their high
privilege, for God is not only His Father, but theirs: "Thus shalt
thou pray, Our Father." With the Gospels it is in constant use as
the view of God that Christianity came especially to teach. The
Epistles are equally insistent on the same view, for St. Paul is
perpetually calling to mind the wonderful prerogatives whereby we
cry, "Abba: Father." We are spoken of as co-heirs of Christ, as
children of God. St. John, St. Peter, and St. James repeat the
same message as the evident result of the Incarnation, for by it
we learn that God became the Son of Man, and man the son of God.
2. Yet it must also be admitted that this sonship of God, which is
the common property of all just souls, and is the result of the
indwelling of God in the soul, does not mean that we are so by
nature, but only by adoption. Now adoption, as it is practiced by
law, implies that the child to be adopted is not already the son,
that the new relationship is entered upon entirely at the free
choice of the person adopting, that the child becomes the legal
heir to the inheritance of the adopting father. It is perfectly
evident that all these conditions are fulfilled in the case of
God's adoption, for we were certainly no children of His before
His adoption of us as sons; strangers we were, estranged indeed
by the absence of grace and the high gifts of God. Naturally we
were made by Him, but had put ourselves far from Him: "You were as
sheep going astray." Then this adoption of us by God was indeed
and could only have been at His free choice, through no merits of
ours, but solely according to the deliberate action of His own
will, for "you have not chosen Me but I have chosen you." "So that
it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy." Finally, the inheritance is indeed ours by
right and title of legal inheritance. We are co-heirs with Christ,
and our human nature is lifted up to the level of God; not, of
course, that we supplant Him who is by nature the true Son of God,
but that we are taken into partnership with Him, and share in Him
the wonderful riches of God.
3. Here, then, I may learn the worth and dignity of the Christian
name. I am a true son of God, and what else matters upon earth? I
have indeed to go about my life with its vocation and all that is
entailed in it. I have to work for my living, it may be, or take
my place in the family, or lead my own solitary existence. I have
to strive to be efficient and effective in the material things of
life that fall to my share to be done. But it is this sonship of
God that alone makes any matter in the world. In our own time we
have heard a very great deal about culture and the ultimate value
of the world; but we have seen also to what evil ends so fine a
truth may lead men. True culture is not a question of scientific
attainments, or mechanical progress, or the discovery of new
inventions of destruction, or even of medical and useful sciences;
but it is the perfect and complete development of the latent
powers of the soul. True culture may indeed make use of sciences
and art; perhaps in its most complete sense science and art are
needed for the most finished culture of which man is capable; but
it is in its very essence the deepening of his truest desire, the
full stretch of his widest flights of fancy, the achievement of
his noblest ideals. What nobler ideal, or fancy, or desire, can a
man have than to be called and to be the son of God; to know that
he has been drawn into the close union of God; to feel within his
very essence the presence of God; to have personal experience as
the objects of his knowledge and love of the Father, Son, and
Spirit?