1. One of the conditions of adoption is that the newly chosen son
should become the legal heir of the new father. Without this legal
result or consequence adoption has no meaning. Merely to get a boy
to enter a family circle does not imply adoption, for this last
has a distinct meaning with a distinct purpose. If, then, we are
the heirs of God we are really possessed of a right to His Divine
Inheritance. Heaven has been made indeed our home. We speak of it
in our hymns as _patria_, which we can translate as the "land of
our fathers." We claim it thereby in virtue of our parentage, and
our parentage is of God. If, then, He is our Father, not by
nature, but by adoption, i. e., by grace, we are none the less His
heirs and have some sort of right over His possessions and riches.
A father cannot without leave of his adopted son alienate any of
the family heirlooms; the adopted son now, by the father's own
free act acquires, not indeed dominion over the riches of the
home, but, at any rate, an embargo on the father's free exercise
of those riches. He could even demand, as against his father, a
legal investigation into the due use and investment of them. His
signature is required for every document that relates to them. He
has become almost a part-owner of his father's possessions, since
he is their legal heir. All this is implied by adoption in its
true sense, and therefore it must be intended to apply to us when
we are spoken of as God's adopted sons.
2. I can, therefore, truthfully speak of myself as an heir of God.
Of course I cannot mean that there is any possible question of
"the death of the testator," i. e., of God. That is quite clearly
of no significance here. But adoption does give me some sort of
claim to the heritage of God. Now the law defines a heritage as
that by which a man is made rich. It includes not the riches only,
but the source of the riches, so that if I have a claim to God's
riches, I have a claim also upon the source of those riches. For
the heir is entitled not merely to a legacy, but to the whole of
the fortune. I have a right to the whole fortune of God, to the
whole universe. At once, as soon as I realize it, the whole of the
world is mine. It is the doctrine of the mystics that,
misunderstood, led astray the communists of the Middle Ages. These
claimed a common ownership of the wealth of all the world, whereas
what was intended was that we should look upon the whole world as
ours. To me, then, in life, nothing can be strange or distant or
apart. No places can there be where my mind cannot enter and roam
at will and feel itself at home; no things can be profane, no
people who are not tabernacles of God, no part of life that is not
steeped in that living presence. The only possible boundary is the
love and the grace of God. There will indeed come evil frontiers
beyond which my soul could never dwell. But all else is of God and
is therefore my right. All creation is mine; the wonder and beauty
of it, life and death, pleasure alike and pain, yield up to me
their secrets and disclose the hidden name of God.
3. Here, then, I can find that divine wealth, to inherit which has
been the purpose of the adoption by God. Wherever I turn I shall
find Him. Whether life has smooth ways or rough, whether she hangs
my path with lights or hides me in gloom, I am the heir to all
that earth or sea or sky can boast of as their possession. Indeed,
these are only the rich things of God, whereas I have a claim upon
even more. I have a claim upon the very source of this wealth,
that is, upon God Himself, for He is the sole source of all His
greatness. I have a right to God Himself. He is mine. He Who holds
in the hollow of His hands the fabric of the world, Who with His
divine power supports, and with His providence directs, the
intricate pattern of the world, has Himself by creation entered
deeply into the world; at the heart of everything He lies hid. But
even more by grace He comes in a fuller, richer way into the
depths of the soul. Here in me are Father, and Son, and Spirit.
Dear God, teach me to understand the wonder of this indwelling, to
appreciate its worth, to be thankful for its condescension, to
reverence its place of choice, to be conscious of its perpetual
upholding. By it I am an heir to the fullness of the divine
riches. By it I, a creature, possess in His fullness my Creator,
Redeemer, Lord.