Are You a Child of God?

The question that makes up the title of this blog is all-important for each man and woman to answer. There’s a sense in which we can all say “yes” to it in that we are all created by God. And certainly each human life has great value since God made him or her and planted His image in them (even the unborn human life, just sayin’). But that is not the sense used in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. There are those who are truly God’s children and it does not have to do with physical descent or even religious affiliation. It is spiritual. This series of blogs has been especially dealing with the themes in the writings of the apostle John, and no other biblical writer took this theme as far as John did, because that’s how he heard it from Christ’s own lips. Let’s walk through it together in these next few paragraphs.

Several passages in the Old Testament depict God as a Father to His children, Israel. Deuteronomy 14:1-2 tells us that God chose the nation of Israel, “the sons of the Lord your God”, the descendants of Abraham, to be a holy nation and God’s very own treasured possession. Later, in Moses’ song in chapter 32, he reviews Israel’s rebellion before God and asks them, in effect, “Hasn’t God been a Father to you and yet you repay Him like this?” (v. 6). Moses prophesies that they will not be faithful children (v. 20), and indeed, history unfolds with the struggle of Israel (Israel means “struggles with God”) to maintain a relationship with her Father. And as their Father, God disciplined His children (Proverbs 3:11-12). God’s love was so great for His children, He would never give up on them. Hosea chapter 11 is one of the most touching pictures in the Old Testament of the Father-son relationship between God and Israel and His undying love for such a wayward children.

As we move into the New Testament, we marvel as God sends His one and only Son to earth as the climax to His redemptive plan. Jesus is the faithful Son that Israel could never be, but it would be the sacrifice of this Son that would bring together the family that God always desired. Some shocking statements are made by both John the Baptist and Jesus that just because someone has a Jewish lineage through Abraham, it does not make them God’s children (See Matthew 3:9 and 8:11-12). In John 8:31-59, Jesus’ heated debate with an antagonistic Jewish crowd finally revealed that if they were really Abraham’s offspring they would listen to Jesus and be glad for His presence among them. But Jesus claims that their father is actually the devil who was a murderer and liar from the beginning, and their father’s family values were beginning to show with them.

So how does one become a child of God? The apostle Paul addresses it in Romans by noting that Abraham was credited with righteousness before there was a law to follow and before he carried the sign of the covenant in circumcision. It was faith that brought him to God and that pleased God. And in Romans 4:16, Paul says that Abraham’s offspring are those who come to God by faith in Christ and not by their own heritage or merit. In chapter 8 he shares the delightful news that when the Spirit makes us alive in Christ by faith we become adopted sons and daughters and co-heirs with Christ (see 8:15-17)! This is reinforced in another of Paul’s letters to the Ephesians in chapter 1 and verse 5, saying there that God’s plan for adoption was in place before the foundation of the world.

It would be hard to believe that any apostle would take it farther than that, but John does. In his Gospel, he states right at the beginning that in receiving Christ and believing on His name we are given the right to be called children of God (verse 12). The following verse makes it clear that this right comes not from any natural human effort or connection, but we are supernaturally born of God. Jesus confirms this in His talk with Nicodemus in John 3. In verses 3-8, the teacher of the law is shocked to hear Jesus speaking about being “born again”, not in a fleshly sense, but by the Spirit, in the unseen, wind-like way of the Spirit.

John writes his Gospel so people might believe in Jesus and become children of God. He writes his first letter that they might be sure that they children of God. So, in four different passages of 1 John we find him giving us the tell-tale signs of the one who is born of God: 1) That person practices righteousness (2:29-3:10). 2) That person loves like God loves (4:7-21). 3) That person believes that Jesus is the Christ and loves the Father, obeying His commands (5:1-3). 4) That person does not live a life mastered by sin, but finds protection from the evil one in Christ.

So the question remains, blog reader, are you a child of God? The child-father dynamic is first of all a relationship. There is no relationship with the Father except through the Son. If you haven’t started with faith in Christ, you’ve never started. And if there has been no movement towards God in relationship and family likeness, then there is no assurance of a real faith, regardless of your religious exploits. A sinless life in this heavily tainted environment with a heart that is still in the process of transformation is not possible. The presence of sin will one day be removed within and without, and we’ll be happy to let the door hit it on the way out. For the believer who sins thought, there is hope. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). We can still have the momentum of righteousness and be headed in the right direction, and in our conviction, devoted repentance and growing love and righteousness — by the power of the Holy Spirit — we can find the assurance that we are God’s children. And we can hear that sweet voice of God speaking to us as Charles Wesley says in his great hymn “Arise, My Soul, Arise!”:

The Father hears Him pray,

His dear anointed One;

He cannot turn away

the presence of His Son;

His Spirit answers to the blood,

His Spirit answers to the blood

And tells me I am born of God.