But we behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He should taste death for every man.
For it became Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
For both He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying,
“I will declare Thy name unto My brethren,
In the midst of the congregation will I sing Thy praise.”
And again, “I will put My trust in Him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children whom God hath given Me.”
Dear Heavenly Father, we do praise and thank Thee for the precious blood of Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that gives us boldness to enter into the holiest of all, that we may stand before Thee knowing that we are accepted in the Beloved.
Now, Heavenly Father, we do ask that by Thy Holy Spirit Thou wilt quicken Thy Word to us and open our hearts to Thy Word, that Thy words may truly be life and spirit to us, that Thou mayest be glorified. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.
Some of you may have just come this weekend, and if you were there at the beginning of the week, I hope you still remember what we are going to consider together before the Lord.
I feel that the Lord has given me a burden to share with you, dear brothers and sisters, on this matter of sonship. We live at the very last of the last days. We live in a very critical, important time, and I do believe that it is vital for us to know what is the eternal purpose of God.
Because if we do not know what God’s eternal purpose is, we may waste away the little time that God has still given us. And in order to make good use of our opportunity, I do believe that it is important for us to know what God’s purpose is, that we may cooperate and allow the Holy Spirit to work in and work out for His own glory.
What is the eternal purpose of God? What is the purpose of God, that purpose that rules over all the other purposes? Simply speaking, the purpose of God is centered upon His beloved Son.
The Father’s interest is in His Son. His love for His Son is so tremendous that it is His will to give all things to His Son, that He may be the heir of all things, that He may have the first place in all things, and that He may head up all things. Now, this is the purpose of God.
As we mentioned before, among all things that the Father gave to His Son, there is one thing that is of special interest to Him. It gives the Son great delight, and it gives the Father great satisfaction. Strangely, that gift to the Son is man.
God gives man to His Son in a very special way, because man is to be the companion to His Son and to be His helpmeet, His bride.
What God has purposed for us in His Son is sonship: that we may share His life, that we may share His responsibility, and that we may even share His glory.
This Son is the eternal Son. He is the Word.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He had all the glory that the Father had before the foundation of the world. He is the Son of the Father’s love. In Him all the counsels, the plans, and the works of God are centered. He is the meaning of all things.
He is the Son incarnate.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
And He is the exalted Son. That is why we find in the Scripture that we read at the beginning, “But we see Jesus.” I do believe this is what the Father wants us to see. He wants us to see Jesus.
We see Jesus made a little lower than the angels, and of course that speaks of His incarnation. He who was equal with God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself and took upon Himself the form of a servant, even the fashion of a man.
Being found in fashion as a man, He further humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the Father even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. We see Jesus made a little lower than the angels on account of the sufferings of death.
He tasted death for every man. Actually, in the original, it says that He tasted death for everything, not just man. He tasted death for the whole created order. And now He is crowned with glory and honor.
But that is not the end of it, because we find it continued here in Hebrews 2:10: “In bringing many sons unto glory.” It is the will of God the Father that not only His Son shall return to glory, but His Son shall bring many sons to glory.
Our Heavenly Father wants a large family. Thank God, His purpose for us is sonship.
Now, we know that man was created on the sixth day. When God began to recover the earth to make it habitable, then you find that on the sixth day He created man in His own image, according to His likeness.
Actually, when you compare the years of man with the years of the universe, you find that man is a latecomer. He was created pretty late.
You look at the universe and you begin to wonder: man was created so late, and yet God’s heart is upon man, that God should give man as a special gift to His beloved Son.
No wonder the psalmist said:
When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers,
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
That is true. Compared with the universe, man is so small, so insignificant, almost like nothing. Yet you find, strangely, that God should set His heart upon man, and the Son should have such delight. Amen.
In the same Psalm, Psalm 8, He says:
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou established strength,
Because of Thine adversaries,
That Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
I do not know if my understanding is right, but this is the way I think. The babes and sucklings here actually refer to man, because so far as the universe is concerned, man is just like a babe and suckling, because man came so late.
Yet, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, Thou hast established praise because of Thine adversaries, to still the enemy and the avenger. In other words, God will even use man to still the enemy and the avenger.
Man is not only a vessel of God, but man is also made an instrument in the hands of God. Now think: it is something beyond our understanding that God should look upon man.
Even though man was created so late, when you read Ephesians 1, you find in verse 4:
Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.
It is true that man was created so late in the universe; yet, so far as God’s purpose is concerned, you find that man was chosen. We were chosen in Christ Jesus even before the foundation of the world.
That is to say, before time began, before the universe was formed, in eternity past, where there was only God, God purposed in His heart. There God chose us in His Son, even before the foundation of the world.
Of course, this is something we do not understand. God’s election is something beyond us; it is a mystery, because we are so limited. We as human beings are limited in time and space, but we have to remember that God is infinite.
Our God has no time or space factors. He is not limited by time or space. With Him, it is always now; it is always present. So, even though we had not appeared yet, and it might have been millions of years before we appeared, God had already seen us. He had chosen us in Christ Jesus even before the foundation of the world.
This is not because of what we are, nor because of what we do, because we were not there yet and we had not done anything yet. It is because of the good pleasure of His will. That is what He likes. That is what He wants to do, and He does it.
So, dear brothers and sisters, when we really come to know the purpose of God, we have to worship Him. We have to say that it is all of Him. It is actually nothing of us. It does not depend upon us at all. It is the good pleasure of His will.
Again, you find that this is a mystery hidden throughout the ages. Nobody really knew what God was after. Even after God created man, it was still a mystery what God wanted with man. Man was a mystery.
It is a mystery that has been hidden through the ages, until we find in Ephesians 3 that now He has revealed that mystery by the Holy Spirit to the apostles and the prophets.
Now we begin to know and understand what is God’s purpose concerning man. God’s purpose concerning man is sonship: that we may share with His Son responsibility and glory; that we may become companions of Christ individually speaking; and that we may become His helpmeet, His bride, corporately speaking. This is the purpose of God.
Of all the things that God created, nothing can become the companion of Christ. Nothing can be the helpmeet of God’s Son—not the angels.
Sometimes we think so highly of the angels. In a sense, so far as the order of creation is concerned, man is made a little lower than the angels. The angels belong to a higher order. The angels are spirits; they are not like us, limited by a body.
Because we are limited by a body, we are limited by time and space. But the angels, being spirits, are much freer in a sense than we are, and they are more intelligent than we are. It is true: according to creation, we are a little lower than the angels.
But, brothers and sisters, God cannot find for His Son a companion and a helpmeet among the angels. The angels are ministering servants. They do not have the life of God. They cannot be companions to Christ or helpmeets to Christ.
And of course, all the other creatures, living or inanimate, cannot be companions, living companions, and bride to His Son.
You can already see the picture in Genesis. When God created Adam, that is only a picture, a type. After Adam was created, God said, “It is not good for him to be alone. I will make him a helpmeet.”
Then God began to lead all the animals that He had created to Adam. This was not just for the purpose that Adam might name these creatures. Adam was so intelligent—he had never been to school—and yet, when all these animals were led to him, he just looked at each animal and gave it a name.
When he saw an elephant, well, he said, “This is an elephant.” Our brother used to like to name a hippopotamus. I do not know. When you see that, well, that is it.
Whatever name was given by Adam, that was the name. But this was not just for naming the animals. The reason God brought all these animals before Adam was to see if Adam could find his helpmeet, his life.
But there was nothing just like him. An elephant is not like a man—not even a monkey. There was nothing of his life; therefore, nothing could be his helpmeet.
For this reason, God put Adam to sleep, opened his side, took out something—perhaps a rib—and with that something He built a woman.
Man was created when God used the red earth and formed the body of a man. Then God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of man, and man became a living soul.
But Eve was made differently. She was made out of the side of Adam. The Bible uses that wonderful word: with the rib, or the something taken out of the man, God built a woman. The word built is an architectural term. You build something, and He built that woman.
When Adam saw that woman, he said:
This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh.
They became one because they were one.
Now, this is only a picture. But the reality is that, as God created all things—the heavens and the earth, and all creatures—it seems God said, “It is not good for My Son to be alone. I want to give Him a companion, a helpmeet.”
Of course, the companion, that helpmeet, must be of His life and must be like Him. Look at angels—no, they are not like Him. Look at all the creatures—no, they are not like Him. Not the heavens, nor the earth, nor all the things in the heavens and earth, or underneath the earth.
And God created man. God created man in His own image, according to His likeness. Why? Because when God created man, He created man in such a fashion that He gave man a capacity for God.
He gave man a capacity to receive the life of God into him. With that life in him, he may be like Him and become His life companion.
But when man was first created, so far as man’s moral or spiritual situation was concerned, man was neutral.
Man was created with a body. This body is made of red earth, and that is the reason man was called Adam. Adam means red earth.
Through this body, there is a kind of affinity with the earth and with the things around us. Through our five senses, we are able to communicate; we are able to be in touch with the things around us. So, with this body, we have world-consciousness. We are conscious of the things around us.
When God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of man, someone points out that in the original, the word life is plural, not singular. God breathed into man the breath of lives.
Probably, that means that when that breath came into man, it gave him not only a spirit, but also a corporeal life, an animated human life. But anyway, you find that the breath that entered into man became the spirit of man.
Man has a spirit. God is Spirit.
God is Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
You cannot worship God just with your body. Of course, when you worship, your body may accompany it, but you cannot worship God with the body, because God is Spirit. You cannot touch God with your body.
We remember some years ago some Russian astronauts went to outer space. They came back and said, “We looked around, and we did not see God; therefore there is no God.” Now, that is ridiculous, because you cannot see God with your eyes. He is not a body; He is Spirit.
So man was created with a spirit, and with the spirit we can be in touch with God. We can communicate with God. It gives us God-consciousness. It gives us a consciousness of the spiritual world.
Then, when the spirit touched the body, man became a living soul. That is what man really is: a soul, a living soul. This living soul is where our personality is.
“I know I am,” as the Greek philosopher said, “because I think.” That gives you self-consciousness. You are conscious of yourself through your emotion, through your volition, and through your intellect.
So you find man was created in a marvelous way. Man was created with a capacity for God, in His image, to receive God’s life into him and to be united with God.
But when man was first created and put in the Garden of Eden, actually he was neutral. Why? Because what he was created with was a human life, but he had not received the life of God yet.
He had the capacity, but he had not received the life of God in him yet. That is the reason, I believe, why God put him in the garden before two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The tree of life speaks of the life of God in a form that can be taken in. That is to say, God said, “Now I have created you with the capacity to take Me in and be united with Me, that you may live by My life.”
“You may become companions to My Son, a helpmeet to My Son, if you choose it. But at the same time,” God said, “there is another tree: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Now, brothers and sisters, do not think the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is an evil tree. It is not an evil tree, because if it were an evil tree, God would not have put it in the Garden of Eden.
Actually, it is a tree above all the other trees but under one tree, the tree of life. It is the better, but not the best.
All the trees in the garden were good for food—that is, for our body. Man ate fruits in the beginning, and God provided for our physical needs. God said that man could eat all the fruit of the trees in the garden.
What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is ethical knowledge. That is to say, you can distinguish what is good and what is evil.
I think there is no knowledge on earth, aside from the life of God, that is greater than the knowledge of good and evil. We may think scientific knowledge and technological knowledge are tremendous, but you must remember that these only deal with physical things.
But that moral sense that distinguishes what is good and evil has something to do with our very being. It is a higher knowledge. There is no knowledge higher on earth than this kind of knowledge.
Even though it is a thing to be desired, there is a much better thing God offered to us. In other words, God offers His life to us.
God said, “If you have My life, then you will arrive at the very purpose for which I created you. You will be able to arrive at sonship. But you have to make the choice. I am not going to force you into something.”
Brothers and sisters, if you have a choice, and one is good and one is really bad, I do not think there is much hesitation. You know what to choose. But when you have the best and the better, then you really have to make the choice. That is what God put before man.
If man eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, yes, he will be able to know what is good and what is evil. In other words, he does not need to go to God and ask God, “What is it? Is it good or is it evil?” He does not need to depend on God anymore. He becomes independent.
His soul is developed to such an extent that he becomes a god to himself.
What God tries to say is: “Do you want to choose Me? Depend on Me. Live by Me. Fulfill the purpose for which you were created. Or do you want to develop your own soul-life and become independent of Me, as if you do not need Me and can live by yourself? If you do, you will die.”
That is the reason why God said, “Of all the trees you may eat, except this one.” Because without the life of God, the knowledge of good and evil can only condemn us. It can never justify us.
I believe we all have this experience: it is better that you do not know. If you know, you are finished. That is how it is.
It is God’s love that forbade man to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is not that God wanted to keep man in darkness—not at all. The very life of the Lord Himself is knowledge.
To know Him, and to know the One whom He has sent, this is eternal life. In other words, eternal life is a living knowledge, a knowledge of God, and that is the highest knowledge.
Unfortunately, our forefather Adam and Eve chose to be independent. They rejected God’s life. They wanted to live their own life by their own strength. They wanted to develop themselves.
They fell into the temptation of Satan: “Then you will be like God.” Actually, they became like the devil.
Man died. Their spirit died on that very day that they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Even though their soul and body continued on for hundreds of years, their spirit was dead. In other words, their communication with God was completely cut off.
Is that not true? Today, you may find a person who is very clever, who knows almost everything under the earth, but when you begin to talk about God, it is black. No communication. It is completely dead.
Dead first in the spirit, then gradually it arrived at the soul, and finally it ended up in the body. Man became flesh.
Man was driven out of the Garden of Eden. But, dear brothers and sisters, thank God: God did not give up. What He has purposed, He will bring to pass. What He has said, He will complete.
Even though man, by his own will, chose to live outside of God and to live in darkness and death, thank God for His mercy. He did not give man up. He still pursues man.
How do we know? Because we find three thousand years later, when David wrote Psalm 8, he said, “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? What is man, that Thou shouldest regard him?”
What is that? You still think about him. You are still concerned with him. You are still interested in him. Throughout the ages, God is still after man. He is still after man to make man the companion, the helpmeet, of His beloved Son.
Where did He find man? We find in the Old Testament, here and there, God apprehended a person such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. God apprehended here and there one or two.
God even apprehended a nation. He adopted a nation, the nation of Israel, for sonship. But we find that even so, no one and no nation arrived at such a reality.
Not until, at the fullness of time, God sent His Son into this world, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem us from the law, that we might receive sonship.
Dear brothers and sisters, when the Lord Jesus came upon this earth, God said, “Behold, My Son. Behold the Man. The Man that I have been after—here is the Man. The Son Himself is the Man.”
It is through the Son that we are redeemed from the curse of the law. Dear brothers and sisters, we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, whoever you may be.
You are under the curse of the law. The law curses you. Why? Because you have broken the law. You have broken the law of God in the universe, and the wages of sin is death.
Not only will your body one day deteriorate and corrupt, but there will be a second death, and death means judgment.
Thank God, God sent His beloved Son into this world. He came to find His bride. He could not find her anywhere else. He had to build His helpmeet.
He will redeem us. Redeem means that He will buy us back. He will pay the price that we should pay and could not. But He paid the price. He died on Calvary’s cross. He shed His blood for the remission of our sins.
He brings us back. He purchases us back to God. He delivers us from the curse of the law. And that is not all: He gives us sonship, that we may receive sonship.
Brothers and sisters, in John 1:12–13 it is said:
But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name:
Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
After the coming of our Lord Jesus to this earth, after He died on the cross and finished the work of redemption, as many as believe in Him—as many, and of course that includes whoever believes—as many as believe in Him, to them He gives the right to become children of God.
Here you find that we who believe in the Lord Jesus, we who have received Him into us—this receiving and believing tells us it is not something merely mental. It is not that mentally we give consent to it. No, it is receiving Him. It is believing Him, receiving Him into us, believing into Him.
This is that we may be united with Him. When you believe in the Lord Jesus, when you receive Him, actually He comes into you and you enter into Him. You are made one, united with Him.
When you are united with Him, He gives you the right. Now, here is the right: you have a right. He gives you the right to be children of God.
As children, we have rights toward our parents. A boy or a girl on the street cannot run up to someone and say, “Feed me. Clothe me. Shelter me.” They have no right because they are not children.
But your own children have the right, because you gave birth to them. You owe them something. They have the right to demand shelter, food, and clothing.
The word right is a strong word. Actually, it means authority, claim. They have a rightful claim upon the parents.
Dear brothers and sisters, think of that. When you receive Christ and believe in Him, you become children of God, and you have a right upon God because He is your Father.
You are not born of blood—that is, natural birth. You are not born of the will of the flesh—that is, your own will. You cannot will yourself to be born. You are not born of the will of man. Nobody else can will you to be born again. You are born of God.
We are born into the family of God.
The word adoption is a strange word. I was told that among Jewish families in the old days there was adoption. For instance, Mordecai adopted Esther. There was adoption in the Jewish family.
But in the Jewish family, they adopted only people of their own families—perhaps from an uncle, perhaps from an aunt. They did not adopt strangers.
In modern days, of course, in this country perhaps, adoption means you adopt a stranger. You adopt a baby who has nothing to do with your family relationship. You adopt a stranger into the family and raise him as one of your children.
But in the biblical sense, adoption is adopting a stranger, no doubt about that. We were strangers so far as God’s covenant is concerned, so far as God’s life is concerned. We were completely strangers.
Think of that. We were sinners. We were rebels. We were enemies of God. We were sons of wrath. We were complete strangers to the promise of God and to the covenant of God.
Yet God, in His mercy, adopted strangers into His family. But the wonderful thing is that when He adopts us as strangers, He begets us.
He does not just adopt someone into the family without life, but He actually begets us. He takes us in and gives birth to us. We are now born of God.
So our adoption is a little bit different. We are born into the family of God—strangers born into the family of God.
No wonder the apostle John said in 1 John 3:1:
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God.
Is that not an amazing thing? It is truly amazing love. See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. We are not just called children of God, but we are the children of God. Every believer is a child of God by birth.
Are you born into the family of God? That is the only way to be adopted. If you are not born into the family of God, then you do not belong to God’s family.
But you are born. He that is born of the Spirit is spirit. It is the work of God—marvelous.
But what God really is after is not merely children. What He really is after is sons.
The Holy Spirit is very careful in using words. He does not mix up words. In our translations of the Bible, you find the translators sometimes mix up words that the Holy Spirit never does.
As our brother mentioned last night, so far as the original words for child are concerned, there are different Greek words used to represent a child. I think there are three words that I will especially mention, and our brother mentioned two of them already.
One word is teknon. It means to beget or to bear. That is the word used in John 1:12: “As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God.” The word there is teknon, which means children.
There is another word, huios. It means son. You find that in Romans 8:14:
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Led by the Spirit of God. Not all children are led by the Spirit of God. You have the Spirit of adoption, you have the Spirit of God, but are you led by the Spirit of God? There is a condition there.
You are born to be a child of God, but only when you are led by the Spirit of God do you become sons of God. So teknon gives you the fact of birth, but huios emphasizes the dignity and the character of that life.
Then there is another word, nēpios. This is the word that you find, for example, in 1 Corinthians 3.
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ.
Babes in Christ. The word simply means, literally, without the power of speech. It is an infant, a baby. You also find that, of course, in Galatians 4 and Ephesians 4. A baby is tossed around by every wind and so forth.
These three are important words concerning a child. When we believe in the Lord Jesus, we become children of God, and thank God for that. But when you are newly born, you are a baby in Christ.
Everybody loves a baby. Babies are beautiful. I have never seen a baby that is ugly, especially in the eyes of the parents.
But if the child remains a baby, that is the most ugly thing to watch. Even though babies are beautiful, the longing of the parents for the baby is that the baby may grow up into manhood and womanhood. That is the expectation of the parents, and that should also be the desire of the baby.
Spiritually, this is the same thing. We are born into the family of God. We are God’s children, and we begin as babes.
In 1 Corinthians 3:1, Paul says:
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ.
Actually, the word carnal, if you want to make it more correct, is fleshy. Because when you are a baby, you are very fleshy. Babies are fleshy because when they want to cry at midnight, they do not care who you are.
They are very self-centered, very fleshy. As babes, you are like that, and there is nothing wrong with that. Even in the spiritual realm, when a brother or sister is newly born into the family of God, they exhibit some fleshy situations. Even though it is fleshy, it is beautiful.
But for a grown-up to do such things, no one can endorse it or stand it. Is that right? For a baby, it is all right; it is natural. For a baby to be like an eighty-year-old person, that is not right. That is not normal. A baby is a baby. He will be fleshy for a while, and we tolerate it; we even love it.
But how is it that you have been fleshy long enough, and you are still fleshly? You still do not grow. No, that is ugly, because it is the will of God that we arrive at sonship.
Dear brothers and sisters, God wants sons, not just babies. God does not want to open a nursery. He wants sons. We have to grow into sonship.
We are told that in the ancient world the process from childhood to adulthood was very distinctive.
In the Jewish world, when a boy passed his twelfth birthday, on the first Sabbath after it, the father took the boy to the synagogue, where he became a son of the law.
At that time the father would utter a benediction. He said, “Blessed be Thou, O God, who hast taken from us the responsibility of this boy.”
In other words, the father took responsibility for this child before God until he was twelve years of age. Then that child had to be responsible to God by himself.
Then the boy would pray a prayer in which he said:
O my God and God of my fathers, on this solemn and sacred day, which marks my passage from boyhood to manhood, I humbly raise my eyes unto Thee, and declare with sincerity and truth that henceforth I will keep Thy commandments and undertake and bear the responsibility of mine actions towards Thee.
The boy took up responsibility before God because he was now a man.
We are also told that in Greece, a boy would be under the father’s care from seven years old until he was eighteen. Then the father would turn over the boy to the state to be trained by the state for two years, like a cadet, to be trained for two years.
In the Roman world, they did not fix the date for a child to become an adult. That date was flexible. In other words, it depended on the father.
When the father saw that the child had grown to maturity, then the father would fix the date to declare him as an adult. There was no fixed date for it, but usually it was between the ages of fourteen and seventeen.
As our brother mentioned last night, when the father fixed the date, there would be a sacred festival in the family called the liberalia.
The father would take from the boy the garment that he wore. The garment a Roman boy wore was a toga, but the toga had a purple border at the bottom to show that he was still a minor boy.
The father would take from the boy that toga, called the toga praetexta, and take it off. Then he would put upon him the garment of an adult. It was the same toga, but without the purple line at the bottom.
Then he would be conducted to the Forum by his friends and relatives and formally introduced to public life.
In other words, there comes a time when you grow into adulthood. When you grow into adulthood, you begin to take responsibility.
That is the day every parent is looking forward to, and that is the day that a child is expecting with eagerness. One day, that child, that infant, has grown to a certain degree that he becomes a man or a woman.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is what God is really after.
In Christ Jesus, He has chosen us before the foundation of the world. In the fullness of time, God sent His Son into this world to redeem us out of the curse of the law, that we may receive sonship.
When we receive the Lord Jesus and believe in Him, we become children of God, and we have rights. We cry, “Abba, Father.” But we are still infants. We need to grow.
It is the will of our Father that we grow. As we grow into His likeness, as we become transformed and conformed to the image of God’s beloved Son, then the Father will say, “This is the day that I will place you as sons.”
You can share not only the glory of My Son, but also His responsibility.
Brothers and sisters, are you looking forward to it? The Father is looking forward to it. The Son is looking forward to it. He wants to lead many sons into glory. Are you looking forward to it?
Even the whole creation is looking forward to it, because in Romans 8 we are told that the whole creation today is under bondage to corruption and vanity, looking forward to the manifestation of the sons of God. Then they will be delivered.
Finally, a word of caution. We find in Christianity today a teaching called the manifested sons of God.
There is much truth in it. But as with all heresy, there is always some truth in it. When truth is overextended beyond its boundary, it becomes heresy. This is the same thing with the teaching of the manifested sons of God.
It is true that God wants sons, and one day the sons of God will be manifested. But let us remember: we are sons of God by grace, not sons of God by nature.
There is a vast chasm between God, the beloved Son, and we as sons of God. Thank God we receive the life of God’s Son. Thank God that the nature of the Son’s life within us is developed until we begin to bear the character of the Son of God, that He may be the firstborn among many brethren. Thank God for that.
But remember: you are never deified.
The teaching of the manifested sons of God is such that we may be sons of God just like Christ is God’s Son. In other words, they deify man.
Remember: God shares His life with us, but He does not share His deity with us.
There is a great difference between deity and divinity. Deity speaks of the absolute Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—none else, eternally the same, far above all.
Divinity is the manifestation of the attributes of God. So divinity is manifested in all nature. You find in Romans 1 that by the things that God created, we can know His power and divinity, because God’s divinity, His attributes, is manifested in everything that He creates.
There is divinity in us too, but there is no deity. Deity—the Godhead—is all alone. We are not deified.
Now, it is true that people sometimes say, “Does not the Bible say, ‘Ye are gods’?” That does not mean that we are deified—not at all.
Because if you look at Psalm 82, you find that God stands in the assembly of God; He judges among the gods.
I said, Ye are gods,
And all of you are sons of the Most High.
Nevertheless ye shall die like men,
And fall like one of the princes.
Strictly speaking, the gods here refer to angels, because it says, “Ye shall die like men.” If they are men, how can they die like men? Of course they die like men. It makes no sense.
So, strictly speaking, Psalm 82 refers to angels. Angels are sometimes called gods. The angels are called sons of God.
You remember Job 38:7: when God laid the foundation of the earth, the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy. Morning stars and sons of God both refer to angels because they were created first. They are like morning stars, and they are sons of God because they were created by God—not by birth, but by creation.
The same thing is true here. They are called gods, but they are not God in deity. No, they are called gods because God has given them authority and position to judge. It is in that sense.
Our Lord Jesus referred to this in John 10. When the Lord Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” they wanted to stone Him because they thought that He blasphemed.
Then the Lord said in John 10:34–36:
Is it not written in your law, “I said, Ye are gods”?
If He called them gods, unto whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—
Say ye of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, “Thou blasphemest,” because I said, “I am the Son of God”?
Here you find the Lord applied this to men. But in what sense? He explained it. He said, “Ye are gods,” if He called them gods to whom the Word of God came.
In other words, men are called gods because they have the Word of God, not because they are God eternally—not at all. It is because they have the Word of God.
If those who have the Word of God are called gods, then for the Son of God, who is the eternal Son of God, to call Himself the Son of God, of course it is right.
It does not mean that we are on the same level as Christ, the Son of God.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we must remember this. Thank God for the high privilege, for the grace, honor, and glory that He has bestowed upon us. It is not because of us; it is all because of Him and of His Son. It is all the doing of the beloved Son. It is in Christ Jesus.
But do not let it get into your mind to think that now you are equal with the Son of God. That is satanic. That is where the archangel fell and became Satan, the adversary, because he wanted to be equal with God.
Dear brothers and sisters, when we receive such mercy from God, it should humble us instead of making us arrogant and proud.
Dear Heavenly Father, we just bow before Thee. We do not understand that Thou canst love us so much in Christ Jesus, that Christ should love us so much in coming to this world and dying on the cross for us.
Oh, how we praise and thank Thee, Father, that Thou hast given us to Thy Son. How we praise and thank Thee, our Lord Jesus, that Thou shouldest desire us to be Thy companions, Thy helpmeet.
Our Father, we do acknowledge that there is so much in us that cannot meet with Thy glory—so much rubbishness, so much of ourselves, so much unlike Thy Son.
Oh, our Father, we just desire to put ourselves under Thy light, under Thy Spirit. Oh, that Thy Spirit will work in us, transform us, conform us to the image of Thy beloved Son.
It is not for ourselves. It is for Thy Son, and it is for Thee, our Father. Hear our cry, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.