We can trace this subject from the beginning to the end of Scripture.
We can see that the desire to be in the relation of a Father to us was among the secrets of the Divine bosom—and that is a truth most precious to us.
It is disclosed to us in Abraham desiring to have a child; not satisfied that his house should be established in a servant, “this Eliezer of Damascus,” as he says (Gen. 15). The Patriarch, in that uneasiness and desire, represented I surely judge, the Divine affection.
Only let us think of the joy of such a fact—that our God had us, in purpose and in desire, before Him, as children! He would not be content to make us servants, but must have us as His family! It is a fact that gives us an interest in His heart, as other truths or facts give us an interest in His work, or in His counsels. As the Lord Jesus says of us, “I call you not servants, but friends.” So our God can say to us, I call you not servants, but children. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” His Spirit leads us not in bondage, but in adoption to liberty. (Rom. 8:1414For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. (Romans 8:14).)
Afterward, in the history of Abraham, when Isaac was weaned-that is, when he began to feed upon meat and not on milk, as one that was of sufficient age to cry “Father”—Abraham made a feast. He rejoiced in the voice of a child which now began to fill his house, in hearing that language that told him he was a father, and that his child knew himself to be a child; that the relationship was now established in its proper virtue and power between him and the child that had been given him.
What a further happy fact is this, when we can read this feast of Abraham over his weaned Isaac, as a further expression of the secrets of the Divine bosom! To think that our God and Father delights in our being before Him in the knowledge of our sonship, and in the enjoyment of that freshness and spirit of adoption, that naturally and duly belong to such a condition.
It was Abraham made the feast. He was setting forth or celebrating his own joy. It was because he was a father that his household were called to make merry—as in Luke 15. Abraham little thought of Isaac’s interest in that moment; it was the interest his own heart had in it, that his feast was made to express. (Gen. 21)
Happy, again, I say, had we but bowels to value it, beyond all measure, when we recollect that this is a disclosure of the secrets of the heart of the Lord God towards us!
Again, in patriarchal times, in the course of Jacob’s history, we find a very significant action connected with this subject. I mean in Jacob’s adoption of the children of Joseph. Here in mystery we see the heavenly Father again. For as we have already learned His desire for children, and His joy over them when walking before Him in the knowledge of their relationship, so now, in this action, we see Him receiving them unto the family, though in their own persons they had no title to be there. All hung on His own good pleasure or sovereign grace; but that grace and good pleasure reached them and adopted them, giving them the rights and privileges of the first-born. (Gen. 48)
These scenes are made most significantly and beautifully to set forth, in these manners, the desires and purposes of our God and Father towards us, that He will stand to us in this near and dear relationship, though in ourselves we have no title to it. When we have these family days and family scenes among the patriarchs, we have the subject we are now upon for a season; because, during the age of the law, the elect are at school, as it were, sent away from the family house, and put under tutors and governors. So that we will not look for that which we have been finding in the Book of Genesis, or the Book of the Fathers. But let us come to the Gospel by John, and there we find the subject revived, as afresh presented to us at the very outset. And it is in John that we might expect again to find it.
John at once shows God acting as from Himself, the world and Israel being left behind-the world because it had not known Him, and Israel because they had not received Him. All was loss and ruin, as under man’s hand, however privileged, and God must act, and He does act as from Himself (see John 1:10-1210He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. 11He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (John 1:10‑12)); and then we are at once told what follows— “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.”
This speaks for itself. It was needful that the world should be tested, and Israel likewise; but when the apostasy of both was exposed, God, all gracious as He is, had the way cleared for acting from Himself. Then it is at once and immediately declared that He sets Himself to the work of filling His house with children, adopting into His own family, making sons and not servants of every poor self-ruined sinner who will but receive Him and be willing to be debtor to Him for life and salvation.
Is not this consistent? Does not the grace that shone in the days that were before the law, revive in the days that come after the law?
And what is the education which the Lord Jesus is giving us all through John’s Gospel? It is, I will answer, the training of our hearts as children to know the Father. This is the education we are receiving there. The Son, and not the schoolmaster, is training us. Every chapter, I may say, bears its own witness to this most blessed truth. We are not disciples of the Christ that teaches us in John, if we are not learning the liberty and the affections of children.
And then, in the progress of Scripture, what have we next, as in connection with this subject? We may read the Epistle to the Galatians as an answer; for Satan had been bewitching the saints in Galatia to return to the law, and the apostle is there urgently and fervently bringing them back to the Gospel, to the grace and power of the relationship in which faith had put them. They were bringing back Hagar to the house.
He tells them that we are all “the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” He travails in birth again with them till Christ be formed in them—Christ the Son. He tells them that because they were sons, God had sent forth the Spirit of His Son into their hearts; and He proclaims afresh that grace, which of old had cast the bondwoman out of Abraham’s house.
Here is a link between the earliest and the latest Scripture on this subject. Here shines divine consistency, and the faithful delight of God in the counsels and riches of His own grace from beginning to end.
Still further, when we reach, as I may say, the close of the volume, and read John’s Epistle, as we have already read his Gospel, we find a further training of our hearts for family communion, by the Spirit of the Son. “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye might have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ; and these things write we unto you that your joy may be full.”
To establish us in the joy of relationship is the business of the Spirit, in the Epistle; as to introduce us to it was the business of the Son, in the Gospel by John.
Thus it is on this great subject from beginning to end. And we may be sure that we chiefly answer the end of the grace of God towards us, when we walk on in unquestioning assurance of our adoption. We know the mind of the Spirit in Genesis, John, and Galatians—so far as we breathe the spirit of adoption, as in the home of a heavenly Father, and in the sense of our relationship to Him.
This may rebuke us, but it is a deeply happy truth.
If we be strong in faith, and in full joy of heart walk as children before Him, we are exhibiting the walk of the Spirit; if we be slow-hearted, like Nicodemus and thousands besides, we shall only prove the perfection of the patience and grace of Jesus, which goes on with us notwithstanding, as it did with that Master in Israel.
And another word still I would consider in connection with all this. It is in the second chapter of Hosea. The Lord, anticipating Israel in the day of the coming kingdom, says, “And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi, and shalt call me no more Baali.”
This Scripture teaches us, that like ourselves now, so Israel in their day of repentance and acceptance, shall be in relationship, and not in bondage or service; that their communion with God shall be, not as with a Judge, or with a Lawgiver, or even as with a Lord, with any character that puts under responsibility merely, but in the grace and freedom of conscious relationship.
But what a truth this is! It tells us, as I noticed before, that we have an interest in the Divine affection in the heart of the Lord, answering our interest in His work and in His counsels, and securing, as we are told, our “fullness of joy.” (See John 15:11; 17:1311These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. (John 15:11)
13And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. (John 17:13), 1 John 1:44And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. (1 John 1:4).)
Blessed it is thus to trace this subject from its beginning to its end, and to its consequences—to see that the relationship in which we stand has its source in God’s affection—in the desires and yearnings of the Divine bosom—and issues in the fullness of joy in our bosom. And let me add, this relationship is essentially eternal.
God has formed a link between Himself and us which nothing can break. We stand in a relationship to Him that is necessarily and essentially eternal. The law never could have done this. It never proposed to do it. It could at best only make us servants; and “the servant abideth not in the house forever.” Ishmael had to leave the house. He was the son of a bondwoman, and had therefore no personal title to the house. But “the son abideth ever.” The son carries in his own person a link with the house. He has entered it by birth, and not, like a servant, by contract. He has an indefeasible, unchangeable title. He has a right to be where he is, simply because he is who he is; and we ought to carry in ourselves the sense and experience of this. We ought to know that there is that between us and God that nothing can break, formed by “the word,” the seed of the life we breathe, and therefore of the relationship in which we stand (1 Peter 1); and we may ask our souls, ‘Have we got it, and are we in the joy of such experience?’ We may have to pass through discipline and to suffer rebuke. Our weakness may have to be exposed and we put to shame, as saints of God. We may know too well how coldly we enjoy our privilege. But, ‘Do we still carry within us the sense and experience of this link?’ Do we know that we are in no occasional, or temporary, or conditional circumstances, but that we stand in a relationship that is necessarily, essentially eternal?
This is the glory of the grace of the gospel, and this the experience that waits on the acceptance of Christ, or on faith in the gospel.
To be under the law would be to be servants, and thus to disentitle ourselves to this abiding, eternal link with the Blessed One and His house. But to this truth the Lord adds another, “Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin, and the servant abideth not in the house forever.”
This is solemn. Not only by taking my place under the law, or being an Ishmael, a child of the bondwoman, do I deprive myself of a place in the house, but continuing in sin would work for me the same judgment. For I should still be a servant, a servant of sin, if not a servant under the law; and it is a general truth, take what form it may, or let it make what application it may, that “a servant abideth not in the house forever.” See John 8:30-3630As he spake these words, many believed on him. 31Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. 33They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? 34Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. 35And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. 36If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. (John 8:30‑36), which may remind us of Rom. 6; for the same moral character appears in both. If I commit sin, I am the servant of sin; and being a servant, must leave the house. If I sin, I am the servant of sin, and must go to sin for my wages, which is death.
And there is no personal condition beyond this. All that can come after it is glory. Being “in the kingdom of God’s dear Son,” we are meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. (Col. 1:12, 1312Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: (Colossians 1:12‑13).) And I may add, when our relationship with God becomes the subject of our souls, how commanding it is! Look at Peter in the hour of his conviction, how careless he was whether the boat sank or swam! And Zaccheus, interested in inquiring after Jesus, how heedless of the crowd and the Jew. The Eunuch, too, was unmoved by the strange and sudden appearance of Philip in that desert place, and by his still more sudden and strange disappearing, because his soul was first inquiring after and then enjoying the Lord! And when the Galatians first apprehended Jesus, they would have given their eyes to the apostle; and the Hebrews, when illuminated, took joyfully the spoiling; of their goods. Do we wonder at such things? Let our knowledge of the Lord and our relationship to Him be more valued, and we shall cease to wonder.