THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP AND THE SONS OF GOD
Repentance is not some moralistic thing. It’s a call to turn from all that is weak and withered to the extravagant life of those who find their being in Jesus.
Christ’s cross reveals what we are and who we can become. To reveal to people their true condition and to uncover to them what they can become is the most loving thing that can be done for any man, woman, denomination or town.
But there are some to whom repenting does not come easily. They are convinced that they are the church and the church is them. They belong to the tradition in which religion is society and society is religion. Mentioning their sin and deficiencies is defined as ‘being negative,’ and taken as a personal offence. Far from repenting they accuse those whom God sends to them of ‘trashing the church.’ But in so doing they participate in the sin of those who crucified the One who came to give them life.
‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Acts 17.28 NIV.
To have the life of God is to be more than un-dead. To live in the Son of God is to be a spiritual being, twice breathed into life by the Father. Unless we are born again we will not see the Kingdom of God. This can mean that we will not participate in eternal life. Or it can mean, that as churched and Christian as we may be, we cannot take on the authority, power and nature of those who are sons of God. Tozer points out that humans are not bodies which are inhabited by a spirit. We are spirits who have a body. Note that the Father breathed Himself into clay. Our divine nature comes from our Father not the clay. His Name is hallowed on earth because we are part of Him. Empowerment to do His will on earth as it is in heaven is ours because we are His Sons.
How we define ourselves determines what we can become. The words ‘Now are we the sons of God’ pulses with meaning when we consider that what it means to be a Son of God. How we define a son of God has been revealed for all to see. This is Jesus the SON OF MAN.
‘Let me put it as clearly as I can. The sons of God live in the Son of God. They live this way ‘in the Spirit’ because this is the only way the Person of Jesus can become your life!’
We are not ‘born again’ just because we are moral and ethical people. We are born again because we are dead to our natural selves and alive to our supernatural selves by the Spirit of Christ. It’s unlikely that we will be born again if we have not perceived the depth of our degradation and the height of our potential as spirit beings who are sons and daughters of God. We were not created as intelligent lumps of meat. We really are made in the image of God.
‘God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth’ John 4.24 NIV.
We can talk all we like about the infinite value of a human life. We can repeat the mantra of the harmonious development of the mental, physical and spiritual aspects of our being. But unless we actually live in God, courtesy of Jesus and the Holy Spirit we remain wooden, stilted and only fractionally alive.
In the flesh and from the earth, we live far below the potential of the sons and daughters of God. Why? Without the understanding that the human person is truly spiritual only when the human spirit is joined to the Spirit of God, what we call ‘spiritual’ is merely physical and mental. Thus we subject ourselves to a bad deal. We lose the ability ‘to see’ the Kingdom of God because we have cut ourselves off from that which defines us as kings – daughters and sons of God.
“But the Father has bestowed on us The Spirit of Sonship.’
Repentance is not some moralistic thing. It’s a call to turn from all that is weak and withered to the extravagant life of those who find their being in Jesus.
In calling Us to repent, Jesus is calling us to become who we are.
‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is’ 1 John 3.2 KJV.
‘You received the Spirit of Sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father” Rom 8.15 NIV
‘In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again’ John 3.3 NIV.
‘For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God’ Rom 8.14 NIV.
Keith Allen
