Names of God; part 23. Being a son in the house of YHVH.

Title: Names of God; part 23. Being a son in the house of YHVH.

All of God’s sons and daughters are slaves of righteousness. They can be disobedient slaves, but they can’t get apart from the seed that is in them, and if it takes until eternity to recognize this: we are all slaves of righteousness.

This is an extremely important principle to understand and it is often confused in the minds of believers. We are all sinners, but there is something about the believer, courtesy of the grace of God, that makes him/her a slave of righteousness.

I read something today that I want to share before we move on concerning our status as the bride of Christ. It relates to our status as sons of God.

"The third incomparable grace of faith is this: that it unites the soul to Christ, as the wife to the husband, by which mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul are made one flesh. Now if they are one flesh, and if a true marriage--nay, by far the most perfect of all marriages--is accomplished between them (for human marriages are but feeble types of this one great marriage), then it follows that all they have becomes theirs in common, as well good things as evil things; so that whatsoever Christ possesses, that the believing soul may take to itself and boast of as its own, and whatever belongs to the soul, that Christ claims as His.

If we compare these possessions, we shall see how inestimable is the gain. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation; the soul is full of sin, death, and condemnation. Let faith step in, and then sin, death, and hell will belong to Christ, and grace, life, and salvation to the soul. For, if He is a Husband, He must needs take to Himself that which is His wife's, and at the same time, impart to His wife that which is His. For, in giving her His own body and Himself, how can He but give her all that is His? And, in taking to Himself the body of His wife, how can He but take to Himself all that is hers?" [Martin Luther, Concerning Christian Liberty]

1Jo 3:1 See how great [Greek: "from afar"] a love the Father has bestowed upon us [this love is not found naturally in the human race], that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

Concerning the permanent nature of the gift of His love, Smith comments:

‎"The purpose of this amazing gift; a wise, holy love, concerned for our highest good, 'not simply that we may be saved from suffering and loss, but in order that we may be styled children of God.' And we have not only the name but the character: 'so we are.'" [Smith]

The Lord my Shepherd is my Host and I live in His house forever as a son. The son is to be styled a child of God both in name and in character.

The unbelieving world, involved only in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life, who are outside the house, recognize us as Christians, but they cannot see or appreciate who we actually are since they have not a saving relationship with the Lord, nor a knowledge of Him.

So, why should be concern ourselves with conducting ourselves as sons in the presence of the unbeliever if they cannot know of or see the light of Christ? Their only hope is the gospel. If we do not conduct ourselves as sons, we diminish the expression of the gospel that comes from us. We present the gospel, the good news, in word and in deed.

1Co 9:11 If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we should reap material things from you?

1Co 9:12 If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ.

1Co 9:13 Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share with the altar?

1Co 9:14 So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.

1Co 9:15 But I have used none of these things. And I am not writing these things that it may be done so in my case; for it would be better for me to die than have any man make my boast an empty one.

1Co 9:16 For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.

1Co 9:17 For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.

1Co 9:18 What then is my reward? That, when I preach the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

There is much discussion about vs. 17. It is certain that Paul preached the gospel voluntarily and so has a reward. It is also certain that Paul did not choose this vocation and so had a stewardship entrusted to him. I don't believe it is an either/or that Paul is stating, but that both are true of him. And, what he makes clear in vs. 18 is that his reward is simply to be able to preach the gospel without cost and not the number of converts or the accolades or any living he made.

Though the unbeliever doesn't know us, we go right on revealing Christ because of our status as sons and the joy of being a good son who reveals the Lord to a lost world.

‎Intimate understanding and knowledge of another person is based upon fellowship with him. Since the people of the world have nothing in common with the children of God, they have no fellowship with them, and therefore have no intelligent appreciation and understanding of them. The foreign kind of love produced in us by the Holy Spirit constitutes us a foreign kind of person to the people of this world, and since they do not understand foreigners, people of a different race from themselves, they simply do not understand Christians. Children of God could just as well have come to earth from a strange planet so far as the people of the world are concerned. They are strangers to them.

1Jo 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

It has not been made manifest at any time what we shall be, not to others and not to ourselves. Can you really imagine yourself in a resurrection body, in heaven, and face to face with the Lord of Glory? How can we hope and rejoice in what we have never known? The answer to that question is the promise, “Beloved, now we are children of God.” If I am a child, then the promise from my Father has infinite weight behind it.

The believer will be literally face to face with Christ in eternity, but he can now behold Him, so that in hope, he may be conformed to His image.

John is speaking of our physical likeness to Christ when we are in our resurrection bodies. While we anticipate that day, the Rapture of the church, we can’t help but think of our spiritual likeness to Him in the time we are here on earth.

What we shall be in physical likeness to Him is used in a logical argument to choose to follow Him now.