"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of
God. So you should not be like cowering, fearful slaves. You should behave
instead like God's very own children, adopted into his family—calling him
"Father, dear Father." For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts
and tells us that we are God's children. And since we are his children, we
will share his treasures—for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is
ours, too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his
suffering." Romans 8:14-17
Another prolonged note of the divine music; and again
suggested by one preceding.
The Apostle had just been dwelling on the Holy Spirit and
His operations as the active Force in the regenerated nature; awaking,
inspiring, invigorating, perpetuating "life" (vers. 9, 10, 11, 13). This
leads, by a natural transition, to a yet higher strain in the symphony. The
subject, in itself entirely new, forms a distinct advance in the argument of
the chapter. To use a different figure, we may regard it as a golden gate,
like that on the eastern wall of Zion, leading to the privileges of the true
Spiritual Temple. All the benefits of the New Covenant with which the
chapter closes, which have their crown and culmination in the triumph of
divine love, spring out of the relationship here disclosed--Sons of God.
Among the Bible truths which owe their fuller development
and acceptance to these later decades, prominently is the divine Fatherhood
and sonship. They form the essential doctrine--the dual "Song" of New
Testament times and Gospel story. God, under the Old Covenant, was revealed
as Jehovah--the Almighty, the Shepherd, the Stone (or Rock) of Israel (Gen.
17;1, 49;24). It was reserved to the Author and Finisher of the
faith--Himself the divine Son, to be the revealer of the more endearing name
of Father. How He loves to dwell upon it, and to enshrine it in
discourse, and parable, and miracle! It is breathed by Him in His own
mountain Oratories, whether by the shores of Gennesaret or on the green
slopes of Olivet. It forms the opening word and key-note of His own
appointed prayer, "Our Father in heaven!" It is repeated in His great
Valedictory and in His great Intercessory prayer; in the hour of superhuman
conflict in Gethsemane--the hour of superhuman darkness on the Cross. It is
consecrated in the first Easter words--a possession for His Church in all
time--"I ascend unto My Father and your Father; and to My God and your God!"
(John 20;17).
Who can wonder that Paul here catches up a strain that
had so divine a warrant? We may well call the verses now to be considered,
"the Song of the adopted children." No loftier cadence can rise from the
lips of the holy Church throughout all the world– "For all who are led by
the Spirit of God are children of God. So you should not be like cowering,
fearful slaves. You should behave instead like God's very own children,
adopted into his family—calling him "Father, dear Father." For his Holy
Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God's
children. And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for
everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to
share his glory, we must also share his suffering." Romans 8:14-17
In this singularly beautiful passage, the Apostle's
object seems, to show the highest ground on which believers may rest their
spiritual privileges and eternal safety. Not merely, as he had already
pointed out, by being invested with a new spiritual life infused and
quickened by the Holy Spirit, but as the sons and daughters of the Lord
Almighty--God's own children by adoption. As such, their rights are
inalienable. "Why you are no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then
an heir of God through Christ" (Gal. 4;7).
He begins with the customary antithesis; contrasting the
spirit of bondage and the spirit of sonship. "The spirit of bondage again
to fear." The law and its inexorable demands generates this
apprehension--"it genders to bondage." It is Sinai with its "blackness and
darkness and tempest; the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words;" and
whose natural expression is--"I exceedingly fear and quake." Is not this
servile dread, even in the case of God's own children, at times unhappily
nurtured and strengthened by a repellent theology--unwise and unscriptural
teaching; inspiring, of necessity, a joyless faith; while with morbid or
sensitive natures, self-introspection deepens the gloom,
"And conscience does make cowards of us all."
Paul's belief was very different. It was the echo of his
great Master's utterances; the unfolding of a tender, sympathetic
FATHER--the human tie which binds child to parent, having its archetype in
this higher relationship. As the earthly child in the hour of fear and
danger rushes to its parent's arms and (in the expressive Greek word of our
present passage) "cries" "Father;"--feeling its need of guardianship
and protection, and knowing that that loving protection is assured; so is it
with the believer and his Father-God. Away with all harsh theories; all the
misconceptions which had their gloomy origin in the mythology of those
Romans to whom this Epistle was written--whose dominant thought was deity to
be propitiated--not deity to be reverenced and trusted and loved.
"God," says Bernard; and he is the interpreter of the
earlier, in contrast with the mediaeval centuries--"God is not called the
Father of Vengeance, but the Father of Mercies." We do not thus set aside or
minimize the Law and its demands. It must ever occupy its own important
place in the divine economy. It demonstrates the deficiency and defilement
of our best obedience, the hopelessness of any effort of ours to meet its
requirements, satisfy its exactions and pay its penalties. But in the Gospel
system, as unfolded in all its length and breadth in this eighth of Romans,
we are taught to regard it as "a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ" (Gal.
3;24). It is not the great motive principle in the renewed nature. That new
dominating motive is the sweet constraint of filial love, by which we are
drawn to the Father. The "You shall" of Sinai, with its stern
impossibilities, is changed for the words echoed from Calvary--"We love Him
because He first loved us."
O wondrous privilege! O marvelous sonship! Prodigals by
nature--bondaged slaves--now, to use the expression of an old writer,
"within the house." In accordance with the New Covenant, the deed of release
is signed and sealed by the divine Ransomer--"Now therefore you are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the
household of God" (Eph. 2;19). This is what the Apostle here calls in the
corresponding antithetical clause, "the spirit of adoption." Even the
freed slave in ancient times dared not address his master as a son. But
Christ's ransomed freeman can. "If the Son makes you free, then you shall be
free indeed." Yes, "free," as Paul here adds--free to address the mightiest
and holiest of all Beings by the endearing name, "ABBA!" "Abba" is
the Syro-Chaldaic form of the Hebrew word for Father. It was more familiar
to Paul, as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, than the foreign Greek [word], and
would be the more genuine expression of his newborn filial devotion and
consecration. Perhaps, too, in harmony with Luther's rendering of it--as
"dear Father," it might be the avowal of familiarity and loving trust. Or,
add to this, may it not have been like the superscription on the Cross, in
Hebrew, Greek, and Latin--to bring the sacred name by an emphatic
conjunction, home to Jew and Greek; the Father-Head of one vast united
family? No strain in this Song of Songs is sweeter or more divinely musical.
It is like a serenade of Angels--no rather, a lullaby from Him who is spoken
of "as one whom his mother comforts" (Isa. 66;13)
But then comes, with solemn urgency, the all-important,
all-momentous question--"How do I know that this sonship is mine? How
can I establish my claim to these lofty privileges and immunities."
The Apostle proceeds to reply. There is, first,
the "leading" of the Spirit. In the solemn emphasis of the original Greek in
v. 14--"As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they" (these and
these only,) "are the sons of God." Then, secondly, there is the
witness of the Spirit--the inward evidencing power of this divine Agent in
the soul. "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are
the children of God" (v. 16).
How does the Spirit thus bear witness? Here we tread on
difficult and delicate ground, the borderland of mysticism and faith. One
thing we know, "The Spirit of God is not straitened." He can act how, and
where, and when, and as He pleases. Moreover, the means He employs vary with
the individual feelings and idiosyncrasies of those who are the subject of
His divine operations. We must take special care, however, not to mistake
the character of these. Especially should we be jealous of the demand which
not a few make, of pronounced outward manifestations--the display of
vehement emotion--"sensationalism." Such tests are often unsafe and
unreliable; the hallucination of excited feeling and overwrought
temperament. Far less are we to look for the witness of the Spirit in mere
mechanical rites; the alleged efficacy of sacramental symbol. His normal
operations are rather thus beautifully described by lips of sacred
authority--"The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof,
but can not tell whence it comes, and where it goes; so is every one that is
born of the Spirit" (John 3;8). Or again, He is likened to the dew--silently
distilling on the earth; hanging its pearl-drops on leaf of tree or spire of
grass--without noise or premonition. "The kingdom of God comes not with
observation." Yes; "not with observation;" and yet, in a very real sense,
with observation--subjective, yet at the same time objective. His
witness may be most safely described as evidenced in daily life--"known by
its fruits." These fruits are not left for our conjecture. They are
specially enumerated; they are specially called "the fruits of the
Spirit,"--"love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance" (Gal. 5;22, 23). The indwelling of the Spirit is
authenticated and countersigned by a holy, pure, consistent, heavenly
character. These are evidences patent to every honest "seeker after God;"
that, too, despite of many mournful alienations and deflections--the
ever-present painful consciousness of coming so far short of the divine
ideal.
O God--my Father-God!--have I been enabled in any feeble
measure to realize this my sonship, and to have the inward, divine,
responsive witness of the Spirit? Have I been able to dismiss the old
slavish fear of You? Am I among the number of those of whom the Savior
speaks, who "will" (desire) "to do Your will?"--saying, "Your Spirit, O God,
is good, lead me to the land of uprightness?" Can I stand such simple tests
as these--do I love the Word? do I prize the privilege of prayer? When
affliction comes, and the divine hand is heavy upon me, am I "led" by this
Spirit of Yours to own the rectitude of Your dispensations; and just because
of conscious sonship am I able to say, it may be through tears, "Even so,
FATHER! for so it seemed good in Your sight; and, as Your son, I shall not
permit it to be evil or unrighteous in mine!" There are few tokens of the
Spirit's "leadings" more frequently or more beautifully evidenced than this
latter; when He is visibly seen to come down, as predicted, "like rain upon
the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth." The human soul, mowed
by the scythe of affliction, humble, stricken, lies withered and faded. But
the heavenly Agent descends--faith and love and devout resignation go up
like a cloud of fragrant incense to the Father's throne and the Father's
heart.
"As many as are led." It was the Savior's own
promise--"He will guide you into all truth…He will show you things to
come" (John 16;13). Just as some of us may recall, in early days, the guide
over Alpine glaciers and crevasses, terrains and boulders; then up the
jagged precipices that conducted above mist and cloud to "the blue skies,"
with boundless prospect of "everlasting hills." That experienced conductor,
of strong muscle, and eagle eye, and unerring footstep, is a feeble type of
the Infallible GUIDE of His Church, alike individually and collectively.
Blessed Spirit! whose office and mission was thus
announced by the departing Christ, do lead me! Let me strive to do nothing
that would grieve the gracious Agent, by whom I am "sealed unto the day of
redemption." Enable me to curb passion, restrain temper, subdue and mortify
pride and vainglory. Attune my life and heart to an Old Testament Song,
which has its sweetest cadence in the New--"He LEADS me beside the still
waters. He restores my soul; he leads me in the paths of righteousness for
His name's sake." Nor let me be satisfied with negative results; but rising
to the dignity and glory and responsibility of sonship, give me increase of
holiness--gradual conformity to the divine mind. Waking up from spiritual
sloth and ease, help me to rebuild the collapsed purpose, and consecrate
fresh energy in the heavenly service, aiming to live and walk so as to
please You. Specially enable me to follow the footsteps of the Great
Example. When, from His divine lips comes still, as of old, the solemn
heart-searching question--"Do you love Me?" may it be mine to reply, even
though under a trembling apprehension of my own vacillation and
instability--"Lord, You know all things, You know it is my desire to
love You!"
And it may be a help to those who are most feelingly
alive to this fitfulness of their love and the inefficacy of their
obedience, that that sonship is not dependent on their capricious frames
and feelings. Like all else in the everlasting covenant, it is divinely
secured, ratified, sealed. For thus runs their charter deed--"Having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself,
according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1;5, 6).
The glory of that sonship, with all its concomitant blessings, is rendered
sure by a God that cannot lie--"I have called you by your name; you are
Mine!" (Isa. 43;1). "But I said, How shall I put you among the children,
and give you a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? And
I said, You shall call me, My Father; and shall not turn away from me" (Jer.
3;19). "I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people" (Heb.
8;10).
It is to this the Apostle now leads us in the present
verses; "And, if children, then heirs." It is a heritage from which
nothing can cut us out or cut us off.
What is the heritage thus spoken of and promised?
His words are remarkable. They can be best left to their own mystic, divine
interpretation. The ideas they embody are untransferable by the poor vehicle
of human language. They are among those he elsewhere describes as being
"impossible for a man to utter" (2 Cor. 12;4)--"Heirs of God!"--"partakers
of the divine nature." We have recalled the like symbol in the Book of
Revelation describing the indescribable glories of the Redeemed; "And
I saw no Temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the
Temple of it" (Rev. 21;22). "And there shall be no night there, and they
need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light,
and they shall reign forever and ever" (Rev. 22;5 ). "Him that overcomes
will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out;
and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my
God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God; and
I will write upon him my new name" (Rev. 3;12).
"Heirs of God!" In these three words are comprehended
all the blessings Omnipotence can bestow. Every attribute of the divine
nature is embarked on my side and pledged for my salvation--Power, Wisdom,
Faithfulness. ABBA!--a Father's house--a Father's halls--a Father's love--a
Father's welcome--a Father's presence forever and ever! "This," says Luther,
"far passes all man's capacity, that God should call us heirs, not of some
rich and mighty Prince, not of the Emperor, not of the whole world merely,
but of Himself, the Almighty Creator of all things. If a man could
comprehend the great excellency of this, that he is indeed a son and heir of
God, and with a constant faith believe the same, he would abhor all the pomp
and glory of the world in comparison of the eternal inheritance."
(Watchwords from Luther," p. 334.)
Nor is this all. These peerless blessings are confirmed
and ratified by the farther guarantee--"joint-heirs with Christ."
Christ, as the Brother in my nature, has made the heritage doubly sure "for
us miserable sinners, who lay in darkness and the shadow of death, that He
might make us the children of God, and exalt us to everlasting life." He,
indeed, in His divine essence, occupies a place and realm all His own. He is
"Heir," by virtue of His essential dignity; what the old writers call His
"Crown rights." He is "the First-born among many brethren"--a name is given
Him which is above every name. "He has on His vesture and on His thigh a
name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords" (Rev. 19;16). We, on the
other hand, are heirs by adoption and grace, by virtue of our living union
with our living Head. This heritage is ours, first and partially in
possession--"Beloved, now are we the sons of God." Its full blessings
are ours in future possession, when Christ's own words, uttered, not in the
days of His humiliation, but in His exaltation at the right hand of power,
will be fulfilled"--To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with Me (a
fellow heir) on My throne" (Rev. 3;21).
Oh wondrous endowment!--and as free and gracious as it is
wondrous! Under the Hebrew code, the law of first-born was rigidly observed.
The, eldest-born received the inheritance. Isaac was Abraham's heir; and
while the other children of the patriarch had their limited portions meted
out to them, he, as the recognized son of the promise, entered on his
father's goods and possessions. It is different with the spiritual Israel.
There is no law of first-born in the Church of God's first-born. All are on
divine equality here. All are warranted and welcome to enter on the
purchased heritage--to claim the adoption of sons and the co-heirship with
Christ. There is but one condition--"And IF CHRIST'S--then are you Abraham's
seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3;29).
The remaining clause of the verse is needed to complete
this Adoption-Song, though we shall reserve its fuller consideration for the
kindred one which follows, and which will demand a separate treatment. (V.
17) "If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified
together." Observe it is not only, that suffering is the law of the
kingdom, but that we SUFFER WITH HIM.
Elevating and inspiring surely is the thought to all
sufferers whatever the diverse causes of affliction may be, that they and
their great Lord pass through the same ordeal; that He has drunk of every
sorrow-brook by the way (Ps. 110;7). "Perfect through suffering" is the
characteristic alike of the Head and the members. In all their afflictions
He was afflicted; in all their tears "Jesus wept." "With Him!" How
the assurance disarms trial of its sting--"I am undergoing the experience of
the Son, who 'learned obedience by the things which He suffered.'" Who knew
better than Paul the boon, and blessing of this identity of suffering with
his suffering Master? Hear his testimony in the Mamertine dungeon, with
certain death hanging over him, "All men forsook me; notwithstanding,
the Lord stood with me and strengthened me; and I was delivered out of the
mouth of the lion" (2 Tim. 4;16, 17).
This suffering culminates in glory--"That we may be
also glorified together" (v. 17). "If we suffer, we shall also reign
with Him" (2 Tim. 2;12). "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery
trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you;
but rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that,
when His glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy"
(1 Pet. 4;12, 13). No words in the Redeemer's intercessory prayer are more
elevating and comforting than those, in which the Father's name is
linked with the bliss of His ransomed people--"FATHER, I will that they
also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My
glory" (John 17;24). Following their Lord's example, and echoing His
utterance, the inspired writers seem to love thus to repeat the filial name
and recount the adoption privileges. In selecting from one of these, let us,
in closing, put emphasis on the words of John's apostrophe, and make them
the refrain of this Redemption Song--"How great is the love the Father
has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is
what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know
him." 1 John 3:1