LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Divine Sonship
The purpose of God is that we finally reach the position of mature sons.
Rodrigo Abarca
A house, according to the Scriptures, is basically a family. Thus, for example, "Jacob's House" is not the physical place where Jacob lived with his children, but his family and descendants. The house of God is, then, the family of God. And this family is made up by His sons. These sons have come to be part of the house by means of faith in His Son.
Small children and mature sons
In the New Testament, and especially in John's writings, there are two words that are translated indistinctly with the appearance of the word "son" in many versions. The first of them is "teknon" and it is always used in connection with the saints. The second is "huios" and it is always used to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ and, on occasions, to the saints. Thus, every time that we find in our Bible the word "son" applied to the Lord, the Greek expression is "huios." But, when we find the word "son" referring to the believers, the Greek words can be "teknon" or "huios."
The difference of these words in the Greek is extremely important, because it is related with the eternal purpose of God. In our western culture we don't have two words that mean exactly the same thing as the Greek words "teknon" and "huios" And this is due to the fact that certain customs behind these words existed which don't exist in our culture. When the apostle Paul, in Ephesians 1:5 tells us that we were predestined by God to "adoption as sons by Jesus Christ" it refers to one of those customs. For us, the adoption of a son is a legal act by which a boy born of biologically different parents is introduced into a different family, with whom they have no biological link.
Therefore, he becomes another "son" in that family. It doesn't matter what age he is because for us a "son", in this sense, is somebody who we recognize legally as such and who in turn recognizes us as parents.
Therefore, when we read that God predestined us to be adopted as his sons (Eph. 1:5), we mistakenly think - due to our socio-cultural background-that this is the "legal" act by which, through justification and reconciliation, God received us into His family as children. We were strangers, but now we are "adoptive sons" by means of Jesus Christ. Although all the above-mentioned is correct in a sense, in another, it is not. The New Testament "adoption" is, truly, something very different to what we call adoption in our days, since it is linked with the final and supreme goal of God for his own people. To understand this we need to take note of the marked distinction that the Greek text makes between a "teknon" and a "huios."
In that time, "teknon" referred to small children. During the process of their formation, the children were in the father's house, subjected under governors and tutors until the time in which they reached a mature age. This formation process received the name of 'discipline', and its objective was to transform the children into mature sons, able to inherit and to administer the father's house and his belongings. So the 'teknon' were the children in a formative process, being prepared for the responsible life of an adult. On the other hand, when a boy reached the age of maturity, the father prepared a great party and he invited all his relatives, friends and servants. That day the boy was dressed with different clothes to those which he had worn until then, and was presented before all the invited guests as his father's legitimate heir, with all the rights and responsibilities that it implied. From then on, he would not be considered a "teknos" any longer, but a "huios", that is, a young adult and a mature son who could take his place next to his father in the administration and government of the house. This ceremony, by means of which a teknos became a huios, received the name of "adoption" (of the Greek "huiothesia" that literally means, "to put in the place as a son")
However, because the word "adoption" has such a different meaning at the present time, it is preferable that we use the expression "sonship" in its place, because it better reflects the character of the issue that we are considering.
Growing toward maturity
As a result, sonship was not the beginning of a process but the end. We enter into the house of God as "teknon", just as John tells us in his gospel: "But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God (teknon), 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. (John. 1:12-13). So, what transforms us into 'teknon ' of God is a new birth by means of which the divine life is imparted by the Spirit to our spirit, which thus makes us participants of the divine nature. Hebrews tells us that God is the Father of our spirits. Christ has made our spirit his dwelling place by means of the Holy Spirit.
This is the only way of entering into the house of God. It is not something simply external nor is it a change of attitude, form of life or direction; a clinging to certain beliefs or mental convictions, or experiencing certain emotions. Everything by itself is insufficient to introduce us into the house of God: a new birth carried out in the root of our being is required. The renovation and regeneration of our spirit by work of the power of Christ's resurrection are, then, the starting point of the process that will finally transform us into mature sons of God (huioi).
Without this new birth all the rest of Christian life becomes inaccessible. Because the life that is imparted to us through new birth has the power to make us grow and to make us develop and to conform us fully to the image of God's Son (huios), Jesus Christ. Those who are currently 'teknon ' of God, according to John, are those of us who have the seed of God within us, that is to say, the Son of God in our spirit. This seed is, in itself, holy and unable to sin. But God works from the center toward our being's circumference. First He puts His life (His Son's life) in our spirit, and then, by means of a long process of formation and discipline, this life expands until transforming our being. It is this process that is progressively converting us into a "huios" of God. As we learn how to live by means of the divine life, governed by His Spirit, and we make our all the Father's thoughts and purposes (when appropriating that which is of Christ), we cease to be teknon and we become huios. At the end of that process is the 'huiothesia' or 'sonship'. So maturity is something that should be reached during our walk with the Lord here on the earth. The final perfection of this process is only reserved for the time to come; that is, our full sonship when in glory.
The fundamental question then is, are we in possession of that life? If our answer is affirmative, then are we living by means of that life? Because reaching maturity means that we have learned how to live by means of the divine life, or, what is synonymous, the Holy Spirit has taken a place of governing over all our being, as the apostle Paul tells us: "Because all who are led by the Spirit, these are the sons (huioi) of God." When this happens, Christ can be expressed without us being an obstacle. And this is not something merely external. The sons of God are manifested when they express and show Christ in their words and actions. John's expression to refer to the Christian life in its visible dimension is the "manifestation", because it is something within and invisible that one reveals and makes visible. He is manifest through the sons of God. They are the incarnation of an eternal purpose, a heavenly mystery. It is the divine and eternal life manifested in men and women on the earth. Because this was true of Christ, the Son of God who was manifest on the earth, and to whose image we must be conformed as sons of God.
"That which we have heard, that which we have seen... and our hands handled... and declare unto you the life, the eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." Eternal Life is something that must be manifest and become visible among men. John tells us that this is the proof of his presence and operation in the sons of God. A child of God is one who possesses the life of God; on the other hand, a mature son is one who lives by means of the divine life. So, the test and the evidence of our growth and development as sons of God are not in our doctrines, our creeds, our declarations, nor our teachings, but in the presence of the life and its manifestation, which makes us increasingly similar to His Son, Jesus Christ. A life that, in all senses, is a constant miracle; a life that triumphs time after time over the world, over sin, over death and over Satan, because it is the resurrection life, Christ's own life in us through the Spirit.
Therefore, what God looks for in us, above all things, is not a mere external behavior, or the statement and systematizing of certain correct and "biblical" doctrines, but the development and the manifestation of His life. It is not that we are simply good husbands, parents, workers or believers, but rather that His Son is expressed through us. It is not the human life trying to imitate the divine life, but the divine life being expressed through the human life. It isn't the human mind systematizing and exposing truths, but the revelation and living knowledge of Jesus Christ, as the sum of all divine truths, imparted in our spirit and illuminated in our hearts by the work of His Spirit. How could we explain in words the infinite distance that there is between one and the other?
Bringing many sons to glory
The house of God is the place where those "children" of God are being prepared and formed "unto adoption as sons" (or "for Sonship") (Ephesians 1:5) along this dispensation. Hebrews tell us that God will bring many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10). And the Greek word there is "huios." It is worth saying that that which God waits to present in glory is mature sons and not small and immature children. For that reason, the whole letter to Hebrews is concerned with an urgent call to grow toward maturity.
Glory and Sonship are identical. The transferal of the children of God to glory won't simply be a physical event from one place to another; from a place called 'earth' to another called 'heaven'. It will be much more than that. It will be a dispensational change, the definitive introduction of a totally new order. A heavenly order by means of His children who will eternally express His glory. Thus, the glory of God is something that must be deeply wrought into His children before His final manifestation in the divine Sonship.
But let us first ask, what is glory? In the Scriptures, the glory of God is the expression and the manifestation of God Himself, in His character, His power and His authority. The glory of God is inseparable from Himself: "I am Jehovah, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another..." (Is. 42:8). The works of God express the glory of God, that is to say, they express the kind of God that He is, His exclusivity and total sovereignty with regard to all that exists. The purpose of God is to express the fullness of His glory by means of His sons. This is something that completely overcomes all our natural capacity to understand and to comprehend. For who can know the fullness of what God is? The most powerful of the heavenly beings that surround His throne cannot even understand the infinite greatness and power of His glory.
But God -the Scripture says- according to the kind intention of His will, wanted to share the fullness of His glory with His sons and to manifest it in them to the whole universe. Nevertheless, how could we, as creations, who are even inferior to the angels, express His glory? The answer is this: by means of His divine life imparted in our spirit and expanded to give total life to our whole being. And this expansion is what is being completed in us each day by means of the operation of the cross on our natural man and the power of resurrection operating upon our interior or spiritual man. An increasingly excellent and eternal weight of glory goes on accumulating in us according to the measure that we are formed as sons of God. Finally, when a sufficient and overflowing measure of that glory has secretly and invisibly accumulated in the interior of the church (the corporate company of His sons) through the present dispensation, His visible manifestation, the day of adoption and of the redemption of our body will come (Rom. 8:23, where the redemption of the body is also called "huiothesia" or Sonship). Then, our transfer to glory won't simply be a physical or objective event, but also the final moment of a subjective process that goes on within us, changing us with ever increasing glory into the same image as our Lord.
In that day, our body will even be transformed into the likeness of the body of His glory, because that glorified body will be the last stage of the work that God is carrying out in His "children", to transform them into mature sons. We must therefore be prepared for that day; formed and trained in all spiritual lessons that will enable us to enjoy the inheritance of the saints in light. Because flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor corruption inherit the incorruptible. Because of this, if so many of those who call themselves Christians had the slightest glimmer of the coming glory, they would soon see that their natural and earthly life is inadequate for this glory.
Therefore, a work must be carried out before we can enter into glory; an expansive work of the divine nature and life in our being until Christ fills all and in all. Because only what there is of him in us gives us the capacity of being taken to glory. By means of a new birth we were introduced in the house of God as His children and for this reason, we have in us the potentiality to become mature sons and reach glory. This is God's final goal for this dispensation. Regeneration is the starting point. For this reason we become "teknon" of God. But God wants to obtain, above all other things, a corporate company of "huios" who understand His thoughts and take the responsibility of carrying out His will on the earth. He needs His children to grow toward maturity and finally, take their place as His legitimate heirs, with all the rights and duties that are implied as coheirs with His first-born Son. This is His final goal: the Sonship of His children; the bringing of His "huios" to glory.