Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Believers are no more servants, bondslaves, or captives but sons and heirs of God through Christ. That sonship embraces daughters as well as sons, bringing fallen sinners back to the place of sons and daughters by adoption into the household of faith and the royal family as children of the heavenly King who belong to God. The Spirit of His Son is sent into their hearts crying Abba, Father, so when any soul approaches God as Father heaven becomes his home.
This change is wholly by sovereign grace, which ordained redemption, regeneration, and adoption to heirship with Jesus Christ, so everything is owed to grace and that grace is to be revealed to others. God highly values believers and made them His own by paying an infinite ransom for their freedom, Christ paying the ransom for each soul. Justification by faith is the pardon opposite to condemnation, in which the contrite sinner who discerns and accepts Christ's atonement passes from being a rebel and a child of sin and Satan to being a loyal subject received as God's child by adoption. This is not for inherent goodness but because Christ as Substitute and Surety bears his sins, takes his place and suffers for them, reprieves him from the condemnation of death, intercedes with the Father for him as His child and beloved son, imputes His own righteousness to him, fully satisfies the demands of justice, and clothes him with Christ's righteousness so he stands faultless in God's favor. He is forgiven for the sake of Jesus the propitiation for sins, with eternal life and strong hope of life eternal.
God gave probation and gave His only begotten Son to bear all the guilt of transgression, thereby maintaining the divine immutable eternal law and government while providing forgiveness through repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ on Christ's own merits. Christ takes those who will be molded, even apparently hopeless material debased by Satan, and makes them subjects of grace, delivering them from suffering and from the wrath to fall on the disobedient. He makes His children His agents in that rescuing work, in whose success they find a precious reward even in this life. Those who receive the Son of God and believe in Him return to sonship, while those who refuse heaven's offering and will not show gratitude and love by keeping His commandments are left with nothing more Christ can do for them.
This standing rests on entering partnership with God by consenting to place oneself under pledge to Him, with God pledging His word in return. It is like holding a life insurance policy endorsed by the Lord God who created him, linking holders with the family of the redeemed by a tie that cannot be broken, with the Lord entering vital relation with the partner. This is on condition of giving diligence to make calling and election sure so as never to fall, with the promise that an entrance shall be ministered abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Adoption is to be attested as fact by unmistakable evidence in the life, by laying aside mere planning and scheming and diligently taking up and doing the work God has given that lies all around.
Belonging to Him means believers are to respect themselves as His, and, as applied to boys, Jesus loves them and will bless them if they are obedient. He calls them not servants but friends. Appreciating such wondrous love calls forth love and gratitude until the heart becomes a wellspring of joy that sends up thank offerings to God instead of complaining. Sons and heirs must not turn again to observing days and months and times and years and to sanctioning holidays and traditions brought in, for that is turning again to the weak and beggarly elements and to bondage and service to them which by nature are no gods.
Believers are no more servants, bondslaves, or captives but sons and heirs of God through Christ.
That sonship embraces daughters as well as sons, bringing fallen sinners back to the place of sons and daughters by adoption into the household of faith and the royal family as children of the heavenly King who belong to God.
The Spirit of His Son is sent into their hearts crying Abba, Father, so when any soul approaches God as Father heaven becomes his home.
This change is wholly by sovereign grace, which ordained redemption, regeneration, and adoption to heirship with Jesus Christ, so everything is owed to grace and that grace is to be revealed to others.
God highly values believers and made them His own by paying an infinite ransom for their freedom, Christ paying the ransom for each soul.
Justification by faith is the pardon opposite to condemnation, in which the contrite sinner who discerns and accepts Christ's atonement passes from being a rebel and a child of sin and Satan to being a loyal subject received as God's child by adoption.
This is not for inherent goodness but because Christ as Substitute and Surety bears his sins, takes his place and suffers for them, reprieves him from the condemnation of death, intercedes with the Father for him as His child and beloved son, imputes His own righteousness to him, fully satisfies the demands of justice, and clothes him with Christ's righteousness so he stands faultless in God's favor.
He is forgiven for the sake of Jesus the propitiation for sins, with eternal life and strong hope of life eternal.
God gave probation and gave His only begotten Son to bear all the guilt of transgression, thereby maintaining the divine immutable eternal law and government while providing forgiveness through repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ on Christ's own merits.
Christ takes those who will be molded, even apparently hopeless material debased by Satan, and makes them subjects of grace, delivering them from suffering and from the wrath to fall on the disobedient.
He makes His children His agents in that rescuing work, in whose success they find a precious reward even in this life.
Those who receive the Son of God and believe in Him return to sonship, while those who refuse heaven's offering and will not show gratitude and love by keeping His commandments are left with nothing more Christ can do for them.
This standing rests on entering partnership with God by consenting to place oneself under pledge to Him, with God pledging His word in return.
It is like holding a life insurance policy endorsed by the Lord God who created him, linking holders with the family of the redeemed by a tie that cannot be broken, with the Lord entering vital relation with the partner.
This is on condition of giving diligence to make calling and election sure so as never to fall, with the promise that an entrance shall be ministered abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Adoption is to be attested as fact by unmistakable evidence in the life, by laying aside mere planning and scheming and diligently taking up and doing the work God has given that lies all around.
Belonging to Him means believers are to respect themselves as His, and, as applied to boys, Jesus loves them and will bless them if they are obedient.
He calls them not servants but friends.
Appreciating such wondrous love calls forth love and gratitude until the heart becomes a wellspring of joy that sends up thank offerings to God instead of complaining.
Sons and heirs must not turn again to observing days and months and times and years and to sanctioning holidays and traditions brought in, for that is turning again to the weak and beggarly elements and to bondage and service to them which by nature are no gods.