The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
The Spirit joins His testimony with the believer's own spirit to give settled assurance that the believer is a child of God. This witness belongs to adoption, given to those who are led by the Spirit and have received the Spirit of adoption instead of bondage and fear, making them heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance and kingdom. The assurance does not rest on feeling, circumstances, or profession alone, but on God's immutable Word received by living faith, with the Spirit's inward moving agreeing perfectly with what is written and producing a heart and life corresponding to it. It is received by knowing God aright, surrendering all, crucifying the old nature, and trusting in childlike dependence, and it is kept by prayer, watchfulness, and walking in the light. The witness is seen in being made like Christ in temper, character, and obedience, walking in His commandments, bearing fruit in good works, and sharing His self-denial and suffering before sharing His glory.
Spirit's Joint Witness
The verse means that God's own Spirit joins its testimony with the believer's own spirit to give assurance of being God's child. This witness belongs to those who are led by God and who through the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body instead of living after the flesh unto death, who have received adoption instead of bondage and fear so that they call God Father, and who as children are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. That family standing confirms the reality of God's Spirit and the indwelling of His grace in the heart, and membership in His royal family with confidence in His love greater than the love of earthly parents. The hope joined to this sonship looks to sharing Christ's self-denial, humiliation and suffering in this life before sharing His glory, a coming glory that far outweighs present suffering.
The Holy Spirit who bears this witness is a divine person with personality, since only a personal being could confirm with human spirits that they belong to God as His children. His witnessing always leads to the written Word and carries its own evidence with it, so that at such times believers believe and are sure they are the children of God. That settled certainty is strong evidence of the power of truth to declare that they have known and believed the love of God and dwell in God and God in them. When a special working of God is seen with convincing evidence that it agrees with Scripture, the Holy Spirit joins with a person's own spirit to convince him that it is of God, and willfully rejecting that evidence and calling the Spirit's work Satan's work rejects the means by which God communicates with the heart and shuts out light already received, cutting off the channel by which God works on the heart and leaving the person in darkness.
The witness is the perfect agreement of the Spirit moving upon mind and heart with what is written in the Word, and that agreement is the evidence that one is born of God, to whom Christ is precious through believing. The Word gives the description of a true Christian, and the Spirit moving on mind and heart produces a heart and life corresponding with it, obtained by believing the Word and appropriating it to the soul as eating the bread of life unto eternal life, found by comparing scripture with scripture and studying the life of a true Christian as set forth in the Word. Even the working of the Spirit on mind and character must be tested by the law and the testimony, because many spirits have gone out into the world, and in proportion as a person submits way and character to the Lord and does His Word the promise of His guiding presence is fulfilled. Then there is an inward testimony in blessed assurance, the witness within joining with the Spirit and with the Word that the person is a child of God and that God will keep His covenant, enabling testimony with habitual certainty resting on Scriptural promises that believers are sons and daughters of God and heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, while the tree is judged by the fruit it bears. Where the heart bears no resemblance to the great moral standard of righteousness in the Word, where language and thoughts are not in harmony with the Spirit of Christ, there is no Christ to confess and profession of faith is counterfeit.
The assurance does not rest on feeling however pleasing, or on the emotional part, circumstances, perpetual doubts demanding additional evidence, another person's judgment or experience, or profession alone, but on God's immutable Word received by living, active faith. Feeling is not faith and must not be made the criterion of faith, or many precious blessings will be lost. A supposed hope of eternal life without this inward evidence of acceptance as one of God's children is not sound ground for assurance and may be self-deception, so each person must examine the grounds of hope and undergo thorough heart work rather than deceive themselves with profession alone. Assurance comes by entire dependence upon God as little children, believing His promise because His Word is immutable and He will do just as He says, presenting the case to the Father in confidence that He knows human helplessness and lack of righteousness and will help and fill the lack.
The witness is inward, continual and daily, experienced as the Spirit's presence within accompanying humble effort to follow God, and as a daily witness that Jesus is mine and I am His for which the heart drawn out after God longs and cannot rest until it has it each day. It belongs to being right with God and living in Christ's love, bringing freedom and peace, the precious love of Christ in the heart, humility in one's own sight with Jesus exalted, and a close and mysterious connection with Jesus that lifts above temporal things. It is to be received constantly by seeking God until He is found and by sitting together in heavenly places in Christ, placing oneself where the Spirit can continually give assurance that believers are God's children, that God loves them, and that they belong to Him as adopted children, which believing brings a foretaste of heaven.
Adoption Into God's Family
The witness belongs to adoption, for those led by the Spirit have received the Spirit of adoption instead of bondage and fear, so they cry Abba, Father, with God's Spirit joining the believer's own spirit to give assurance of being God's child. This belongs to those who are led by God and put to death the deeds of the body through the Spirit instead of living after the flesh unto death, which means accepting the Word, following its guidance, taking heed to its directions, and trusting in God's love to approach Him as Father. As children they are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ through sharing His self-denial, humiliation and suffering in this life unto a coming glory that far outweighs present suffering. Adoption as God's children and heirs with Jesus Christ comes wholly by free, sovereign grace, with grace in the covenant ordaining adoption as sons of God and grace in the Saviour effecting redemption, regeneration, and adoption to heirship with Christ. This standing is given while character is now forming for eternity and life on earth is training for heaven, and those made God's children become agents in His work, finding reward even in this life and revealing this grace to others by sowing patience, compassion, and love and reaping the harvest sown.
Becoming children comes through receiving Christ, believing on His name, accepting His ransom, and thorough conversion, which gives power to become sons of God and fits sinners for the society of the redeemed and angels. Whoever gives himself to Christ and hears the truth and obeys it becomes a child in one family with all other believers, taking Christ as personal Saviour and being born again, with the witness accompanying sincere repentance, reliance wholly on Christ's mercy, and willingness to let Him govern will and actions, not a claim based on personal righteousness. Those who receive Christ and are united with Him are sons and daughters of God and heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance, while refusing freedom from Satan leaves people living for earthly things instead of receiving it. Adopted children enter the royal family of the heavenly King, and when any soul approaches God as Father heaven becomes home and he becomes a member of the royal family, a loyal and true son or daughter. He holds a life endorsed by the Lord God who created him, linked with the family of the redeemed by a tie which cannot be broken, and this assurance rests on a love that never disappoints, does not fluctuate or change with circumstances, and continues through time and eternity, for unchangeableness belongs to His nature and whom He loves He loves unto the end, with whether a person is adopted depending on that person's own choice to receive Him, and Jesus loving and blessing them as they obey.
In Christ all adopted children are one family, for when a sinner is converted he receives the Holy Spirit who makes him a child of God and a joint heir with Christ, so that the ignorant and the wise, the rich and the poor, the heathen and the slave, white and black, for whom Jesus paid the purchase money and whose faith applies His cleansing blood, have their names written together in the book of life and are all one in Christ. Birth, station, nationality, color, or learning cannot elevate or degrade, but character makes the person, and God has a wider outlook for each person than any man or educator can discern, with every human mind as God's property under God's control and Jesus Christ as the one Master. Therefore no mortal, youth or man, however experienced, learned, sharp, or high in responsibility, can make a chalk line for another to walk on, lord it over him, dominate his mind and conscience, or command what he shall do or not do, since each bears individual responsibility for his own course and must take control of his own time, mind, and conscience, learning all possible from teachers but never coming under domination, as illustrated by Noah, Job, and Daniel who though in the land could not save son or daughter but could only deliver their own souls by their own righteousness. Sonship means very much and fills with awe and reverence, for every son and daughter of Adam blessed with reasoning powers has endowments and capabilities by which to make progress, to be elevated, ennobled, and sanctified, to hold converse with God, and to have the moral image of God developed in them, because heaven shows intense interest in that work and God places great value on man. It means coming into possession of immortality, a life running parallel with the life of Jehovah and living as long as God lives, and receiving God's inheritance together with Jesus Christ, a dignity and honor to which youth are called, revealing the object of creation to honor God and bless fellow men and the tender love of the Father and the high destiny for which this life's discipline prepares them. This calling gives motive to turn with contempt from low selfish aims and frivolous pleasures and to hate and shun sin not from hope of reward or fear of punishment but from its inherent baseness as a degrading of God-given powers and a stain upon God-like manhood, with the education that fits for sonship begun in this life continuing in the life to come, when men restored to God's image attain a glorious destiny whose full joy and blessing eternity alone reveals.
The world's humiliation and reproach do not disprove sonship, for believers adopted into God's family as His children and heirs with Christ of the kingdom and dominion have fellowship with the Father and the Son and a holy calling that are not recognized by the world, which sees their humiliation and reproach but does not know who they are or what they will become nor understands their character, calling, or future. Their standing as God's adopted heirs is not proved by earthly prosperity or the world's favor, for their names are written in the book of life and they belong to heaven even when the world does not recognize or acknowledge them. Faith lifts up the repenting soul to share the adoption of the sons of God, though sin can bring only shame and loss and unbelief means failure, with one failure of faith able to cut short a life-work. Yet God's mercy reaches to the deepest depths and marks heart-service, lifting the discouraged, as Elijah after failing in faith and fleeing weary before Jezebel and praying to die in the desert was not left to perish in discouragement and solitude nor to descend to the tomb, but was lifted in ascent with God's angels to the presence of His glory.
Heirs With Christ
As children, believers are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, received together with Jesus into His royal family. This heirship is an immortal inheritance, the kingdom and dominion given to God's sons and daughters who receive Christ and are united with Him. Those led by the Spirit have put to death the deeds of the body instead of living after the flesh unto death, and having received the Spirit of adoption instead of bondage and fear they cry Abba, Father. Their fellowship with the Father and the Son and their holy calling are not recognized by the world, which sees only humiliation and reproach and does not know who they are or what they will become.
Heirship includes sharing Christ's self-denial, humiliation and suffering in this life before sharing His glory. The assurance belongs to adoption and to confidence in God's love greater than the love of earthly parents, leading to the hope of suffering with Him and being glorified with Him. That coming glory far outweighs present suffering.
The grand privilege of being sons of God, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ is given on test and trial to perfect character after the divine similitude. It requires walking in the light as Christ is in the light, daily receiving the grace of Christ and acting it out in words, spirit and deeds, exercising faith and cherishing the hope and comfort He has provided. Being indeed a child of God and heir of heaven requires decided, immediate effort to cooperate with God because eternal interests are involved, using precious opportunities and uniting with those who are spiritually minded so that repeated acts form habits and habits form a life and character molded after the Divine standard. Those who accept the world's Redeemer and stand under His banner are adopted as sons and daughters of God, called to engage in the conflict with Christ as faithful soldiers, with the assured promise that those who partake of His humiliation and suffering for the truth's sake will inherit the crown of life and receive great reward in the kingdom of heaven.
This privilege, together with the inheritance of eternity, can be bartered away for worldly gain. Those who accept Christ's ransom can become children of God and heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance, but refusing freedom from Satan leaves people living for earthly things instead of receiving that inheritance.
Receiving the Assurance
The joint witness belongs to those who are led by the Spirit, which means putting to death the deeds of the body through the Spirit instead of living after the flesh unto death, having received adoption instead of bondage and fear so that they cry Father, and as children standing as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ through suffering with Him unto a glory far outweighing present suffering. To be so led is to accept the Word, follow its guidance, and take heed to the directions given in it. It is to have Christ's grace in the heart, and kinship with Christ and with God becomes the basis of present and future hope. That assurance comes through receiving Christ and believing on His name, which gives power to become sons of God.
The witness is a deep and living experience that comes only through thorough conversion. It comes by knowing God aright, which is life eternal, by much prayer and constant watchfulness, by crucifying the old man with his deeds, by surrendering all to God and falling on the Rock to be broken and not merely bruised, and by gathering light from the Source of light daily in order to scatter it in the pathway of others. Within, the Spirit works so that people become conscious of God's power and know they are accepted by Christ, and this inward work is made visible in a changed character and life, so that those lacking it need to be born again. In every believer a moral transformation takes place making the sinner a child of God and an heir of heaven and joint-heir with Christ, whom God intends to increase and grow in favor with God and man.
The assurance is offered to the weary and doubting soul seeking to know God, for God is a present and eternal strength. By His promises believers can come out of uncertainty and darkness into confidence that the Spirit bears witness with their spirit that they are His children. That assurance grows as faith increases and is acted on understandingly. It is kept by staying on right ground with God, never taking one step without evidence of Jesus' presence, never separating from Jesus as the very best Friend, and continually coming to the throne of grace in humble, believing prayer through the all-prevailing name of the Saviour with confidence that God hears.
The witness is received by exercising faith as the gift of God, without wavering between hope and fear and despondency, trusting as if the blessing were already possessed, with confidence that as the soul approaches God He draws nigh to nourish, encourage, and enrich it. It calls for committing soul and body to God in perfect submission to His will and in perfect trust in His power and willingness to bless, helpless and unworthy though one is. God condescends to holy, familiar intercourse with the one who seeks Him with the whole heart, and through the abundant manifestation of His grace the child is softened into childlike dependence. The result in the soul is courage, strength, sustaining comfort, power, and peace.
Assurance of adoption is often given as a clear revelation of God's presence and compassion and love, often joined with a commission to do a special work. It comes after great honor is placed upon a person and before a great trial, to prepare for temptation, and it nearly always brings a day of trial. Sufficient strength is given for the trial, and God answers the prayers of those who work in humility and faith. It must not lift up self but must lead to exalting God, laying hold of the spirituality of faith, walking humbly with God, and meeting temptation with the weapon It is written, answering wisely and firmly through Christ who has conquered.
The inward witness is experienced as the favor of God and conscious integrity, and willful violation of God's righteous law forfeits that witness and favor and exposes the soul to full assault, making it a battlefield marked by doubt, fear, paralyzed energy, and discouragement. The witness is likewise lost when people turn from God, cling to their own judgment, and leave sin uncleansed, and it is not secured by relying on doctrines or religious forms as a savior. When people lose God's favor they feel the loss and try to replace the witness with worldly excitement and the company and society of worldly people. That substitute only plunges them deeper into sin and intemperance until every better feeling is under the control of the adversary.
Evidence in Transformed Life
The witness that believers are children of God is seen in being made like Christ in temper, disposition, and character. Christ abides within, and words and conduct represent Him, fostering love for Him in others. Goodness and good works reveal a lovely character that marks a person as a child of God and an heir of heaven. This assurance is joined to having Christ abide in the soul, the graces of His Spirit, purity of heart, and works done in God, for merely professing the truth is not enough. It comes as grace stirs the soul while beholding the invisible Christ and earnestly striving for goodness, love, mercy, forbearance, and kindness, bearing precious fruit to His glory.
Claiming to be a child of God while bringing defective traits of character into the Christian life makes the testimony false, because to be a Christian means to be Christlike. Sonship means far more than professing godliness. It requires truth brought into the sanctuary of the soul, stamped upon the heart, and made the principle of action, with union of the human and the divine and the law of God written in the heart. It requires practicing known truth, coming fully out of the world and being separate from it while living in it as a living representative of Jesus Christ. It requires walking as dear children worthy of the calling, fruitful in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God, and rooted and built up in Christ, which alone makes young men and women true witnesses for Christ.
Children adopted through faith show it by walking in the way of God's commandments and in obedience to all His requirements, through which they are made more than conquerors. Perfect conformity to the will of God is the condition on which eternal life is given, as His called representatives reflect Christ's image mirrored upon their hearts constantly in word and deed in daily life and make Him known to a world that does not know Him. Obedience is an honor and a duty, with God having the right to command and man the duty to obey, and nothing forced upon any soul. Sons of God labor for God in interested, true-hearted, glad, honorable service, revealing a spirit of love for God and living and working in the very atmosphere of love in which Christ lived and worked. Genuineness of love is proved by keeping His commandments, including setting apart the seventh day as sacred and holy, while standing humble and contrite where God manifests Himself. Such obedience rebukes the evil works of the children of men and stirs the worst opposition of Satan, who works to delude and allure from the narrow path of holiness into the broad paths of sin and transgression.
The witness is sought and proved under test and trial. God uses trial to prove the strength of His children, whether the witness is present, whether conscience is void of offense, and whether character has the right qualifications. The heart grows strong while laboring in harmony with God, and the storm of test and trial proves the building. Trials also refine and purify, leading to trust in God rather than rebellion. The witness is seen when the believer bears testimony in simplicity and true godliness, without murmuring or complaining over poverty and lack of means for the workers, with zeal and earnestness that do not abate, and with self-sacrifice in building up God's work with durability for time and for eternity.
Being thus witnessed as children makes believers co-workers with Christ, commissioned messengers and agents in His work. Sanctification through the truth and partaking of the divine nature fit them for this service and show they are pilgrims bound for a better country. Faith makes the one family bound up with Christ in God laborers together with God, united as branches of the parent stock to bear fruit to His glory. Pure and undefiled religion makes them one, and true sanctified philosophy builds no wall of separation between a person and fellow man but makes all human elements one in Christ Jesus, giving each one every advantage of the Saviour's power and redeeming love. This noble calling with work entrusted by the heavenly Father requires a life actuated by noble purpose, daily seeking by watchfulness and sincere prayer to win little victories and attain complete victory over self. When exposed to varied scenes and words calculated to cut and bruise the soul, it means refusing a cheap mind easily offended and always thinking of self, which produces an inharmonious character unworthy of the calling, and instead keeping a harmonious character worthy of the trust, manifesting the superiority of right principles with a kindly, converted, humble spirit through which angels serve and divine agencies work in union of heavenly and earthly agencies, while a human agent set in his own course and determined to serve by his own ideas blocks that divine working.
The witness reaches unbelievers when believers set their own hearts in order and meet with testimony arising from a full soul, showing those who do not believe the truth that they are God's children. Their love for one another should be visible to all and have influence. In preaching, this same witness confirms that the message is not merely the preacher speaking on his own, but the Holy Spirit speaking through him as he faithfully works with Christ.
Because they are God's elect children by adoption into the royal family, simple sincere prayers offered at once when difficulty comes are presented by Christ to the Father mingled with the fragrance of His Spirit and are wholly accepted. Taking Christ as personal Saviour makes a person born again, born of God, a son or daughter of God. God's special work for them is to benefit them in every way for spiritual enlightenment, to enlighten, purify, transform, and strengthen their moral and spiritual power.
This assurance supports courage and confidence in Jesus as a personal friend and Saviour who loves and cares for them as children of the heavenly King. Believing the Spirit's witness that they belong to God as His adopted children brings a foretaste of heaven. To be among the children of God is to have privileges far greater than any advantages and honors the world offers, living by faith enduring as seeing Him who is invisible, receiving a precious experience from the Lord, having a work from God to do, seeking a higher sense of eternal things, and knowing God nigh to all who call upon Him with the whole heart.
Sonship is proven in this life of probation where God gives help to improve time and powers to become like Christ in spirit and word and character. Those who attain that standard have their names written in the book of life as members of the royal family, as sons of God and heirs of heaven, and Jesus accepts the overcomer with pleasure as redeemed, covers him with a robe of righteousness, and declares him worthy to walk with Him in white. Becoming children of God and citizens of God's kingdom is a privilege for which parents and young people should give thanks in prayer and praise.
Those who receive God's life and are lifted from sin may be acknowledged as His children. Those who receive Christ and believe in Him become the spiritual children of God, adopted into the royal family, and as they seek to do the will of God they become conformed to His image, called to live according to His will and represent Him in life and character. This adoption is made possible through Christ's suffering. Sinners are thus brought back to God and adopted into His family as His children, they may call Him Father, and Christ is not ashamed to call them brothers in this sacred relationship to God.
The Spirit joins His testimony with the believer's own spirit to give settled assurance that the believer is a child of God. This witness belongs to adoption, given to those who are led by the Spirit and have received the Spirit of adoption instead of bondage and fear, making them heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance and kingdom. The assurance does not rest on feeling, circumstances, or profession alone, but on God's immutable Word received by living faith, with the Spirit's inward moving agreeing perfectly with what is written and producing a heart and life corresponding to it. It is received by knowing God aright, surrendering all, crucifying the old nature, and trusting in childlike dependence, and it is kept by prayer, watchfulness, and walking in the light. The witness is seen in being made like Christ in temper, character, and obedience, walking in His commandments, bearing fruit in good works, and sharing His self-denial and suffering before sharing His glory.
Spirit's Joint Witness
The verse means that God's own Spirit joins its testimony with the believer's own spirit to give assurance of being God's child. This witness belongs to those who are led by God and who through the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body instead of living after the flesh unto death, who have received adoption instead of bondage and fear so that they call God Father, and who as children are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. That family standing confirms the reality of God's Spirit and the indwelling of His grace in the heart, and membership in His royal family with confidence in His love greater than the love of earthly parents. The hope joined to this sonship looks to sharing Christ's self-denial, humiliation and suffering in this life before sharing His glory, a coming glory that far outweighs present suffering.
The Holy Spirit who bears this witness is a divine person with personality, since only a personal being could confirm with human spirits that they belong to God as His children. His witnessing always leads to the written Word and carries its own evidence with it, so that at such times believers believe and are sure they are the children of God. That settled certainty is strong evidence of the power of truth to declare that they have known and believed the love of God and dwell in God and God in them. When a special working of God is seen with convincing evidence that it agrees with Scripture, the Holy Spirit joins with a person's own spirit to convince him that it is of God, and willfully rejecting that evidence and calling the Spirit's work Satan's work rejects the means by which God communicates with the heart and shuts out light already received, cutting off the channel by which God works on the heart and leaving the person in darkness.
The witness is the perfect agreement of the Spirit moving upon mind and heart with what is written in the Word, and that agreement is the evidence that one is born of God, to whom Christ is precious through believing. The Word gives the description of a true Christian, and the Spirit moving on mind and heart produces a heart and life corresponding with it, obtained by believing the Word and appropriating it to the soul as eating the bread of life unto eternal life, found by comparing scripture with scripture and studying the life of a true Christian as set forth in the Word. Even the working of the Spirit on mind and character must be tested by the law and the testimony, because many spirits have gone out into the world, and in proportion as a person submits way and character to the Lord and does His Word the promise of His guiding presence is fulfilled. Then there is an inward testimony in blessed assurance, the witness within joining with the Spirit and with the Word that the person is a child of God and that God will keep His covenant, enabling testimony with habitual certainty resting on Scriptural promises that believers are sons and daughters of God and heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, while the tree is judged by the fruit it bears. Where the heart bears no resemblance to the great moral standard of righteousness in the Word, where language and thoughts are not in harmony with the Spirit of Christ, there is no Christ to confess and profession of faith is counterfeit.
The assurance does not rest on feeling however pleasing, or on the emotional part, circumstances, perpetual doubts demanding additional evidence, another person's judgment or experience, or profession alone, but on God's immutable Word received by living, active faith. Feeling is not faith and must not be made the criterion of faith, or many precious blessings will be lost. A supposed hope of eternal life without this inward evidence of acceptance as one of God's children is not sound ground for assurance and may be self-deception, so each person must examine the grounds of hope and undergo thorough heart work rather than deceive themselves with profession alone. Assurance comes by entire dependence upon God as little children, believing His promise because His Word is immutable and He will do just as He says, presenting the case to the Father in confidence that He knows human helplessness and lack of righteousness and will help and fill the lack.
The witness is inward, continual and daily, experienced as the Spirit's presence within accompanying humble effort to follow God, and as a daily witness that Jesus is mine and I am His for which the heart drawn out after God longs and cannot rest until it has it each day. It belongs to being right with God and living in Christ's love, bringing freedom and peace, the precious love of Christ in the heart, humility in one's own sight with Jesus exalted, and a close and mysterious connection with Jesus that lifts above temporal things. It is to be received constantly by seeking God until He is found and by sitting together in heavenly places in Christ, placing oneself where the Spirit can continually give assurance that believers are God's children, that God loves them, and that they belong to Him as adopted children, which believing brings a foretaste of heaven.
Adoption Into God's Family
The witness belongs to adoption, for those led by the Spirit have received the Spirit of adoption instead of bondage and fear, so they cry Abba, Father, with God's Spirit joining the believer's own spirit to give assurance of being God's child. This belongs to those who are led by God and put to death the deeds of the body through the Spirit instead of living after the flesh unto death, which means accepting the Word, following its guidance, taking heed to its directions, and trusting in God's love to approach Him as Father. As children they are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ through sharing His self-denial, humiliation and suffering in this life unto a coming glory that far outweighs present suffering. Adoption as God's children and heirs with Jesus Christ comes wholly by free, sovereign grace, with grace in the covenant ordaining adoption as sons of God and grace in the Saviour effecting redemption, regeneration, and adoption to heirship with Christ. This standing is given while character is now forming for eternity and life on earth is training for heaven, and those made God's children become agents in His work, finding reward even in this life and revealing this grace to others by sowing patience, compassion, and love and reaping the harvest sown.
Becoming children comes through receiving Christ, believing on His name, accepting His ransom, and thorough conversion, which gives power to become sons of God and fits sinners for the society of the redeemed and angels. Whoever gives himself to Christ and hears the truth and obeys it becomes a child in one family with all other believers, taking Christ as personal Saviour and being born again, with the witness accompanying sincere repentance, reliance wholly on Christ's mercy, and willingness to let Him govern will and actions, not a claim based on personal righteousness. Those who receive Christ and are united with Him are sons and daughters of God and heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance, while refusing freedom from Satan leaves people living for earthly things instead of receiving it. Adopted children enter the royal family of the heavenly King, and when any soul approaches God as Father heaven becomes home and he becomes a member of the royal family, a loyal and true son or daughter. He holds a life endorsed by the Lord God who created him, linked with the family of the redeemed by a tie which cannot be broken, and this assurance rests on a love that never disappoints, does not fluctuate or change with circumstances, and continues through time and eternity, for unchangeableness belongs to His nature and whom He loves He loves unto the end, with whether a person is adopted depending on that person's own choice to receive Him, and Jesus loving and blessing them as they obey.
In Christ all adopted children are one family, for when a sinner is converted he receives the Holy Spirit who makes him a child of God and a joint heir with Christ, so that the ignorant and the wise, the rich and the poor, the heathen and the slave, white and black, for whom Jesus paid the purchase money and whose faith applies His cleansing blood, have their names written together in the book of life and are all one in Christ. Birth, station, nationality, color, or learning cannot elevate or degrade, but character makes the person, and God has a wider outlook for each person than any man or educator can discern, with every human mind as God's property under God's control and Jesus Christ as the one Master. Therefore no mortal, youth or man, however experienced, learned, sharp, or high in responsibility, can make a chalk line for another to walk on, lord it over him, dominate his mind and conscience, or command what he shall do or not do, since each bears individual responsibility for his own course and must take control of his own time, mind, and conscience, learning all possible from teachers but never coming under domination, as illustrated by Noah, Job, and Daniel who though in the land could not save son or daughter but could only deliver their own souls by their own righteousness. Sonship means very much and fills with awe and reverence, for every son and daughter of Adam blessed with reasoning powers has endowments and capabilities by which to make progress, to be elevated, ennobled, and sanctified, to hold converse with God, and to have the moral image of God developed in them, because heaven shows intense interest in that work and God places great value on man. It means coming into possession of immortality, a life running parallel with the life of Jehovah and living as long as God lives, and receiving God's inheritance together with Jesus Christ, a dignity and honor to which youth are called, revealing the object of creation to honor God and bless fellow men and the tender love of the Father and the high destiny for which this life's discipline prepares them. This calling gives motive to turn with contempt from low selfish aims and frivolous pleasures and to hate and shun sin not from hope of reward or fear of punishment but from its inherent baseness as a degrading of God-given powers and a stain upon God-like manhood, with the education that fits for sonship begun in this life continuing in the life to come, when men restored to God's image attain a glorious destiny whose full joy and blessing eternity alone reveals.
The world's humiliation and reproach do not disprove sonship, for believers adopted into God's family as His children and heirs with Christ of the kingdom and dominion have fellowship with the Father and the Son and a holy calling that are not recognized by the world, which sees their humiliation and reproach but does not know who they are or what they will become nor understands their character, calling, or future. Their standing as God's adopted heirs is not proved by earthly prosperity or the world's favor, for their names are written in the book of life and they belong to heaven even when the world does not recognize or acknowledge them. Faith lifts up the repenting soul to share the adoption of the sons of God, though sin can bring only shame and loss and unbelief means failure, with one failure of faith able to cut short a life-work. Yet God's mercy reaches to the deepest depths and marks heart-service, lifting the discouraged, as Elijah after failing in faith and fleeing weary before Jezebel and praying to die in the desert was not left to perish in discouragement and solitude nor to descend to the tomb, but was lifted in ascent with God's angels to the presence of His glory.
Heirs With Christ
As children, believers are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, received together with Jesus into His royal family. This heirship is an immortal inheritance, the kingdom and dominion given to God's sons and daughters who receive Christ and are united with Him. Those led by the Spirit have put to death the deeds of the body instead of living after the flesh unto death, and having received the Spirit of adoption instead of bondage and fear they cry Abba, Father. Their fellowship with the Father and the Son and their holy calling are not recognized by the world, which sees only humiliation and reproach and does not know who they are or what they will become.
Heirship includes sharing Christ's self-denial, humiliation and suffering in this life before sharing His glory. The assurance belongs to adoption and to confidence in God's love greater than the love of earthly parents, leading to the hope of suffering with Him and being glorified with Him. That coming glory far outweighs present suffering.
The grand privilege of being sons of God, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ is given on test and trial to perfect character after the divine similitude. It requires walking in the light as Christ is in the light, daily receiving the grace of Christ and acting it out in words, spirit and deeds, exercising faith and cherishing the hope and comfort He has provided. Being indeed a child of God and heir of heaven requires decided, immediate effort to cooperate with God because eternal interests are involved, using precious opportunities and uniting with those who are spiritually minded so that repeated acts form habits and habits form a life and character molded after the Divine standard. Those who accept the world's Redeemer and stand under His banner are adopted as sons and daughters of God, called to engage in the conflict with Christ as faithful soldiers, with the assured promise that those who partake of His humiliation and suffering for the truth's sake will inherit the crown of life and receive great reward in the kingdom of heaven.
This privilege, together with the inheritance of eternity, can be bartered away for worldly gain. Those who accept Christ's ransom can become children of God and heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance, but refusing freedom from Satan leaves people living for earthly things instead of receiving that inheritance.
Receiving the Assurance
The joint witness belongs to those who are led by the Spirit, which means putting to death the deeds of the body through the Spirit instead of living after the flesh unto death, having received adoption instead of bondage and fear so that they cry Father, and as children standing as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ through suffering with Him unto a glory far outweighing present suffering. To be so led is to accept the Word, follow its guidance, and take heed to the directions given in it. It is to have Christ's grace in the heart, and kinship with Christ and with God becomes the basis of present and future hope. That assurance comes through receiving Christ and believing on His name, which gives power to become sons of God.
The witness is a deep and living experience that comes only through thorough conversion. It comes by knowing God aright, which is life eternal, by much prayer and constant watchfulness, by crucifying the old man with his deeds, by surrendering all to God and falling on the Rock to be broken and not merely bruised, and by gathering light from the Source of light daily in order to scatter it in the pathway of others. Within, the Spirit works so that people become conscious of God's power and know they are accepted by Christ, and this inward work is made visible in a changed character and life, so that those lacking it need to be born again. In every believer a moral transformation takes place making the sinner a child of God and an heir of heaven and joint-heir with Christ, whom God intends to increase and grow in favor with God and man.
The assurance is offered to the weary and doubting soul seeking to know God, for God is a present and eternal strength. By His promises believers can come out of uncertainty and darkness into confidence that the Spirit bears witness with their spirit that they are His children. That assurance grows as faith increases and is acted on understandingly. It is kept by staying on right ground with God, never taking one step without evidence of Jesus' presence, never separating from Jesus as the very best Friend, and continually coming to the throne of grace in humble, believing prayer through the all-prevailing name of the Saviour with confidence that God hears.
The witness is received by exercising faith as the gift of God, without wavering between hope and fear and despondency, trusting as if the blessing were already possessed, with confidence that as the soul approaches God He draws nigh to nourish, encourage, and enrich it. It calls for committing soul and body to God in perfect submission to His will and in perfect trust in His power and willingness to bless, helpless and unworthy though one is. God condescends to holy, familiar intercourse with the one who seeks Him with the whole heart, and through the abundant manifestation of His grace the child is softened into childlike dependence. The result in the soul is courage, strength, sustaining comfort, power, and peace.
Assurance of adoption is often given as a clear revelation of God's presence and compassion and love, often joined with a commission to do a special work. It comes after great honor is placed upon a person and before a great trial, to prepare for temptation, and it nearly always brings a day of trial. Sufficient strength is given for the trial, and God answers the prayers of those who work in humility and faith. It must not lift up self but must lead to exalting God, laying hold of the spirituality of faith, walking humbly with God, and meeting temptation with the weapon It is written, answering wisely and firmly through Christ who has conquered.
The inward witness is experienced as the favor of God and conscious integrity, and willful violation of God's righteous law forfeits that witness and favor and exposes the soul to full assault, making it a battlefield marked by doubt, fear, paralyzed energy, and discouragement. The witness is likewise lost when people turn from God, cling to their own judgment, and leave sin uncleansed, and it is not secured by relying on doctrines or religious forms as a savior. When people lose God's favor they feel the loss and try to replace the witness with worldly excitement and the company and society of worldly people. That substitute only plunges them deeper into sin and intemperance until every better feeling is under the control of the adversary.
Evidence in Transformed Life
The witness that believers are children of God is seen in being made like Christ in temper, disposition, and character. Christ abides within, and words and conduct represent Him, fostering love for Him in others. Goodness and good works reveal a lovely character that marks a person as a child of God and an heir of heaven. This assurance is joined to having Christ abide in the soul, the graces of His Spirit, purity of heart, and works done in God, for merely professing the truth is not enough. It comes as grace stirs the soul while beholding the invisible Christ and earnestly striving for goodness, love, mercy, forbearance, and kindness, bearing precious fruit to His glory.
Claiming to be a child of God while bringing defective traits of character into the Christian life makes the testimony false, because to be a Christian means to be Christlike. Sonship means far more than professing godliness. It requires truth brought into the sanctuary of the soul, stamped upon the heart, and made the principle of action, with union of the human and the divine and the law of God written in the heart. It requires practicing known truth, coming fully out of the world and being separate from it while living in it as a living representative of Jesus Christ. It requires walking as dear children worthy of the calling, fruitful in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God, and rooted and built up in Christ, which alone makes young men and women true witnesses for Christ.
Children adopted through faith show it by walking in the way of God's commandments and in obedience to all His requirements, through which they are made more than conquerors. Perfect conformity to the will of God is the condition on which eternal life is given, as His called representatives reflect Christ's image mirrored upon their hearts constantly in word and deed in daily life and make Him known to a world that does not know Him. Obedience is an honor and a duty, with God having the right to command and man the duty to obey, and nothing forced upon any soul. Sons of God labor for God in interested, true-hearted, glad, honorable service, revealing a spirit of love for God and living and working in the very atmosphere of love in which Christ lived and worked. Genuineness of love is proved by keeping His commandments, including setting apart the seventh day as sacred and holy, while standing humble and contrite where God manifests Himself. Such obedience rebukes the evil works of the children of men and stirs the worst opposition of Satan, who works to delude and allure from the narrow path of holiness into the broad paths of sin and transgression.
The witness is sought and proved under test and trial. God uses trial to prove the strength of His children, whether the witness is present, whether conscience is void of offense, and whether character has the right qualifications. The heart grows strong while laboring in harmony with God, and the storm of test and trial proves the building. Trials also refine and purify, leading to trust in God rather than rebellion. The witness is seen when the believer bears testimony in simplicity and true godliness, without murmuring or complaining over poverty and lack of means for the workers, with zeal and earnestness that do not abate, and with self-sacrifice in building up God's work with durability for time and for eternity.
Being thus witnessed as children makes believers co-workers with Christ, commissioned messengers and agents in His work. Sanctification through the truth and partaking of the divine nature fit them for this service and show they are pilgrims bound for a better country. Faith makes the one family bound up with Christ in God laborers together with God, united as branches of the parent stock to bear fruit to His glory. Pure and undefiled religion makes them one, and true sanctified philosophy builds no wall of separation between a person and fellow man but makes all human elements one in Christ Jesus, giving each one every advantage of the Saviour's power and redeeming love. This noble calling with work entrusted by the heavenly Father requires a life actuated by noble purpose, daily seeking by watchfulness and sincere prayer to win little victories and attain complete victory over self. When exposed to varied scenes and words calculated to cut and bruise the soul, it means refusing a cheap mind easily offended and always thinking of self, which produces an inharmonious character unworthy of the calling, and instead keeping a harmonious character worthy of the trust, manifesting the superiority of right principles with a kindly, converted, humble spirit through which angels serve and divine agencies work in union of heavenly and earthly agencies, while a human agent set in his own course and determined to serve by his own ideas blocks that divine working.
The witness reaches unbelievers when believers set their own hearts in order and meet with testimony arising from a full soul, showing those who do not believe the truth that they are God's children. Their love for one another should be visible to all and have influence. In preaching, this same witness confirms that the message is not merely the preacher speaking on his own, but the Holy Spirit speaking through him as he faithfully works with Christ.
Because they are God's elect children by adoption into the royal family, simple sincere prayers offered at once when difficulty comes are presented by Christ to the Father mingled with the fragrance of His Spirit and are wholly accepted. Taking Christ as personal Saviour makes a person born again, born of God, a son or daughter of God. God's special work for them is to benefit them in every way for spiritual enlightenment, to enlighten, purify, transform, and strengthen their moral and spiritual power.
This assurance supports courage and confidence in Jesus as a personal friend and Saviour who loves and cares for them as children of the heavenly King. Believing the Spirit's witness that they belong to God as His adopted children brings a foretaste of heaven. To be among the children of God is to have privileges far greater than any advantages and honors the world offers, living by faith enduring as seeing Him who is invisible, receiving a precious experience from the Lord, having a work from God to do, seeking a higher sense of eternal things, and knowing God nigh to all who call upon Him with the whole heart.
Sonship is proven in this life of probation where God gives help to improve time and powers to become like Christ in spirit and word and character. Those who attain that standard have their names written in the book of life as members of the royal family, as sons of God and heirs of heaven, and Jesus accepts the overcomer with pleasure as redeemed, covers him with a robe of righteousness, and declares him worthy to walk with Him in white. Becoming children of God and citizens of God's kingdom is a privilege for which parents and young people should give thanks in prayer and praise.
Those who receive God's life and are lifted from sin may be acknowledged as His children. Those who receive Christ and believe in Him become the spiritual children of God, adopted into the royal family, and as they seek to do the will of God they become conformed to His image, called to live according to His will and represent Him in life and character. This adoption is made possible through Christ's suffering. Sinners are thus brought back to God and adopted into His family as His children, they may call Him Father, and Christ is not ashamed to call them brothers in this sacred relationship to God.