18-Chapter 1. The Dispensation Of The Grace Of God
Chapter 1. The Dispensation Of The Grace Of God
We will speak of the lofty position of the church. Called “through glory and perfection” she possesses the greatest promises (2 Peter 1:3-4). It is in this present age that the unsearchable riches of Christ are made known (Ephesians 3:8). The heavenly blessings of the church are too manifold to be expressed by a single description. Therefore the Spirit of God employs the most varied pictures and comparisons so as to divide, as by a prism, the brilliance of its eternal light into its separate rays. The church stands in relationship to all three Persons of the Divine Essence, to the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Spirit. In its relations to God it is a “household.” God is the “Father” (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6; John 20:17), and the redeemed are the members of His household (Ephesians 2:19; Galatians 6:10). As to duty they are His slaves (1 Peter 2:16), as to privilege they are His sons (Romans 8:14).
[1] The Standing of the Redeemed as Slaves
Purchased for God through the blood of Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:9), not with silver and gold (1 Peter 1:18), but at the price of His life (1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Corinthians 7:23), the “ransom money” of Golgotha (Matthew 20:28;
1 Timothy 2:6), the redeemed are no more their own (1 Corinthians 6:19), but are slaves of God (Romans 6:22) and of Christ (Romans 1:1; Ephesians 6:6). They are for ever His possession [ UNDERLINING W.H.] (Titus 2:14), His tools which He uses, 25 His slaves who , as a sign that they never can be sold, 26 He “has sealed” with His Spirit (Ephesians 1:13; Ephesians 4:30; 2 Corinthians 1:22). Their redemption is at the same time a purchase, their emancipation imposes obligation, and their position as slaves is at once and the same time a condition of personal ownership (1 Peter 2:9), obedience (Romans 6:17-18) and protection (Galatians 6:17; John 10:28-29).
Footnote 25: A slave is an animated tool, a tool an inanimate slave (Aristotle).
Footnote 26: As far back as the Babylonian legal code of Hammurabi, the contemporary of Abraham (= Amraphel, Genesis 14:1), a master, by branding a slave with a mark, declared that he would never part with him. The Greek word doulos does not mean servant but slave. A servant belongs to himself and consequently receives his own wage; a slave belongs to his owner and has no right to a wage (Luke 17:9-10). A servant sells to his master only his labour, and mostly for only a time; a slave belongs to him as a person and perpetually. Paul looked upon it as his “glory” to be, not merely a servant, but a slave of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:15-18). In translating, this word should be rendered more exactly.
[2] The Standng of the Redeemed as Sons But God’s counsel of salvation rises higher. Those freed from the slavery of sin are not only His servants, who, redeemed from destruction, are doers of His good pleasure, but He will bring them to be partakers of Himself, to become partakers of His divine nature (1 Peter 1:4). They shall be children (Romans 8:21), sons (Romans 8:14), indeed, firstborn sons (Hebrews 12:23).
1. Children. This and nothing less is the meaning of Holy Scripture when it speaks of the redeemed as those who have been born of (out of) God; for the raising of the subjects of grace into the standing of sons is not merely a formal declaration of sonship, a legal exaltation and appointment, a, so to say, juridical adoption, but is an actual begetting (James 1:18), a being really born again, an organic birth from God (John 3:3; John 3:5; 1 Peter 1:23; 1 Peter 2:2; 1 John 2:29; 1 John 3:9). “Behold, what a love the Father has shown to us, that we should be called children of God. And such we are!” (1 John 3:1).
2. Sons. But as such we have at the same time come of age. This is precisely the chief difference from the Old Testament era. For sonship was indeed already a possession of Israel (Romans 9:4; Deuteronomy 14:1). As shown in the revealed history Israel was God’s firstborn son among the peoples (Exodus 4:22). The Old Testament had already taught a fatherhood of God (Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 63:16; Isaiah 64:8; Malachi 1:6; comp. Isaiah 1:2; Isaiah 30:1-9). But the Old Testament sonship was based on the act of creation (Isaiah 64:8; Deuteronomy 32:6) and the national redemption of Israel out of Egypt (Isaiah 63:16); the New Testament sonship is based on the personal birth of the individual from God and the reception of the spirit of sonship (Galatians 4:5-6).
Therefore also Israel stood as yet under a “tutor,” a trainer of boys (Gk. paidagogos), even the law (Galatians 3:24). “But now that faith is come, we are no longer under a tutor” (Galatians 3:25). For an Israelite to become a believer signifies his coming of age, his independence of a tutor, that is, his freedom from the law (Galatians 4:1-5); and since now in the church there no more exists a difference between Jew and Gentile, therefore believers from the nations share the same freedom. So then compared with the past we are of age, while as regard the future we still await the adoption (Romans 8:23). But we are not only children and sons but also
3. Firstborn Sons. The redeemed of this age are “a kind of firstfruits of his creatures” (James 1:18) the “church of the firstborn ones who are enrolled in heaven” (Hebrews 12:23). That men, not angels, are meant by the term “firstborn” is shown by the added expression “who are enrolled in heaven” (comp. Luke 10:20; Php 4:3). As the firstborn they have: priestly standing (Exodus 13:2; Exodus 13:15; Numbers 8:16-18; 1 Peter 2:5); kingly dignity (1 Chronicles 5:1-2; Revelation 1:6); a double portion 27 of the inheritance (Deuteronomy 21:15-17; Ephesians 1:3).
Footnote 27: On the death of the father, if there were, say, six children, the property was divided into seven portions, of which the firstborn took two. [Trans.]
Thus their standing as sons is completed in the birthright of the firstborn: as children they have God’s life, as sons position and dignity, as firstborn His glory. The conceptions of childhood and sonship are thus not exactly the same, but are the necessary complement of each other. “Childhood” emphasizes more the mystic, organic, metaphysical; “sonship” (= acceptance as sons, adoption) emphasizes the juridical declarative. The idea of sonship prevails with Paul (Galatians 3:26; Galatians 4:7; Romans 8:14; Romans 8:19), that of childhood with John (1 John 3:1-2; 1 John 3:10; 1 John 5:2); even as Paul is the principal juridical writer of the New Testament and John the mystic-metaphysical writer. Translations should keep distinct these two different terms (tekna, children, huioi, sons). But with all this there remains for ever the infinite distance between the Son and the sons, the Firstborn and the firstborn ones. He is the one Son of the Most High within the Deity (Mark 14:61-62), and they are the many sons of the heavenly Father within the created universe. He is Himself the only-begotten (John 1:14; John 1:18; John 3:16), the heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2), “God over all, blessed for ever” (Romans 9:5); they are the objects of grace, rescued out of sin and misery. And therefore the Lord never used the expression “our Father” as joining together Himself and His people, but only “My Father and your Father” (John 20:17). Yet He is not ashamed to call them His “brethren,” for both He who sanctifies as well as those who are being sanctified are all of One (the Father) (Hebrews 2:11-12). The members of the church are firstborn ones only in relation to the rest of redeemed creation: as regards eternity and the totality of the universe Christ is the Firstborn.