with me to the epistle of 1 John. Just taking a short break myself, at least from the Book of Galatians, just for one sermon, so I can jump back into its subject matter. So this evening we're going to look at 1 John 3.1, and the status of Christians as those who are the sons and daughters of God. A blessed privilege that we have as Christians, a privilege undeserved, that we can be called the sons and daughters of God or the children of God.
So I'm going to read 1 John 3, 1. We'll pray and then we'll have a look at this blessed verse. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know Him.
Amen. Well, let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We rejoice in your goodness to us here this evening and worship that we can freely gather to worship our blessed God, the one and only living and true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that we can reflect upon the glories of Jesus and that we can sing of your amazing grace.
And we pray as we continue in worship in the act of preaching, you would be with us by your spirit. Illumine our minds that we might understand all the more the things of your holy word. And we pray that saints would be edified, that sinners would be saved by spirit and word, and that in all things you would be honored and glorified. We pray in Christ's name, amen.
Introduction
It's a wonderful verse that we have before us. We're gonna look at doing five things in an analysis of sometimes one single word, but other times certain clauses that we have in this particular verse. And the five things we're going to look at are these. First, the Christian imperative to consider and be astonished.
Secondly, the surpassing wonder of the love of God. Thirdly, the unmerited love of God. Fourthly, the Christian's status in union with Christ, and then lastly, the result of all this as it concerns the world. So first off, with regards to the Christian imperative to consider and be astonished,
The Imperative to Behold
we're going to consider the very first word of this verse, and this word alone, the word behold. It's not usually the case that we just simply focus on one single word, but there's something significant about this word, not only here, but also how it's used elsewhere in the Bible. In fact, in the New Testament, there are at least 10 different words for what is translated look, or see, or behold, or the word low, as in low I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And some of those looks are looks of investigation.
Sometimes it's a look of scrutiny. Sometimes it's a look of anticipation of something that is forthcoming. In the case of the word that we have here that's translated behold, it actually comes from a Greek word that we through the ages of etymology get our word idea. Something that is formed in the mind, something that captures the mind, and something that we see in the way of an idea or a significant thing.
The word base being used here is the same of that announcing angel when he says, Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son. As well, that well-known behold, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The word form here, though, it's a little bit different than that. It's the same base word, but the word is an imperative, a command, call to attentively consider something of very great significance and So this word behold is not simply a common look or see but something wherein the Apostle John here is Calling upon his audience to lay hold of something of great significance Jesus Christ uses the same employ when he says behold my hands and my feet and the The Samaritan woman uses the same word when she says, come see a man who told me all things I ever did.
And the angels at the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, when they say, come see the place where the Lord lay. So we have this word behold, and it's given as an imperative. It's given as a commandment, but not some burdensome one. It's a joyful command.
It's a joyful imperative for the recipients of John's letter to get their mind captivated by the subject matter that is to follow, to look with eyes of faith upon something of great significance. And that's what we have, secondly, in the surpassing wonder of the love of God.
The Surpassing Wonder of God's Love
Notice, behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us. What manner of love? This blessed phrase captures at least three things, and I think what's primarily in view is the divine love demonstrated in the incarnation of the Son, which is the source or foundation of our adoption as sons and daughters of God. the soteriological, the salvific, the saving foundation for our status as children of God. So, we often think about that demonstration love of God, the love of God as it is demonstrated.
But the first thing we ought to consider with this, behold what manner of love, The Father has bestowed on us is
God's Love and His Essential Glory
the love of God in light of his essential glory Notice if you turn with me in the same epistle to first John 4 8 1st John 4 8 as we consider the love of God in light of His essential glory. Notice in 1 John 4, 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
As Pastor Butler has said on a number of occasions in his preaching, when we consider the Creator, creature distinction and when we consider the divine perfections or the the attributes of God We're not to consider those things for for our case this evening the love of God we're not to consider these things as if God is on the same scale or chain of being as his creation as if to say we have cockroach dog cat Dolphin. Raven. man, angel, God. And that if we just jump in at the point of humanity, that we have man's love, and God is just sort of the maximal expression of human love, but on a higher scale. When we consider the creator of all things, his love, as he says himself, is himself.
The theologians say all that is in God is God. And this verse speaks to that blessed reality that God is not made up of his perfections. There aren't things that are more absolute than God, like love, like goodness, like justice, like righteousness, that he sort of appropriates to make himself to be God, but God is the very things that are predicated of him. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, speaking of the perfection of the Godhead, foreseeing that its every quality is incomprehensible and beyond the power of our intellect, How can we either perceive or express by definition on such a subject that which is beyond our ken or beyond our knowledge?
How can the immeasurable be measured and the Godhead be reduced to the condition of finite things and measured by degrees of greater or less? As John is writing, behold what manner of love, he wants us to see what the Bible everywhere speaks, that the love of God is immeasurable, and it is immutable. This is a wonderful thing with regards to our God. He is beyond all metrics, and we want a God who is that.
The theologians of old would say a God who can be measured is no God at all and certainly not a God to be worshipped God is God dwells in an everlasting and an eternal boundless now in his infinity and and his love is boundless. He doesn't love us a little bit more on Thursday and then a little bit less on Friday. His love does not wax and wane, but his love is perfect because God is love. Augustine wrote, God is not what he has, but he is what he is.
For in him it is not one thing to be and another to be great or another to be good, But for him to be is the same as to be great, to be good, and to be wise, and whatever else we can say of that simple multiplicity, or rather, that multifold simplicity. So when we speak of the love of God, when John opens up and says, behold, that is, captivate your minds, and for a moment, rouse yourselves, and with the eyes of faith, lay hold of something, And when he brings forth that something as the manner of the love of the Father, we're to glory in, and the beholder is to look upon a God who does not change in his love, but is most loving, perfect in his love, with a love that cannot lessen, that cannot increase, because it is perfect. And secondly, under the surpassing wonder of the love of God,
God's Love in Light of Our Sinfulness
we should consider the love of God in light of our sinfulness. That's something that's in view here. When he writes, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God, we are to consider our former sinfulness, our present sinfulness, as far as our remaining corruption, but our former sinfulness, that though we were marked as those who were dead in trespasses and sins, though we were marked as those, as Paul writes to Titus, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, et cetera, that though we were marked by that, nevertheless, God and his unchangeable love made us to be children of God by virtue of the blessed and perfect work of Jesus Christ. When we consider the love of God, we are to consider His divine perfections, and we are secondly to consider the fact that He made us alive in Christ when we were dead in our trespasses and sins.
You can turn with me to Romans in chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. Speaking of the glory of the love of God in light of our sinfulness, we have this wonderful passage in Romans 5 that speaks to the love of God in spite of the fact that we were once ourselves marked as those who were foolish, disobedient, deceived, etc. Notice Romans 5, beginning at verse 6.
For when we were still without strength, In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. What a wonderful thing we have here in the demonstration of divine love.
The height of the demonstration of divine love is seen in exactly this, that His love is demonstrated towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In other words, as we find our way back to 1 John, Our status as children is not because we're awesome, because we're great, because we've somehow earned it by virtue of some natural greatness, but rather in spite of our sin, and while we were still yet sinners, dead in our trespasses and sins, God made us alive in Christ to be the children of God. And that is what we see next, thirdly, under this surpassing wonder of the love of God, is
God's Love and the Incarnation
the love of God in light of the incarnation of the Son of God. The same word used here, where we read what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that language of bestowed, is the same word used, the same word form, used in John 3.16. Pastor Butler spent some wonderful time on that in the last few minutes of his sermon this morning. Speaking of the fact that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, it's the same word used here with regards to bestowed.
It's a gracious divine gifting of something. But we're we're not quite there yet in light of the incarnation of the Son of God notice in first John 4 Speaking of the demonstration of the love of God with regards to the incarnation And this is this is more pointedly what John it has in view not that he doesn't have The perfection the divine perfection of love and view and of course not that he doesn't have The former sinfulness and the love of God visited upon those who were dead in sins, but he probably has primarily the demonstration of the love of God in the incarnation. And do you notice in 1 John 4, After that portion that we read with regards to God is love, notice at verse 9, 1 John 4, 9. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. This is in essence what? John is calling upon his audience and what God is calling upon us to behold to look upon to to grasp with the eyes of faith It is the glory of the visitation of divine love in the incarnation of the Son of God this this language of behold and its weightiness as an imperative and its weightiness as calling upon an audience to look upon something is picked up by the early church fathers and it's picked up by Chris Austin in a in a more elaborate or repeated way. And the language he uses isn't necessarily behold, but in his stylish way, he would use the language of attend to his audience, attend I entreat you and rouse yourselves.
And at the point of the demonstration of the love of God, in the incarnation of the Son of God, he uses that language in his exposition of Philippians 2, 5-11, which speaks of the incarnation, the one who's in the form of God, who did not consider equality with God something to be held on to, but humbled himself in the incarnation, taking on the form of a bondservant. Chris Austin says, attend I and treat you and rouse yourselves. And then he gives this glorious picture of, he kind of personifies Philippians 2, 5 to 11 as a warrior with a sword. And he sets up this picture of all of these heretics throughout the ages who have opposed the glory of the incarnation of the son of God, his person and his work.
And he calls upon his audience to behold, to look at a spectacle where this warrior with a single sword comes crashing down upon what he pictures as Roman soldiers that are the heretics who are shielding themselves under shields. And the sword of the spirit of Philippians 2, 5 to 8, the glory of the incarnation, comes smashing down and shatters them into a thousand pieces. We behold the spectacle of such glory. We behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us in light of the blessed incarnation of the Son of God.
He died as an expression and demonstration of the love of God as he bore substitutionarily the wrath of God in our stead. The language of Galatians 2.20 is glorious. Remember what Paul writes there. He writes that as far as he lives by the Spirit, he lives by faith in the Son of God.
And he doesn't say, who loved sinners and gave himself for sinners, though that would be glorious, and that is glorious, and that's true. He doesn't say Christ who loved us and gave himself for us, though that's true and that's glorious, but he says the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. The connection of love to the incarnation of the Son of God connecting to the behold, which is to land upon the eyes and ears of Christians to cause them to look with eyes of faith upon so glorious a demonstration Divine love the father would send the son in the fullness of the times to give himself for guilty sinners What a glorious expression what manner of love the father has bestowed on us
The Unmerited Love of God
notice thirdly the it's the unmerited love of God and What manner of love the Father has bestowed on us. Again, that same word base employed in John 3.16, the gracious gifting by God. Our confession of faith uses the language that God vouchsafed us to be partakers of the grace of adoption. That's wherein our sonship and our daughterhood consists.
Our children of godness consists in God vouchsafing us, that is, giving us a gracious gift, unearned, unmerited, undeserved, to be the children of God. What a blessed thing it is. It's the unmerited love of God. The Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God.
As the Bible everywhere does, as God through Revelation everywhere does, He calls us, the word calls us to reflect upon the fact that we are Christians, not because of us, but because of God. We are saints by calling, not because of us, but because of God. We are the children of God, certainly not by nature, and certainly not because of us, but solely and alone because of God. And we'll notice here shortly that The reality is set forth that we're children of God, not because of us, because we once were children of wrath, but the unmerited love of God.
The whole scheme of salvation, the whole plan of salvation, the whole blessed chain of redemption connects itself to the fact that we are the blessed yet undeserved recipients of the gracious gifting of God. as we reflect upon our former selves, as we reflect upon the fact that we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures full of malice and envy. And we reflect now upon the fact that we can come into a place and with joyful Christian hearts, worship the triune God, rejoice in Christ and sing the praises of grace. We're to reflect upon the fact that our salvation is by virtue of divine condescension and the bestowal of love and grace and all those glories connected to the goodness of God.
The Christian's Status in Union with Christ
Fourthly, the Christian status in union with Christ. And this gets to the core of this statement here with respect to Christians being the children of God. The Christian status in union of God, in union with Christ. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that.
So this is sort of the thing that is to be beholden. The thing that is to be beheld, rather. what manner of love is certainly to be beheld, the bestowal of a certain status is to be beheld, and all of that comes to this, that we should be called children of God. The language, or we should say the theme of sonship, takes up prime real estate in the Bible. the theme of fatherhood and sonship.
Types of Sonship in Scripture
Just a brief tour through the biblical sonships that we have in the Bible, and there are a number of them. They're all significant, and some of them connect. More than one connect to the theme that we have before us as Christians being children of God. We have at least 10 types of sonship in the Bible.
We have the first and greatest of all, which is the unique eternal sonship of the Son of God. He is Son of God by nature. He is one in substance, one in being, of one nature with Him who begat Him. He is eternally begotten of the Father.
In a manner that is glorious and that is impossible to comprehend, yet is revealed truth, and a revealed truth that we are to glory in the unique eternal sonship of the Son of God. We also have angelic sonship. Angelic sonship. The angels are called the sons of God in the book of Job.
Not only there, but primarily in the book of Job. And specifically, the angels probably created on day one of creation They're created on day one, and they behold the glory of the creation, and they sing with joy. We have, thirdly, creational sonship. We are, as humans, the sons of God, by virtue of creation, but not in that special, redemptive, and glorious, and Christian way.
The Apostle Paul, appropriating a poem about Zeus and to Zeus in Acts 17, appropriates it for a sacred and glorious use to argue that we are all the offspring of God in that proclamation to the Athenian philosophers. We also have diabolical sonship. Christ says to the unbelieving Jews, you are of your father the devil and the desires of your father you want to do. We have Adamic sonship.
We are the sons and daughters of Adam. By virtue of our connection to him outside of Christ, we are the sons and daughters of Adam. We are the recipients. Our confession calls them our first parents.
We have, as well, national sonship. And this probably takes up the larger portion of, for example, the Old Testament. It is typological and it points forward to Christ, but the national sonship of Israel. Within that, you have Abrahamic sonship according to the flesh and you also have the sons of God the godly Sethite line connected to that and in Genesis 6 but national sonship God calls Israel his son the Israelites call God their father There is a we could call it covenantal or a corporate sonship We have also and bear with me with this one typological monarchical sonship We have God in the promise to David, the Davidic covenant, that his sons would be blessed.
Ultimately, it points to the greater than David, David's son, properly speaking, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would in the fullness of the times perfect covenant promises. But the sons of David, according to the flesh, the lineage of monarchs, were sons of God. We have, getting closer to our sonship that's before us, we have the unique mediatorial sonship of Jesus Christ. And this bears a very important connection, as does the Adamic sonship that we previously mentioned to our text tonight.
But the unique mediatorial sonship of Jesus Christ. This speaks to the fact that Christ is a son in the incarnation to God. Remember that language at the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then later at the transfiguration, where a voice comes down from heaven and says, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. No doubt he is the beloved son with respect to his unique eternal sonship as the one who is eternally begotten of the Father, but as the last Adam and as the obedient and true Israel, he is the obedient son that perfects obedience for his people.
We have as well evangelical sonship, John uses the language of my little children. Paul uses the language of Timothy being his son. The apostles would have sort of sons and daughters by virtue of they being the recipients of the proclamation of the gospel, and in a way, spiritual sons and daughters. And then
Redemptive Sonship by Adoption
our last sonship is given to us here, and that is redemptive sonship. Behold what manner of love the father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God redemptive sonship and What a blessed thing that is because what were we beforehand? We were children of wrath we were we were sons and daughters of Adam justly deserving the punishment for our transgressions against the law of God. The Apostle Paul uses that language.
We were once children of wrath, just as the others. So what a blessed thing then it is for Christians to behold the manner of love that our blessed God has bestowed on us, that we can now be called the children of God. As you can reflect upon your career prior to being adopted into God's family by amazing grace as you can reflect upon transgressions born each and every day and and each and every second That you were children of wrath that we are were that we all were children of wrath What a blessed thing we can say now that we are the children of God not because of us But because of the perfection of the work of Christ and the amazing grace of God applied to our souls our previous sonship, we were children of wrath, we were the sons and daughters of Adam, the rightful inheritors and heirs of eternal damnation, but we now have a present and abiding sonship. We have the spirit of adoption.
And our redemptive sonship looks back then upon the fact that we once had a sonship as sons and daughters of Adam, inheritors of the curse, But the obedient son, the one who has a unique eternal sonship, who took on in the incarnation our humanity to bear a mediatorial sonship, unlike Adam, who was a son of God, unlike Adam, he is perfectly obedient to the law of God. Unlike Israel, who bore a national corporate, covenantal sonship to God the Father, the true Israel Jesus Christ perfects obedience for his people who are turned by grace from being children of wrath to children of the blessed God. Just to briefly look at the fact that we are sons and daughters of God by adoption,
Adoption, Predestination, and the Trinity
you can turn first with me to the book of Ephesians. The language of adoption is used with regards to our sonship because we are not by nature children of God. You know, the common trope or the common theme of the spiritually ambiguous and the The well-meaning but terribly wrong Christians who say we're all children of God and in this some sort of universal way Has emotional weight, but it doesn't have biblical propriety. We are the children of God we are adopted and Sons and daughters of God humans are not the sons of God redemptively by nature but notice in Ephesians chapter 1 we have this wonderful language of adoption being connected to the predestinating love of God in Ephesians 1 beginning at verse 3 blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ just as he chose us in him and Before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him now notice in love Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself According to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of his glorious grace by which he made us accepted in the beloved having predestined us in love to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ you can turn to Galatians and Here in Galatians 2, Galatians 4 rather, the Apostle Paul here connects adoption, our adoption, to the mediation of Christ, his incarnation specifically, and the giving of the Spirit.
Notice in Galatians 4 at verse 4. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. Notice that we might receive the adoption as sons. So one of the purposes of the incarnation was to make those who were once children of wrath the sons of God through the perfection of saving work and by the grace of God. the incarnation designed to bring many sons from wrath to glory through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And notice the spirit connected here in verse 6. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Think of that for a moment, we're heirs of God. Having once been by virtue of our connection to Adam and Eve as the sons and daughters of Adam and the inheritors, the heirs of everlasting curse and damnation, we are now by grace those who are heirs of God through Christ. were to behold that with the full weight of our Christian sight, the eyes of faith, to behold so glorious a thing. And notice in this passage that we have the blessed triunity of God connected to our adoption. When the fullness of the time had come, God the Father sent forth his Son, of course, the Son, and then we have the Spirit of God sent into our hearts by which we cry out, Abba, Father.
Our adoption as sons and daughters of God is connected to the blessed triunity of God, the trinity of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. are present and abiding sonship. It is an abiding sonship. We are the sons and daughters of God. We are the inheritors of everlasting life.
We have a blessed inheritance laid up for us. And one of the things our confessions brings out, and we're going to close, if you turn back to 1 John, there's one final clause that we'll spend two minutes and 33 seconds on. But as the sons and daughters of God, our confession brings out the reality that God then pities us as his children, he protects us as his children, and he chastens us as his children, which are all called blessed privileges to those who are part of the household of God. As children of God, we are under the parentage of a blessed God who pities us, who looks down upon us, who sees our weaknesses, he sees our trials, he sees our afflictions, he sees that we are beset on all sides by wickedness and he pities us and he helps us by his spirit.
The blessed thing as well is that he also chastens us. As the Apostle Paul brings out in the book of Hebrews, we should never, he doesn't say this, but we should never straight-arm the chastening of God, but we should welcome it as his children. when he sends upon us the trials and sometimes even the afflictions and the disciplines of chastening, we are to see that as a gracious and a loving father, bringing us through a season that we might all the more on the other side of the trial, on the other side of the affliction, on the other side of the hardship, be all the more conformed to his blessed son.
The World's Ignorance of God's Children
Closing then with 1st John chapter 3 in verse 1, lastly the result of all this as it concerns the world. Notice the language at the end of verse 1. There's a therefore here. Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know him.
This is language that Pastor Butler has been bringing out very recently. Jesus Christ, know that if the world hates you, It hated me first. What is the reason behind, one of the significant reasons behind the world's enmity for Christians, the world's opposition to Christians, the world's ultimate, their opposition to Christ's people? It is the reality that they do not know the Father, and so they do not know us. and they look upon us as those representing the God and the Christ that they oppose by their actions, by their thoughts, and by their deeds.
The world does not know us. We are the children of God, and they know nothing of us, and therefore, ultimately, they oppose us, they persecute us, and when they have their way, they seek to destroy us. We ought to be encouraged that in spite of all that, and with that in light, we are called the children of God by virtue of the perfection of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is a God in high heaven who sits above the earth, as it were, looks down upon the earth with derision upon those who oppose his church. He pities, he protects us, and he strengthens us for this battle in this lower world, not a battle according to the flesh, but a spiritual battle against the enemies of the Christian gospel.
We are the blessed children of God, and what an honor it is for us to be able to, with eyes of faith, behold the blessed realities of divine love, of divine gracious bestowal, of the blessed truth that we've been adopted into the family of God. and that we are the inheritors of everlasting life. As we go into this week, we should engage in that high and lofty beholding of the blessings of God, the high and lofty divine perfection of love, the reality that though we were once dead in our trespasses and sins, yet God in His love brought us forth to be His children, to behold the blessed incarnation of the eternal Son of God who took upon Himself our humanity to save us from our sins. As we go into this week, let us be encouraged by that, even though the world does not know us because it did not know Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, though the world opposes us, we can rest upon the fact that the sovereign God of high heaven protects His children. He encourages His children.
He uplifts His children. And if you're here tonight and you're outside of Christ, know that you are the children of wrath, the inheritors of everlasting damnation. But there is such blessed hope in the God of amazing grace, who alone has the power to make you a child of God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved and enter that blessed household of faith.
Well, let's pray.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We rejoice in your truth to us. We thank you so much for the fact that we can be called the children of God, not because of what we have done, not by virtue of any good deed or good thought or any obedience on our part, but solely and alone by virtue of the obedience of the obedient Son, even Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. We pray that you'd help us to reflect with great glory that we would behold with eyes of faith the glories of our God in condescending love and making us who were once children of wrath the children of God by amazing grace.
Go with us into this week, help us to glory in Christ, help us to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, and help us to return in one week's time to enter into this place to once again Gathered together as the saints of Christ to worship Father Son and Holy Spirit and we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen We'll have a brief time of prayer when the piano