CHILDREN OF GOD.

Adoption gives us the rights of children, regeneration gives us the nature of children, we are partakers of both of these, for we are children of God. And this is a gift of grace recieved by faith. We are not the children of God by nature in the sense meant here. We are in a sense "the offspring of God" by nature, but this is very different from the sonship which is the peculiar priviledge of those who are born again. The Jews claimed to be the family of God, but as their priviledges came to them by way of their fleshly birth, they are likened to Ishmael, who was born after the flesh, but who was cast out as the son of the bond-woman, and compelled to give way to the son of the promise. We have a sonship which does not come to us by nature, for we are " born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of man, but of God." Our sonship comes by promise, by the operation of God as a special gift to a peculiar seed, set apart for The Lord by His own sovereign grace, as Isaac was. This honour and priviledge comes to us by faith, note well Galationsc3v26 "for ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." As unbelievers we know nothing of adoption. While we are under the law as self-righteous we know something of servitude, but we know nothing of sonship. It is only after that faith has come that we cease to be under the schoolmaster, and rise out of our minority to take our priviledges of the sons and daughters of God.
Faith worketh in us the spirit of adoption, and our consciousness of sonship in this wise, fist, it brings us justification, the bible says, " the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." An unjustified man stands in the condition of a criminal, not of a child, his sin is laid to his charge, he is reckoned as unjust and unrighteous, as indeed he really is, and he is therefore a rebel against his King, and not a child enjoying his Father's love. but when faith realizes the cleansing power of the blood of atonement, and lays hold upon the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, then he or she is justified, and becomes the child of God. Justification and adoption always go together. "Whom He called,them also He justified," and the calling is to the Father's house, and to a recognition of sonship. Believing brings forgiveness and justification through our Lord Jesus Christ, it also brings adoption, for it is written, " but as many as recieved Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name."