FAITH, THE MARK OF SONSHIP.

Faith is the mark of sonship in all who have it, whoever they may be, for "ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."gal.3v26. If you are believing in Jesus, whether you are male or female, Jew or gentile, bond or free, you are the child of God. If you have only believed in Christ of late, and have but for the past few weeks been able to rest in His great salvation, yet beloved, now you are the child of God. It is not an after priviledge, granted to assurance or growth in grace, it is an early blessing and belongs to him who has the smallest degree of faith and is no more than a babe in grace. If a person be a believer in Jesus Christ their name is in the register-book of the great family above, for, "ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." But if you have no faith, no matter what zeal, no matter what works, no matter what knowledge, no matter what pretensions to holiness you may possess, you are nothing, and your religion is vain. Without faith in Christ you are a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal for without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith then wherever it is found, is the infallible token of a child of God, and it's absence is fatal to the claim.
This according to the apostle is further illustrated by our baptism, for in baptism, if there is faith in the soul, there is an open putting on of The Lord Jesus. " For as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ."gal3v27. In baptism you professed to be dead to the world and you were therefore buried into the name of Jesus, and the meaning of that burial, if it had any right meaning for you, was that you professed your self henceforth to be dead to everything but Christ, and henceforth your life was to be in Him, and you were to be as one raised from the dead to newness of life. Of course the outward form avails nothing to the unbeliever, but to the one who is in Christ it is a most instructive ordinance. The spirit and essence of the ordinance lie in the soul's entering into the symbol, in the person's knowing not alone the baptism into water, but the baptism into The Holy Ghost and into fire, and as many of you as know that inward mystic baptism into Christ know also that hencforth you have put on Christ and are covered by Him as a man is by his garment. Henceforth you are one with Him, you wear His name, you live in Him, you are saved by Him, you are altogether His. Now, if you are one with Christ, since He is a son, you are a son also. God seeth you not in yourself but in Christ, and that which belongeth unto Christ belongeth also unto you, for if you be Christ's then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. As the Roman youth when he came of age put on the toga, and was admitted to the rights of citizenship, so the putting on of Christ is the token of our admission into the position of sons of God. Thus we are actually admitted to the enjoyment of our glorious heritage. Every blessing of the covenant of grace belongs to those who are Christ's, and every believer is in that list.