J.C. Philpot
The Sons of God; Their Blessings and Their Privileges
Preached at North Street Chapel,
Stamford,
on Lord’s Day Morning, January 31, 1864
“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon
us,
that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the
world knoweth us
not, because it knew him not.” 1 John 3:1
The life of John, the beloved disciple, was, by the express
wisdom and goodness of God, prolonged beyond the space allotted to his fellow
apostles. Church history informs us that he lived to be nearly one hundred years
old; and Jerome, one of the ancient Church Fathers, as quoted by Milner, records
a pleasing incident of him at that advanced period of life, which is so much in
harmony with his general character that it seems to deserve our credence better
than most of the current traditions concerning him. It is this. When he was too
old and infirm to walk, he was carried into the assemblies of the Christians at
Ephesus, and
there he confined himself to these few simple words of exhortation: “My
children, love one another.” But I intimated that it was by the express wisdom
and goodness of God that his life was so long spared; and now I will tell you my
reason for drawing this conclusion. Satan, when he found he could not overthrow
the Church
of Christ by violence,
changed his plan, and sought to subvert it by treachery. He therefore raised up
in almost all directions, where there were churches of Christ, a set of vile
characters, men erroneous in doctrine and ungodly in life, who sprang up as
tares in the fields of wheat. To us it seems scarcely credible that within
thirty or forty years after our Lord’s death and resurrection there should start
up in the churches such characters as Jude and Peter describe with their graphic
pens. Hear Jude’s description of many members of Christian churches in his day,
which, taking the Bible date of the Epistle, A.D. 66, was but 33 years after the
ascension of Jesus—a shorter space of time than I have professed to be a servant
of Christ. “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old
ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into
lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“These,” he adds, “are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with
you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried
about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked
up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering
stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever,” (Jude 4,12,13).
What strong, what emphatic language! And yet the Church of Christ
at that early period was pestered with these infamous characters. You will find
equally strong language concerning them in the second epistle of Peter written
about the same time. And even Paul, a year or two before the same period,
denounces similar characters in terms not much less severe: “For many walk, of
whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the
enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their
belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things,” (Phil.
3:18,19). And again: “For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers,
specially they of the circumcision: whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert
whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.
They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable,
and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate,” (Titus 1:10,11,16).
Now what a mercy it was that John should have been spared to
witness not only the introduction of these ungodly characters into the
professing church but their full development; that he, who had been an
eye-witness of the Lord’s glory on the mount of transfiguration; who had viewed
his agony in the garden; who had stood by him when expiring on the cross, and
marked the blood and water gush from his pierced side; who had seen and handled
him after the resurrection, and had beheld his ascension from Bethany, should
have been spared to witness all these evils introduced into the primitive
churches; for he was thus enabled, towards the close of his life, by the grace
of God and the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, to testify, with all the greater
power and authority as an eye-witness, against these evils and these errors. The
“grievous wolves,” for instance, that Paul prophesied should enter in among them
at Ephesus,
(Acts 20:29), were there before his eyes, “not sparing the flock.” And so with
other churches, such as Pergamos and Thyatira. The men and their evil ways and
works were not shadows in the future, like the beast with seven heads and ten
horns, but were then living, moving, and working in the churches with all their
craft and hypocrisy, all their errors and heresies, all their wantonness and
wickedness. God, therefore, preserved him so long in life that, as his last New
Testament witness, he might deliver a standing testimony against those errors
and evils which afflicted the early churches. If we had a fuller knowledge of
these errors and evils we should see that John’s testimony was particularly
directed against them. We should see why he was specially led in his gospel to
testify so plainly to the Deity and eternal Sonship of Jesus, truths which these
heretics denied; and to preserve so carefully the exact discourses of the
blessed Lord, in which he asserted his essential oneness with the Father as the
Son of God, and yet the reality of his flesh and blood as the Son of man. So in
his Epistles, and especially in the first and longest of them, we should see how
in every verse he denounces some vile error or declares some important truth.
Well may we say that upon it are inscribed, as with a ray of light, these three
conspicuous features: truth, holiness, and love. How, for instance, he testifies
for the truth by setting before us the
essential Deity, the eternal Sonship, and the propitiation made for sin by our
blessed Lord! How he treats of his advocacy with the Father, as Jesus Christ the
righteous, and assures us that his blood cleanseth from all sin! How he
denounces error with most trenchant [forceful; direct] pen, cutting off those
who hold it as men devoid of the grace of God, and bidding us take heed of them,
and not even receive them into our houses or bid them God speed! And is not holiness the very breath of the
epistle? How he tells us that he who is blessed with a good hope through grace
of seeing Jesus as he is purifies himself even as He is pure, (1 John 3:3). How
he warns us against loving the world or the things that are in the world, (1
John 2:15). How he seeks to lead us up to have “fellowship with the Father and
his Son Jesus Christ,” (1 John 1:3); declares that “he who saith he abideth in
him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked;” and lays it down as a
practical test of the new birth: “If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that
every one that doeth righteousness is born of him,” (1 John 2:29). Nor need I
say with what a glorious flood of heavenly love this epistle is bathed. The love of God in Christ to us in sending his
Son to be the propitiation for our sins; the love of Christ in laying down his
life for us; the love which we should have to him and to each other—is not this
divine and heavenly love in its mountain and its streams, in its communication
and in its claims, in its living fruits and practical effects, the very
animating breath of the whole epistle? The love of God, softening and melting
his heart, seems to have touched his pen as with a double measure of holy force
and fire, so that we may almost say, if truth be the body, and holiness the
soul, love is the spirit of this blessed epistle.
Without further introduction, I shall at once approach our
text; and I think we may see in it four distinguishing features:
I. —First,
the wondrous love of God: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us.”
II. style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; color: black" class="style52"> —Secondly, the amazing blessings and privileges of God’s people: “that we
should be called the sons of God.”
III. style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; color: black" class="style52"> —Thirdly,
the gross ignorance of the world: “therefore the world knoweth us not.”
IV. style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; color: black" class="style52"> —Fourthly, the explanation of the mystery: “because it knew him not.”
I.
—Our text commences with a “Behold.” Let us not pass by this; for is it not as
if John would summon us to behold a wondrous sight? Is it not as if he would
call up our sleeping graces and animate every faculty of our renewed mind, to
gaze upon the stupendous miracle which he sets before our eyes? “Behold, what
manner of love!” This call upon us to come and look seems to remind us of the
various appearances of God in the Old Testament, when he suddenly and
unexpectedly manifested himself as a God of love or power; as, for instance,
when he appeared to Abraham in a vision of the night with those gracious words:
“Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield and exceeding great reward,” (Gen. 15:1). It
may also remind us of the wondrous appearance of the Lord to Moses when he was
keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, in the desert, when “the angel
of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush;”
and as he drew near to behold the marvelous sight, God spake to him out of the
burning bush—wondrous type of the ever-blazing Deity of our gracious Lord, and
yet of his pure, unconsumed humanity in the most intimate union with it! This
call of “Behold” seems to remind us also of Ezekiel, when sitting “amongst the
captives by the river
of Chebar, on a sudden the
heavens were opened and he saw visions of God,” (Ezek. 1:1). May it not also
call to our mind the vision of Isaiah, when he saw “the Lord sitting upon a
throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple?” (Isa. 6:1), or of
Daniel, solitary and mourning by the river Hiddekel, when lifting up his eyes
“he looked and beheld a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded
with fine gold of Uphaz?” (Dan. 10:5). It may also serve to remind us of John
himself when in the Isle of Patmos he heard a great voice, and turned and saw
one like unto the Son of Man in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks,
(Rev. 1:10,13). As all these appearances were unexpected displays of the Lord in
his grace and in his glory, so when holy John says in our text “Behold,” it is
as if he would rouse up our sleeping graces and bid us behold with eyes of faith
and affection a stupendous sight not less marvelous than these appearances of
God in the days of old.
Now what is this stupendous sight which John bids us here
behold? “What manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us.” It is not merely what love, but what “manner” of love. Thus he would bid us contemplate the love of God
under that particular form and in that peculiar manner in which God has revealed
and made it known to the sons of men. In pursuance, then, of this godly counsel,
I think we may contemplate this love under these three points of view: —1. In
its nature; 2. In its manifestation; 3. And in its communication.
i.
Look, then, first, at the love of God in its nature—what it is in itself, as a pure Fountain,
distinct from its streams and effects; and I think we shall see certain peculiar
features stamped upon it as such, enabling us to say, “Behold what manner of love.”
1. First, it was self-originating. Love, if we have any to the Lord and to his people, is
God’s gift and grace; it does not dwell naturally in our hearts, but its source
and spring are from above; but love in the bosom of God dwells in him as one of
his glorious, underived perfections. It gushes, therefore, freely out of his
bosom, as a river springs out of a mountain side, without any call from earth,
without any invitation from man. Whence come three of our noblest rivers—the
Rhine, the Rhone, and the Danube? All spring
from the bosom of the same mighty Alps, a few
leagues only from each other, whence they flow each in its own direction to
gladden and fertilize every land to which they come. So the love of God to his
people gushes forth from his own bosom unsought, unasked, undeserved, but
carrying a blessing wherever it flows.
2. It was also eternal. No change can take place in the mind of God. No new plans, no fresh
purposes, no unthought-of schemes can enter the mind of him who is One eternal now—the great self-existent I AM.
His love, therefore, like himself, must be equally eternal. It had no beginning, as he had no beginning; and it will
have no end, as he had no end. Well may we pause before so stupendous a sight,
as Moses at the burning bush, and gather up every faculty of our soul to listen
to the words with solemn admiration which he spoke by his prophet: “The Lord
hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee,” (Jer. 31:3). If, then,
you are asked, Why is God’s love eternal? all you can answer is, Because it is
the love of God who is eternal. And if you are farther asked, “How do you know
that God has from all eternity loved you?” all you can reply is, “Because with
loving kindness he has drawn me.” This is the solution to the question whether
in doctrine or experience; we can give no other.
3. But being eternal it must be infinite, for God is infinite; and as he is love in name and nature,
his love must be the same as all his other gracious and glorious perfections,
all of which like himself are infinite. But what a wondrous mercy it is for the
Church
of God that his love is
thus infinite. To see this point more plainly, look at two other perfections of
God in their infinity—his wisdom and his power. First look at his wisdom, and see how it is displayed on
every side in creation. See in what infinite wisdom the Lord has ordained and
arranged everything in the visible creation, adapting each part to the other
with all the perfection and finish of an exquisite machine. The sun moving in
its daily orbit; the moon walking in her midnight brightness; the succession of
seasons; the multiplicity of animals upon the face of the earth; each one of
them a miracle in its formation, propagation, and provision—what proofs before
our eyes do all these daily wonders afford us of the infinite wisdom of God. And
do they not also give us equal proofs of his infinite power? If, then, his wisdom and his power are thus shown to be
infinite, is it not equally true of his love? Now the peculiar blessedness of this love as being infinite is that as
such it includes all the saints of God in one universal embrace. It is like his
wisdom and his power in nature. In creation, there is nothing too great and
nothing too small to display the infinite wisdom and power of God. There is as
much wisdom and power in the creation of the trunk of a bee as of the trunk of
an elephant; in the making of the sting of a wasp as of the claw of a tiger; in
the formation of the eye to see the light of the sun as in the formation of the
sun to give light to the eye. Now what is true in creation is true in grace;
what is true of God’s wisdom and power is true of his love. Do but apply this.
You may think yourself too insignificant a creature or too sinful a wretch for
God’s love to embrace. But as his love is infinite, it embraces with equal
strength all the elect of Christ; and if you are so blessed and favored as to be
amongst the number of those whom God from all eternity has loved, his love
reaches down to you who are less than the least of all saints as much as his
wisdom and his power to the smallest of his creatures.
4. But being infinite, this love is also inexhaustible; and this is another blessed object of contemplation
in looking at “the manner” of God’s love. We should soon have drained it dry
were it not an inexhaustible fountain. Look at the millions of God’s redeemed
family, whether glorified spirits in heaven or still sojourning upon earth, or
still to be born in the process of time. How inexhaustibly the love of God has
been flowing forth for ages to everyone of those countless millions. As an
emblem of this inexhaustible love, look at the sun; think of the ages for which
it has shone unexhausted and inexhaustible; consider the millions and millions
of beams which it has cast upon the earth; the thousands of crops which it has
ripened, the millions of fruit it has brought to perfection; and yet it shines
still. It shines to day as it shone 6,000 years ago; and it will not cease to
shine till he who made it what it is bids it cease to be. So with the love of
God: it has shone into the hearts of millions; it has been the spring of all
their happiness and the source of all their fruitfulness; their joy in life,
their support in death, their bliss in eternity. Their sins have not worn it
out, nor their backslidings exhausted it; for its very nature is to be
unexhausted, inexhaustible.
5. It is, therefore, unchangeable. God does not love today and hate tomorrow. His own words are:
“I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed,”
(Mal. 3:6). It is most contrary to the revelation which God has given of himself
in the Scripture as “resting in his love,” (Zeph. 3:17); as “being of one mind
and none can turn him,” (Job 23:13); as “one with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning,” (Jam. 1:17): to think that after he has once fixed
his love upon any of his people, he should repent of that love and take it away
from them as being unworthy of it. “The gifts and calling of God,” we are
expressly told, “are without repentance,” (Rom. 11:29); that is, God never
repents of the gifts of his love and grace, and the calling which is the fruit
of them. Did not the Lord know from all eternity what his people would be? Did
he not know that, as Moses said to the children of
Israel, they would be “a stiff-necked people,”
provoking him continually to his face? And yet he says of them: “If heavens
above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I
will also cast off all the seed of Israel
for all that they have done, saith the Lord,” (Jer. 31:37). The immutability of
his love is the foundation of all our hope; for we well know if our sins and
backslidings could turn this love away we soon sink to rise no more. But this is
the consolation of the family of God, that his love is as immutable as his own
eternal essence. Thus far then have I endeavored to describe the nature of God’s love; but O, how
weakly and imperfectly have I set it forth!
ii.
I now, then, pass on to consider the two other peculiar features of this love,
viz., its manifestation and its communication; and I think I shall do
this best by coming at once to the second branch of my subject in which they
more conspicuously appear:
II. —The amazing
blessings and privileges of God’s
people in being called the sons of God.
i.
God loved his people from all eternity, but he loved them only in Christ. This must ever be
borne in mind, or we shall make sad mistakes in this important matter. If God
loved you, it is not because he saw anything in you to love. He does not only
love you as the mere creature of his hand, for that you share in common with
your fellow men; for you must bear in mind that there is a love which God bears
to the creatures of his hand distinct from his love in grace. We therefore read:
“He loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment,” (Deut. 10:18). But the
love which he has to your soul, whereby he means to make you a partaker of his
eternal glory, is not the love which he has to you as the creature of his hand,
but the love he has to you as a member of the mystical body of Christ. This is
what I mean by the love of God in its manifestation. The apostle therefore says: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us,
because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live
through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and
sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” If, therefore, sometimes you
stand astonished at the love of God, or have ever been incredulous that the love
of God should be fixed upon you, as feeling your utter insignificancy as well as
miserable sinfulness and vileness, you must consider why it is that God has
loved you or any other of the human race: it is in his dear Son. It is in his
Son that he chose the Church; in his Son that he blessed her with all spiritual
blessings; in his Son that he accepted her as without spot or blemish, for she
is “accepted in the Beloved.” Is not this the clear, indubitable language of the
apostle? “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according
as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love: to the praise of the glory of his
grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved,” (Eph. 1:3,4,6). The
Church never was separated in the mind of God from her covenant Head, for she is
“his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all,” (Eph. 1:23). The love,
therefore, which God has to his dear Son reaches and is extended unto all the
members of his mystical body. This is blessedly intimated in the intercessory
prayer of our Lord: “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in
one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as
thou hast loved me” (John 17:23); and again: “And I have declared unto them thy
name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in
them, and I in them,” (John 17:26). The apostle, therefore, says, “But God, who
is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his
grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus,” (Eph. 2:4-7). Is God
“rich in mercy?” It is “in Christ Jesus.” Is the love wherewith he loved us
great? It is so only in Christ Jesus. When we were dead in sins, did he quicken
us? It was “together with Christ.” Did he raise us up together and make us sit
together in heavenly places? It is “in Christ Jesus.” Will he show “in the ages
to come the exceeding riches of his grace?” It will be “in his kindness toward
us through Christ Jesus.” Christ, then, in his Person and work is the manifestation of the love of God—the consecrated channel through
which it flows, and by which it is bounded.
Now this brings us to a very important feature in the love of
God as thus manifested in the Person and work of his dear Son, which is redemption. This is a point which it
deeply concerns us experimentally and savingly to know, for it meets us in our
lost ruined condition as sinners; and it is as being in this case that the love
of God is specially manifested. You know that in Adam we all sinned and fell
from our native purity and innocency. The image of God in which we were created
was utterly defaced; we became alienated from the life of God, and sank down
before him dead in trespasses and sins. There was a need, therefore, of
redemption from this state of alienation and death, guilt and condemnation, and
all the other dreadful consequences of the Adam fall. Here love was so
singularly manifested. The fall did not forfeit sonship, but it forfeited the
image of God; it did not blot the names of the elect out of the Book of Life,
but it blotted them all over with the mud and mire of sin; it did not destroy
the union which the people of God had with Christ their covenant Head, but it
sank the members of his mystical body into a pit of sin and misery, out of which
nothing but the incarnation of the Son of God and the propitiation he made by
his blood-shedding and death could lift them out. It did not remove or impair
the love of God towards the Church
of Christ, for that was
antecedent to the fall, but it made redemption necessary for its manifestation.
It enhanced it, made it more signal and glorious, and displayed in all its
luster the nature of that love which is as strong as death, which many waters of
sin could not quench nor all the floods of evil drown. Whatever God was to man,
whatever man was to God, sin had come in and separated between them. Sin is so
dreadful an evil; it is so loathsome to the eyes of infinite Purity, such an
insult to his divine Majesty, such treason to his authority, such a violation of
his justice, that whatever the love of God might be to man it could not flow
down to him whilst this barrier stood in the way. It must then be removed, or
God and man be ever separate. But none could remove this barrier except God’s
dear Son, and he only by his mediation and death. Hence the necessity and nature
of redemption by the blood-shedding of Jesus. To us, then, as sinners there is
no manifestation of the love of God but in the Person and work of his dear Son,
for in him there is redemption, and in no other. The apostle therefore says: “In
whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to
the riches of his grace,” (Eph. 1:7). But what is the result of this work of
redeeming blood? That by it poor guilty sinners obtain the pardon of all their
sins; and their sins being pardoned and put away, they obtain access unto God.
They are thus reconciled and brought near to their heavenly Father; for sin
being removed by the sacrifice and blood-shedding of Christ, there is now no
longer a barrier between God and them. Now to obtain a sense of this pardon in
his own soul every child of God is made to sigh and cry mightily with prayers
and supplications before the throne of grace. He is thus taught the value and
blessedness of atoning blood; and as the sufferings, blood-shedding, and death
of the Lord Jesus are more and more revealed to his heart, the more simply and
unreservedly does he look to the blood of the Lamb to purge his conscience from
dead works to serve the living God. Thus the very weight of sin on his
conscience makes him enter all the more feelingly and experimentally into the
nature of redemption; and it becomes more opened to his view that by his
precious blood-shedding and death Jesus redeemed unto God all who believe in his
name, put away their sins, and for ever blotted them out. He sees that he
silenced the curse of the law by himself being made a curse for us; that he
appeased the anger of God due to our transgressions, and fully satisfied the
claims of justice, which otherwise would have dragged us to her awful bar, and
hurled us for our offences into a deserved hell. A sight and sense of our danger
much open the ear to receive instruction; and thus as the work of redemption is
more plainly discovered to our spiritual view, and faith is raised up and drawn
forth to believe more personally and experimentally what is thus revealed, we
get clearer, more abiding, and soul-transforming views of the love of God in
Christ. Despair on the one side and self-righteousness on the other get a deadly
wound from a believing sight of the cross; and the soul rejoices in a crucified
Christ with trembling. Well may John then say: “Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us.” How wondrous in its nature; how gracious in its
manifestation; how blessed in its communication. This last is the point to which
we are now come, and which I shall attempt to open.
ii.
Whatever be the nature of the love of
God, in all its self-originating, infinite, inexhaustible, and immutable
character; or whatever grace there is in its manifestation in the Person and work
of his dear Son, it is only by its communication to our soul that we come to any personal experience of
it. It is therefore with this as with all other precious truths of the gospel.
Though they are all contained in the Person and work of the Son of God; though
they are most blessed realities as unfolded in the word of his grace, there must
be a communication of them to our souls that we may believe them, feel their
power, and walk in the sweet enjoyment of them.
1. Here, then, we are at once brought to the first work of
the Holy Ghost upon the heart in regeneration, to make us sons of God by a new and spiritual birth. “Behold,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.” This is the love of God
in its first communication, for it is
bestowed upon us as an act of sovereign grace to make and manifest us to be the
sons of God. And do we not see all the
three Persons of the Godhead in the manner of this love? In the manner of its nature, we see the Father; in the
manner of its manifestation, we see
the Son; in the manner of its communication, we see the Holy Ghost; and each and all of these three
Persons of the Godhead engaged in the bestowing of this love on the members of
the mystical body of Jesus. But the work of the Holy Ghost upon the heart, in regeneration, is to manifest us sons of God by making us partakers
of a new birth.
2. But this is not enough. There must be the spirit of adoption, breathed into our soul by the same Holy Spirit,
before we can claim the sweet relationship, for we are sons before we know it,
before we feel, or believe, or enjoy it. As the apostle says, “Because ye are
sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba,
Father,” (Gal. 4:6). This is the Spirit’s witness: “The Spirit itself beareth
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God,” (Rom. 8:16). This,
therefore, is the greatest and most blessed communication of the love of God,
for it is then shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost. It is what few enjoy
in its full communication, and they only at special seasons; but some measure of
it is necessary before we can see our sonship clearly, or believe in our heart
that God is our Father.
iii.
But the contemplation of this love in its nature, manifestation, and
communication may, with the Lord’s help and blessing, lead us more clearly to
see the amazing blessings and privileges which God has conferred upon his people in bestowing upon them this love. John
calls upon us to admire it: “Behold, what manner of love;” as if he would hold
it up for our special view and spiritual contemplation, that we might be engaged
thereby to meditate more deeply upon it, and seek for a more believing and
experimental reception of its beauty and blessedness into our inmost spirit.
What, then, are some of these amazing blessings and privileges?
1. The first and the foundation of the whole is to be “called the sons of God.” “Called” but by whom? By man? That will little profit us:
for many have called themselves and called others sons of God whom the Lord
never authorized, whose claim and whose call he never ratified. Some through
presumption, and others through ignorance, lay their claim upon God as their
Father whom he will never own as his children, but rather say, “Depart from me;
I never knew you.” But if God call you his son then “all things are yours, for
ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Look then next at some of these blessings and privileges of sonship thus bestowed.
2. If you are a son, you are a pardoned son. Christ has borne your
sins in his own body on the tree. He has washed you in the fountain of his
precious blood, obeyed the law which you have broken, wrought out a robe of
righteousness which is freely imputed to you, and in which you stand complete
before God.
3. As another blessing and privilege of a son of God, he has access to his Father’s house. The
child, you know, as one of his privileges, enjoys a free entry into his father’s
house; he does not knock at the door as a stranger, but opens the latch as one
of the family. He knows he is welcome there, and that his parents miss him if he
does not fill up his place in the house among the other children. So it is with
the child of God: he has free access to his Father’s house. He does not stand
outside as a stranger, or come in as an occasional and not always acceptable
visitor, but enters in with the familiarity of a child. But what mean I by his
“Father’s house?” Do I mean merely what is so commonly called “the house of God”
—the place where prayer is wont to be made, the tabernacles below where he
sometimes manifests his presence and his power? This is indeed a privilege, and
should be a highly valued one; but the house which I mean is the inner sanctuary
of the Lord’s presence—that sacred spot of which David speaks: “he that dwelleth
in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the
Almighty” (Ps. 91:1); that habitation of which Moses wrote: “Lord, thou hast
been our dwelling place in all generations” (Ps. 90:1); that holy and heavenly
abode which the Lord promised by the prophet: “I will be to them a little
sanctuary in the countries where they shall come,” (Ezek. 11:16). Access to God
in our troubles, a refuge in his bosom from every storm—this is the special
privilege of a child. To such he speaks in those gracious words: “Come, my
people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide
thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast,”
(Isa. 26:20).
4. The son has also a seat at the Father’s table. Whatever the food be, be it little or much, be
it dainty or homely, the child has a place at his father’s board. So it is with
these sons of God. God has richly supplied his table with every gospel delicacy:
there is bread made from the very finest of the wheat— “the living bread which
came down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die;” there is honey
out of the rock; there is the choicest and sweetest milk to feed the babe; there
is strong meat to nourish the man. There is not a single delicacy that can tempt
the feeblest appetite, nor the most solid food that can gratify the most
insatiable hunger, which God has not spread upon his heavenly table. The sweet
promises, the encouraging invitations, the glorious truths, the holy precepts,
the solemn ordinances, and, what crowns all, gives life to all, and is the sum
and substance of all—the flesh and blood of his dear Son, are the provisions
with which God has abundantly blessed Zion. And he who has spread the banquet
says, “Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled,” (Prov.
9:5). Nay, Jesus himself proclaims from the head of the table, “Eat, O friends;
drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.” The child comes as a child; he finds
the table spread for him without his care or forethought, without his labor or
expense. O how sweet it is when in this childlike spirit we can sit down and eat
of heavenly food; when without fear, bondage, or unbelief; without darkness,
barrenness and death, we can take up the word of life, and, mixing faith with
what we read, sometimes drink the milk, sometimes eat the solid meat, sometimes
take a sip of gospel wine, or taste of the honey out of the rock. This spiritual
appetite for spiritual food; this sitting under the shadow of Jesus with great
delight, and finding his fruit sweet to our taste, (Song 2:3), is a sure
testimony of our adoption into the family of God.
5. Another privilege of a son is to be an heir. “And if children then heirs—heirs of God, and joint heirs
with Christ.” Our sonship does not end with this life, but abides forever and
ever. This indeed is the peculiar blessedness of being a child of God, that
death, which puts a final extinguisher on all the hopes and happiness of the
children of men, gives him the fulfillment of all his hopes and the consummation
of all his happiness; for it places him in possession of “an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for
those who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation,” (1
Pet.1:4,5). In this life we have sometimes sips and tastes of sonship, feeble
indeed and interrupted, so that it is with us as Mr. Hart speaks:
“Though thou here receive but little,
Scarce enough
For the proof
Of thy proper title;”
yet are they so far pledges of an inheritance to come. But
this life is only an introduction to a better. In this life we are but children,
heirs indeed, but heirs in their minority; but in the life to come, if indeed we
are what we profess to be, sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, we shall be
put into full possession of the eternal inheritance. And what is this? Nothing
less than God himself. “Heirs of God,” says the apostle. For as the Lord said to
Abraham, “I am thy shield and exceeding great reward;” as he said to the
Levites, “I am their inheritance,” so God himself is the inheritance of his
people; yes, he himself in all his glorious perfections. All the love of God,
the goodness of God, the holiness of God, all his happiness, bliss, and
blessedness, all his might, majesty, and glory, as shining forth in the Person
of his dear Son in all the blaze of one eternal, unclouded day—this is the
saint’s inheritance. Let us not then be weary in well doing; nor faint and tire
in running the race set before us, with this prize in view; but press on by
faith and prayer to win this eternal and glorious crown.
6. But I must add one more privilege of sonship, and that is obedience. If we are children of God,
sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, it is our privilege to be obedient to
the will of our heavenly Father; and that from the heart. It is one of our
richest mercies and noblest privileges to render to him, not eye service, the
miserable bondage of the slave, but that free obedience which is due to him as
Parent from a child. You know the difference between the cheerful obedience of
an affectionate daughter or a dutiful son, and the forced obedience of a
wretched drudge. One is spontaneous, hearty, affectionate, free, and is accepted
as such; the other is extorted by fear, or given with an eye to the wages.
Obedience to the precepts of the gospel, doing the will of God from the heart,
living to his honor and glory, walking daily in the fear of the Lord, loving his
people and seeking their good, and manifesting the power of vital godliness by a
meek, quiet, holy life and conversation, are so many blessed marks and evidences
of an adoption into the family of God.
7. A daily cross, a
path of trial and tribulation, a chastening rod for going astray, a furnace of
affliction, purging away the dross and tin, and its fruits, as producing true
humility of mind, brokenness of heart, contrition of spirit, and tenderness of
conscience, with much self-loathing and self-abhorrence, godly sorrow for sin,
and earnest desires for close and holy communion with God—these are other
privileges of sonship, not indeed much prized or coveted by the professors of
our day, but blessed marks of a heavenly birth.
In looking at these privileges and comparing your experience
with them, you will probably find some to encourage and others to discourage
you. We would not be deceived; we would be honest to God and to our own
consciences; and as we cannot take to ourselves what the Lord does not give, and
our evidences are often obscured or out of sight, the seasons are many when we
cannot rise up into the sweet enjoyment of our adoption into the living family.
III. —But I pass on to the third point which I proposed for
our consideration, the gross ignorance of
the world as to who or what these sons of God are: “Therefore the world
knoweth us not.”
What is meant by “the world” here? All who are not partakers
of the grace of God, all who are in their natural state of unregeneracy and
death. Some of these belong to the openly profane, others to the professing
world. But it is true of each of these worlds that the real character and
condition, the state and standing, the joys and sorrows, mercies and miseries,
trials and deliverances, hopes and fears, afflictions and consolations of the
sons of God are entirely hidden from their eyes. But we shall see this more
clearly by entering a little more fully into what is thus hidden from the
world’s knowledge and observation.
1. It does not know that they are sons of God. It does not know what manner of love God has bestowed
on them that they should be called his sons. It believes that God loves all men
alike—that anyone can be a child of God who will; that God offers himself as a
Father to all without any exception, and that those who like to embrace this
offer become his children at once. They have no idea that God bestows his love
upon any particular persons, and calls them his sons. Nothing more moves their
indignation than that a few poor, ignorant, despised people should dare to
believe and call themselves the sons of God; as if such a favor peculiarly
belonged to them, and to them only. How can therefore the world know them if it
begin with denying their heavenly sonship?
2. It does not know their blessings. Being ignorant of spiritual things, having no apprehension
or comprehension of divine realities, it cannot and therefore does not know
those rich, those peculiar blessings with which God has blessed his people in
heavenly paces in Christ Jesus, (Eph. 1:3). It knows not, for instance, what it
is to be blessed with a sense of God’s presence, with a manifestation of his
love, with a revelation of his mercy, with a discovery of the Person and work,
grace and glory of his dear Son. Nor has it any acquaintance with those special
favors that the Lord’s people are so earnestly coveting, if they are not in
present enjoyment of them. It knows nothing of the breathing of a living soul
after God’s presence; of its panting after him as the heart panteth after the
water-brooks; of its longings to see his power and glory, so as it has seen him
in the sanctuary. And as it knows nothing of spiritual prayer and supplication,
so it knows nothing of gracious answers. It knows nothing therefore of the joys
of pardoned sin; of the shedding abroad of the love of God in the heart by the
Holy Ghost; of a deliverance from the curse of the law, the guilt and sting of
sin, and the fear of death. It knows nothing of the sweet opening up of the
Scriptures of truth with power to the soul; of the application of the promises
to the wearied spirit; of access to God in secret supplication through his dear
Son; or, in a time of special trial and temptation, obtaining a testimony that
the request is heard and registered, and will in due time be granted. It knows
nothing of any softening, melting, or moving of the heart under the preached
word; of any entrance by faith into the glorious mysteries of the gospel, so as
to experience their transforming efficacy, and feel their subduing, sanctifying
power and influence. These blessings, and many others—in fact, all the spiritual
blessings wherewith God has blessed his people, the world knows not; therefore
it knows us not.
3. Nor does the world know the motives and feelings which guide and actuate the
sons of God. It views them as a set of gloomy, morose, melancholy beings, whose
tempers are soured by false and exaggerated views of religion; who have pored
over the thoughts of hell and heaven till some have frightened themselves into
despair, and others have puffed up their vain minds with an imaginary conceit of
their being especial favorites of the Almighty. “They are really,” it says, “no
better than other folks, if so good; but they have such contracted minds, are so
obstinate and bigoted with their poor, narrow, prejudiced views, that wherever
they come they bring disturbance and confusion.” But why this harsh judgment?
Because it knows nothing of the spiritual feelings which actuate the child of
grace, making him act so differently from the world which thus condemns him;
such as the fear of God in his heart,
“as a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death;” such as the holy reverence that he feels towards the
name of the Most High, as deeply impressed upon his spirit; such as the dread of
offending the Majesty of heaven by indulging in pleasures which the world calls
harmless, but which he knows from the testimony of the word and from his own
experience to be fraught with peril to the soul. It knows nothing of what it is
to worship God in spirit and in truth; and therefore cannot understand why we separate ourselves from all false
worship, and will not mingle spiritual service with natural devotion, or join
hand in hand with those who serve God with their lips and Satan with their
lives. It cannot understand our sight and sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and that is the
reason why we will not run riot with them in the same course of ungodliness. It
does not know with what a solemn weight eternal things rest upon our minds; and
that that is the cause why we cannot join with them in pursuing so eagerly the
things of the world, and living for time as they do, instead of living for
eternity. Being unable to enter into the spiritual motives and gracious feelings
which actuate a living soul and the movements of divine life continually
stirring in a Christian breast, they naturally judge us from their own point of
view, and condemn what they cannot understand. You may place two men upon a
mountain top, with a vast and beautiful view before them. One man, dull and
prosaic, without one spark of taste for beauty of scenery, resembles a Frenchman
of whom I have read, who, when crossing the Alps, shut his eyes and sat
shuddering in the carriage, for he could not bear to look upon those dreadful
precipices and horrid icy peaks which rose in their silent majesty all around
him. O no; he would sooner have been shut up in a miserable cafe in Paris than have had all this glorious mountain
scenery before his eyes. How impossible for him to understand the feelings of
his fellow traveler, some romantic Englishman, who is scarcely able to breathe
for very delight and ecstasy. In a similar way, worldly men can no more
understand why we can take pleasure in hearing a long sermon, or reading the
word of God, or being upon our knees in secret prayer, or feeling holy delight
in the service of the Almighty, than this poor Frenchman could understand the
beauty of the Alps, or that any one could take a delight in looking at lake and
mountain, wild gorge or rushing waterfall, which made him shiver all over. You
may place a horse and a man upon the same hill; whilst the man would be looking
at the woods and fields and streams, or, if a Christian man, engaged in prayer
and supplication to his divine Maker, the horse would be feeding upon the grass
at his feet. So if men cannot enter into the divine feelings of the saints of
God, need we wonder that they despise and condemn what they know not? The horse,
if it could reason, would say, “What a fool my master is! How he is staring and
gaping about! Why does he not sit down and open his basket of provisions, for I
know he has it with him, for I carried it, and feed as I do?” So the worldling
says, “These poor stupid people, how they are spending their time in going to
chapel, and reading the Bible in their gloomy, melancholy way. Religion is all
very well; and we ought all to be religious before we die; but they make so much
of it. Why don’t they enjoy more of life? Why don’t they amuse themselves more
with its innocent, harmless pleasures; be more gay, cheerful, and companionable,
and take more interest in those things which so interest us?” The reason why the
world thus wonders at us is because it knows us not, and therefore cannot
understand that we have sublimer feelings, nobler pleasures, and more
substantial delights than ever entered the soul of a worldling.
IV. —But we now
come to the explanation of the mystery. We need not wonder at the gross ignorance of the world, and that it knows us
not, for our text declares, “it knew him not.”
The word “him” evidently points to the Lord Jesus Christ; for
when he was in the world, the world knew him not. But we may take the word as
applicable also to the Father, for the Father is spoken of in the text: “Behold,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.” What does the world know
of the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ? Has it any fear of his great and glorious name? Has it any faith
in him? any love to him? any desire to please him? any dread of displeasing him?
Has it any knowledge of the justice of God in condemning, any acquaintance with
his mercy in forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin? We know, from the
testimony of Scripture and from daily observation, that whilst men are dead in
sin, with a veil of unbelief spread over their heart, they do not, indeed
cannot, know God; for to know him is a new Covenant blessing: “They shall all
know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them,” (Jer. 31:34); and it
is also eternal life, for “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the
only true God,” (John 17:3). They may indeed “profess that they know God; but in
works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work
reprobate,” (Titus 1:16). Need we wonder, then, that it knows us not, if it
knows him not?
Neither did the world know the blessed Lord when he sojourned here
below as the very image of the Father. “He came unto his own, and his own
received him not.” They despised his word; they rejected his message; and hated
both him and the Father who sent him. They crowned his brow with a crown of
thorns, they struck him and buffeted him, and did not spare to spit in his face;
they took him beyond the precincts of Jerusalem to the common and
abhorred place of execution, and there they nailed him as a malefactor to the
accursed tree. And why? Because they knew him not. As the apostle says: “Which
none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it they would not
have crucified the Lord of glory,” (1 Cor. 2:8). If that, then, was the way in
which the world treated God’s only begotten Son when he came into it; if the
only reception which it gave to the Lord of life and glory was to put him out of
the way as an abhorred malefactor, need we wonder if the world that knew him not
knows us not? If we are followers of Christ and believers in the Son of God; if
we have his mind and image, walk in his footsteps, and are made like unto him by
regenerating grace, need we wonder if the world is as ignorant of us as it was
of him? Are we to be known and our Master unknown? Are we to be honored and our
Lord despised? Are we to be applauded and our King contemned? Are we to be loved
and our Redeemer abhorred? Is the world to treat us better than it treated
Christ? But you will say, “This is taking high ground.” It is; but can we take
lower if we take any at all? We are either children of God, or we are not. If we
are, the world knows us not; if we are not, the world knows us and all about us.
Some of you, with all your profession, are in that spot. The world knows you;
for you are one with it in walk and spirit. It knows, therefore, all about you.
Your inward character is not concealed from its keen, observing eyes. The world
knows ungodliness, but it does not know godliness; it knows superstition, but,
not worshipping God in the spirit; it knows unbelief, but not faith;
despondency, but not a good hope through grace; worldly pleasures, but not
rejoicing in Christ Jesus; self-confidence, but not having no confidence in the
flesh. It knows the love of sin, but not the love of holiness; the fear which
hath torment, but not the love which casts it out; the stings and lashes of a
guilty conscience, but not the blood of sprinkling to cleanse and heal it. The
world, then, will see all through you if you are imbued with its spirit; but if
you have the Spirit of Christ, it knoweth you not because it knew him not. Nay,
the more you are conformed to the image of Christ, the more you manifest your
sonship by your obedience, the more separated you are from the world, the less
will it understand you. If we kept closer to the Lord and walked more in holy
obedience to the precepts of the gospel, we should be more misunderstood than
even we now are. It is our worldly conformity that makes the world so well to
understand many of our movements and actions. But if our movements were more
according to the mind of Christ; if we walked more as the Lord walked here
below, we should leave the world in greater ignorance of us than we leave it
now; for the hidden springs of our life would be more out of its sight, our
testimony against it more decided, and our separation from it more complete.
I have laid before you this morning the wondrous love of God.
Have you ever felt it? I have brought before you the peculiar blessings and
privileges of the sons of God. Have you ever enjoyed them? I have shown you why
the world knows them not. Do you feel that you have in your bosom something the
world knows not, but which separates you in heart and spirit from it? And I have
brought before you the solution of the mystery, and that it is because the world
knows neither the Father nor the Son. Do you feel that you have that knowledge
of the only true God and of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, which is eternal
life? May he, if it be his sacred will, give us to know more of his stupendous
love; to feel more our interest therein; may he warm our hearts more with his
dissolving beams, and bring our life more under its constraining efficacy!
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