Believe on Christ's Name

 

Bible Commentator  Matthew Henry continues: The true Christian’s dignity and privilege are twofold:— First, The privilege of adoption, which takes them into the number of God’s children. Previously, the adoption pertained to the Jews only; but now, by faith in Christ, Gentiles are the children of God . They have power and authority. To them gave God a right; to them gave He this pre-eminence. This power have all the saints. Note, 1. It is the unspeakable privilege of all good Christians, that they are become the children of God. They were by nature children of wrath, children of this fallen world. If they be the children of God, they become so. God has no grandchildren. Persons are not born Christians, but made such.  God calls them His children, they call Him Father, and are entitled to all the privileges of children. 2. The privilege of adoption is entirely owing to Jesus Christ; He gave this power to them that believe on His name. God is his Father, and so ours; and it is by virtue of the bride of Christ’s espousals to Him, and union with Him, that we stand related to God as a Father. 

 

It was in Christ that we were predestinated to the adoption; from Him we receive both the character and the Spirit of adoption, and He is the first-born among many brethren. The Son of God became a Son of man, that the sons and daughters of men might become the sons and daughters of God Almighty. Secondly, The privilege of regeneration: which were born. Note, All the children of God are “born again”; all that are adopted are regenerated. This real transformational change evermore attends that relative one. Wherever God confers the dignity of children, he creates the sanctified nature and disposition of children. Men  and women cannot do so when they adopt. 

 

Now here we have an account of the original of this new birth. 1. It is not propagated by natural generation from our parents. It is not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of corruptible seed. Man is called flesh and blood, because there he has his original: but we do not become the children of God as we become the children of our natural parents. Note, Grace does not run in the blood, as corruption does. Man polluted begat a son in his own likeness; but man sanctified and renewed does not beget a son in that likeness. This New-Testament adoption is not founded in any such natural relation. (2.) It is not produced by the natural power of our own will. As it is not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, so neither is it of the will of man, which labors under a moral impotency of determining itself to that which is good; so that the principles of the divine life are not of our own planting, it is the grace of God that makes us willing to be his. Nor can human laws or writings prevail to sanctify and regenerate a soul; if they could, the new birth would be by the will of man. But, it is of God. This new birth is owing to the word of God as the means, and to the Spirit of God as the great and sole author. True believers are born of God. And this is necessary to their adoption. In God We Trust.

In Christ, Brian