SONS OF GOD

SONS OF GOD



                The book of Job is reputed to be the oldest book in the Bible and it is thought that Job lived during the age between the flood of Noah and Abraham.  Job then becomes the first to introduce the sons of God to us even though they are mentioned in Genesis six.



                The sons of God become a theme throughout scripture. There are the sons of God who shouted for joy at the creation when God established the foundations of the earth. Job 38:7. There were the fallen sons of God in Gen. 6 that cohabited with human women in order to corrupt the human seed line thus preventing the birth of the Messiah. This resulted in the birth of giants called the Nephilim, who terrorized the world in the days of Noah.



                Jesus is also identified as the only begotten Son of God, who most definitely stands apart from all created beings for He is mentioned in numerous places as being the very One, the very Word or Logos of God through whom everything that exists both in heaven and on earth were created. And yet it is also said that by His coming into the earth as one of us and dying to pay the ransom for our sins and then raising from the dead, He will bring many sons to glory. And this we are told refers to us… every person who will receive this salvation.



                But we must take time to mention that joining His kingdom is not possible. We cannot simply join His kingdom because we cannot become sons unless we are born and we cannot be born unless we first die. But it is this death that Jesus provided for us on the cross that we may enter into by faith and then having died to the world and to the flesh, we can be born again by the power of His Holy Spirit to become legitimate sons and daughters of God. WE now have His spiritual DNA



                It is this term “Being born again” that the world hates today. First of all if we are truly born again and if we truly receive the Spirit of Christ then we become a threat to Satan and His kingdom even as Jesus was a threat to Satan’s kingdom. But the world also despises the term being born again, simply because Christians have treated the term too lightly. Many Christians claim to have been born again simply by joining or agreeing to a certain set of doctrines… but this is not the true experience of being born again.



                Still other Christians say that they are born again, but they go on living as if they still belong to the world. They have a world view rather than a biblical view of life and they live like the world and they don’t really live by the Spirit of Christ at all. And so these “carnal Christians” give Christianity a bad name and reputation.



                Paul makes it very clear in Romans 8:14 that those who are being led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.”



                Then Paul informs us that all of creation is eagerly waiting with anxious longing for the revealing of the sons of God. Paul goes on to explain that as sons we have the first fruits of the Spirit now, but our full adoption as sons will occur with the redemption of our body. We are told that in our present condition we can only receive an earnest or down payment of the Holy Spirit as a seal and guarantee of a greater infilling to come when we are given new glorified bodies that will be equipped to contain the fullness of the Spirit even as Jesus did. (See 2 Cor. 1:22, 2 Cor. 5:5 and Eph. 1:14)



                The Old Covenant could only make us servants of God. It could not make us into sons, because sons must share the DNA of their Father which we could not receive until Jesus Christ came and offered a way for us to die to the Law and the world and the flesh… to be covered by His blood so that we could enter into His presence,  to become actual temples of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit of God that brings to us the DNA of God… the spiritual DNA by which we become sons and daughters of God.



                In the book of Job we are given insight into the contest between Christ and Satan over the souls of men. We live in a training ground or a battle ground in which we must fight the good fight and to overcome evil with good. For this we must live by the Spirit of God for we are born under the first Adam and we are fallen beings by nature. We truly must be born again.



                I often use the example of a little robot. You take his batteries out and then command him to put them back in and to serve you as before. But the little robot has absolutely no power to put his batteries back in even if they are only two inches away from him. So Satan stole our batteries and then God gave us a law that demanded that we serve Him as before, but we couldn’t do it. We were totally helpless to keep the Law and so all the Law can do is to point us to a source where we can receive new batteries.



                Jesus came to bring us these new batteries so to speak. He charges us with His Holy Spirit making it possible to fulfill the Law… not by the letter, but by the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4, 2 Cor. 3:6) We are made alive in Christ Jesus and apart from Him we can do nothing, but we can do all things through Christ who empowers us. (Phil 4:13)



                We live behind enemy lines and sometimes life makes no sense to us because there are two opposing forces   competing for our souls. We are in a war zone in which we must choose which side of the battle we will be on. If we decide to choose Jesus Christ, then we must die to the world and be born again into His kingdom, whereby we become citizens of His kingdom and no longer citizens of this world.



                Satan is trying desperately to throw us off track, to defeat us, deflect us…derail us from our faith, but Jesus will help us and empower us for victory at every turn and He promises great eternal rewards to everyone who overcomes by His blood and by the word of His testimony.



                For some reason we as Christians are always asking why. Why is life so hard? Why do I have problems? Why do I seem to be surrounded with temptations? But to this Peter said:



                “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share in the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exaltation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” 1 Peter 4:12-14



                So the book of Job introduces to us the nature of the battle between Christ and Satan and it introduces the subject of the sons of God… and Paul picks up that theme and tells us how we may become sons of God. And Jesus told us too by saying that we must be born again. The family of God cannot be joined. To be God’s legitimate children we must be born again… born of His Spirit… having received His spiritual DNA thus making us sons and daughters of God.



                We are no longer citizens of this world, but children of His royal kingdom and we are carrying on His kingdom business in the world…. operating by the power that He sent to us at Pentecost.



                As Christians we must ask ourselves if we are living by the power of Christ or if we are living by the powers of this age. One power is leading us into the kingdom of the antichrist while the other is leading us into the eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ. Choose wisely.