“See how great a love[1] the Father has bestowed on
us, that we would be called children of God; and we such we are. For this
reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we
are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know
that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He
is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is
pure.”
Just as the children of Israel
forgot who they were, so has much of the professing church forgotten their identity.
Israel may have known that they were biologically descended from Abraham,
Isaac, and Israel (Jacob), but they had ceased to understand that they had a
spiritual inheritance, a covenant of promise that had been reiterated by Yahweh
to their father Abraham, their father Isaac, and their father Jacob. In Egypt
the descendants of Israel had become people of earth and straw, people of
bricks, people building temples to idols and constructing palaces to honor the
kings of the earth.
After Moses led the people out
of Egypt most of the people could not leave their old identity behind, “They
made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molded image. Thus they changed their
glory into the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God their Savior…”
(Psalms 106:19 – 21). Yahweh had a wonderful inheritance for the people, not
just in Canaan, but more importantly in relationship with Himself. God was
establishing His Presence in the midst of the people, He was building His
Tabernacle, He was leading them, feeding them, revealing His Law to them – but “they
exchanged their glory”. This is the story of mankind, it is the story of
Israel, and it is the story of much of the professing church – we exchange our
glory.
The Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit is our glory; and yet He is not enough. While there are many ways in
which we exchange our glory, in the context of the present passage one of the
most insidious ways of exchange is the denial of our identity as children of
God – just as Israel rejected its identity so we reject our identity. In spite
of the fact that the Bible, and New Testament in particular, is replete with
the message that those in Christ are sons and daughters of the living God, in
spite of the fact that again and again and again we are called saints, we
insist on rejecting the Word of God and overlaying it with our experience and
with tradition. We allow our experience of sin and failure and falling short to
shape and form our image of the Gospel, and hence we look at ourselves rather
than at Christ – as this passage points out, transformation occurs when we
behold Jesus Christ, not when we look at ourselves. Much of our preaching and
teaching and thinking reinforces our old identity outside of Christ, rather
than affirming in one another the glorious truth that we are the sons and daughters
of the living God living in union with Him and with one another.
And so we have the “already
not yet” of this passage. “Now we are children of God, it has not yet appeared
what we shall be.” We can live by sight in the natural, or we can live by
seeing the Word and believing it, affirming it, and looking unto Jesus. Our experience ought not to shape our identity,
the Word God ought to shape our identity and from that our identity and union with
Christ will shape our experience. We ought not to mold the Word according
to our experience, we must submit to the Word and allow the Word and Holy
Spirit to mold us.
We become what we behold. The Israelites
had spent their lives with their fingers in mud and straw making bricks, their identity
was in the earth and they couldn’t get over it. Presumably had they reoriented
themselves, by God’s grace, through obedience to the living God dwelling among
them, had their eyes been fixed on the unseen (a vision to be sure that takes
time to develop), had they bowed their wills to God’s commands in obedience,
had they believed the Word of Promise and Covenant that God was speaking to
them through Moses, had their minds been fixed on the prize of Canaan – had they
been looking forward and living in the “already not yet” – well, it is
reasonable to think that the story would have been different.
Why do we fight the freedom we
have in Christ? Why are we so uncomfortable with being the sons and daughters of
God? What are we afraid of? Why cannot we call God “Abba Father” allowing the
life He has placed within us in Christ to express itself in intimate familial
ways, natural ways, ways which we would expect in a Father-child relationship?
Cannot we not trust our kind heavenly Father and Lord Jesus to care for us? To
shepherd us? To protect us? We are predestined, called, justified, and
glorified (Romans 8:30) and yet we deny our birthright and inheritance – exchanging
it for a pot of greens. When we seek to live in the reality of Romans 8 the mob
pulls us down into Adam – we ignore the great exchange of identity in Romans 5
that we are no longer in Adam but are now in Christ.
Now we
are children of God. Do we believe it?
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