READING:
Rom. 8:14,17,19,21,23,29; Gal. 4:5-7; Eph. 1:5-6; Heb.
1:1-2; 3:6-8,14-15; 5:8-14; 12:5-7,9,11. Continuing our
contemplation of the spiritual house, we are now to
consider the matter of the School of sonship unto
adoption. I hesitate to go over the ground of technical
differences in terms because that has been done so often,
but you will suffer just the briefest word in that
connection, as it may be necessary for some.
The Divine Conception of
"Adoption"
When we
come to the things of God, we find that we have to change
some of our human ideas, and amongst the many things in
which that is so there is this matter of adoption. God's
idea about adoption is altogether different from ours.
Our idea is that of bringing someone into the family from
outside, but that is not God's idea at all about
adoption. The word "adoption" literally means
"the placing of sons," and you will have
recognized, if you were following closely, that adoption
comes at the close of things in all those passages of
Scripture. It is something which lies ahead. We, who have
received the Spirit, wait, groaningly wait, for our
adoption. We were foreordained unto adoption as sons. It
is something for which we are waiting, according to the
Word of God. Thus it is not just the matter of bringing
into the family, but it is something which is the result
of what has transpired since we came into the family, the
result of God's dealings with us as being in His family,
and you know quite well that different words are used.
The
Revised Version is of peculiar value in this connection.
The distinction is made quite clear there that, as
children of God, we are such on the ground of birth,
whilst we are but sons potentially by that birth. We are
actually sons, according to that Divine thought as
represented in the word "adoption," after we
have been in the family for a time and God has dealt with
us. Sonship, in the Divine sense, is something which is
being developed in us. To be a child is a question of
generation; "child" is a generic term, but
sonship is something received, something given, something
imparted. That is something more than being born.
The Scriptural Unfolding of the Subject
This
word, as you have recognized, is used in different ways
in the Scripture. In Romans and Galatians, for instance,
we have some light upon sonship. It is seen to have its
genesis in a basic relationship with God through our
receiving the Spirit. We have received the Spirit, and
are called sons because we have received the Spirit, but
both in the case of Romans and Galatians the object of
those letters was to obviate the grave peril which had
come amongst believers of stopping short at a certain
point in their spiritual life as born-again ones and not
going on to perfection. Their peril was that of being
turned aside by the work of the Judaisers, who were
coming in to try to arrest the spiritual progress of
these believers and bringing in the law again and the
Jewish system.
We may
indicate here at once that the enemy always withstands
very fiercely this matter of spiritual progress unto
adoption. The most perilous thing to the enemy is
"the adoption of sons." That is the end for him
and he knows very well the significance for himself of
the Lord's people going on with the Lord unto adoption.
These Judaisers were the Devil's instruments to prevent
the going on of these people to that glorious end.
So the
Holy Spirit, through the Apostle, in these two letters,
brings in the light of sonship; that is, he gives the
knowledge of sonship in its fuller meaning, and says that
basically, by having received the Holy Spirit, we are
sons, but that sonship is not realized now in its full
meaning and value. That is something unto which we are to
go on, in which we are to continue; for the whole
creation is waiting, groaning and waiting, for the
literal consummation of that which is potential in our
having received the Spirit, namely, "the
manifestation of the sons of God." When that day
comes, the creation will be delivered from its bondage of
corruption. But against that deliverance the powers of
evil work, and they worked through Judaisers as well as
through many other things and people to prevent that
glorious deliverance of the creation in the manifestation
of the sons of God. So that what we have in Romans and
Galatians is light about sonship, the basis of sonship
established, but nothing said which carries with it the
definite declaration that we have reached all that
sonship means. Even in this word, "As many as are
led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God,"
there is no saying that every Christian is a son of God;
for is every Christian led by the Spirit of God? It is a
spiritual position which is bound up with sonship in
God's thought.
Of
course, in our birth as children of God, in which sonship
is implicit and adoption is prospective, the inheritance
is in view, for every one born into this family is a
potential heir. If we are children, we are heirs. But it
is quite well known that we can be minors while we are
heirs, and that is brought out in Galatians. While we may
be born heirs, we are still minors, and we cannot have
the inheritance until we reach our majority. That is
adoption - reaching the majority, coming to full growth,
to full manhood.
Full Sonship a Corporate Matter and
Greatly Withstood
So that
we are brought face to face with this matter of reaching
adoption by the development of sonship in us in the
School of God, I think I ought to say here that, while
this does become an individual and personal matter and
must be that in its application, the matter of adoption
is one with that of election, and that it is the Church
which is in view, not the individual. It is the Church
which is the elect body, and it is the Church which is
the elect "son," in the sense in which we are
speaking of sonship now; and it is the Church which is
fore-ordained unto adoption of sons, not individuals as
such, although it has its individual application, and it
will be with the manifestation of the sons in the
corporate sense, the Church, that God reaches His full
end. I say that, because I feel that this matter of
sonship involves the truth of the Body of Christ in a
very real way. In reality, it depends upon that truth.
Now, you may not grasp what I mean. I mean that sonship
requires the Body of Christ, is involved in that truth of
the Body of Christ, and it is in our relatedness in
Christ as fellow-heirs that we shall be developed, that
we shall come to fullness, to God's full end. You and I
cannot inherit singly, individually: we can only inherit
in a related way.
I think
that truth goes further than I am now intending to
indicate; but let us recognize that the enemy has
something very much in view in keeping the light of the
Body of Christ from the Lord's people. The reason for
that, you see, is on account of our being foreordained
unto adoption as sons by Jesus Christ unto Himself, and
all that it means to the enemy; for to him it means
everything. He loses his place, he loses his kingdom, he
loses his title, he loses everything, when this
"Corporate Son" is manifested in glory, when
this work is completed in the Church and it is found in
the throne. It is therefore up to him to keep the light
of the Body of Christ from believers: and it is for this
reason that, when the Apostle has been led to make the
declaration of the truth, "fore-ordained unto
adoption as sons," he gets on his knees, so to
speak, and prays:
"That
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and
revelation in the knowledge of him; having the eyes
of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is
the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory
of his inheritance in the saints..." (Eph.
1:17-18).
It is
fervent prayer against this blinding, darkening,
withholding work of the adversary as to the light
concerning the Church's nature, calling and destiny. You
will agree with me that there are comparatively few
Christians, when you go over the whole range of
Christians today in all the world, comparatively few who
have light, the revelation of the Body of Christ, and
that represents a most disastrous result of Satanic
activity, the blinding of the saints. Oh no, this is not
some truth which is an optional thing. This is something
which is bound up with the very purpose of God and the
undoing of all Satanic work.
Well,
Romans 8 is a tremendous chapter along many lines, but
that great summing up is immense. The creation, subjected
to vanity, is seen groaning and travailing unto the
manifestation of the sons of God, when it will be
delivered from the bondage of corruption: and then, unto
that, the elect instrument is shown - "Whom he
foreknew, he also fore-ordained to be conformed to the
image of his Son." It is the Church being brought in
and it is a thing of immense importance, and it is
necessary to see that, before we can appreciate this
training of sons unto adoption.
We are
in a school for a tremendous destiny. We are in the
school which has as its end something of such
significance and importance that we can scarce imagine;
and so we have not to regard lightly the child-training
of the Lord. Oh, again our human ideas must not be
brought into the Divine realm when we use the word
"chastening." What a poor translation! Even the
Revisers have not helped us very much. It is simply
"child-training." I think that, as a youngster,
that chapter in Hebrews was my pet aversion in the Bible
when I heard it read! My whole being rose up against
that. I suppose that is quite natural; but if only we had
been given the two words instead of that deplorable word
"chastening." It might at least have taken the
edge off things. "My son, despise not thou the
child-training of the Lord." There is something
better about that. "Whom the Lord loveth. He
trains." He child-trains.
Well, we
come to the business of child-training right away. Here,
in this fifth chapter of the Hebrew letter, we have these
school features mentioned in various words, as you
notice.
"Though
he was a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things
which he suffered."
That is
a school verse.
"When
by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers..."
It is
another school verse.
"Every
one that partaketh of milk is without experience..."
That is
a school verse.
"...by
reason of use have their senses exercised..."
That is
what happens at school. Here we are found right in the
School of sonship.
The Practical Difference Between
"Children" and "Sons"
Now, in
the practical way, let us note the difference between
infants, spiritually, called children in the New
Testament, and sons. The difference is simply this, that
infants or children have everything done for them and
they live in the good of that for which they themselves
have had no exercise. That is the difference. An infant
is one who lives on the good of other people's exercise
and has never had any exercise for itself. Everything has
been done and prepared for it. Everything is coming to it
as from the outside, and nothing has been done by the
child itself. I think that is the main mark of an infant.
But a son, in the spiritual and Scriptural sense, is one
who is in the way of having the root of the matter in
himself, who is progressively coming out of the realm
where everything is done for him and where he has no
exercise at all about things, to the place where it is
going on in him and he is becoming one who is competent
in himself, and no longer dependent upon what others do
and say. Everything is not being brought ready made to
him. There is a sense in which it is being made in him
and he is making it in his own experience by the exercise
of his own senses. That is the main difference,
spiritually, between an infant or child, and a son.
These
two words here are very helpful words - "senses
exercised." As children of God, we are regarded as
having spiritual senses, and the object of God's dealings
with us in His child-training is to bring those senses
into exercise, so that by that exercise we may have
experience: and what a tremendous thing is experience,
and of what value. They are the people who count, these
who have experience, and experience comes through the
exercise of the senses.
But
there are a great many people who never graduate from
spiritual childhood and infancy to sonship; and why is
it? You see, God does not sovereignly and by
determination make sons of us. Oh no, God is not going to
make sons of everybody on His own initiative, by His own
power. We have a place in this. The responsibility, as
you notice, in every one of these Scriptures, is thrown
back upon believers themselves, and it is made very clear
in very strong words, that the responsibility does rest
upon them. The bringing up so frequently of those words
relating to Israel's downfall in the wilderness shows
what responsibility rests upon the children of God in
this matter.
"Today
if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts,
as in the provocation" (Heb. 3:15).
That has
usually been used as a text for a Gospel address to
unbelievers; but in the New Testament, it was never used
in that way. It may be legitimate, but it was never used
in that way in the New Testament. It was always used for
Christians, for believers, as a warning, and to bring
home to believers this matter of responsibility, of
something resting with us.
Purposefulness a Requirement in
Would-be Sons
Now,
that means there is something basic to sonship unto
adoption, and that is a purposefulness to go on with God.
There must be about us this sense of purpose, this factor
and feature of purpose, purposefulness to go on with God,
and the Lord calls for that. Oh, the New Testament might
be said to be one continuous urge to that, an urge to be
characterized by a spiritual purpose, of meaning to go
on, and it is upon that the Lord operates. Now I say that
to lead to this. It is just that very purposefulness of
heart which brings us into all the trouble. Perhaps if we
recognized what that means, it would be as helpful a
thing as could be said to us. The people who are not
characterized by that spirit of purpose and are just
content to be little babes all their lives and to have
everything done for them and dished up to them and who
never have any exercise for themselves, usually have a
fairly comfortable time. They are fairly satisfied and
pleased with life and they do not want anything else. But
let a man become marked by this sense of earnest purpose,
and it will not be long before he is in trouble! If you
mean to go on, then you have come out of the nursery into
the school, and the nature of this school is a very
difficult one.
The Discipline that Makes All Inward
and Living
It just
means this, that God is going to put and precipitate us
into the most difficult situations. A situation is only
difficult if you cannot cope with it. If you find the
thing altogether beyond your measure; your measure of
strength, your measure of wisdom, your measure of
knowledge, then you are in difficulty: and that is the
sort of thing the Lord does with people who mean business
with Him. He puts them into difficult situations, and His
whole object is to get their spiritual senses exercised,
so that they may gain experience, may have the root of
the matter in themselves. Thus all our nice, comfortable
line of things falls away at once and we find ourselves
in a realm with which we cannot cope, for which we are
not sufficient. We have been in the habit of asking
questions and getting them answered: now, no one can
answer our questions, no answer comes from the outside.
Of course, people can say things to us and we may get a
measure of help from those who have experience; but God
is going to shut us up to the fact that it has to become
ours by experience and in truth. It does not matter what
anyone else says, we know quite well that we have to
prove that for ourselves: they cannot lift us out of our
difficulty. We constantly revert to the old childish way
of running around asking somebody to solve our problems,
but we have to come out of that. That is not going to
work any longer. Really, deep down in us, we know that it
does not work. We are not getting what we are after. We
know now we have not to have something said to us, but
something done in us. We have to be brought ourselves to
a position, not to a mental solution; and if you are all
the time trying to get intellectual solutions to your
spiritual problems, you are still in the nursery. If you
are going really to come through to God's full and
intended end, you have to know the Lord for yourself in
an inward way, and unto that it may be necessary for the
Lord to suspend all external helps and render all others
incapable of coming to your rescue, flinging you wholly
back upon Himself; to prove Him, to know Him, to be
deeply, deeply exercised in your own spirit. That
exercise enlarges capacity, and enlarged capacity means
enlarged impartation from the Lord. That is the School of
sonship unto adoption.
You see,
spirituality, which is the nature of sonship, is not
mental at all. That is to say, it is not a matter of
having all our mental problems answered for us by
somebody who has an answer to give us. You can never
reach spirituality philosophically, logically,
academically. You may go all over the world and get many
questions answered, but that does not mean that you have
come into spiritual enlargement. No, that is a very small
realm, after all. Most of us have been there. We know
quite well it never got us anywhere at all: and what a
time we had and how disappointed we were!
In my
own experience in that realm, where it was all a matter
of getting answers to spiritual problems, or trying to
get them, along intellectual lines, with a very wide
search for satisfaction of mind and heart along that
line, I reached a point that Robert Browning (a very much
bigger man than I am) reached, as the goal of all his
enquiry along that line, namely, that it is as difficult
not to believe in God as to believe in Him. Well, how far
does that get you? But that is the boundary of all
inquiry philosophically! You may have decided not to
believe anything about God: then there is a sunset and
all your decisions are tested at once. You have to say,
Man never made that; where did it come from? and you are
back to your old questions.
The Lord
Jesus Christ says, "If any man willeth to do his
will, he shall know of the teaching" (John 7:17).
That is only the Gospel way of putting in germ form this
great truth of sonship, namely, that you know by
experience and not by intellectual inquiry and by people
telling you from the outside. You do not come into
anything by that way, for what logic can build up, logic
can pull down. No, God dealeth with us as with - what?
Students in the academic sense? No, as with sons. And
where do we locate sonship? God is the Father of our
spirits; therefore our spirits are the seat of sonship
and all His dealings are with our spirits. Thus it is a
matter of spiritual growth, spiritual enlargement: that
is growth in sonship unto adoption. Oh yes, it is
experience.
A Final Emphasis and Exhortation
Now, I
wonder if you have grasped what I have been saying and
are going to be helped by it, that, so soon as you mean
business with God, you have put yourself in the way of
numerous difficulties and all that has been so wonderful
to you is going to fall away: all that has been your
satisfaction is probably going for a time to cease to be
that, and you are coming into a realm where you have to
find God in a new way, in a manner in which you have
never hitherto known Him, and where you can no longer
really get help from the outside; I mean final help. You
may just be helped, but the Lord does not allow those
ready-made things to come and put you into the position
to which He is leading you. You have to get there for
yourself. You may be helped as to how to get there, and
as to what is God's goal for you, and as to how other
people came through to that end; but no one now from the
outside can do it for you and you know that God has shut
you up to have this thing done in you and it is solely a
matter between you and the Lord in your spiritual
history. You may be right in the midst of the most mature
Christians who have gone that way and who know and you
may be as one alone. You know you do not know as they
know; but do not despair. If you are marked by this
spirit of purposefulness with God, that means He has you
in His school, and it is a good indication when you begin
to get real deep spiritual exercise. We have all met
those people who have lived on the basis of spiritual
infancy all their lives, and they can never help us at
all in our deepest need. Indeed, everything was so cut
and dried with them they would not investigate anything
deeper. They regarded anything deeper as quite
superfluous and were quite satisfied and had a kind of
answer to everything. But in our heart need they could
not touch us at all. We have all been that way.
There
was an hour in my own experience when I was there, after
years of seeking that answer to a deep sense of need;
and, not getting it, I began to go the round to try to
see if someone could help me, and I went some hundreds of
miles to visit a man who was outstanding as a religious
teacher, as a Bible teacher, and as a name in
Christianity. I went to see him to get spiritual help: I
was in desperate need, and it was a spiritual situation;
and when I put my case before him and told him of my
sense of need of a new knowledge of the Lord, he said,
"Oh, Sparks, the trouble with you is that you are a
bit overtired. You had better go and play golf." He
could not understand, could not enter into the situation.
I know now why he could not help me and why I got help
from no one during that terrible period. I know that God
was shutting me up to Himself. I had to come to the place
where I could really be a help to others in their hour of
need, at least point the way because I had come the way,
explaining what God was doing because I had had an
experience of His dealings. In order to be of any use at
all to those who are going to be sons, to have a ministry
for the sons of God, a ministry which, though so
imperfectly, so inadequately, touches that great end of
adoption; in order to have the smallest part in such a
ministry, God has had to shut us up to Himself so that no
one could help us.
Do not
take that wrongly. Do not take that to mean that you are
to cut yourself off from fellowship and from all help
that may be available. That would be a misapprehension of
what I am saying and might make things infinitely more
difficult and put you in a false position. But I am
saying that in your heart of hearts you will find, while
there may be help given to you by ministries, fellowship,
advice, counsel, by explanation, the real thing has to be
born and developed in your own self. You have to have the
root of the matter in you and no one can bring that about
but the Lord Himself by His own dealings with you. So you
will be plunged into darkness. I do not mean the darkness
of being out of union with God, the darkness of lost
assurance of salvation; but you will be plunged into
darkness in experience in order to make new discoveries,
in order that the Lord may give you light through
exercise. God dealeth with you as with - not bricks, but
living stones, sons. That is an honour, that is a great
thing, that ought to inspire us. If we have boys, they
always feel tremendously encouraged if we put our hand on
their shoulder and say, "Now, old boy..." and
begin to talk to them as responsible persons, not just
dealing with them all the time as babes. My son, I want
you to do this for me; I want you to take this bit of
responsibility; I want you to look after things for me
while I am away. Then something rises up and there is a
reach out to be what father wants.
Now, in
a sense, that is what God is doing. He is saying, I do
not want you to be babes always, I want to put
responsibility upon you; I have some big things for you
to do. Now, come along! He may put us into some very
difficult situation, but the very sense of being called
to the responsibility will make us seek to know how to
meet this situation. A man flung into the sea to learn to
swim learns far better than the man who has the doctrine
about swimming. The Lord does that in love: but He does
it. Whom the Lord loveth He child-trains.
I wonder
how many of us would be very pleased if our parents had
always done things for us, always sheltered us from
having the trouble, the bother, the worry, the necessity
of doing things or finding out how to do them for
ourselves. I am quite sure none of us would think that
was love in our parents. I think we would come to a time
when we would say, I have nothing good to say of my
parents; they have landed me into very very great
difficulty by their false idea of love. Here I am:
everybody knows I am no good, and I know it myself! But
"whom the Lord loveth, he child-trains."
Look
ahead to see all that is going to be. You see, there is a
throne in view, there is government in view. I do not
know how men manage in the governments of this world. It
seems to me that they are able to pass from one
department to another in the State. I do not know how
that is done, but I do not believe that it is because it
is in them. So much is a matter of routine, of form. It
can be taken up as something already highly organized and
arranged. Of course, I would not say of all statesmen
that it was not in them, but I am speaking generally.
Now, the Lord is having no official appointments in the
great administration of His Kingdom. He is going to have
people who have had quality wrought in them. It is unto
that the Church, the Body of Christ, is called, and it
has to be in us. That is no child's play. That is a thing
for full-grown men. If that is not true, then I do not
understand the teaching of the New Testament about going
on to full growth, nor do I understand the Lord's
dealings with His Church. If all that matters is just
that we should be born again, have forgiveness of sins,
and go to heaven, why all this in the Bible and in our
experience? It is certainly not for something here. There
may be values here, but they are not commensurate with
what we have to go through. It is just at the time when
we are beginning to get mature and are a little use to
the Lord that He takes us away. We cannot pass it on.
There may be some fruit, some value of it here, but not
at all commensurate with all this training. No, it is for
some other purpose. We say, "Higher Service."
Well, yes, that is what it is.
The Lord
give us grace then to endure chastening as sons, so that
He may have that company upon which He can place the
great responsibility which it is His will to give.