Is Everyone a Child of God?

The adoption of believers into the family of God is a doctrine of great comfort. It is wonderful to know, as Paul states, that “ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

That is of immeasurable solace to the saints of God. For is it not to the bosom of our Father that we fly when calamity overwhelms us and tribulation comes in like a flood? Is it not then that we reach with longing arms for the neck of our Father who is in Heaven?

This is what adoption is all about.

Strangely enough, almost inexplicably, this doctrine has been greatly neglected throughout Church history. Luther had little to say about it. Calvin neglected it almost entirely. And so it is with all of the great creeds of Christendom and Protestantism. Every one of them ignores the doctrine of adoption almost completely, except the Westminster Confession of Faith, which contains a very brief chapter on the subject.

But adoption is the final consummation, the ultimate blessing, of the Christian life. Therefore, it is a doctrine which should not be ignored.

The doctrine of adoption is also important because it is the theological point of contact with the heresy of universalism, the teaching that says every one will ultimately arrive in paradise. It utterly denies the biblical doctrine of eternal punishment.

The Bible plainly teaches that there will be those who will be forever separated from God. Jesus Christ, Himself, said: “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

But universalism teaches the “fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,” ideas that are utterly foreign to the Scriptures.

The Bible does not say that there was one father, but two. Jesus said, “Ye are of your father the devil and his works do ye do” (John 8:44). Paul says we were “children of disobedience.” This is the state of natural man as he is born into this world—a disobedient child of the devil, under the wrath of God.

One family? Not at all! We must be translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. All sons of God? Listen: “As many as received him (Christ), to them gave he power to become the sons of God...” (John 1:12). How does one become that which he already is? Of course, he cannot.

We are brought into the family of God by an act of God’s grace. We are given His name. We are made His heirs. How wonderful it is that because of the Spirit of adoption we can look up into the face of God, whom many fear, and say, “Abba Father.”

Are you a child of God? Have you come to the place of receiving Jesus Christ? Have you come to see that you were a rebel child and an outlaw citizen? Have you fled to the Cross, there to receive His mercy, to be justified from your sins and to be adopted into His family?

This is done by faith, by seeing your need and deplorable condition, your lost estate. This is done by faith and embracing the Cross of the everlasting Son of God, who left His home that we might be brought into it, who died that we may live, who was rejected and smitten by the Father in our place that we might be enfolded in His arms and His embrace.