Are we all God's children, or only Christians?

Q. In Luke 3:38 Adam is called son of God; in Genesis 6:2 his posterity are called the sons of God. Malachi 2:10, says, "Have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us?" Paul, in Ephesians 4:6, says: there is one God and Father of all." Is it therefore lawful to speak of the universal Fatherhood of God? J.H.

A. Undoubtedly, as angels are called sons of God in Genesis 6 and Job, so also it is extended to the human race as distinguished from the beasts that perish. Indeed man distinctively was made in God's image, after His likeness, which is never said of angels. Hence in the third parable of Luke 15 the two are spoken of as sons naturally; and Paul, in preaching to the Athenians, adopts the sentiment that we are His offspring, even the heathen. With this agrees the statement in Ephesians 4:6: "one God and Father of all." So far Dr. Crawford was more scripturally correct than the late Dr. Cavendish in their controversy. But this universal Fatherhood of God only makes man's wickedness and unbelief more inexcusable and ruinous. It has to do with nature only, which is now fallen and sinful, and proved to be God's enemy by rejecting His Son, sent to save. Salvation is in no other than Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son, and our Lord. Then only are we who believe His sons by grace.

There had remained some glimmerings of light as to this amongst them, and Paul was able to quote some of their own poets as having spoken of mankind as being the offspring of God. In this they were right. Only by faith in Christ Jesus do we become children of God, but all men are His offspring as His creatures. This being so we ought not to conceive of God as something less than ourselves or as the work of our own hands; and we should be those who seek after Him. His immanence is recognized in the words that "In Him we live, and move, and have our being;" yet Paul preached Him as the transcendent One, who is Lord of heaven and earth.

Now we concede at once that all men are the offspring of God. This is made perfectly clear in Paul's address to the Athenians (Acts 17). It is also made abundantly clear in that chapter that Paul is referring to men as being part of God's creation, and as standing in the relation of creatures to God as Creator. It is also clear that the Athenians had no knowledge of God as their Father; He was "unknown" to them; they were "ignorant" of the way of approach to Him, but in infinite mercy He had made it possible for them to "seek the Lord and to "feel (to "search for") after Him". The context shows that man had become estranged from His Creator and the whole tenor of Scripture makes this clear beyond doubt. It is this creatorial relationship which Malachi refers to, in a book where men are strewn to have lost reverence for God.

Of divine election angels are subjects (1 Tim. 5:21); as being holy, too, are they characterised (Mark 8:38; Rev. 14:10). But relationship to God as children is peculiar to the elect of the human race. They only of God's creatures are connected with Him by the tie of birth, though angels, as deriving their existence from God, are called in the Old Testament His sons (Gen. 6:2; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). But in the New Testament, none but those who share in redemption by the blood of Christ are called the children of God. Now it is God who makes this known. He might, of course, had it pleased Him, have rested contented with knowing the relationship of Father to His children as a joy for His own heart, and a secret to be kept in His own bosom; but He desired that the children should know of the birth-tie which exists between Him and them, and of the privileged position before all other creatures which He has deigned to bestow on them. For not only are they His children, they are also His sons, and will enjoy the privilege of adoption for ever.

Regarding Israel, Jehovah said, “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me” (Isa. 1:2). As a nation, God had specially cared for His people Israel, nourishing and protecting them, disciplining them for their sins, and forgiving them when they turned to Him in repentance. In spite of all God’s goodness and care, Israel rebelled against His authority and gave their worship to idols, being “a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters” (verse 4). We can clearly see that these are not the features of true children of God, of those who have been born of God and belong to His family. Nor is it difficult for a true Christian to understand that although all men are God’s offspring (Acts 17:29), as derived from Adam into whom God breathed the breath of life, this is very different from the new birth that brings us into God’s family as His children.

All is consistent with the presentation of relationship, beginning with Jehovah Elohim (the LORD God) in Gen. 2:4, not Creator only but Moral Governor. Hence here, not in Gen. 1, is the garden of delight planted by the LORD God, the testing place of man's obedience. Here only in the midst of the garden we hear of the two trees: one the sovereign gift of life naturally; the other of responsibility. Here only are we told of man formed of the dust of the ground on one hand, and on the other by the LORD God breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. Adam was thus "son of God" (Luke 3:38), a living soul, not as other creatures by creative power only, but he only by Jehovah Elohim breathing into his nostrils. Nor is the effect lost for the race; for, as Paul quotes to the Athenians, we too are His offspring, as no other earthly creatures are. Therefore is the soul immortal for good or for ill; if saved, it is for ever with Christ; if lost, for everlasting punishment, because He is refused and men die in their sins. Such was man's relationship to Jehovah Elohim; and the test of obedience here therefore follows.

Every child of Adam is of necessity placed in the relation of a creature to the Creator. All owe their being to Him (Acts 17:25-28). In this sense He is the Father of all (Eph. 3:14-15; 4:6), and so Adam is called God's son (Luke 3:38).

We have now a third sphere, one closing unity, one God and Father of all, who is above (or over) all, and through all, and in all." This last is undeniably the reading of all the oldest manuscripts though the early versions have "in us all." I apprehend that the manuscripts are right, and that the "Father in us" is not a scriptural thought. It is said of Christ, and of Him alone, who was the Father's representative in the world. But if so, that would forbid the "over all and through all" being said of persons, though "Father of all" must of course be of persons. But how widely, then, does this apply? Is it of all men, or of all believers? It seems to me designedly left vague. Creation is that which gives the first ground of the title; but here the fall has brought in breach and disorder, and the Lord says to the Jews, "If God were your Father, ye would love Me." New creation must, therefore, come, and by new birth we are children of God in a nearer and more wonderful way than before. But new creation does not take us out of creation as such, in which man alone upon the earth has been the transgressor. "Over all, through all, in all," seems to take in the whole sphere of things wherein, blessed be God, we still find Him.

Last of all, we have "one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all." (Ver. 6.) Evidently in this we stand before a still vaster compass. There is an immense mass of mankind that does not profess Christ at all. The bulk of men have gone on with their idols, spite of law and gospel. Are there no claims there? We own "one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all." That is, it is a personal God: not at all the idea that everything is God, which is infidelity in its worst shape, or Pantheism. We own "one God," not a number of divinities, like the Gentiles, but "one God and Father of all." The Jew did not believe that He was the Father of all, nor even properly Father for the chosen nation, but rather their Governor, even Jehovah. The Christian revelation brings out God in an infinitely larger, as well as for us more intimate, character; but larger, too, as embracing all creaturehood — "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all" (His supremacy and providence, but more than these), "and in you all." There is His near connection with some, and not with all. For it is not said, "in all," but "in you all." The Holy Ghost is speaking of the Father's peculiar relationship to the Christian. Thus nothing can be more full, and beautiful, and orderly than these unfoldings of unity in and around Christ our Lord.

Notice how the Lord's words totally destroy the false idea held by so many concerning the "universal Fatherhood of God," though these Jewish religionists only went so far as to claim a universal fatherhood of Abraham, and therefore of God, for their nation. Jesus said, "If God were your Father …" It was a denial. The devil was their father. The Fatherhood of God is limited to those that believe, as Galatians 3:26 states.