From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I should like to call your attention this morning to the words which are to be found in Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, the first chapter, verses 5 and 6. Verses 5 and 6 in the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved."

We are still considering this great exposition which the apostle here gives us in these verses of these blessings which he has described as all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And we have reminded ourselves that in verses 4, 5 and 6, the apostle is concerned in particular to show us the part of the Father in this great redemption which we enjoy.

He is going on to show us the part played by the Son and subsequently the part played by the Holy Spirit. But he starts with the Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he outlines here the aspect of salvation as it is seen from that particular standpoint and angle. And we are engaged at the moment in considering what the apostle tells us here about our adoption as sons into the family of God.

The first thing that was necessary before we could truly be delivered from the ravages and the appalling consequences of the fall and of sin, was that we be cleansed from sin, from its guilt and from its pollution. So the apostle tells us that we have been chosen to be holy and without blame before God in love. But what God has done for us in Christ doesn't stop at that.

In addition to that, he has adopted us as his children. Now that is the matter which we are considering at the moment. I suggested that a very good way of looking at it was something like this, that we see first of all in the work of redemption and our salvation, the action which God has taken to nullify and indeed entirely to destroy the consequences and the effects of sin and of the fall.

Sin estranged men from God. He involved him in subjection and slavery to the devil. Sin involved men further. The fall and sin involved men in a polluted nature, an evil nature, enemy and alienated from God in our minds through wicked works and so on. Those are the descriptions which are given everywhere in the Scripture of the state and the condition of men as the result of that tragic event when men listening to the suggestion and the temptation of the enemy fell away from God.

Now, clearly the work of redemption is to deal with all that and God has sent forth his Son, and he has made a covenant with him, and he, as our representative, has done things which deliver us from that. And there is nothing in a sense which is more wonderful as we consider that than this very idea of adoption and of sonship which we are now considering together.

Now last Sunday morning, we spent our time in defining what it means, and in considering some of the privileges that are inseparably attached to it. It's a forensic, it's a legal idea. It means that God gives unto us who are his sons, his children, all the benefits, a right to the inheritance, a share in everything that belongs to him. And likewise it gives to him the right of Fatherhood over us.

And because we are in that position, because that is now our rank, our standing, our status, there are certain great privileges which we enjoy and we considered them together at the end last Sunday morning. But we can't quite leave this subject at that, because obviously the moment you look at it carefully and seriously, you will find that there are implied in this statement that we are looking at certain principles, certain truths, which are absolutely vital to the Christian position.

And which if we neglect them, or ignore them, or misunderstand them, may very well militate against our well-being. We are set in this world and we are surrounded by enemies and antagonists. The New Testament itself proves that. The fact that we become Christian does not mean that from there on everything is going to be perfectly plain and clear, and that we shall have no difficulties, and that there shall be no dangers and pitfalls along our pathway.

You can't read the New Testament without seeing that very early in the history of the church, errors began to creep in, heresies began to arise. People went astray in their doctrine, misunderstood aspects of the truth. And indeed, it can be said that most of these New Testament epistles were written because of that. They were written to correct misunderstandings and errors. And that is our reason for considering these things, because we are still the same.

It isn't merely that we have a theoretical interest in these things. You remember that the apostle in writing to the Corinthians says, "Evil communications corrupt good manners," by which he means this: that if we go astray in our doctrine, eventually our life will go astray as well. You can't separate what a man believes and what he is. That is where doctrine, why doctrine is so vitally important. There are certain people who very ignorantly say, "Oh, I'm not interested in doctrine.

I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm saved, I'm a Christian. Nothing else matters." Well, of course, to say that is to court disaster for this reason: that the New Testament itself, as I'm saying, is the book that warns us against that very danger. It's the children who are always tossed about and carried away by every wind of doctrine. And if your doctrine goes wrong, your life will soon suffer and your life will eventually go wrong as well.

So I say, it behooves us not only to look at the doctrines positively, but to observe what they say in order that we may safeguard ourselves against certain erroneous and heretical teachings that are as rife and as common in the world today as they were in the days of the early church. Now then, let me show you something of what I mean. The apostle's categorical statement is this: that God has predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

Now then what does that got to tell us negatively? Well, let me put it in this form. Let us consider for a moment the light that that statement throws upon the very common teaching today about the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of men. Now there is a condition, there is a teaching, I'm sure, with which we are all more or less familiar. There is an idea current that God is the Father of all, that all therefore are the children of God.

And that all that the Christian gospel emphasizes so much, especially its evangelical presentation about the necessity of the death of Christ upon the cross, which we call to mind by the communion service and the bread and the wine, that all that is utterly unnecessary. That that's nothing but some sort of Jewish legalism, that the Jews like many other primitive peoples believed in sacrifices and things of that kind. But of course, that all that has got nothing whatsoever to do with the only true and living God.

And that if we but understand the teaching of the New Testament properly, well, we shall know that God is our Father, that he's the Father of all men, that there's no need to talk about conversion and regeneration and rebirth and things like that, and to say that the cross is absolutely vital and central, that all are the children of God, and that God is a loving Father. And that we should never take sin too seriously, that it's all morbid and unhealthy.

And it's, as I say, just this Jewish legalism, that if we have sin, well, God as a Father will forgive us, of course he will. And we needn't be worried about these things, and that ultimately, all being the children of God, are going to heaven, and that all these warnings about hell and punishment and retribution should be banished out of our terminology, and we should rid ourselves once and for ever of all this legalistic notion which the apostle Paul in a very special way has feasted upon the primitive original Gospel of Christ, which was nothing but a constant elaboration of the one theme that God is our Father and that God is love.

Now, you are familiar with all that teaching. The commonest objection in many ways to the particularity of the evangelical presentation of the Gospel is in some such terms. Now, obviously, people who hold such ideas don't merely make statements, they try to substantiate what they're saying from the Scriptures. They say that the apostle Paul himself said in preaching to the Athenians about God, "We are all his offspring." They said, "Isn't that enough?"

You'll find it in the 17th of Acts. "We are all his offspring." And then they say, "Don't we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews in the 12th chapter, in the 9th verse, 'Shall we not rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?'" A statement that God is the Father of all spirits or the spirits of all men. And then we are told that in the first chapter of the Epistle of James, God is described as the Father of lights, which means the same thing, the Father of the light that is in every man, the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

They bring forward certain statements like that and say, "Well, now, what do you say in the light of something like that?" Well, here surely the answer must be put in this form. And you'll notice that I'm dealing with this matter not because I desire to do so, but because, as I say, it is because so many believe that doctrine that they're impervious to the message of the Gospel, and feel it's unnecessary.

And if we want to help them and to disabuse their minds and to be the means of their salvation, we must know how to answer their statements and to present the truth to them. So we reply, I say, in this way, that surely nobody can read the Bible without seeing very clearly that there is a great and a central division in mankind taught in the Scriptures. There are two groups.

There are those who belong to God, there are those who don't belong to God. There are God's people, there are those who are outside his covenant. There is the good and the bad, the saved and the lost. Those who go to everlasting bliss, those who go to everlasting perdition. Now, I say, if you read your Bible, even superficially, you will be impressed at once by the fact that there is this fundamental division running right through.

It starts with Abel and Cain. And on it goes, those who are saved in the ark, those who are lost, the family of Noah, all the rest. Abram and his descendants, all the other nations, the broad way, the narrow way, and so on, it runs right through the Scripture. And in the Book of Revelation, those who are inside the heavenly city, those who are outside with the dogs and who are suffering in their perdition.

"Well," says someone, "if that is true, how do you explain these statements that are quoted, such as Acts 17 and so on?" And the answer, of course, is this: that God is the Father of all men in the sense that he is the Creator of all men. He is the originator of the whole of mankind in that way. And when we are told that we are all his offspring, it means that we are all the result of his work, his activity.

We are all the result of his creation. And it's in that sense that he is the Father of spirits. But of course, we needn't leave it at that. There are specific statements in the Scripture that put this still more strongly. God in the Old Testament says repeatedly of the children of Israel, "Israel is my son." The other nations, he doesn't describe as his sons. "Israel is my son."

The others were not sons in that peculiar sense. But not only that, take a statement such as we have in this very epistle, in the next chapter, in the third verse, Paul says, "Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath even as others." We were children of wrath, says the apostle.

But listen to our Lord himself saying the same thing. Our Lord having a disputation with the Jews, with the Pharisees especially on one occasion, you'll find it in the eighth chapter of John's Gospel, he refers to his antagonists as the children of the devil. He says, "You are of your father the devil." And he even says this: he says, "If God were your Father, you would love me." "You can't say," he says, "that God is your Father, because you're proving that God is not your Father.

You are the children of the devil. That's your Father, and you're like your Father, and you belong to your Father. If you were the children of God, you would love me, but you don't love me, therefore you are not the children of God." But then there is that specific statement you remember in the first chapter of John's Gospel, in the 12th verse, "He came unto his own and his own received him not." Then it goes on, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power or authority to become the sons of God, the children of God." Clearly they were not children of God as they were.

But they are given the right and the authority to become the children of God as the result of receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. Obviously the argument is that unless they do receive, they are not the children of God, and have no right nor authority to call themselves such, nor to regard themselves as such. And then there is a statement like this, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Well, there, I say, surely is sufficient to deal with this whole question.

And here it is, of course, very explicitly in the text that we are considering together. "He has predestinated us," says the apostle. Who are the "us"? Well, he's writing to Christians only. He's writing to members of churches. It isn't a general letter to the world. His whole object is to show them that they no longer belong to the world. These are the holy people, the people who have been called unto holiness without blame, who stand before him in love.

They no longer are dead in trespasses and sins. They are no longer the children of wrath, even as others. No, no, these are the special people who are Christians. And it is only of them he says that they have been predestinated unto this adoption of children. So that we see clearly that there is nothing that is so contradictory of the plain teaching of the Scripture from beginning to end than this notion that God is the universal Father of all, and that because of that, all are his children, and that ultimately all are going to heaven and to enjoy the benefits of the presence of God and all that he has for us.

Indeed we could not hesitate to put it as plainly as this. There is no teaching that is finally so inimical to our souls and their salvation as that teaching about the universal fatherhood of God. If God were the Father of all in that way, well then I don't hesitate to say that the Lord Jesus Christ need never have come into this world. And that we are being foolish in remembering him at this Advent season, that to have a communion service is a travesty of the truth.

And that the cross of Christ is something that is a denial of the love of God. That's what it involves. So, as we value our own souls and the souls of others, let us reject with abhorrence such perverted notions, and let us do what we can to deliver others from the clutches of such teaching. Well, then, I can put that positively in the second place by putting it like this.

The whole emphasis of the teaching here is that we only become sons in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, he is essential. According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Listen, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved." That is why it is almost inconceivable that anybody should go astray with respect to this Gospel.

And you see, there is only one explanation of why anybody does go astray, and that is the power of the devil. The words are so plain and clear. Why does he go on repeating about the Lord Jesus Christ? Why does he go on emphasizing "in him and by him and through him, in the beloved"? Why? Well, he's out to show that it is only in Christ that we can become the sons of God. And yet, as I say, that other teaching does away with the necessity of Christ, because it says we are all by our very creation and being the children of God.

Now I say, we must understand again that it is only to as many as received him, the Lord Jesus Christ, that the right, the authority is given to become the children of God. The Lord said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me." He is absolutely essential. If he had not come from heaven to earth, none of us would ever be children of God.

We'd remain the children of wrath. It is only as the result of everything that began in the Incarnation, in the birth at Bethlehem, in all that he did and was, in all that he still is and does, it is only as the result of that that we become the sons of God. And therefore, I say, unless we see that the Incarnation is an absolute necessity, that his obedience to the law had to take place, that he had to die, that he needs must suffer and die, and that is why he set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, to bear our sins, to make the atonement, to reconcile us to God.

Unless, I say, we realize and see clearly that all this was absolutely essential before we could become the sons of God. We are yet in our sins, we are harboring a delusion, and we shall find ourselves at the last day when we shall go forward thinking that we are sons, confronted with the words, "I never knew you. Depart from me, you that work iniquity." You notice how the apostle uses his words carefully.

You notice that as regards our holiness, he says that we are in him. But you notice that with regard to the adoption, he says, "by Jesus Christ." It is as the result of my union with Christ, I am made holy. It is by the work of Christ or through the work of Christ, I receive the adoption and become a son of God. In other words, the "through" or the "by" emphasizes the work that Christ has done, the things that he had to do before I could ever become a son.

Very well then, there is the second way of putting it. But now let me safeguard the doctrine by going forward to say this. We rejoice in the fact that we are the sons of God and that we are the sons of God in Jesus Christ. And yet we must be very careful to draw a distinction between his sonship and our sonship, lest again we go astray on the other side. I mean something like this, that we are the sons of God, but we are not the sons of God in exactly the same way as the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

He is the Son of God by eternal generation. We are the sons of God by adoption. Have you ever wondered why our Lord in speaking in the Upper Room to the disciples, used language like this? He said, "I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." Why didn't he turn to them and say, "I ascend to our Father and to our God?" Now, surely our Lord spoke very deliberately when he used those words and when he differentiated still between himself and them.

And that was surely the distinction which he was out to teach at that particular point. Our sonship is derivative, we derive it from him. It is because we have been adopted in him. May I put it like this, speaking carefully and with reverence? We are not made gods. We don't become divine in that sense. Though we are partakers of the divine nature, we are still human beings who are adopted into the family of God.

The Lord Jesus Christ is substance of the eternal substance. He is very God of very God. He is essentially different from us, and yet we are adopted into the family. Now it's a great thought, it's almost impossible to comprehend it. But I say it is important because there have been people at times who have taught erroneously that Christians have become gods, that they have become divine. There is no teaching in the Scripture to that effect.

Our standing, our position, our rank is that of adopted children. So there is a sense in which we can call the Lord Jesus Christ our brother. There is another sense in which we should be very careful as we say so. He stands eternally the Son of God who took unto him human nature. We are human adopted into the family of God and given the privileges and the standing and the status. So we draw that short distinction between his sonship and our sonship.

Now I come onto another matter which must have our attention. I can put it in the form of a question. To whom does this sonship belong? The apostle Paul says here, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to himself." Does that apply to all Christians? Or does it only apply to some Christians? Is there anybody that's surprised and amazed that I ask such a question?

Well, I ask such a question because there is a teaching to the effect that all Christians do not become sons of God, that only some of us become sons of God. It is a teaching which says that all Christians are the children of God, but that only certain special Christians become the sons of God. Again, I say that I dearly wish that I hadn't to deal with such a teaching.

But there is such a teaching being propagated today by certain people who claim for themselves an unusual degree of sanctity, who claim for themselves a peculiar fellowship, a peculiar depth of teaching, who claim that they have advanced beyond others and tend to separate themselves from all others because of the depth of their teaching, and because of this intimate fellowship that they enjoy with one another on that exceptionally high plane.

And that is their teaching. That whereas all Christians are children, it is only some Christians that become sons. And they go on, of course, to say this, that this is very important. They tell us that it is only the sons who shall take part in the first resurrection. The other Christians shall not take part in the first resurrection, they're only children. It is only the sons who are going to take a part in the first resurrection.

It is only they who are going to be with Christ. The children, they say, will not be with Christ, they'll be left on the earth. But the sons shall be with Christ always and enjoy his glory in an exceptional manner. That is the teaching. A separation of Christians into children and sons. And I say, it is very specious, because it makes a claim to an unusual insight and understanding, and to an unusual depth and profundity.

On what grounds do they base such a teaching? Well, this is what they generally put forward. They tell us that in the Revised Version of Matthew 5:9, we read this: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God." The peacemakers. They say in the 45th verse of that 5th of Matthew, you read this, that we are told to love our enemies, etc., that he may be sons of your Father which is in heaven.

And likewise in Luke 20:36, we are told that we shall be as the sons of God, being the sons of the resurrection. And they also try to argue that in chapters 3 and 4 of Galatians, there is a difference drawn between the Old Testament saints and the Christians of today, that it is only the latter who are called sons in that sense. Well, now there in its essence is this teaching. And you see how utterly false it is, and what rank heresy it is.

I don't stand here simply to make a dogmatic statement like that. Let me produce the argument of Scripture itself with regard to this. You really needn't go further than this 5th verse of this first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Listen, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of sons." Who is he referring to? He is referring to himself and to all these Christians to whom he is writing.

He is referring to the members of the Church at Ephesus and at Colossae and the various other churches to whom this circular letter was being sent. He doesn't say, "Having predestinated a certain number of us, a certain select few of us to the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to himself." "Having predestinated us." All Christians, without any division and without any distinction. Not only that, you will find if you read the Scriptures, these epistles particularly, that the terms children and sons are always used interchangeably.

There is no more perfect example of this than the 8th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, where the apostle is dealing with the whole question of sonship. He says, "You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" Then he goes on, "The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." Who is he writing about? The people whom he has just described as sons.

But here he calls them children. "And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ." In the same paragraph, with the one argument, he uses the terms sons and children interchangeably. But there is a still more striking statement in the 3rd chapter of Galatians, in the 26th verse. Listen to this. "For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith." All sons of God through faith.

And again, he says in Galatians 4, "Wherefore, thou art no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir, an heir of God through Christ." Exactly the same argument as in the Epistle to the Romans, where he uses the word child. But perhaps the final proof and that this, I leave it. The final proof of the utter monstrosity of this teaching, that would appear so marvelous and wonderful, and offer to lead certain of us to higher heights where we enjoy some peculiar blessings, the final refutation of it.

And I speak strongly because it is surely tragic that the children of God should be confused and divided unnecessarily in this way. The final proof is this: the apostle John, in all his writings, in the Gospel and in the Epistles, never uses the word sons at all. He always uses the word children. Sometimes you'll find in your Authorized Version that it's translated "sons," it's a mistake. The word that John uses in the original is always the word "children."

John never used the word "sons" with respect to Christians. So if I am asked to believe this doctrine of these people who enjoy this unique fellowship, I must come to the conclusion that the apostle John was aware of this distinction on which they lay such emphasis. Oh, how subtle is the devil. He comes as an angel of light, and he draws divisions and distinctions where they are not present in the Scripture.

He confounds Christian people, and he deludes them into imagining that they have something higher, something esoteric, something that is only understood by a certain special few, and which cannot be taught to the majority of Christians because they are not yet ready to receive it. How important it is that we should read our Scriptures carefully. "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of sons." All Christians are sons of God, and they share the same privileges on earth.

They shall enjoy the same privileges in heaven and throughout eternity. There are none of these artificial gradations. We are all, thank God, by the grace of God in Christ, the sons of God, and in the same privileged position. But lastly, for me to close this morning, leaving these matters of heresy and the false teaching, let me end on something which will gladden our hearts, I trust, and enable us to see how wonderful is this statement.

Let me put it in the form of a proposition. Redemption does not stop at merely undoing the effects of the fall and sin. It goes beyond it. Now I started off by saying, you remember, that what we are told here is that Christ and his work have been designed to undo the effects of the fall and of sin. He has done that. But what we are told here is that he's done even more than that. He's gone beyond that.

And he's gone beyond it in giving us this adoption of sons. Let me put it briefly in this form. Did you notice that comparison in the 5th of Romans which we read at the beginning? In Adam, in Christ. We are all by nature the children of Adam, the descendants, the sons of Adam. Adam was created, he was created perfectly, he was created in a state of innocence. He was set in Paradise in the garden, and he was able to enjoy fellowship with God.

Yes. But he was nothing beyond a creature. A man, the Lord of creation, yes, but at his height and at his perfection, he never rose beyond that. But you and I in Christ are in a different position. As the apostle puts it in the 15th of 1st Corinthians, "The first man was of the earth, earthy. The second man is the Lord from heaven." Adam, I say, was perfect, Adam was innocent, Adam was made in the image of God.

But he was never more than man. He remained in that position. Adam was never to use the language of the Scripture a partaker of the divine nature. Now I've already been at pains to point out to you that that doesn't make us gods, but it does make some difference to us. It puts us into a new relationship to God that even Adam did not enjoy. We are in Christ. Adam was not in Christ. He was a perfect man, yes, but he wasn't in Christ.

You and I are in Christ. We've been raised to a higher level. Adam, though he was perfect, was subject to fall and failure. I say it with reverence, to the glory of God, a man who is in Christ cannot fall away. He cannot become lost. "No man shall pluck him out of my hand," says the Lord. He stands in a different position. Not only has Christ in his work undone the tragic results of the fall, he's not only blotted them out, he's advanced our position.

Where sin abounded, grace doth much more abound. That's how the apostle puts it. Would you like to hear Isaac Watts putting it? And to me it is almost tragic that this great verse has been left out of his hymn. "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun..." I wonder why it's been left out. Isaac Watts wrote it. We've got most of the remaining verses of that great hymn in our hymn books. They've left this out.

Why? I wonder whether they were afraid of the doctrine. This is what Watts says: "Where he displays his healing power, death and the curse are known no more. In him the tribes of Adam boast more blessings than their Father lost." It's perfectly right. It's absolutely true. In him, in Christ, the tribes of Adam boast more blessings than their Father lost. In Christ, I not only get back the blessings which Adam lost for me, I'm given all them but I'm given more.

I am adopted as a son of God. I stand in a higher position than Adam stood. I haven't his perfection, but I have something that he hadn't got. I am in Christ, and in this new relationship to God, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Oh, that we be enabled to realize this about ourselves this morning. The blessing, the promise of sonship is not only to the peacemakers.

It's not only to those who are unusually strenuous in their Christian life. God forbid that I should encourage anybody in sin. But let me say it on the authority of this word. Though you may have fallen grievously into sin yesterday, you are a son of God, a child of God, a son of God, adopted into the new relationship, given the rank and the status and the position, raised to this level that is even higher than Adam.

And while we enjoy some of the privileges and the honors and the blessings attached to it in this life and in this world, we know that all this is but the first fruit. It is but the earnest. The crowning day is coming by and by. And we shall see him as he is, and shall enter into all the prerogatives and the privileges of our heavenly sonship. And we shall all together, all Christians, all who belong to him and who are in him, we shall all together see him, and we shall all together be made like him.

Thanks be unto God. For the one whom he sent into this world to undo, to destroy the works of the devil, and even to go beyond that, to exalt men to the position of sonship. Amen.