Msg Base:  AREA 5  - ASK FATHER            CIN ECHO   AMDG
  Msg No: 200.  Fri 11-29-91 13:22  (NO KILL)  (MAILED)
    From: Father Mateo
      To: Jim Roberts
 Subject: Children of God

+-
| Hello Father,
|  
|       I have been following a Bible Study recently and a question
| has come up that I felt to ask you. JOHN 1:10-13 "He was in the world,
| and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize
| him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not recieve him.
| Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave
| the right to become children of God- children born not of natural
| descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of GOD. "
|  
|       My question is directed to "he gave the right to become the
| children of God". What this means to me or to the best of my understanding
| is Jesus gives you the ability to become a Child of God once you believe
| in your heart that he is the Son of God. But it sounds like there is a
| step missing that there is something more that we must do. Yes you now
| have the right to become a child of God but is it stated this way to
| leave it up to you ? God did give us free will. But if I believe in the
| Father,  Son and Holy Spirit and I truely attempt with my heart to follow
| the path of our Lord what else is there for me to do ? Is there Something
| else that I am missing here as far as being given the right to become a
| child of God and actually being a child of God.
|  
| Thank You for your Time, May God's Peace be with you. Jim Roberts.
 
Dear Jim,
 
We cannot appreciate the fulness of God's plan for us and our salvation
by studying one verse of Scripture.  The whole of Christian revelation,
both written tradition (Scripture) and oral tradition (the teaching and
belief of Christ's body and fulness, the Church ((Eph. 1:22-23, 5:23)),
which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth
((1 Tim. 3:15)) - the whole, I say, must be heard and believed, so that
we may know all our dignity and all our duty as children of God.
 
John 1:12-13 says: "But to those who did accept him (Christ the Word),
he gave POWER to become children of God, to those who BELIEVE in his
name, who were BORN ... of God."
 
The Greek for POWER, in this verse is EXOUSIAN, a word which cannot mean
RIGHT.  We never have a right to anything in the order of salvation.  Our
salvation in every detail is from God's free gift and good pleasure.  All
is grace: "So it depends not upon a person's will or exertion, but upon
God, who shows mercy" (Romans 9:16).
 
The power -- not the right -- to become sons and daughters of God
follows upon ACCEPTANCE of Christ which involves FAITH ("to those who
BELIEVE in his Name"). But to become CHILDREN of God we must be BORN
of God.
 
The BIRTH is something new.  It raises us to become sharers in God's
own NATURE.  Saint Peter thus describes the PROCESS of our elevation
to adopted sonship and daughtership of God: "His divine power has BESTOWED
on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the KNOWLEDGE
of him who CALLED us by his own glory and power.  Through these he has
BESTOWED on us the precious and very great PROMISES, so that through them
you may come TO SHARE IN THE DIVINE NATURE" (2 Peter 1:3-4).
 
Now, let's back off a bit and see what is involved here.  Human fathers
and mothers communicate to their children HUMAN NATURE.  These are then
the natural children of their natural parents by natural birth.  But
natural parenthood is only a faint image and sharing in the fatherhood
of God (Eph. 3:15).  If God wishes to make us mere humans his sons and
daughters, he must raise us to a super-natural life; he must
communicate to us his own divine nature.  This is done in our SECOND
BIRTH, by which we become the supernatural children of our supernatural
Father by a supernatural birth.
 
Christ speaks of this second birth in John 3:3,5: "No one can see the
kingdom of God without being born FROM ABOVE .... without being born of
WATER and the HOLY SPIRIT." (The Greek ANOTHEN means either FROM ABOVE
or ANEW, AGAIN.)
 
To emphasize the meaning of his words, immediately after the Nicodemus
episode, Jesus with his disciples went into Judea and spent some time
BAPTIZING (John 3:22).
 
The second birth which makes us children of God is BAPTISM.  1st Peter
3:21 says: "This (Noah's ark) prefigured BAPTISM, which SAVES you now."
Titus 3:5 says: "He saved us through the BATH OF RENEWAL by the Holy
Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our
Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become HEIRS in
hope of eternal life."
 
So when Jesus gave his Apostles their marching orders before his
Ascension, he said: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
BAPTIZING them ... TEACHING them to OBSERVE ALL that I have commanded
you" (Matt. 28:19-20); "Whoever BELIEVES and is BAPTIZED will be SAVED"
(Mark 16:16).
 
Some of what we must do to observe all he has commanded us is detailed
in 2nd Peter 1:5-7, after the "divine nature" passage of 1:4: "Make
every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with
knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance,
endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual
affection with love."
 
We have heard Jesus in John 3:3,5 connect baptism and the second birth
with seeing the KINGDOM, entering the KINGDOM.  We have just read texts
which speak of our being BORN and becoming CHILDREN of God.  God is
FATHER (Eph. 3:15) and we are to call him FATHER (Matt 6:9).  Such
words bespeak FAMILY, and both KINGDOM and FAMILY are societies.
 
The first effect of baptism is to form God's FAMILY and that family is
a KINGDOM, a society.  Baptism forms CHURCH.  God's plan is not to give
rise to zillions of one-on-one relationships between himself and
individuals.  He does not invite us to accept Jesus as our personal
savior.  Those words never occur in the Bible, anywhere.  God wants a
people, a new Israel, a Bride for his Christ; he wants the Church, the
"household and family of God."
 
"You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow
citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God
(Eph 3:19).
 
"... the household of God which is the church of the living God"
(1 Tim. 3:15)
 
"It is time for the judgment to begin with the household of God; if it
begins with US how will it end for those who fail to obey the Gospel of
God?" (1st Pet. 4:17)
 
To accept Christ in all he was, all he did, all he wants and commands,
means to believe and be baptized and so become members of his family
the Church.  The Church keeps and bestows the riches of Christ because
the Church is his Body, the pillar and foundation of truth, the Bride
of Christ.
 
We have known and preached and stumblingly tried to live all this for
20 centuries, have we not, Jim?
 
                        Sincerely in Christ,
 
                        Father Mateo