Proof of Sonship, Part Three

How can we know that we are saved from the wrath of God? How can we have certainty that we will go to paradise when we die? How can we know that we who were slaves of sin have become saints and sons of God? Can we truly sing, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine”?

Romans 8 speaks about assurance of salvation. Some teach that a Christian ought always to be in fear of condemnation and doubt the love of God. But Charles Hodge comments, “A spirit of fear, so far from being an evidence of piety, is an evidence of the contrary.”¹ Yet it is also not enough to self-certify that we are saved. Anyone can claim to be a Christian without the saving work of the Spirit in his life. Romans 8:14-17 teaches that sons of God truly know that they are sons of God and therefore are guaranteed of eternal life.

From Romans 8:14 we learned that the first proof of sonship is that the sons of God are those who are being led by the Spirit of God, and that the Holy Spirit leads us into the Scriptures. A true son of God is like Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who always obeyed his Father. If you are a child of God, it will be your nature to obey God.

In Romans 8:15-16, we will look at two other proofs of our sonship: the proof of adoption and the proof of the internal witness of the Holy Spirit.

Proof of Adoption

“For you did not receive spirit of a slave again to fear, but you received spirit of sonship by whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father'” (v. 15, author’s translation). This verse speaks about the second proof, which is assurance of adoption. With John Murray I would translate it this way: “For you did not receive the Holy Spirit as a spirit of a slave, or slavery, to fear again” (language updated)”² Modern unbelieving people are increasingly anxious and fearful, worrying about what will happen today or tomorrow. Anti-depressants are in great demand. Many businesses even feed off people’s fear to sell their products.

The people of the world have much to fear. By nature they are children of wrath, sons of disobedience, and sons of the devil. As sons of Adam and slaves of sin, they live daily in fear of the wrath of God and in fear of death. All sinners, whether Jews under law or Gentiles without the law, are fearful because of their guilt, though they mask it with money, false joy, or power. The Hebrews writer confirms this, saying, “Christ came to free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:15).

Our pre-Christian life was a life of fear and slavery. Paul asks, “What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!” (Rom. 6:22). Isaiah was afraid when he saw the Lord seated on the throne. He was afraid because of his guilt, so he cried out, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5). When people heard Peter’s sermon, on the day of Pentecost, they were cut to the heart and said, “Brothers, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). The Philippian jailer fell trembling before Paul and Silas, asking, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30).

Have you asked that question? May the Holy Spirit, who does not make us slaves to fear again, help you to do so even today.

The following verses are parallel to Romans 8:15:

1. “We have not received the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us” (1 Cor. 2:12). The “spirit of the world” is the god of this world, “the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Eph. 2:2). The spirit of this world makes the people of this world live the life of slaves, a life of fear.
2. “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, a spirit of fear, a spirit of timidity, but the spirit of power, of love, and of sound thinking” (2 Tim. 1:7, author’s translation). The Spirit we received does not make us slaves. This Holy Spirit is the Spirit of sonship. He is the Spirit of God’s own Son. Slaves fear, not sons and daughters of God, whose sins are blotted out by Jesus Christ, who was sent by the Father “to rescue us from the hand of the enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear” (Luke 1:74).
3. “But now . . . you have been set free from sin” (Rom. 6:22). The Holy Spirit is the spirit of liberty. We are former slaves who have been set free. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). We did not receive the Holy Spirit as a spirit of a slave, but we received the Spirit of sonship by whom we cry, “Abba, ho pater.” It is speaking about the Holy Spirit given to us in the past, in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Spirit of Sonship

This Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God’s Son, is the Spirit of sonship. Question 34 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism defines simply what adoption is: “Adoption is an act of God’s free grace, whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges, of the sons of God.” Regeneration secures our membership in God’s kingdom, but adoption secures our membership in God’s family. Like justification, adoption is the Father’s judicial act. Regeneration gives us new life and a new nature; adoption gives us new status, a new family, and new rights.

There is a family of God, and there is a family of the devil. Paul says, “For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name” (Eph. 3:14-15). John articulates the same thing, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

Adoption is the highest privilege that the redeemed enjoy. It is our present possession with future implications. We are sons of God, and we will enjoy our adoption in its fullness when our bodies are transformed. Adopted sons are assured that they will be conformed to God’s image and enjoy the beatific vision forever: “They will see [God’s] face and his name will be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22:4). The Spirit of adoption produces in us the highest confidence in God our Father.

The Greek word for adoption (huiothesia) means to be installed as a son. Of the New Testament writers, only Paul uses the word, which he does five times. This idea of adoption is based on Roman law, which the Roman Christians were well aware of. By this legal institution, one could adopt a child and confer on that child all the legal rights and privileges that would ordinarily accrue to a natural child. Roman law also required multiple witnesses for an adoption to be legal. Roman adoption applied only to boys. But thank God, this is not so in the family of God. God the Father adopts boys and girls, men and women, even old people, and they are given full rights: “Therefore, come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you. I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:17-18).

Adoption follows regeneration and justification in the ordo salutis. It severs our legal and social relations to our natural family, the family of Adam, which is the family of the devil, and places us permanently into God’s new family. Paul writes to the Colossian believers: “Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins. . . . He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with it regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 1:12; 2:13-14). Our previous debts and obligations are canceled. Jesus paid it all.

We have been adopted just as Julius Caesar adopted Octavian, who later became Emperor Caesar Augustus. “In the Roman world . . . an adopted son was deliberately chosen by his adoptive father to perpetuate his name and inherit his estate; he was no whit inferior in status to a son born in the ordinary course of nature, and might well enjoy the father’s affection more fully and reproduce the father’s character more worthily.”³

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

This Spirit of sonship, the Spirit of God’s Son, creates within our hearts great filial affection by which we love God and call him, “Abba, Father.” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones connects this experience to the baptism in the Holy Spirit, which is an experience that registers not only in our intellect but also in our feelings, in our emotions, in the depths of our being. Paul writes, “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit he has given us” (Rom. 5:5).

This is also known as sealing of the Holy Spirit. “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph. 1:13). The seal gives us security. Paul speaks of it again in the same epistle, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30).

Jesus Christ baptizes believers in the Holy Spirit. When Christ was glorified, he received the Holy Spirit from the Father and poured him out in abundance on the church, as Peter declares, “Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (Acts 2:33).

Baptism in the Holy Spirit, or sealing with the Holy Spirit, is experimental, not theoretical. Those who experience it are fearless and full of joy. The cure for fear is baptism in the Holy Spirit, which does not depress or disappoint us, but causes us to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. It causes us to rejoice even in tribulations.

Paul was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Ananias was sent to pray for Paul that he may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:17). Later Paul wrote, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you” (1 Cor. 14:18). He prayed and sang in tongues in the Spirit. That means he prayed and sang without understanding what he was praying or singing. But he was being edified as he spoke and sang to God.

Christ pours out his Spirit upon believers, and the Spirit in turn pours out divine love into our hearts in great abundance. With this mighty effusion of love power, we love God, we love Christ, we love our brothers and sisters, and we keep God’s commandments. The Christian life is not legalism or moralism or sheer duty. It is love life. With this love we love God’s people and gladly lay down our lives for them. With this same love we suffer martyrdom and persecution.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1). John later states, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment” (1 John 4:16-18). Jesus Christ has taken our punishment.

Paul writes, “For Christ’s love compels us [motivates us, impels us, powers us]” (2 Cor. 5:14). Peter says, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Pet. 1:8). All this is because of the Holy Spirit work in our hearts.

A theoretical Christianity that does not affect our emotions or feelings is not biblical Christianity. Rather, it is dead orthodoxy that will take its followers to hell. In Romans 8:15 Paul is speaking about something experimental and subjective that affects our feelings and emotions and causes us to rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. The Spirit of adoption creates within us such love and assurance that we as adopted children of God cry out spontaneously, “Abba, ho Pater.” Charles Hodge says, “The Holy Spirit . . . produces the filial feelings of affection, reverence, and confidence, and enables us, out of the fulness of our hearts, to call God our Father.”⁴ Strangers do not call God, “Abba, Father.”

The Love of the Father

The Spirit of adoption causes us to know we have been adopted into God’s family and been blessed with the highest blessing. This has been God’s plan from eternity: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace” (Eph. 1:3-6, italics added). That is what he wanted to do with us-adopt us and bring us into his family. Jesus Christ is the Son eternal by nature. We are sons by grace.

The Father loves us just as he loves his Son. So Jesus prayed, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23). In adoption, we are given a standing before God comparable to that of his unique Son.

Dr. Lloyd-Jones says, “The ultimate object of salvation is not merely to keep us from hell, not merely to deliver us from certain sins; it is that we may enjoy ‘adoption’, and that we may become ‘the children of God’ and ‘joint-heirs with Christ’.”⁵ We were nobodies who have been loved by the Father from all eternity, but now we have been adopted into his own family. (PGM) We are children of God. What dignity we have! What wealth we have! What love we enjoy! We are not slaves; we are sons of God.

Not only are we sons of God, but we are also brothers of Christ. “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” (Rom. 8:29; see also Heb. 2:12). The risen Christ commanded Mary, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, my God and to your God'” (John 20:17, italics added)

Galatians 4:6 says the Spirit himself is crying, “Abba, Father.” Here we cry by the Spirit’s help, “Abba, Father.” It is the right of a son to call the Father, “Abba, ho Pater.” Krazomen means that we continually cry out. The Spirit makes us very aware of our Father and enables us to converse and commune with the Father. Our fellowship is with the Father and the Son. We cry in prayer and in singing. We express our relationship to God our Father.

The word Paul uses for fervent prayer (krazô) is used in the Old Testament Septuagint many times, especially in the psalms: “To the LORD I cry aloud. . . . The LORD will hear when I call to him” (Psalm 3:4; 4:3). It is a cry of deep emotion, want, intimacy, love, security, fervency, confidence, importunity, faith, assurance, and power. Some theologians think this cry refers also to the ecstatic speech of 1 Corinthians 14:14-16, where Paul speaks about praying and singing in the Spirit. Douglas Moo says about this crying, “In using the verb ‘crying out,’ Paul stresses that our awareness of God as Father comes not from rational consideration nor from external testimony alone but from a truth deeply felt and intensely experienced. . . . In crying out, ‘Abba, Father,’ the believer not only gives voice to his or her consciousness of belonging to God as his child, but also to having a status comparable to that of Jesus himself.”⁶ The mission of Jesus Christ is to bring many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10).

“Abba” is the word children used in Jewish homes to call their fathers. The Talmud says that when a child is weaned, he learns to say “Abba” and “Imma,” that is, “Daddy” and “Mommy.” “Abba” is Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke; thus, he must have called Joseph, “Abba.” In his recorded prayers, he almost always called his heavenly Father “Abba,” and he authorized his disciples also to call his Father, “Abba.” He said, “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven . . .'” (Matt. 6:9).

We know that God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is our Father also. Jesus said, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father. . . If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:21, 23). He is no stranger to us.

As sons and daughters of God, we cannot be afraid. And we are not afraid of the Father either. We revere him, but we are not afraid of him. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb. 4:16). For us, it is not a throne of judgment, but of grace. “For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit” (Eph. 2:18; see also 3:12). We have freedom of speech and access to his presence through faith in him.

The prodigal son had nothing to eat and was afraid that his father would throw him out. Yet he returned home, saying, “I am not worthy to be called your son.” What did his father say? “You are my son.” In the same way, our heavenly Father makes certain we know we are his children and can call him, “Abba,” by the help of the Holy Spirit.

So we cry in prayer, “Abba, Father.” Abba in Aramaic, ho pater in Greek. Maybe Jesus used both. Father! Father! Daddy! Daddy! This is an expression of our certitude. God is not our judge but our loving Father who hears our prayers.

One cannot be an adopted child of God and not know it. Assurance of salvation is our birthright. The majority of Reformers, including Calvin and Luther said that assurance of salvation is essential to salvation. By God’s grace, I am assured that I am a child of God. I love God, believe in God, and can rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

The Proof of the Testimony of the Holy Spirit

“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are sons of God” (v.16, author’s translation). This verse gives us the highest proof that we are sons of God. It speaks not of our own witness, enabled by the Holy Spirit, to our sonship, but of the additional witness of the Holy Spirit himself, which is another aspect of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses (Deut. 19:15). So first is our own testimony that because God is our Father, we are God’s sons. But we have an additional testimony so that the matter may be settled once and forever. God himself testifies by the Spirit that we are children of God. So there is no greater proof than God’s own testimony to us. The Spirit himself bears joint witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and that settles it.

This is the highest proof of our sonship and the highest Christian experience. Think of the old father of the prodigal, running to his returning son, throwing his arms around him, and hugging and kissing him. All the prodigal’s fears and doubts evaporated, and he said to himself, “My father loves me! Now I am fully persuaded that nothing can cut me off from my father’s love.”

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He cannot lie; his testimony is true. He testifies along with our spirits’ own testimonies that we are children of God now and forever. This perfect love casts out all fear. Such love of God is the engine of our lives, motivating us to love God and live for him alone in obedience.

We have been adopted by God into his own family. We were nobodies, but we now are given status, dignity, rights, and privileges. We have access to God the Father and freedom of speech in his presence. And this relationship is eternal.

When we pray, “Our Father in heaven,” when we cry out with the Spirit’s assistance, “Abba, ho pater,” God from heaven cries, “My children, what do you want me to do for you?” The Spirit himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God. Don’t ever doubt it.

This testimony of the Holy Spirit is called testimonium spiritu sancti internum (the internal testimony of the Spirit). It is real and fills us with great confidence. It is as if God himself were lifting us up and saying to us, “You are my sons,” and then putting us down, and we are happy.

I have experienced this several times in my life. It is the privilege of every child of God to enjoy this highest form of assurance. It is not talking to ourselves; it is the Holy Spirit speaking to us. This witness of the Spirit is an immediate witness. It is a direct operation of the Spirit of God into the depths of our being. It is not based on some logical deduction.

Study the experiences of those in the book of Acts who were baptized in the Holy Spirit, and you will be convinced it is an experience. We feel it. We are happy and rejoice. We are certain. Dr. James Boice tells us, “[It is] a direct witness of the Holy Spirit to believers that they are sons and daughters of God.”⁷ By this, a child of God experiences an overwhelming sense of God’s presence that causes him to forget the things of this world and long for heaven. As a deer pants after water brooks, so also we pant, not after money or position or power, but after God. No wonder Paul wrote from his prison, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. . . . I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” (Phil. 1:21, 23).

Applications

Do you want to experience these proofs of sonship? If so, you must do the following:

First, live an obedient life. The Holy Spirit leads us in the word of God. We are not to adjust it; we are to obey it. We don’t argue about it. As many as are being led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God.

Second, seek earnestly the Holy Spirit of God. Jesus promises, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 11:13). Our need is not more money, more power, or a bigger house. We need to recognize that our need is God himself. We need to confess we are paupers. If we want to be rich toward God, Jesus Christ says that our heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask (“keep asking” in the Greek). When we keep asking, we express that we really need the Holy Spirit.

We should not come to God with a plan B. We have only one plan: we need the Holy Spirit. We want to be like Jacob who wrestled all night with God. He recognized his opponent was God and said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me,” and God blessed him. The Syro-Phoenician woman was rebuffed, but she did not go. She said, “I am a dog, but dogs must live from the master’s table,” and she was heard. Isaiah exhorts us, “You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth” (Isa. 62:7). Jesus himself said, “Anyone who thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” It is speaking about the Holy Spirit. “And out of your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” Come and drink and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Third, love the word of God. Begin by affirming the authority of God’s word. If you are a child of God, that understanding will be birthed into you. The word of God is the truth. It should be obeyed. We do not need experiences that are not consonant with the word of God.

If the Holy Spirit comes upon you in such mighty power, he will cause you to confess that God is your Father, and will witness to you that you are a child of God. If you have truly experienced that:

1. Know that this experience always confirms the word, not contradicts it.
2. You will have a sense of reverence and unworthiness. You will not go around pretending you are someone important. The more you experience God, the more you fall prostrate before him.
3. There will be a great thankfulness to God. Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul; thank you, Lord, for making me whole; thank you, Lord, for giving to me thy great salvation, so rich and free.
4. You will be filled with God’s love, by which you obey God. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”
5. The things of this world will grow strangely dim. Worldliness will be exorcised from us.
6. You will have great courage and fearlessness to witness to Jesus Christ. “You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” (Acts 1:8; see also Luke 24:48-49). When the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we are fearless. Fearful Peter’s entire personality was changed. He became fearless. May God baptize us with the Holy Spirit that we may have courage.
7. God gives us freedom of speech. There is a flow. Rivers of living water flowing out of our mouths in sentences, in words. We are not scratching our heads to think of the next word we should say. There is a freedom of speech.
8. There is a freedom in prayer. Instead of two minutes of formal, ceremonial prayer, we will pour out our hearts for hours. The Spirit of God will help us to pour out petitions to God. “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication” (Zech. 12:10).
9. There will be great love for brothers and sisters because they are children of the heavenly Father, and it is only natural that we love our brothers and sisters. Those who leave the church are not of us (1 John 2:19). It is natural for children of the same father to love each other, and not only love, but in such a way that you lay down your life for your brother (1 John 3:16).
10. There is a spirit of joy in a Christian’s life, no matter what he is going through. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. “Though you have not seen [Jesus Christ] you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.” (1 Peter 1:8).
11. We will be the light of the world. Jesus said, “In the same way, let your light shine before men.” That means you live an obedient life, “that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). The Father’s children shine as light. “Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God, without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe” (Phil. 2:15).When we are living in sin, we cannot have assurance. How can we? “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10).

May God help us to know for sure that we are children of God! All we need is the assurance created within us by the Holy Spirit. It does not matter where we go; we are children of God. He is around us; he is in us.

The psalmist paints this word picture of the joy a child of God experiences: “I sing in the shadow of your wings” (Ps. 63:7). And as I was growing up, I saw this illustrated. Whenever a hawk came, the mother hen would give a signal, and her chicks would run to her. The hen would lift her wings, and the chicks would all gather underneath. The fight would be between the hawk and the hen. The chicks under the wings could sing, “Our mother will take care of us.” So we also can sing in the shadow of God’s wings.

Friends, we are in God, under his wings, and we can really sing because finally, all battles are between God and our enemies, including the devil. God wins, and we sing. What a mighty God we serve!

¹ Charles Hodge, A Commentary on Romans: Geneva Series (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1989), 282.

² See John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans: The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 293.

³ F. F. Bruce, The Letter of Paul to the Romans, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 157.

⁴ Charles Hodge, 266.

⁵ D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Sons of God, An Exposition of Chapter 8:5-17 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), 245.

⁶ Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 502.

⁷ James M. Boice, Romans, Vol. 2: The Reign of Grace (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 843.